Wheel Testing
Greg gave me a loan of his new 16 inch Superlites to see what they would like on a 2+2. Steve also let me try out one of his 17 inch Rota RB's. Here they are on the car with a bit of photoshopping. I think I like the Rotas just because a bigger rim is needed to fill the wheel well on a 2+2.
16 Inch Superlites Trial
17 Inch Rota RB Trial
A New Body A New Colour
Well not an entirely new colour, just a new shade of white. I've wanted to do a white pearl paintjob for quite a while but I don't want it to look too 'bling-y'. After staring at cars during peak hour on my way to work I have narrowed it down to the current white pearl Mazda are using on their 2009/2010 range (ironic as I was originally going to paint my other project car the pearl yellow from the Mazda 6). The colour is called Crystal White Pearl (mica).
White Mazda CX7
White Mazda CX7
White Mazda CX7
New Carbs
So after dropping a tonne of money into the old British SU's that were on the engine (see post here) I ended up buying a set of original 240z, 3screw, round top carbs. $250 (plus $25 postage) from Timwell on VicZCar. They arove today and look great, very clean with polished domes and plated linkages. Even came with the air filter, heat shield, manifold and linkages up to the manifold.
<Pic to be Updated>
Picking up the body
So I hired a ute and a car trailer to go pick up the shell from Lismore on the 7/3/10. Greg was nice enough to give me a hand and came with me to get the shell. We got to Lismore and it turns out the shell belonged to a guy we had met before. It also turned out that he still had most of the parts for the car but was hanging onto them, to sell separately I presume. He let me buy the doors for $50 and also gave me a front guard and some random bits and pieces like steering rack and gearbox mount.
The shell was actually in pretty good condition. The engine bay had already been painted nicely in black and you could see where the plates had been welded in in the rest of the car. The only real problem with the shell is that the spare wheel well was cut out to make way for a fuel cell I presume.
Anyway we got the shell home and under the house ready to commence work on prepping the shell for when we transfer the parts over.
Service – Battery and Alternator
The car broke down on the 18th of February 2010. The battery was flat and I just assumed it was the old battery (about 5 years old at this point) as the alternator was replaced with a brand new unit around 2006. So I got a new battery from Supercheap for $135, put that in and thought I was good to go.
I should have checked the charge but I was busy at them time and just assumed it was fine. Unsurprisingly, the car broke down again the next week. After checking the charge (doing about 12.4 volts with the lights and fan on) I was pretty sure the alternator was stuffed.
I took it to http://www.kedroncarelectrics.com.au/ where they rebuilt the alternator for $220. The car is now working fine again.
New body for the White Knight
I received a nice little bonus for work so decided I should try and find a decent body for the car. The current body has rust showing through pretty much everywhere on the car, leaking water through the hatch hinges, major bubbling on the beaver/slam panel for the hatch, around the top and bottom of the actual hatch, around the fuel filler, the rear guards, sills, floors, roof pillars and the battery tray has pretty much disintegrated.
I put a post up on Vic Z Car looking for a body and it wasn't long before a bloke offered a free shell that he was going to pick up but never got around to. The body was in Lismore (about 3 hours drive from Brisbane) and I wasn't 100% sure on the condition. A previous post from the owner suggested most of the rust had been cut out and new metal welded in and that it was just a shell, nothing else. Seemed good to me and the price was right.
From looking at more previous posts I found these pictures...
Shell
Shell 2
Strut
The front struts were replaced not long after having the car registered, the rear struts were replaced a year later.
To be updated.
Thermostat Housing
The thermostat was playing up. The local radiator shop had a NOS one on the shelf for $25.
A quick tidy up…
I had some parts lying around waiting to go onto my 77 260z we were restoring. So the 74 z got treated to some recovered seats from the 77 model car. I was young and this was my first car so my taste was, err... not the best. But they were like new with no cracks etc. The reupholstering cost $600 for front and back seats from Brad Busteed Upholstery in Gladstone.
We also put in new piece carpets throughout and a brand new center console from Black Dragon Auto (then known as Victoria British). I picked the best interior bits from the 3 cars I had and painted all vinyl and plastic with black vinyl paint. This actually holds up really well. It works better on proper vinyl but it scratches quite easily on the hard plastic pieces.
The piece carpets are actually quite horrible. They slide around everywhere even though we added button clips to hold everything in place. To hold the carpets in place, we got some stainless steel bent and screwed it in place near the scuff plates around the doors.
