PROGRESS REPORT JANUARY 2024 Ok everyone, after 2ish years of working on this rebuild project, I have found that producing video content around my rebuild project's developments has become alot more difficult and time consuming to make then I anticpated and though I really wanted to push purely video content on this rebuild project thread, I have started to feel recently that not posting anything for more then 6 months now, is denying eveyone in this community the chance to enjoy the fruits of my labour and have something interesting to look and read about regarding not just my rebuild project but 300zx information in general. So as of now I will be changing things up a little bit and trying to make monthly progress reports to keep everyone up to date with whats happening with my car and the rebuild project in general. As it is early into 2024 I will be starting these progress report blogs from January onwards and hopefully later in the future, when I get a handle on making video content I can then put my entire build project and rebuild project into video format like I am planning but for now I have plenty of information and photos to share for the month of January. To begin with it has been roughly 6ish months at the start of January of barely any developments going on with the rebuild. Though I have been ordering parts here and there, I havent really been actively progressing the project myself much more then I would have liked as I have been waiting for my Dad to finish off the paniting process of the rebuild as he has been able to dedicate alot more of his time and skills to progressing that side of the project for me all while I am still working a full time job and living 40 minutes away from my Dad's place. However with a new year now upon me, I was determined to get this car project moving again and I made myself a bold new years goal 'to have the car back on the road by the end of June 2024". I was confident that with the painting process now 'almost' complete, all I had to do was reassemble the car back together again and enjoy Zedding from here on out. So the first thing I wanted to do was begin test fitting several parts and setups of parts to see how they all go together on the car, I also wanted to begin grouping and storing all related parts together so when I go to reassemble those parts back onto the car, I will have everything needed for those parts to be installed including fasteners, clips you name it and while I was figuring this out, I realised I needed to break down everything into more managable groups of parts so I dont go off into tangents trying to figure out what goes with what. Thats when I began a process of photo archieving parts per each section found on the Nissan Parts Fiche which has helped me lock down a more efficient flow process for organising all of my parts and storing them together, but more on that later.
PAINTING PROCESS JANUARY UPDATE With the painting process probably the biggest process of rebuilding my car back together again it has been a slow process to complete to say the least. But after 6 months or so, my Dad has finally reached a point where the paint work is 'mostly' finished with all required panels primed, basecoated and cleared. All that is left to do now is wet sanding and polishing to a high gloss finish. The first set of photos sent by my Dad to me, were of his initial attempts of wet sanding the bonnet with 2000 grit sand paper. After a few hours of work the orange peeled surface of the bonnet was now more smooved out and showing a much higher glossy finish as you can see in the below photos. Currently the wet sanding process has come to a hault while my Dad works on other projects but its a start at least. Following that, one weekend I decided to do a test fit of the newly painted 2000 model side skirts to compare the colour match with the respray paint from 2012. As you can see the colour match is close maybe a little lighter in shade compared to the quarter panel but it will be fine and I will no longer have chipped or bubbling paint marks on the side skirts moving forward. The side skirts do need additional work with regards to the mounting tabs where 80% of the factory tabs popped off during the removal process. I will tackle this issue at later date.
HORN & EARLY STYLE HORN COVERS (SEC-253) JANUARY UPDATE So after months of storing my one and only OEM early style horn cover, I decided it was time to start figure out how this part acutally mounts to the front frame rail, as my car never came with these covers installed from the factory. Not only was I curious to see how the cover would look in its oem location on the car but I was wanting to see if there would be any sort of clearance issues with other parts like the 2kspec front bumper bar and the 2kspec intercooler ducts I was also planning to test fit on the day. Looking through the Nissan FAST Parts Fiche illustration on Section-253, the oem horn covers don't actually include part codes for any of the factory mounting hardware for the covers but I did managed to find in my vast array of oem fasteners, 4 suitable sized M6x1.0 screw's to allow me to mount the cover onto its oem factory mounting location. I first fitted the cover using the upper mounting point on the frame rail. With the cover now loosely in place, I realised I was missing an additional lower mounting point for the cover to secure it fully to the frame rail. So after some digging through old build threads on the 300zxclub forums website, I was able to discover what parts I was missing from this setup and it turns out I had found these parts a few weeks ago, amongest the bolt box my Dad used to put all of the old parts he had taken off of the car back in 2022 when both he and I removed the damaged front bumper bar after the accident happened. Because of this I was now able to know where these 2 random brackets actually mount onto the car which was a lucky break for me. After installing these 2 additional lower brackets, the OEM setup for the horn cover was now complete and I do like the cover in place even though I suspect that the installation of the 2kspec front bumper bar will probably block the appearance of the cover anyways. Following the install of the horn cover I then continued with the test fitting of the 2kspec intercooler ducting setup which when fitted in conjuction with the horn cover, did indicate contact between the ducting and horn cover ever so slightly. However I don't believe this minor contact will cause any massive issues with the fitment of the 2kspec front bumper bar when both items are installed together.
