Coming together

As this year comes to a close, I can slowly see my car coming together. Although it's most likely will not be running by the start of the new year, I'm okay with that. There's no need to rush through these things and I'd much rather have everything reliable and done correctly. It was a good goal to have, however I was not expecting schoolwork to take up that much of my time along with working as well, so plans have changed. New goal is to have the car not only running, but roadworthy and registered by 2016 which I believe is plenty of time to  to give attention to detail.

Anyways, since the last update, a few things have came in.

Firstly, I would like to thank my grandma and grandpa Sorensen for the Dremel Tool Kit as an early Christmas gift which will allow me to make small precision cuts and grind/polish things as well. A very useful and versatile tool. You can never have too many tools haha.

Next, we have my MSA Sway bar kit (which had been out of stock since early November)  which include new sway bars, endlinks, and brackets and should help with handling. I also got two new fan belts since the old ones looked worn out.

I've also spent some time today working on the interior of the car. As you can see from this picture below that I took in May, there's an orange interior that I wasn't fond of. Mainly because it was super dirty and no matter how much I cleaned, it wouldn't come out. Also, the padding underneath would hold moisture well which isn't good and I wanted to inspect under it.

After I took out the orange trim, it left the padding exposed as seen below 

(top view driver's side)

The padding came off with ease.

Then there's the sound deadening which I wanted to take off as well.

Originally, I wanted to wait until I got dry ice so I could just hammer

it all off in chunks but since I had time, I just used a flat head and rubber

hammer as it was coming off relatively easy (floor on the other hand isn't).

Started at the rear of the tunnel. You can see the pile of sound deadening

near the passenger seat belt and that was only from the passenger side and top.

After an hour of removal, I decided that my back had enough and that I will finish

the driver's side later in the week and will have dry ice to do the rest of the car at the same time.

I've also have been working on my oil pan and it was covered with dirt, oil, and rust. After soaking it in apple cider vinegar (mostly for the rust) and cleaning it with a wire brush the majority of it was clean. I also used some throttle body cleaner (my brother had left over and didn't need it) which cleaned up the rest really well. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures of this process. We had some left over spray paint from another project (metallic silver or black) and my oil pan had bare metal exposed and some previous paint spots so my brother semi-jokingly suggested to paint it and I was thinking why not haha. I was going to do black but my brother said to try the silver.

I think it looks way better than before and the thing shines soooo bright in the sun. It'll be funny to see it on the engine since the rest is so dull and dirty. I think silver was the best choice haha.

Well, that's all for now. Happy holidays and stay safe! 

Thanksgiving Break

Hello everyone!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! I had a little extra time off of school and work for Thanksgiving so I decided to work on my engine for a bit. So when I was removing the oil pan to look inside my engine around May, 3 out of the 32 bolts holding it in place snapped (3 in a row at that)and I have put off removing them for the longest time. I tried using a nut to get the remainder of the bolts out but there wasn't enough threads to hold onto, so the only solution I thought of was to drill them out. I had the engine on the engine stand and being able to rotate it to the side made drilling easier. I covered the inside with paper towels to prevent the shavings from getting inside.

Bolt 1

In this picture, the left hole is what it looks like normally and the right side

you can see that I started drilling out the first bolt and it's about halfway through

(sorry no before pictures haha I was focused on getting it done)

Bolt 2 & 3

The first bolt was easy to drill out but the other two were really difficult

to start since the bolts broke uneven. I broke off the bolts to make it 

nearly flushed with the bottom of the block to reduce the amount of

material I will need to drill. The drill bit I was using kept slipping and

going to a smaller drill bit helped me get it going. As you can see in this

pic, I drilled all the way through on the second bolt and the third bolt broken.

And here they are drilled out all the way!

 Bolts 1, 2, and 3

Since I drilled out the bolts, I have to rethread the holes for 

the bolts. My brother let me borrow his tap to rethread them. 

Have to make sure it's going straight and not going at an angle.

Success!

 

I'm glad it went smoothly for the most part and I didn't struggle too much haha. 

Finishing this Semester

As this semester is getting closer to the end (last week's two presentations and essay wasn't fun), I'm starting to get more free time. Which means I can finally start working on my car again! Also, I created a Vimeo to post videos about my car adventures and to share them with everyone. Here's a timelapse of me sanding the peeling clear coat on my 260z. Wish I recorded all of it but my phone battery died on me.

 

Sanding from Andrew Sorensen on Vimeo.

This ended up happening the same day as well :/

Early in November my brother finally got a car after his Civic Si (em1) was stolen early January. I made a video of his first car wash just for fun haha.

 

First Wash from Andrew Sorensen on Vimeo.
That's it for now. I need a few hose replacements, a battery, fluids, wheels, the MSA sway bar kit and I think we should be running soon! I also need tires but I have a friend who works for Yokohama so she said she can get me better prices for me which will be awesome!

More Parts!

So I found time to visit Motorsport Auto (MSA aka The Z Store online) in Orange on Tuesday after I got off work to pick up some parts! When I pulled up, there was a beautiful 260z in the parking lot. Owner seemed pretty cool and I wish I could have stayed to chat about his car, but I was trying to beat traffic on the way back (which I didn't anyway haha).

