Cleaning Out The Garage, Again

In the time since my last post, I've tried to pull the transmission unsuccessfully (turns out I need more upper body strength), eventually giving up and turning to the gas tank, which is a much simpler job to remove. After my failed transmission removal, I decided I was kind of tired of knocking down the kids' hula hoops and other unused toys while trying to walk around my car, and my simple cleaning job eventually turned into a full-blown garage sale. Since my last try at cleaning the garage led to me actually purchasing more clutter, I decided to get rid of every single piece of junk that nobody ever uses to finance a trip through the area to other garage sales to find some more metric tools and maybe some random auto memorabilia.

As the sale at my house progressed, there were more than a few people who asked about the car, including a fellow local Z owner. A guy also stopped by who owns at least six classic cars: a Chevy Bel Air, a Mustang Convertible, A Pontiac GTO, and no less than three Mercedes-Benz 300 E AMGs (The Hammer). I made around $160, which I took to the local garage sales. I got a better heater for next winter, as working on the Z was still pretty cold with our current one, and a few other items that will hopefully prove useful.

At the end of the sale, I ended up simply hauling the rest of the junk to Goodwill, and found that the Datsun's thin little garage stall was now much easier to work in. Mission Accomplished!

Mommy, I Broke The Suspension!

Okay, so yesterday I decided, since there had been a lull in Winter weather for about a month and more snow was coming the next day, that I should probably accomplish something that I've been meaning to do for a while, namely turning the car around in the garage to have more space at the front of the car where my shelves and large tool space is. This way, I could get more large pieces out of the motor and front body without having to slide along the side of the car and risk damaging it. It also provided an opportunity to take some nice full-car photos. So I enlisted some of my neighbors' kids to help me get the car out, with one sitting on a cement bucket inside steering, and get it turned around and back in.

My second objective, taking photos of the car, failed because I my camera went through it's last set of AA's right before I took photos, but we did get the Z successfully turned around and back into the garage. The neighbor kids ran home, and I pondered my next step in working on the car, consulting my three recently-purchased Datsun books. It was then that I noticed a frightening thing about the left side of the Datsun. It was about two inches lower than the right side, which hadn't been that way before. Was it the combined weight of the kid in the seat and cement bucket? Was it just the three-dozen year old setup? Could those boys have been messing around under the car when I was inside looking for batteries for my camera? I really didn't care; the only thing that mattered was that my poor Datsun broke! As of yet I haven't diagnosed the exact problem, but it's probably either the springs or bushings. Expect to hear from me within a few days with the official diagnosis.

Waiting on a Garage Heater

I know I haven't been working on the Datsun much lately. It's not that I've lost interest or anything, it's just that we are missing two vital pieces to continue our work. First of all, living in Wisconsin dictates that a garage heater is needed immediately, but no progress has been made in that direction yet. Second of all, we need an engine hoist to get the motor out. I have a friend on standby with an engine hoist ready, so that is solved, and I borrowed a transmission jack from Shelby Parts and Restoration. Meanwhile, I've been procrastinating about getting a garage heater. I keep going by them at Fleet Farm, but I always am herded on by the wife or my wallet.

But salvation is soon coming. I have enough money to buy a nice used garage heater, I have borrowed my transmission jack, and the engine hoist is ready to be used. In the next month, everything should be out.

A Toilet Break Yields The G.T. 240

  The best automotive ideas are usually born either at bars or in the bathroom, so when I came up with this I wasn't surprised that it happened on the porcelain throne. I know some people at Shelby Parts and Restoration in Howard and I've always loved Shelby Mustangs, so eventually my mind got thinking about making the Datsun a Tribute to the 1965 G.T.350. My vision is complete with Shelby's version of the Ford 289 V-8, badges with Shelby designations, a Shelby hood scoop and other body pieces, and Shelby side and hood stripes. The motor and some badges could be provided by Shelby Parts and Restoration, and I'm contacting a guy about doing a design sketch (hopefully for free!), so maybe this idea has some merit.

The 240Z Is Officially Ready For Engine Removal!

  Yesterday, as usual, I had a goal in mind for my work. I wanted to drain the gas tank and get it off the Z, and to see how all the mechanical stuff looked in the rear. Also as usual, my goal was not completed, but I now have a whole host of other things to tell you that we did. We dug out the How To Restore Your Datsun Z-Car book, which has been very helpful to us in finding the best mounting points for jack stands and telling us how to remove many parts thus far. This time, instead of the usual page-through to see where the part we wanted removed was listed, we turned to a page that had a step-by-step process for prepping to remove the motor. 