2000 INTERCOOLER DUCTING & CARBON CANISTER VACUMM HOSES (SEC-640) JANUARY UPDATE Another item I have been sitting on for quiet some time now, is the 2000 model intercooler ducting setup. Believe it or not but all of the series 6 (1998 - 2000) TT & NA models came fitted from the factory with new designed intercooler ducting to go with the new series 6 front bumper bar redesign. The twin models would of course have the ducts mounted directly onto the factory side mounted intercooler assemblies underneath the headlights. whereas The NA models would also have these same ducts fitted in the same location but instead of having side mounted intercooler assemblies to mount to, the ducts would have to mount onto a pair of brackets to simulate the mounting points of the factory side mounted intercooler assemblies. I actually discovered this 2kspec ducting setup randomly while researching on the 300zx.co.uk forums website where I found this photo posted by a uk owner who acutally owns a real 2000 NA model car several years ago, first showcasing me this discovery. With the ductings existance on my future plans list and with the additional funds used from the accident payout, I was finally able to acquire all of the parts needed for this setup to go ahead during the rebuild, expect for one bracket which i'll get onto later. Again using the Nissan FAST parts fiche illustration and the above photo evidence I able to assemble and test the ducting setup onto my car. As expected the setup fits perfectly and I am really happy with the new ducting which wont just provide a little bit of air flow directing through the smaller lower mouth openings on either side the 2kspec front bumper bar but also provide coverage for some of parts located where the ducts are mounted. The only issue I have to solve in the future is the fact that the outer bracket for the duct to mount on the other side of the car is apparantely now discontinued from nissan japan and so my current solution is for my Dad and I to fabricate a bracket to replace the discontinued one in the future.
AIR GUIDE & FRONT LOWER ENGINE SPLASH GUARDS (SEC-747) JANUARY UPDATE Early on in my part acquisition efforts for the rebuild, Z1 motorsports released their new all alluminum front and rear engine undershrouds to allow 300zx owners to replace their original plastic factory undershrouds with a more modern alloy varient. As you all know, I had already replaced both my original undershrouds or engine splash guards back in 2012 with brand new units and within 10 years of everyday use, the plastic guards have already started to deteriorate especially the rear guard which had collected a small amount of power steering fluid from a minor power steering leak I have had for a few years now. So when I saw this product on Z1 motorsports website, I jumped on the opportunity to purchase a set of these new undershrouds and upgrade my original setup with a new all alloy one. https://www.z1motorsports.com/z1-pr...1-300zx-z32-aluminum-undershroud-p-27826.html I ended going with the full front and rear undershroud kit in a anodized black finish and today I will be comparing the new Z1 guards with my original ones in an effort to see what differences there are between the oem and Z1 guards but to also figure what what factory parts from the oem guards can fit onto the new Z1 guards like the lower foam support on the 2kspec front bumper bar. After setting up all of the splash guards together, I was able to see clearly and compare the differences between the oem guards and the Z1 alloy varients. I was very pleased with the look of the new guards which look more modern and stylish with additional vents for better air flow and all of the mounting holes line up with the oem guards so I see no issues with fitting these new gaurds to my car. However the foam support panel I mention above can not fit onto these new guards as the raised mounting points for the support is not included on the front guard and there is no way to make the support fit which is a bummer. Also the anodized finish seems to collect fingers and stains really easily for some reason but that is the extent of the negatives ive found so far. Ultimately I can't wait to install these undershrouds to my car and I expect them to last the life of the car compared to the oem guards.
