Now that the body mods are finally finished and the car is back on the road I hope to have a summer filled with car show, events and miles and miles of fun. Of course me being me I will no doubt think of something else to upgrade. After all isn't that what hot rodding is all about? But hopefully the next project will not take eight months!

        There should be some local shows and events coming up soon but my first road trip will be back to Mississippi to see my buddy Mario and attend the LeBlanc Nissan car show.

        Now that I have done all this major body work the insurance I had with my old company is looking even more lame. All along my insurance has been cheap because the company based the coverage on blue book value which I am sure would be next to nothing if the car were totaled or stolen. I have just signed up with Grundy Worldwide and set the value of the car at 15K. Guess what? Its actually cheaper than what I had before, amazing. Of course there are a few restrictions but nothing that will affect the way I use the car.

        After all the sanding, primering and painting the windshield wiper mechanism seems to have taken a hit. Not that Datsun wipers are really efficient but they now seem even worse. I am headed out of town soon so I pulled the stock wiper assembly out, cleaned it up and greased all the moving joints. It helped some but the whole thing lacks true efficiency.

        This past weekend was the LeBlanc Nissan car show in Mississippi. I took the car to get gas on Thursday and the starter sounded like it was about to give up the ghost. I had noticed some weirdness with it earlier but that seemed to go away, yeah like these things ever "just go away". But with no time to change out the starter I decided to go and hope for the best. As it turned out there were a few anxious moments where the starter just clicked but eventually it always started. Looks like the infamous heat soaking GM starters are known for. I picked up a new starter and installed it after I got home. The show was fun but the turn out wasn't what it had been the previous years. There were only 8 of the 240z, 280z and 300z variety and 14 of the newer 350Z and 370Z. I didn't win anything, a really awesome restored 280Z rightfully took our bracket. But I got a lot of compliments on the car. The only down side of the trip was Mario and I both getting nailed by a local city cop for doing 89 in a 70 on I-10. Damn!! My first ticket in 25 years. I blame Mario, after all he was leading!

        After installing the new starter and the heat wrap I did some research on the infamous GM starter heat soak issue. Turns out it isn't a starter problem but a solenoid problem. Apparently the solenoid starts requiring more current as it gets hot from header heat and the system drops voltage due to the resistive wiring GM uses in its circuits. The solution, believe it or not, is to use a firewall mounted Ford remote solenoid. You use the existing GM solenoid wire (purple wire) to activate the Ford solenoid. You leave the bat terminal on the starter hooked to the battery positive terminal and using a heavy gauge wire, at least an 8 guage, connect the battery to the input side of the Ford solenoid. The output of the Ford solenoid is then connecter to the "s" terminal on the GM solenoid using another 8 guage wire. That way you get a full +12v to the GM solenoid, problem solved. I made a bracket to mount Ford solenoid just in front of the battery. In addition to this modification I wrapped the exhaust pipe that runs under the starter with header wrap. I hope this will help keep some of the heat off the starter. The old starter wrap I had is pretty much shot due to being removed and reinstalled several time, I will get a new one for extra protection.

        Ever get the feeling you live under a dark cloud? Now I realize this really nothing, just pisses me off. I went to a Caffeine and Octane meeting today. After parking I reached down to pop the hood and the hood release knob disintegrated in my hand. Fortunately there was enough left to operate the release. One of the guys on HybridZ sells some very cool looking billet stuff, one of them is a hood release knob so I ordered one of those.

        Even a blind hog............ I went to a car show on May 29th and actually walked away with a trophy, 15th out of about 50 cars. I was shocked, even though others told me I should get something. My car is hardly show quality. Yeah its different and draws a lot of attention but compared to some of the rides that attend these shows its pretty lame. But it made me feel good and I'll take it. Of course now I feel like I need to do some more detail work on the car, LOL.

        Several people have stated that the Taurus radiator fan many of us are using can draw as much as 60A at start up. I never debated that but I have been using a 40A relay for over 17K miles. But statistics are statistics and the NC contact on the high speed relay finally burned up and I lost all fan operation. I was able to swap the low speed and high speed relays and get home. I have purchased a 80A relay and installed it using the low speed computer control to only run the high seed winding of the fan. I see no reason to use the two speed capability of the fan. Hopefully this one will last longer.