Anyways, I got there and the employees were very helpful and I got my parts pretty fast. I ended getting my 6 to 1 header and MSA exhaust. I wanted to get their sway bar kit also but it was out of stock and will be for a few weeks!

6-1 header and MSA exhaust pipes

Should sound really good when I get the car running which is hopefully by the end of the year! My next update might take a while because of work and as this school semester is getting closer toward the end, more stuff is coming up! The next two weeks I have two presentations and a 10 page paper (yikes!). Wish I can just throw all the parts on now, but school comes first.

Quick update!

So just a quick update. In parts news,  the Mishimoto radiator hoses came in recently!  I've been meaning to buy some parts from the Z store (it's a secret! can you guess what?) but I've decided that next time I'll drive to Orange to pick up the parts instead of paying for shipping (~$70). Unfortunately they are only open on Saturdays for the weekend (while I'm at work) and I can probably only go on Tuesdays during the week haha.  I'll figure it out  a time to go soon hopefully. Or I'll pay my brother $20 to go pick it up for me haha.

 I've been having a hard time finding time to work on the car but I was able to sand down the clear coat a bit last on 10/21. I think it looks a lot better!

After sanding and before the wipe down

After the wipe down.

Some spots I got pretty low by accident. 220 grit is pretty rough

and I should probably be using 2000 grit if I wanted to keep most

of the original paint but I'm only sanding where it's peeling.

Lol can you see my gas tank?

Here's a before and after shot to give you an idea

of how much of a difference it looks. Even though

some spots look rough, I think it looks better

than having peeling clear coat everywhere. I basically

just want a smooth surface for PlastiDip or ElastiWrap

(which I'll probably go with since more color options). 

Unfortunately, I only had enough to do the passenger

side and half of the roof of the car on that Tuesday haha.

However, on 10/25 I was able to find some time to start

sanding the hatch and driver side (stills need work) and

the whole front still needs to be started so maybe I can do

that tomorrow hopefully! If I do I'll definitely update this post

either then or when I get my parts! Stay tuned!

UPDATE: Today (11/2) I sanded down the rest of the car (and my hands hate me for it!). I'll probably go back and redo the hood since I was testing on it and didn't sand it as smooth as I could. Here are the pics!

I also got this rust converter that should turn the rust on my car into a black sandable primer which is nice. I sprayed it on various rust spots both minor and major to prevent spreading as a temporary fix.

Battery tray and passenger footwell

Parts!

Hey everyone!

Haven't worked on the car much since the last post (besides unbolting my broken exhaust) since I've been busy with work and hanging out with friends, but look what came in today!

Spark plug wires, spark plugs, clutch slave cylinder, steel braided clutch and brake lines, thermostat, and various gaskets (valve cover, oil pan and intake/exhaust gaskets not pictured). The bolts in the plastic bag are for the oil pan since the ones that were bolted were all rusty and probably shouldn't be reused.

I also ordered some silicone hoses for my Mishimoto radiator but I guess they were out of stock so Mike from the Z Store emailed me saying they will send them once they were in stock in a few weeks at no additional shipping for me which is good news.

I was going to order a new thermostat housing since my old one was REALLY rusted, but from looking at various places online, they don't make them for the 260z anymore! It looks like the '70-73 and '76-78 thermostat housings are different and the '70-73 housing would need to be modified for it to work. 

After finding this out and seeing my housing I wondered if I could somehow salvage it. I looked up simple ways to remove rust to clean it up a bit. Turns out apple cider vinegar works pretty well so I decided to give it a shot.

After a few hours, this is what it looked like in the cup (kind of looks like Pepsi, huh?). I checked it out and most of the rust was off, but had to run off to school so I left it in there for 8 more hours.

After I got back home, I took it out and looked a ton better and a lot of the rust/crud was removed especially after being wire brushed. I would say that the thermostat housing is salvaged.

That's it for now, but more updates/parts coming soon after midterms/papers!

EDIT: Also, I think I will be sanding down the rest of the car just like my hood once I get more free time, but that may be a while. 

Busy busy busy...

School has been hectic lately and I haven't been able to work on the Z. Now that I'm free of group presentations and other speeches in my classes for a while, I finally bought some parts!

Not much, but this is just stuff I could find from the Z store and I'll probably buy more parts next week (after midterms!). This seems like I'm just rewarding myself for keeping up with school haha. Did well on that speech? Exhaust for you! Did well on that midterm? Carburetors for you! Joking aside, I really believe I can get this car running and hopefully driving by the end of the year if all goes well. In the meantime, I will continue doing thing to my car that are not too costly.

For example, every time I walked into the garage I would see my hood set aside with the clear coat peeling more and more each day. After looking up how to deal with it (like I said in a previous post, I'm learning along the way), it seems like high grit sandpaper would do the trick. I had plenty of 220 grit from working on the dash left over so I gave it a shot. I think it turned out great and looks a lot better even though it looks slightly scratched in person, I'm sure a higher grit would help. I could probably go over it more to get it pretty smooth but for testing it's fine for now. I was thinking if I should do the whole car since it's peeling.  FYI, this car isn't going to be a show car. I would likely get it plastidipped (maybe a dark green mix since I'm probably not going to paint the interior or engine bay) so think of this as "prepping" the surface and making sure the peeling clear won't ruin it. Thoughts?