RADIATOR, TRANS COOLER, COOLANT OVERFLOW & AUXILIARY FAN (SEC-214) JANUARY UPDATE The one thing that is really keeping my car at the moment from moving under its own power is the fact that I have removed the radiator from the engine bay. This was done so that the radiator core support could be repaired and repainted and as of the end of this month, the core support is now fully repaired and painted thanks to my Dad and I could in theory put the radiator back into the car at any time that I wanted but the fact is I sold my PWR radiator in the middle of 2023 as I had been wanting to ditch the expensive all alloy radiator in favor of a factory style raidator for a long time now due to several reason, including that the PWR radiator was missing several of the mounting holes for the oem fan shroud and that the PWR radiator also came fitted with a smaller sized diameter hose outlet for the overflow bottle just to name a few. Luckily for me I had actually purchased a brand new replacement radiator back in 2010 from CZP which was a Koyo aftermarket replacement radiator which has been sitting in storage since then as I had decided to go with the PWR alloy radiator instead of the koyo and I was planning to sell the koyo radiator at some point, luckily i hadnt and now I will be using this radiator as my main replacement for the rebuild. The funny thing is it turns out this is not infact a 300ZX Z32 specific replacement radiator and is actually listed as a 1989-1994 Nissan Maxima J30 radiator part number A1242. Even though its not listed as a 300zx radiator, everything looks be to in the same place as the oem 300zx radiator from my photo archieves would suggest and so I test fitted a couple of cooling related parts for the radiator including the upper and lower Z1 silicone radiator hoses and the replacement oem fan shroud just see to see if everything would fit correctly which thankfully for me it did. Now what I found during the mockup test fit of everything was that the koyo radiator was missing the side mounting holes for the oem 300zx fan shroud and that the upper radiator tank was missing the oem air bleeding screw found on the 300zx radiator along with a basic drain cock design compared to that of the 300zx setup. Even with these issues mention, I should be able to make new holes for the mounting points for the fan shroud, I should also be able to swap over the drain cocks from one radiator to another and the air bleeding screw is more of a convenience option for a bleeding a radiator then a nessecity. However I would like to compare my original oem radiator with the koyo unit side by side just to see a complete comparions before continuing with the radiator install back into the car.
PARTS ACQUIRED DURING THE MONTH OF JANUARY So this month I actually recieved a couple of rare emblems or badges mainly for the new nose panel setup Im going with for the rebuild. I was not expecting to find either of these badges avaliable to purchase but i just happen to be in the right place at the right time i guess. OPTIONAL GOLD / RED Z BADGE First up is the extremely rare and very hard to find optional Gold/Red Z badge for the front nose panel of the car, which i didnt even now existed until only a couple of years ago thanks to a blog post from a good friend of mine in the US name John and his project website. Like myself John has a desire to acquire as many rare and optional parts as he can and document his discoveries on his website. He was actually able to acquire one of these rare badges brand new from nissan and compare the differences between all of the Z badges released for the 300ZX in Japan. For more information: https://z32enjoytheride.wordpress.com/2014/11/25/post-29-jdm-nose-panel-and-emblems Anyways so while searching through yahoo auctions, I found a listing for a person selling a bright yellow nose panel with one of these rare badges on it and so as gift from my wife for christmas, I bid on the item and won the auction, but I was still unsure at the time if the badge was a true gold / red badge and I would have to wait until it arrive to know for sure. Thankfully after several weeks of waiting when it finally did arrived and I pulled the panel out of the box I was pleasently surprised to find out that the badge was 100% a real gold/red Z badge and I was over the moon to say the least. Now all i had to do was figure out how to remove it from the nose panel it was mounted to without breaking it, more on that later. STILLEN SMZ BADGE Following the purchase of the rare gold/red badge from Japan, I also brought a set of reproduction "SMZ" stillen badges, which I found on ebay in the US of all places. https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/2665717...CKA42R&hash=item3e10e9b4fa:g:kZAAAOSwR2Nix1L3 These badges were part of the body kit setup for the Stillen 25th anniversary SMZ models in the US domestic market but not found on the australian market models. The badges were placed in two locations one being found on the lower right hand corner of the front nose panel with the other located underneath the left hand tail light. Now im sure your thinking to yourself why would I want to add this badge to my car and the reason I am getting these is for the sole purpose of restoring my original SMZ nose panel back to its original factory SMZ setup which would include this badge being mounting on the lower right hand corner of the nose panel. I know my car is not a true SMZ model but if I was to have purchase this panel off of a real SMZ 300ZX back in the day when they were sold new, I would have expected this badge to have came included on the nose panel and I want to reproduce that option as best I can. I will not be installing the rear badge just the front one. All in all a very exciting set of parts I was able to purchase this month and I am very eager to see how these 2 badges along with the new smz louvered nose panel are going to change and enhance the aggressive look of my new front end one day.