        With the mechanics and body about as far as I am going to take them I decided to upgrade my sound system. The stereo I have now is very basic and the speakers are very lame and 20 years old. I picked up a set of 6.5 Kickers for the rear and 4.0 Kickers for the front (kick panel space is limited) and will build some enclosures for them. The rear speakers will sit just ahead of the rear wheel wells and have a slight upward position. Once again I will use my new found fiberglass skills to construct the enclosures. I was able to use the existing kick panel I had made for the passenger side as a mold, but had to start from scratch on the driver's side. For the front speaker mounts I found a CD stack holder is a perfect fit for the 4 inch speaker mold.

        Trophies? We don't need no stickin' trophies. Well, its kind of like saying this is more HP than I will ever need, it just doesn't hold true for very long. I had been to a few car shows just to get public opinion and that ego boost you get when people like what you have done with your car. But I really never expected to win anything. But when I did it was quite a rush. I found myself taking a little more time cleaning the car before shows and what do you know I won again, and then at what I thought was a rather high caliber event I once again was awarded a trophy! Damn, its getting addictive. I still don't believe it when they call my name, my car is no show car for sure. It must be the "wow factor" of seeing a small Japanese sportscar with a Corvette engine and some major custom work. Whatever it is I'm having fun knowing all my hard work is appreciated by fellow car nuts.

        After building my new engine I never really addressed the cam change in the PCM. The engine runs fine, strong and gets 18-24 mpg. But I decided to get a tune to take full advantage of the LT4 hot cam kit. I contacted LT1 PCM Tuning in Cincinnati about a tune. He will do it several ways, send them your PCM or if you have the software to program the PCM you email him your present tune and fill out am on-line form and he will send you a new tune to your specs. I picked the later method. After you upload the new tune you capture a few runs using DataMaster software and send those to LT1 PCM Tuning. Once he receives your first log, and verify things look good, then he can send you two calibration images to begin fine-tuning your timing/fueling tables, both at part-throttle and WOT. During our conversations about the tune and my issue with not shifting at WOT he thought he had a fix. Unfortunately that fix did not work. It might just be that I expected to see a noticeable difference but I really do think I could feel the car pull stronger all the way through the RPM range. I did a few runs and several issues became evident. Number one was the WOT shift issue. Number two, my injectors are running at 80% which is too high. He recommends getting 30 lb injectors. He also suggested getting a LT4 knock sensor module to eliminate the possibility of false knocks to the headers and roller rockers. I have ordered the injectors and knock sensor. He did send me a new program which has solved the WOT shifting issue, basically it short shifts 2nd gear like I had before.

        A very weird thing happened to the car last weekend. I got out and noticed the interior lights did not come on when I opened the door. I checked the fuse and sure enough it was blown. Connected to that fuse are the LED kick panel lights, the dome light which is still the old Camaro light using one of those weird festoon bulbs and the two accessory plugs I use for the GPS and charging my cell phone. After changing the fuse it all seemed to be working again. Hmmmm, these things just don't go away. I was right, next time I opened the door.....no lights. After an exhaustive investigation involving many blown fuses I discovered for some unknown reason that festoon bulb was the culprit. It would light but after a minute or so the fuse would blow. I pulled it out and replaced it with a LED substitute and all is good.

        I was looking at a custom wide body Corvette at one of the many cars shows I attend and noticed he had a cool looking license plate frame that incorporated backup lights. I never put backup lights in the Z so I asked where he got them. He told me he got them from VLEDS. They come in chrome, black chrome and satin black, I got the black chrome. I had to do a little modification to my taillight panel to get the frame to fit, but that is something I have wanted to do since I first built the panel.

        Kudos to GM for building the LT1 engine with a cam driven water pump. Fifty miles from home at 75 mph my alternator decided to self destruct. I noticed the voltmeter was sitting at 8 volts and knew right away I had lost the belt. No worries I carry a spare belt, just in case. Unfortunately not only was the belt gone the pulley on the alternator was loose. I tightened the nut holding the pulley and installed the new belt but it was obvious from the horrible grinding noise the front bearing in the alternator was gone. Not really knowing where I was it took me a while to find a auto parts store and then trips to two other stores before finding a store that had the alternator in stock. Thankfully I had a fairly new battery but I drove around 20 miles so I had to be close to battery death. I swapped in the new alternator and continued on to my destination arrived two hours late but at least I was not sitting on the side of the road!

