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.