  I went step-by-step though this process, often sliding out from under the car just to read the next step and slide right back under to the same spot I was in. At least once I had a problem because the part didn't seem to exist on the car, but it always turned up on one of our shelves. Then we drained the oil pan, which had a surprising amount of water in it. This could mean many things. It could just mean that sitting for ten years meant that mater had wormed its way into the minute cracks of the motor, but it could also mean that the motor has more problems than we thought. Cracked cylinder heads and many other costly things came to mind. When I removed the driveshaft, a similar thing occurred. Where the transmission fluid is supposed to stay in the transmission when the driveshaft is off, or at any time for that matter, t came leaking out in a small, steady flow of liquid for around fifteen minutes. This could mean that are transmission has some failed seals in it.

  Then came some cosmetic work. We figured out how to remove the bumper, which is in very good condition and we will probably use when the car is done, and took out the necessary screws to do so. Soon, we had a look at the inside of the bumper, and we were happy to see that there was rust, but only surface rust. The bolts that mount the grille are too tough to get for some reason, and the grille itself is secured by rivets, so we're leaving that on as a nuisance until another day. We also removed the shift knob, which seems to be from a 260Z, but I'm still pretty sure that our five-speed trans is from a 280ZX.

A Surprise In Store

  Yesterday went almost as planned, though we couldn't turn the car around in the garage as we'd hoped. By the time we got outside to work on the Z, every sane person was in eating dinner, so there was no available muscle to push the car back up our sloping driveway. Even so, we did some motor work, namely taking out the alternator and water pump to make the engine just that little bit less bulky and easy to remove from the mount. It took a 4' long hollow metal bar to get enough leverage to remove the nut on the bolt holding the water pump on, and after that the bolt ran up against the motor mount and we had to do a lot of wiggling the pump to get the bolt out. We pushed the car halfway outside, and we were then prepared to power wash to motor. One problem: we don't own a power washer.

  Well as luck would have it, our neighbor from down the street was babysitting a dog and had brought it over to the house next to us to visit the dog at that house, and meanwhile the dog she was sitting did its business in our yard, and she came over to clean it up. We started talking about the car, which we had by then taken out and put blocks in front of the wheels in case the parking brake failed. I disembarked to a neighbor's house to ask them if they had a power washer, as we were desperate by then, while my friend chatted with this elderly woman. I got back with success because our neighbor had a power washer to find my friend hauling one to our house. Uh oh. Turns out that the woman's husband, who owns a vintage Mercedes-Benz 450SL, owns a never-opened power washer that she lent to us without a second thought. Meanwhile up the street, our other neighbor was loading his washer into his truck to haul to our house, so I had to get there quickly and tell him not to bring it.

  After that fiasco was finished, we then commenced to power wash to engine bay and block for about ten minutes. Some magic degrease stuff helped get rid of all but the worst of the dirt and grease, and much of the little rust flakes from the battery compartment were blown off, resulting in an altogether cleaner motor and engine bay. I was admiring our work when my friend told me to some look at something. As I went around to that side of the motor, where there is no hardware blocking the view of the engine block, and was surprised to find that it was red! 

  And at that moment, the door to the house opened and the eternal cry of all car enthusiasts' wives issued forth: "Get in here, clean up and eat dinner! It's 7:30!" So we packed up the power washer, pushed the car back inside the garage, and my friend departed for his home a mile or two away. I went in to eat dinner, and there was no more car work that night except for putting the rear hatch back up, as we had closed it for the wash.

Removing The Air Cleaner And Other Parts

  A few days ago I decided to get some work done on the 240Z, so I, with the handy new florescent lights mounted on various points in the engine compartment, took four different types and sizes of screw driver to the air cleaner and choke. Removing the air cleaner was the easy part, first of all because one part was already un-mounted by the former owner and the other required two simple screws. After I stacked the parts of the air cleaner in my ever-growing parts collection on the shelves in the rear of the garage. Getting the choke off required four different screw drivers and some bloodshed, but we managed to get those off, too. Soon we will have the motor out and the carbs off (not in that order, of course), so stay tuned!