Adam, I love your rebuild thread mate, it's inspiring! All I can say is 'persistance always pays off'. Make sure all the gaps are good at the front, attention to detail is key.
Thanks mate, I just don't know why I have waited so long to post this stuff up for so many years but I finally feel that it's time for me to come out of the shadows and showcase everything I have learned and done to my car so that everyone in this community can keep the rewards of my hard work because you guys are the people I am catering all of this content to the most so please enjoy and be inspired.
great job buddy, amazing job, this has been going on for a bit now and coming up great, every little or big part helps the transformation, i guess with all of us there is no real end , many years ago rob260 said i was a sucker for punishment, well i guess we all are keep going mate the end is NEVER, im almost done NOT
Thanks bro, it's been more then 2 years since the accident happen so yes this has been going on way too long but it's my fault to some degree as I really want to put all of these rare parts on the car before it's all back together and I keep buying more parts lol. It's a never ending cycle as you would know. Still I'm close to having February's progress report finish ready to post hopefully by the end of this weekend I'll get it up for you all and Feb was a big month for the project.
PROGRESS REPORT FEBRUARY 2024 February was a huge month for the rebuild project and I was able to get a ton of work done when compared to that from January. First I was able to get further along with progress on a couple of sections that I have already touch on from last month, bringing those sections closer to completion. I also made big improvements with my part cataloguing process's for each section and I also made some very interesting and exciting discoveries on a couple of parts which I hope you guys might like to see.
2000 MODEL NA INTERCOOLER DUCTING UPDATES (FEBRUARY) Continuing on from last months update on the successful test fitting of the 2000 model intercooler ducting setup, I still had one major issue to address to allow me to install both sets of the intercooler ducting pieces onto either side of the front of the car. The problem I had was that according to my contact in Japan, Nissan have offically discontinued the outer most L shaped bracket (Part code 14486U) and though I was lucky to have been able to buy the very last unit of these brackets brand new from Nissan Japan in 2022, sourcing a second unit was now going to be near impossible feat to do, unless I could find another bracket on the second hand market in Japan through websites like yahoo auctions. After several weeks of searching the used market in Japan, I found no one selling one of these bracket used and so the only option I felt I had left to do, was for me to somehow fabricate a new replacement bracket from scratch. Obliviously the first person I went to to ask for help was of course my Dad, who after showing him the bracket and detailing out to him my plans he said to me "yup, no problems" and so off to work he went to fabricate this bracket for me and the rebuild project. I wont go into full details on the process involved that my Dad went through to make this bracket up for me, as I did film alot of the work he did of the making of this bracket and I think the footage would be better suited for showcasing in a future youtube video at some point down the line. But needles to say after about an hour of hard work, this is the result of my Dad's amazing efforts to reproduce this special bracket for me and I was over the moon as you could imagine. A quick test fit was also done just to double check that the new bracket would mount onto the car exactly like the oem bracket did and the result was pretty much spot on. All in all, I was very happy with the new bracket but it wasn't 100% finish just yet, as I still need to clean up the unit, do some de-rusting and I of course I need to paint the bracket in a glossy black chassis paint to match the oem bracket look as much as possible.