        As 2011 comes to an end I look back and reflect on the car. After the exhaustive 5 lug wheel swap which morphed into an eight month total body modification the car was back on the road in April. The spring and summer were filled with car shows and cruise-in events. I was pleasantly surprised with the awards and acceptance I got at all these events. I am still amazed when they call my name for a trophy. I will admit the trophies are cool but really the comradery from fellow gearheads is what keeps me going. Hitting six events in a four day weekend probably means I have become a bit obsessed! Sometimes due to the logistics of the shows I have put over 300 miles on the car in just one weekend. But driving the car was the main reason for building it in the first place, the rest is just bonus. Of course I could have done without that $169 speeding ticket in Louisiana!! There have been a few setbacks like the blown starter, fan relay and alternator but with just a tick over 12,0000 miles on the new engine I am not complaining. Overall these were minor and the car is averaging 18.8 MPH for these 12,0000 miles. I sure can't complain about that for a car that is this fast. I added a few things to the car over the summer like new speakers, a kick-ass license plate frame with backup lights and some polished and chrome goodies for under the hood. I also got a PCM tune for the engine which is still in the fine tuning stage. But it did make a big difference in the performance. So as 2012 approaches I am looking forward to more of the same and wondering what ideas I will have for upgrades. Maybe a new console, carpet and a stereo upgrade, we'll see.

        As you can see there hasn't been an update to this page in well over a year. The Z is well, I did a few show in 2012 but nothing like the previous year. The car now has 20,000 miles on it so you can see it hasn't been idol in 2012. I've had no major issues with the car other than a small transmission line leak but that was easily fixed with a new hose from the cooler hard line to the cooler. I still love the Z and driving it is a total blast. It will never be sold until I can't drive it anymore. But the main reason for no update is the purchase of another car, a 1970 AMX. I needed a new project and since I bought a 1970 AMX new in February of 1970 and until the Z it was my favorite car. Therefore it seemed like a logical choice.

        Something pretty cool happened today. I went to a charity cruise-in sponsored by Snap-on Tools. Two attractions were a door prize of a $6000 Snap-On tool box and Cruz Pedregon was there promoting his sponsor. I won a small door prize of a Snap-on hat. As I was walking back from getting the hat I notice Cruz and asked if he would autograph it, he did. We talked for a few minutes about the NHRA and driving a funny car. As I was walking to my car to put the hat away Cruz was right behind me. He asked if that was my car and what was it. He thought it was a 240Z, then he saw the engine. "Oh, man that is so cool." He even asked who did the work, I told him I did, he said "That's awesome." He asked if he could open the door and what it turned in the quarter. I only wish I had a camera with me. What a cool evening, well worth the rainy ride home.

        I really don't know how this happened but my rear tires are shot. Might have something to do with aggressive driving! I went to Discount Tire and got a new set of Yokohama S Drive 225/50R-17s. Good to go for another 25K miles, LOL.

        Yesterday I noticed a grinding, crunching, rattling sort of sound coming from the right rear at speed. I jacked up the car and saw the inner boot on my right side half shaft has a large rip in it! You'd think I would have notice some grease dripping out but I haven't. Fortunately I have another set but don't really know their condition. The AMX is on stands in the garage right now so it will be a while before I can attack this. I hope the half shaft is salvageable and isn't toast but I think it probably is.

        Yikes!!! it was a lot worse than I thought. All four boots are ripped. The Black Dragon boots lasted less than 30,000 miles. I got one of the backup half shafts in but need to get a crimp strap for the other one. Then hopefully I can get the lower a-frames back up by myself....debatable. Ten hours, a few cuts and a lot of cursing its all back together. Hopefully the old boots on these halfshafts will hold up long enough for me to get the old ones rebuilt or to find a better solution.

        For the second time it the past year my brake lights quit working. The first time it was the brake light switch button simply stuck in, this time I really don't know why but after messing with the switch for a while it started working. Time to replace the switch. The problem is it is no longer produced for '93 -94 Chevy cars! No parts stores have the one with the cruise option and the one without cruise does not fit the bracket, how weird is that! Even the GM dealerships don't have it and have no recommended replacement. Fortunately there were a couple on EBay for a good price so I picked one up.

