James Z31 Engine Blueprinting

[85_Z31]

Did a little panel beating on the lower half.

I actually thought it was too far gone to use again but after giving it a really good bash ( couple of hours ) it has come up quite good. Plan is now just to MIG up the low spots and grind off the high spots and if I take my time i should be able to work away at it and get it nice and straight.

Before




After



I did all this with a standard hammer and couple bits of scrap as "make do " dolly's

I spoke to a family friend of my old mans and he is going to lend me some gear and teach me how to do a few things, after that a little filler to skim some lows spots and it should look band new.

[cheese910]

looks tops!

[85_Z31]

I notw have some massive respect for all the people who have repaired their own Rusty Datsuns

I always expected cutting and patching sheet metal to be difficult, but i never expected it to be downright painfull.



found a wee mental clipy dongle thing which turned out to be perfect to hold tiny bits of sheet metal while i MIG it up



and here is how it looks with the holes filled up ( its pretty rough and I'm not very happy with it, but after a flapper wheel and possibly MIG up a few low spots it should look somewhat tidy.





And now for the cool bit

K&N panel for stock air box - none of this Pod filter next to the hot exhaust manifold shit > stock Air Box works perfectly well and also looks much tidier.
This came via a friend over in the USA who never used it.




Now - These may look like rusty shit brake calipers..... well yes they are.

BUT !!!!!!

they take a 20mm Vented rear rotor and have the handbrake cable mounted directly on the caliper ( IE no internal parking brake drum )

Which means i can toss away the 10mm solid rear discs and upgrade to the 20mm skyline R32 GTST M spec rotors. This should be nice addition considering the fronts are 4 pots and 30mm .



and of course a bunch of parts to rebuild the calipers and make them brand new again.

[Bartman]

Great work James.
I always enjoy clicking on your thread to see what you've been up to next. Smart move with the panel filter too. While the factory airbox might be limiting in some aspects, the factory put a lot more R&D into them than some $20 chinese pod filter, resting one inch from a scalding hot manifold.

[nick_m]

what are the rear calipers? Series 6 RX7 by chance?

[Bartman]

They look like nissan ones to me.

[85_Z31]

what are the rear calipers? Series 6 RX7 by chance?

Rear Calipers are from an 88 Z31, which is handy as they take the same brake pads ect.

[85_Z31]

such a lack of progress on this car lately,

Not happy with the lower half of the cross member, Got Nick M on the case to fold me up a new lower half, with nick on board i know its going to turn out mint so i can actually nail this thing back together.

- Engineer has started work on adapting the camber plates- another 3 weeks and that should be all go !.

Set a date for My wedding next year so Project 300ZX money is going to scare !

But now that my bloody Hilux Surf is all back in working order I should be mint, ( $1400 worth of tires, shocks, ball joints, cv's and bushings )


Hopefully I can panel beat the top half this weekend, top half shouldn't require any cutting and re welding so that makes life much much simpler for a Tard like me.

[85_Z31]

Well I wasted hours and hours attempting to panel beat the lower half of the front crossmember.

My Origional plas was to build a new one but my decision got swayed, yet somehow I ended up back at the origional plan of building a new cross member from scratch.

Nick M is a total legend for folding up the cross member profile for me, it came out really nice so i got to work on it right away fitting it up to the 300zx.
OLD


NEW





OLD


New



IT should pass for an exact match one its finished.

Nick M you are a bloody legend, I followed your tips on welding it and I had no issues with heat or twisting or blowing holes

[nick_m]

good too hear dude. Glad it turned out good