CARBON CANISTER RESTORATION (PART 1) During the testfit mockup of the intercooler ducting setup, I couldn't help but notice several times how digustingly dirty my OEM carbon cansiter was and I just couldnt stop the feeling that I needed to do something about it and so once I had finished work on the intercooler ducts, I began the process of removing the carbon canister off of my car which will be the first time I will be attempting this removal procedure. Turns out that removing the carbon canister off of the frame rail is actually quite easy to do all things considered. I first had to disconnect all of the factory rubber vacumm hoses attached to the canister via 3 hose ports on the top of the canister and one larger hose port at the bottom of the canister. Following the removal of all of the vacumm hoses, I then loosen the mounting brackets holding clamping for the canister which then allowed me to slide the canister out and away from the body of the car. All that was left to do now was to remove the carbon canisters mounting bracket itself off of the frame rail. With the canister now removed, I had all of the access I would ever need to thoroughly clean and prepare the frame rail before the reassembly process could begin and I was so glad to have overcome my fear of removing the carbon canister off of my car. Oh and I also made sure to cap off all of the hardlines that the carbon canister's vacumm hoses were connected to on the car. I didnt want any kind of debris or insects making their way into the pipes while the car sits outside for the next few months or so. Once I got everything home, I then began the restoration process for the carbon canister and all of the related hardware that was attached to the canister before it was removed. BEFORE AFTER The carbon canister came out looking almost brand new again but some of the rubber vacumm hoses where damaged during the removal process and I'll have to look into replacing them at some point, maybe even upgrade them. The mounting bracket is going to take alot more effort to restore it back to new again. The badly damaged containmated painted surface along with paint chipping and rust forming in some areas will require me to have to strip the bracket down to bare metal and remove all of the rust before it can be repainted again.
OEM AIR GUIDE PANEL RESTORATION & INSTALLATION DISCOVERY Another part that needed some restoration work done on it was the oem air guide panel which sits between the reo bar and air fitler housing and as you could imagine after 10+ years the plastic panel was looking quite dirty and dull looking. My thorougher cleaning and coating process really did bring this part back to almost brand new condition again, which I really do enjoy seeing old parts being restored instead of them just being replacing if possible. The next hurdle I needed to figure out now was how this panel correctly mounts back onto the car? You see its been almost 7+ years since I've had this panel fitted to the car in its original factory location and all I could remember of its mounting location was that it roughly mounts between the front reo bar and the air filter housing assembly. In order for me to figure this out I basically had to lay the reo bar, air guide panel and air filter housing out on the ground and line up the mounting points until I ended up with this. Even though it was a simple problem to figure out in the end, the funny thing is I was actually really excited to solve this myself and it really did help boost my motivation to continue pushing through with this rebuild, so ill take all the little victories I can when they come along. FRAME RAIL LOWER MOUNTING BRACKET RESTORATION Next we have a pair of lower mounting brackets for the front frame rails which I featured in the horn cover update blog from last months progress report. After giving the brackets a good clean up, I noticed a few little issues that need addressing. There was some silver paint overspray present on the brackets as well as a little bit of paint chipping and possibly some surface rust present on the exposed metal parts. To bring these brackets back up to newish condition again, I first strip all of the old factory paint off of the bracket and then soaked the brackets in evaporust to removal all of the hidden surface rust I found that had formed under the factory black paint coating, leaving me with a pair of bare metal brackets ready for a coat of gloss black chassis paint.
HORN COVERS UPDATE (PART 2) For this month's update on my new horn cover setup, was that because the RH side horn cover is now discontinued from production, according to Concept Z performance as of 2022. I was originally planning to just install the brand new LH horn cover that I already had in my possession but I then realised later on, that if I did that it would look kinda funny for me to only be installing one of the 2 required horn covers to complete the look that nissan originally intended for this setup. So I did a quick google search and found only one listing for sale of a pair of used horns covers on ebay in the US and what makes it worst for me is that the cost to purchase this pair of used horns cover, was going to cost me more per cover then what it cost for buy the one brand new cover I already had. Regardless with no other options to choose from, I just bit the bullet and purchased the pair of used horn covers, which then arrived to me about a month later. The covers where in ok condition for the most part with one of the covers showing small signs of slight melting of the plastic in certain spots but thankfully that was on the LH cover that I already had brand new, so the only issue I needed to deal on the RH cover was that i needed to remove some oversprayed paint covering the front part of the horn cover. Being plastic I wasn't sure which method of stripping I could using to remove the paint, with paint stripper being to corrosive to use on plastic. In the end I realised that the concentrated degreasing solution I was using to strip the paint off of all the small brackets which so far had proven to show results was worth a try. So I submerge the cover in the solution and left to soad for a few days and as expected the paint just flaked straight off with no damaged to the plastic on the cover what so ever. Unfortunately the pitting of the plastic underneath the paint from most likely harsh road condition could not be repaired but I did give the cover a thorougher once over with a megiaurs plastX plastic polish before the cover was coated in megiaurs all season dressing, making it ready to be installed onto the car. All i need to do now to complete the setup is a new set of fasteners and I have yet to decide if I want to go with an OEM set of zinc coated fasteners which would be cheap and easy to source or possibly got the with a set of expensive titanium dress up style fasteners which would not just look amazing but be a super anti corrosion resistant fastener but the costs for just one titanium screw might be overkill for the application, I am not sure which route I'm going to go as of yet.