        Cheap glass pack mufflers don’t last forever. After 6 years and about 50,000 miles these things have fallen apart. Since I needed new ones I decided to get the mufflers I have wanted for a long time, chambered mufflers. I contacted Classic Chambered Exhaust and picked up their 24” mufflers. I had our local shop weld them on and while I was there I had them reposition the tail pipes so they are tucked in closer. I was surprised to hear these are actually quieter than the glass packs and as an added bonus the 1500 rpm drone is gone. I am very pleased with these mufflers.

        As an upgrade to the stock u-joint half shafts a long time ago I swapped to 280zx cv shafts. These have worked great except for the boots. The original ones had what appeared to be the original boots and they eventually ripped. So I rebuilt them, not a fun project. As a precaution I picked up another set just in case the rebuilt ones also failed…they did. All four replacement boots ripped. Of course the precautionary shaft had old boots as well and I know I’m living on borrowed time here. So I bit the bullet, the expensive bullet, and bought Wolf Creek high performance CV kit. These are bolt-in replacement for the stock u-joint shafts. Of course since I converted to the 280zx shafts I don’t have the stock side stubs for the diff or the stock 280z companion flanges. But I was able to find what I needed and will begin the swap as soon as I can free up the garage from an AMX project going on now.

        At long last I have pulled the Z off the road to convert to the Wolf Creek half shafts. The first thing I noticed is that both inside boots on the 280zx half shafts are once again ripped. I started to remove the 6 bolts that hold the half shafts to the companion flange and found all the bolts on both sides were very loose, in fact two of them were backing out. Gotta find a better way to torque these when I install the new half shafts. Today I got everything loose and pulled the 280zx shafts from the car. Next is removing the companion flanges since the Wolf Creek shafts use stock 280Z flanges. If memory severs me the nut holding the flanges on is torqued to 180-240 ft. lbs. depending on bearing load. I started with the driver side. No way was this torqued to anywhere near spec, it came off only using a ½ drive ratchet! I had farmed out the job of installing these when I had new rear bearings installed since I don’t have the equipment to do the bearings. I won’t be going back to that shop any time soon! The passenger side however took some work. I ended up hitting it for several minutes with my wimpy impact gun and then used a breaker bar extended with a pipe and it finally came loose. Not sure how I am going to be able to put the new companion flanges on. First I need to clean up everything and then decide if I want to pull the whole assembly and check the strut isolators.

        I did decided to pull the whole suspension to check the isolators and of course they are fine. It is easy to pull it all out, not so easy to put back in by yourself. But it did make cleaning up all the CV grease that was everywhere much easier. I got the diff stubs installed and using some blue Loctite on the nuts installed the Wolf creek adaptors torqueing them to 50 ft. lbs. I also installed the companion flanges but only torqued the nuts to 150 ft. lbs. because that is a high as my torque wrench will go. I need to get a bigger wrench for the final torque as soon as I figure out what that will be. I am having a tough time finding the 8 companion flange to Wolf Creek adapter bolts. They are unique to Datsun, the dealer wants $12 a bolt and on-line isn’t much cheaper. I have offers for used ones from a few people on HyBridZ but I really don’t want 30 year old stuff holding all this together. So I ordered the new Datusn parts.

        I borrowed a 250 ft. lb. torque wrench from Oreilly Auto Parts and torqued the stub axle nuts to 205 ft. lbs. That is in the middle of the recommended range and better than what was done previously. The Datsun half shaft bolts came in today. Using these, some Nord-lock washers, blue Loctite and nuts I bolted the adaptors to the companion flanges torqueing them to 50 ft. lbs. Next step is getting the suspension back in the car. I will attempt this myself but will probably need assistance.

        Damn Polar Vortex! Even though I have a semi-heated garage I am having problems going out there and face the cold to get this car back together. Maybe its old age rearing its ugly head, or maybe I’m just getting lazy. But I finally fired up the heater and went out to at least put the suspension back in. The problem is getting the three mounting bolts on the struts to line up with the strut tower holes. But after thinking about this I realized I could put a 17mm socket with an extension on the strut mounting nut which would allow me to turn the strut and align it with the tower holes. I put my jack under the control arm, raised it until the strut was close and turned the strut until it all aligned and jacked it up through the holes. So after a slight loss of blood the struts are back in.