Anyways, that pretty much it for the update. Get ready for more parts/updates soon!

Plans

Now that we're all caught up, I'll explain my current and future plans. For the last couple months, I've been planning on what I wanted to do with the engine. Whether it was swapping it out for a 1JZ, 1UZ, RB25 or keeping the L26 (it's not the original). I knew I wanted to keep the engine Japanese because that's just my preference. Not saying anything else is bad, it's just not the way I vision my car. That being said, I determined recently that I want to stay with the L26 that I already have.

I've been saving up for the last couple of months when I was trying to decide what to do motor wise and now the question is to rebuild, or not to rebuild the L26. Even if I were to rebuild, I would need to buy a few parts eventually anyway. I actually made a list and there are at least 40 parts that I need. I totaled the cost of the parts and it's about the amount that a rebuild will cost. So I think I will buy all the essential parts before the rebuild since I'm not entirely sure that it needs it yet since I've never heard it run without said parts.

In the end, if it needs to be rebuilt, I'll be in the same spot if I did the rebuild prior to getting the parts. Instead of waiting for the rebuild, I would be waiting for the parts. Basically what I'm saying is that it doesn't hurt to get the other parts first since it wouldn't be able to run without them anyway. Also, it may run great meaning I won't have to spend money on a rebuild and can focus on other things. If things work out then it will be running earlier than if I went the rebuild route. Prepare for car parts!

TLDR; Staying L26. Buying parts. Hopefully it runs well.

Progress

Hello everyone!

So since receiving my car in May, I've done a few things for my car. However, before I could buy car parts, I had to buy my own set of tools since I didn't want to rely on my older brother to bring his tools home for me to use.


Unlike him, I can't afford Snap-On tools so I got a set of Husky tools which I think are great alternative and feel great in my hands. I also bought an engine stand and a cherry picker from Harbor Freight.

Pulled the engine and placed it on the engine stand. After looking at the engine, turns out it wasn't the original engine but was still a L26. At this point I was thinking about what I wanted for my car, if it was the L26 or something else.

One weekend I decided to to take out the dashboard to try to "fix" it haha. Used Great Stuff to fill in the cracks and then covered that with this bumper repair stuff which I sanded with 220 grit. Finally painted the dashboard with a SEM texture paint which could have came out better but oh well. 

Good enough haha.

Finally had some money saved up so I decided to buy a radiator since the one with the car was thrashed.

 One weekend I wanted to clean up the engine a bit. 40 years of gunk removed, mostly.Also, when it started to rain a bit, I decided it would also be a good idea to buy a car cover.

Overall, that's basically what I've done besides cleaning the inside up and taking off parts. I've been mostly saving up for either a rebuild or parts that I need.

Hello! Welcome to my blog!

For my first post, I think I should let you guys know more about myself and how I got into cars to now. As a kid, I would play around with HotWheels all the time, but I started to get into cars when I was around 9 or 10 like most kids when watching The Fast and the Furious too many times hahaha.

Although I liked cars, I never had that burning passion to go out to learn more about them. I made a Tumblr around 2012 and the main thing I would reblog were cars. My brother had always been into cars more than me and was one of the major influences with me being into cars in the first place. At the time he was really into drifting (which I thought was pretty cool too) and he would go to Irwinedale and Long Beach for Formula D. In 2013, my brother decided to bring me along to FDLB as a late birthday present. This event really changed how I looked at cars. As I watched the cars drifting in person with the tires screeching and smoke everywhere and walked through the car show across the way (meeting one of my Tumblr buddies as well), something clicked and I finally started to get that understanding/passion. 

Soon after that I became hooked on cars. I tried to soak in as much as I could. Although it seemed like a lot of people were into stance or form>function and that was the trend going on, I knew that wasn't really for me as I wanted something fun and function oriented. I got really into old Japanese cars, specifically old Datsun Z cars and I fell in love with the lines and knew I had to own one in the future. Learning what made the models different, carburetors, engine possibilities, etc.. I loved it all. 

Fast forward to April 2014, I bought my 1974 Datsun 260z on Ebay as a birthday present to myself. It wasn't running, a lot of parts in boxes with very few parts missing, in Nevada, paint not in the best condition, and had bad tires, but when I saw that ad, a part of me knew I had to get it. The good thing about the car is that it had only a little bit of rust from the pictures and seemed like it would be easy to patch. I saw the ad at night and decided to sleep on it and decide in the morning. Woke up, and felt good about it so I placed an offer and ended up with the car. 

Pics from the ad

Rust issue passenger foot well. 

One month and whole lot of stress about shipping  later, it was finally in my possession. 

I swear I couldn't stop smiling for the rest of that week. Well, I think that's enough for a first post, I think I'll do another one soon with some of the work I've done so far in the 4 months of owning it and future plans.