FRONT USDM REO BAR MODIFICATION UPDATE With my plans to use a USDM reinforcment bar instead of a JDM fiberglass version, I needed to make a small modification to the USDM reo bar in order for it to accommodate a mounting bracket specifically used for installing the 2000 model front bumper bar onto my car as Nissan intended. Going back to 2011 when I first installed my previous 2000 model front bumper bar onto my car, I had also sourced a new later model JDM fiberglass reo bar (p/n: 62030-40P00) to complete the install as close to how Nissan would have done it back in the day. As you will see below when comparing my original 1989 reo bar to that of the later model reo bar, the later reo bar has 3 additional mounting holes moulded into the fiberglass to allow for a new mounting bracket to be installed onto the reo bar as part of the new mounting setup for the 2000 model front bumper bar. As like with my original 1989 JDM fiberglass reo bar, the USDM reo bar would also not include these 3 additional screw holes needed for the mounting of this specific mounting bracket from above onto the USDM reo bar. So one weekend while at my Dad's place, he helped me drill to out the 3 mounting holes I was wanting to add onto the USDM reo bar I had and then he showed me how to tapped new threads for each of the new screw holes into the allumium bar. With the modifications completed, the reo bar is now finished and ready to be installed onto the car. FRONT BUMPER BAR UPPER BRACKET RESTORATION (PART 1) Another item that I needed to address, was the replacement upper mounting support bar for the front bumper bar. This support bar allows for the front bumper bar to mount onto the radiator core support and as mine was badly damaged in the accident, I had to sourced a undamaged used support bar to replace it as brand new ones are now discontinued from Nissan. But being a used item meant that the replacement part I sourced from a 300zx wrecker was in need of some restoration work done so that the item could be installed back on the car the way that I like it. The first thing you will probably notice about the replacement support bar is, the orange overspray paint on mounting arms which from what I can tell is a common thing to happen when 300ZX's get a resprayed paint job done on the front end and unfortunately overspray paint makes its way onto the arms. On top of that, here is a comparison photo of just how badly bent out of shape my original mounting arms were when compared to that of the undamaged used replacement arms I will be trying to restore. The replacement arms were of course cleaned thoroughly and then left to soak in my paint stripping solution to try and remove as much of the old paint as possible. Unfortunately this is where I came across an issue that I wasn't expecting to have and I couldnt solved it for over a week or too. As you can see, even though all of the old factory paint work has been removed from the arms, what was left over was a rough powdery like residue substance that was stuck on the surface of the metal which no matter what I tried to do wouldnt seem to come off. I tried using a few different types of checmial cleaners including an allumiuum deoxider solution and even a steam cleaner all of which made no change to removing any of the residue on the metal. After consulting with a mate at work who suggested the solution to me, he said that the paint stipping solution I'm using doesnt work as well with alluminum parts and it does with steel parts, and so now I know why it happened but I still didnt know how to solve it. With none of the chemical options I tried going to solve the issue I had, I decided to go with using an abrasive tool option to hopefully strip away the surface of the metal removing the stuck on residue in the process. I pulled out my trusty corded power drill and a brass wire wheel and got to work. After 20 mins or so here is the results of the abrasive wire wheel option I tried and i was pretty happy with what I ended up with. The metal might have been a little bit shinier then I would have liked but it was close enough to bare alluminum as I could get and so I then finished off wire wheeling the rest of the mount arms to leave me with this. While I was there I also used the wire wheel to clean up the mounting point for the arms where they mount onto the support bar itself.