        Back into the garage today to get the rest of the suspension bolted in. I had no issues getting it all in place and torqued down. But when I started to put the calipers back on things went to hell! The driver side went right on fine but on the passenger side the outside pad fell out and I was unable to get it back in. Maybe I just didn’t know the proper method or maybe my arthritic thumbs are too weak. The 240sx caliper requires you to use a tool to screw in the piston if the pads are too tight. I pulled out the inside pad to do that and the little spring things that the pads sit in fell out. Trying to get all this back together proved to be something I was not able to do. Eventually I used tie-wraps to hold the spring things in place and was able to get the inside pad in. But I still couldn’t get the outside pad in. It seemed like the inside pad was still out too far to allow me to pivot the outside pad enough to rock it into the spring. I used a c-clamp to pull the sliding bracket as far back as possible and was finally able to get the pad in place. Next is to fill the new CVs with grease and install them.

        In order to install the half shafts there are 6 bolts to attach each end to each adapter. The instructions tell you to use safety wire to assure the bolts will not come loose. One of the HybridZ members in high standing said he used flange bolts and Nord-lock vibration proof lock washers and has had no issues for two years. Using this method would be much easier than using safety wire, although much more expensive. I ordered some washers and bolts, we’ll see how that works before committing. The bolts and washers arrived pretty quickly but then I got the bright idea that I should use the Nord-lock washers for on the companion flange to adapter connections too. Life has a way of getting in your way, plus I have become very lazy lately. But today I packed the CV joints, I hope properly, and installed the “vent” tubes as recommended. I installed the halfshafts today. It wasn’t as easy as I thought it would be. The only real issue was trying to line up the mounting bolts to a blind threaded holes in the adapters, but I was eventually successful. Definitely getting too old for this kind of work, it only took two hours but my back feels like it was closer to eight! All that is left is final torqueing and bolting the exhaust back in place.

        What is life without a little drama? I learned many years ago not to but cheap tools, they will eventually let you down. But on this project I went against my better judgment with the 5/16 12 point socket for the 24 half shaft bolts. All was going well, other than getting the torque wrench on the bolts in such a confined space. I was two bolts from victory when suddenly the wrench slipped on the bolt head. At first I feared the bolt head had stripped but looking into the socket revealed several broken ridges. I took the whole socket set back to Northern Tool and they gave me a new set. If I used 12 point hardware more I would have sprung for quality rather than cost. After torqueing the 24 half shaft bolts, checking the torque on the suspension bolts again I put the exhaust back into place. I have a few other things to address on the car before I take it car out for a test drive plus it’s raining in Georgia today.

        Mustering all the courage I could I put the car back on the ground and took off for a 10 mile test drive. No problems and no weird noises were found other than the 500 wrenches, sockets and ratchets rattling round in the back hatch. I probably should have taken all that out first. I then jacked up the rear again to check for anything weird and re-torqued everything again. Should I declare total victory? I will wait for a few more miles but right now I feel good. I will say Wolf Creek makes an awesome product. They are expensive but everything is extremely well made and the instructions are very well written.

        After a few short runs around the neighborhood it’s time for a longer cruise. Last night I took it for the 50 mile round trip to our weekly Friday night cruise-in. I took some curves a little aggressively and did a few hard, but not crazy starts. Today I jacked it up and checked out everything, it all looks good. I hit all the bolts with the torque wrench again just to be safe. So I guess I can call this project complete.

        Well it looks like I spoke too soon. After a few trips in the car there is a lot of vibration that wasn‘t there before. And when I let off the gas sometimes there is a very noticeable clunk that also wasn’t there before. I jacked up the car, started the engine, put in in gear to allow the tires to turn, the rear axles have a definite rattle coming from both sides. In the world of debugging you always suspect the last thing you did so I pulled all the Wolf creek parts off. This proved to be much harder than I anticipated. After removing all the bolts that hold the CVs to the adapters I could not separate the assembly from the adapters. I called Wolf creek and Todd was confused, said that shouldn’t happen but offered no reason why it would. He told me I could beat on the CV housing without risk of damage since it is chrome-moly. I did that and eventually got them off. But during this time I made one critical mistake the allowed one of the CVs to angle too much and all the ball bearings fell out! In addition to that on the other side I found a c-clip had come off the axle and was sitting in the grease against the adapter. Todd also said the rattling was because I didn’t properly grease the joints, I don’t think that is true. I am going to bolt in a set of stock 280Z half shafts just to be sure the Wolf Creek stuff is the cause of the vibration and the clunking noise. Gotta remember I am putting 350 HP to the wheels and don’t get crazy and blow the u-joints in those stock half shafts! If that cures the issues I will contact Todd to see how we can fix this.

        I’ve had a few personal issues to deal with but I’m finally back into this problem. I put stock 280Z parts back in and took the car out for a long ride. Guess what, the vibration is gone and so is that clunking during deceleration. I Emailed Todd to see what he says because he was so belligerent when I talked to him on the phone. We’ll see what he has to say but I’m guessing I just blew $1000 on his stuff!

        Todd responded to my Email this morning. He told me to clean the grease off everything the best I could and send them in for evaluation. However during the cleaning attempt the bearings in three of the four CVs fell out. This design seems a little lame to me if you can’t angle these more than 30 degrees without the bearings falling out. At least they are clean. If he can’t identify anything that is causing the problems I really don’t know if I want to go through the hassle of reinstalling them just to have the problem come back.

        The CVs finally came back. Todd says he found nothing wrong. I guess the c-clip falling off is NOT wrong. But he said one of the CV balls was missing so he replaced two of the CVs…... yeah right. I know I counted the balls several times when I packed the box for shipping, nothing was missing. He also said the ran the adapters through his mill to be sure the milling was correct since I had such a hard time getting them to separate from the CVs. Again he claims there was nothing wrong. I think he is just not willing to admit there was a bad part. But as fate would have it there was a delay trying to get them back on the car. Other projects have taken over the garage. Then after a few weeks I ended up messing up my thumbs again so I decided to farm this out to Balanced Performance. The CVs are back in the car, no vibration and no clunking during deceleration, it all seems good to go. I have only put a few miles on it but the benefits of these CVs is obvious as soon as you push the car. It has much more bite coming out of a hard corner and I swear it rides smoother too! Certainly not the cheapest way to go for a street car but if I was really concerned about cost I would not be in this hobby.

        So after several weeks and around 450 miles including highway speeds, curvy roads and fast take offs all seems to be good. Again I am impressed with the end result but not in that fact I had to shell out a lot more money to Wolf Creek to make this right. Todd just plain refused to admit to the possibility that there was something wrong with his parts. If he has figured out how to produce something at a 100% out of box success rate he is the first manufacturer in the history of time to do it. Oh well, as they say its only money and I doubt it would be worth the effort to attempt to get any of it back from him.

        The Z has been going great for over a year but lately I noticed my gas mileage is dropping. With all the work I have been doing on the truck project I just haven’t had time to look for a cause. I am finally at a point I can now see what is up with the Z. I pulled the plugs and saw nothing obvious but I changed them anyway. It did seem to make some difference. I pulled the K&N air filter off cleaned and retreated it. The car has a canister style fuel filter so I decided to change the element. WHOA!! That thing was filthy! I picked up a new element (12608) from Summit. Next I will take it to a shop for a professional fuel system clean. Hopefully all this will fix the mileage issue.

        It has been quite a while since I did a really good look over, a good cleaning and some upgrades on the Z. Now is the time.

        The first thing to address is the engine compartment. I found two nuts that hold the hood louvers on were gone, that can’t be good. I replaced those. When I built the LT1 engine for the Z I painted the intake with red POR-15 even knowing that POR-15 is susceptible to ultraviolet light. It lasted about 8 year before it started to fade to nearly pink. I really don’t like a pink engine! I sanded the top of the intake including the groves the best I could without removing everything and hit it with some red paint. I then sanded off the paint on the top of the main runner leaving only the red inside the groves.

        Today I cleaned and polished the aluminum strut bar and the air inlet tubes and cleaned and waxed the Corvette engine covers. Next I took the valve covers off to clean and polish them. Since I had to remove lot of stuff to get the valve covers off I redesigned the coil bracket I had made 8 years ago. No clue what I was thinking back then but this new design is much easier to take off and reinstall.

        A few months ago while washing the Z I noticed the lens on my backup LED was missing. I ordered and new and better looking light that should mount with the license plate screws. But when it arrived from China of course the mounting holes do not line up with American license plate holes, I had to make an adapter. But when I took everything apart to design the adapter I noticed the license plate LED light was broken. WTF!!!! I picked up a new and better one at West Marine. At least I know this one will be water proof!