INTAKE DUCTING MOUNTING BRACKET RESTORATION (PART 1) Ever since removing my oem intake ducting setup as part of the tearodwn process from the accident, I of have been wanting to restore a pair of mounting brackets that secure the plastic intake ductings to the frame from underneath the headlight bucket panels. These brackets are part codes 62866M & 62866N and like the frame rail lower brackets from section 747, were both showing blistered paint work and rust forming where there was exposed metal from paint chips. The brackets where stripped of all of the factory black paint and soaked in evaporust to remove any remaining surface rust left on the metal. The brackets will be repainted in a glossy black chassis paint to bring them back to new condition again. UPGRADED SILICONE BUSHES DISCOVERY One neat little discovery I was able to find during the above process, was that I realised after removing that the rubber bushes from the mounting bracket look very much like the same dimensions as the Sspec Designs silicone bushes do for the power steering reservoir. When I finally compared the two bushes side by side along with the oem collar installed ontop of the zspec bush, I was indeed correct in my assumption that the bushes are pretty much identical. Though it may not make any huge difference what so ever in the functionality that the silicone bush would have over the oem rubber bush, I see it as an longer lasting upgrade path to switch over the the zspec bushes for this application and so I'll be ordering more silicone bushes in my next parts order with CZP or from Zspec Designs direct.
KOYO RADIATOR DISCOVERY & UPDATE (PART 2) FEBRUARY Continuing on from last months update, I was able to compare side by side my original 300ZX NA radiator with the new Koyo Maxima J30 radiator and to surprise it turns out that the new Koyo radiator is actually double the thickness in its core size when compared to that of my original 300zx radiator. This is great when you think about as the new Koyo radiator should have a little bit more cooling ability then the thinner sized original 300zx radiator. Other then the core size differences, the radiators are almost identical expect for the couple of differences I mentioned in last weeks blog post. OEM LOWER RADIATOR HOSE BRACKET With all of the radiator comparsion stuff now finished, I turned my attention onto another little bracket that I think needs to be looked at and have some restoration work done to it. That being the lower radiator hose's mounting bracket. This mounting bracket, I believe has been discontinued from nissan for a while now, so replacing it is not really an option and though it has been slightly modified from its original design, The bracket like all the others Ive looked at recently have been better days. So into the paint stripping solution it went to remove all of the old paint and then the bracket was soaked in evaporust to again make me another perfect candidite for some glossy black chassis paint to restore it back to new again. Other then that, I am going to look into stripping down the OEM NA radiator upper mounts while I going to all this trouble paint brackets and what not and maybe add some titanium fasteners where needed. Plenty more work to be done for sure.
TOW HOOK RESTORATION Something I never thought I would care enough to worry about, but after seeing the horrible state that both of my front factory tow hooks were in during the test fitting of the intercooler ducting and the removal of carbon canister, I just had to do something about it, so off they came. Before After The cleaning process for the hooks and the fasteners that go with it, was done just like all the others parts ive cleaned as of late, expect that the hooks themselves would also need to be stripped of all the factory silver paint before I could attempted to soak them both in evaporust, to removal all of the surface rust present on the hooks. After a bath in some simple green concentrate cleaner and a soak in some evaporust, the oem fasteners came up looking pretty good with little to no rust present anymore but they all came out of the process without the oem factory dark green coating on them anymore and looking more like just raw steel fasteners as you can see. This could be issue with further rusting occuring in the future, so to combat this I am looking into coating all of the high tension fasteners that ive stripped of their oem protections, in a DIY black oxide coating that can be done at home easily but I have yet to purchase the required chemicals needed for that process to happen just yet but it is on my to buy list. The hooks themselves were submerged in my paint stripping solution and left to soak for the rest of the couple of weeks and I hope that the paint on the hooks comes off as easily as all of the paint that were on all of the little brackets have done so far, but we will have to wait and see what happens in next months update.