        With these projects complete I moved to my main object of upgrading, the interior. I had painted the door panels a two tone silver and black a while back which I like. But the trim piece that fits along the top of the upholstery was messed up when I got the car so I made a wood substitute with two brass inserts…..seemed like a good idea at the time. I removed the strange looking brass, sanding off the urethane top coat and stain to get back to bare wood. After it was all clean I painted the whole thing black and followed that with some gloss clear.

        The next thing I want to change is the carpet. When I got the car the original carpet was shot. I replaced that with cut pile carpet, I don’t like cut pile carpet but at the time that is all I could find. Over the years I have discovered 1A Automotive 1A Automotive right next door in Alabama. They sell black ACC loop carpet at a good price with quick delivery.

        I spent the last few days preparing the interior for the new carpet. Out came the seats and the console. There were still some unused 6x9 speakers mounted on the wall behind the seats so I pulled those out and repaired the huge holes. I had the windshield replaced when I did all the body work eight years ago and of course it leaked a little on the lower right side. The glass shop tried to fix it but that proved to be a failure. I ended up pulling back the rubber seal the best I could and forced caulking sealer under the seal, that seemed to work. But now it has been several years and when I pulled the seats I discovered some rust starting on the passenger floor pan and under front seat frame. It is all just surface rust so I cleaned it up and put down a good coat of POR-15 followed by new sound deadener.

        I installed the new carpet today, what a job. I spent the entire morning just getting the driver side front to fit, the price you pay for a highly modified Z. It looks great so now I moved on the rebuilding a better, nicer console.

        The console in the Z was my second attempt at fiberglass fabrication, the dash was the first. They both have some issues but redoing the dash would take way too much disassembly but the console is very doable. I kept the basic shape but I had to make the storage compartment about 2 inches shorter to accommodate a Chevy Silverado cup holder like I used on the truck. I have also moved my heater controls down to the console between the cup holder and the shifter. All was going pretty smoothly until I decided to make a pedestal for the heater controls to make installation of the console easier. It was a process of trial and error until I finally got the pedestal to sit flush against the inside top of the console. The console was then wrapped with black vinyl. For the complicated borders I made from 1/8” fiberglass and painted them silver to match the seats, door panels and steering wheel.

        Long ago, longer than I can remember, I bought a set of 7” Jeep LED headlights for the Z but never installed them. It is about time I stuck these things on the car. Hopefully they will mount without issues, will work and be a big improvement over the stock lights. I had switched to halogen lights years ago so they should simply power up. I hooked the first light up and turned on the headlight switch, DAMN these things are bright. Turns out the high beam is lite but it will not go out with the dimmer switch. There are no instructions with these so I guess I need to revert back to my electronic tech experience to figure this out. When I switch the dimmer to low beams the high beam wire stays at +12v. But if I disconnect the high beam wire from the LED that disconnected wire acts properly. LEDs are weird and I think the high beam wire is getting back fed through either the headlight switch or the dimmer switch or the circuit inside the LED or a combination there of. I am running a Camaro headlight switch and a column Datsun dimmer switch, what could possibly go wrong. LOL. Since I have no clue what is going on inside the LED the easiest way to fix this is to use a separate source for the actual +12v power to the high beam LED. I hooked up a relay using the high beam +12v from the dimmer switch to activate the relay and a separate +12v switched though the relay to feed the LED, worked perfectly. I have enough parts to do this, let’s do some wiring.

        As most know headlights have bumps on the housing to align them with the mounts. Fortunately these bumps did line up with the Datsun mounts. But because the LED headlight cast aluminum back is much different than a standard headlight bulb there was some small interference. A little relief filing on the mount and I now have them seat correctly.

        Before I wire up the “fix” for the high beams I decided to rewire the headlight harness and get rid of all the Datsun connectors and wires. What a mess, you’d think being an electronic tech I would have done a better job. I found a lot of unused wires and have no clue what they are for. I thought I had eliminated all the wiring from the Camaro I didn’t need, apparently not or I have forgotten why I kept them. But in the middle of this I started having issues. One park/turn LED will now work at all and the other one will not blink. After several attempts to figure this out I realized when I shortened one harness I eliminated the ground to the park/turn LED. But the other one still would not blink even though all the wiring is correct, I’m thinking the LED is bad. So I decided to swap them to see if in fact the LED is bad or something else is wrong. I must have installed these LEDs before I put the grille in and used nuts and bolts instead of nutserts and now I can’t get to the nuts, grrrrrrrrrrr. Eventually I got them out using a box end wrench taped to a stick, hey whatever works. I can’t get a drill in there to drill for nutserts so I have to move the LEDs a little towards the center, not a big deal. But of course now the horns are in the way!!!! So I had to move them too. What was I trying to do here? Oh, yeah the turn signal LED. With both of them out of the car the one that worked still works but when I went to swap the connector for the “bad” one I notice a bent pin on the LED. OMG I did all this work for nothing, oh well that is hot rodding! With all the wiring in place and wrapped it time to fix that high beam issue.

        It’s wiring time to fix this high beam issue. I ran a wire from the engine +12v junction block through a fuse to a box I made to house the two relays mounted on the passenger side of the radiator support. This will be the switched +12v for the high beams. I also ran a relay ground wire, a wire from the dimmer switch to activate the relays for the high beams and two wires from the NO connections of the relays to feed +12v for each headlight. I no doubt could have used a single relay for this but two gives me some protection in case of a relay failure. All the inputs and outputs run through a connector for easy service.

        I waited until dark to take the Z out to see how misaligned the headlights were, not bad. Then out of nowhere two deer ran across the highway. I never even had a chance to hit the brakes, I hit the small one, damn it. Not that much damage to the Z. No clue how the deer faired, I went back but no sign of it. The front air dam and the fender flare took the hit, fiberglass will not dent or bend but it will crack. There is a small chunk of fiberglass missing on the air dam I think because it hit the tire and there is a long crack where the flare meets the fender, body filler no doubt. The tire is hitting the air dam when I turn right. I don’t think there is enough damage to cover the deductible so I probably won’t call my insurance company.

        This morning I pulled the bumper and the front air dam off. There is no deer damage to the bumper but the fiberglass flare and air dam need some repair. The sheet metal corner mount for the air dam was bent which caused the air dam to be pushed in, I just bent it back where it should be. I sanded both down to a good base and started repairs. The crack where the flare meets the fender will take the majority of the work. The air dam needs fiberglass repair and a repaint. I started with the flare. The flares are glued and screwed to the fenders so they will never come off. I applied a small layer of dura-glass at the seam and the damaged area. I will follow that with Rage body filler to smooth it before painting.

        I sanded on the inside of the air dam to get into the actual fiberglass mat. I laid on three layers of fiberglass. After that dried I added some fiberglass mat followed by Rage body filler to the outside and sanded it all smooth. I figure I will attempt to paint the air dam to see how close I can match the paint. It does not sit next to any large panel which would show off any major difference. The fender will have to be painted too but the problem is because I molded the side skirts into the front fenders there is no stopping point in the paint. I have never tried to blend paint so I might have to farm this one out.

        Finishing body work is not fun. Sand the body filler, spray some primer, spray some guide coat, sand again apply more body filler, rinse and repeat. The air dam is a small repair in a not too noticeable spot so I will paint that first. If the color come out good I will attack the flare. The fender flare repair is much bigger and since Z cars do not have big flares people really notice the workmanship so much more time needs to be spent. I have been watching a ton of YouTube videos on how the do a blended paint repair, looks straight forward….yeah right.

        I finished the body work on the air dam today. I got the Z out of the garage and laid primer on the air dam. I sanded that after it cured with 400 grit, there are a lot of curves on this thing. I then laid on the base coat and the clear. Color sanding and buffing will take place after I feel the clear is fully cured. I don’t think the metallic is going to match the car. I tried dusting it on the third coat but it doesn’t look right. We’ll see how it looks in the sunlight. I might take it to a vinyl wrap shop and have it covered with clear wrap to help protect it from stone chips. It was pretty beat up after nine years.

        With the air dam finished I moved on to finish the fender damage. I have decided to sand the whole fender which will make blending only were it meets the side skirt. To do this right I removed the headlight and its bucket and the “cuda” gills. I sanded the entire fender with 120 grit to remove most of the clear and followed that with 220 grit. Masking the car for the fender painting is time consuming and took more time than the actual painting probably will. While I was doing this I had a visitor. There is a small group of trees and bushes between me and my neighbor. I heard some rustling coming from the bushes and out pops a deer. WTF!!! We never get deer in our neighborhood. I’m thinking revenge deer or even a ghost deer. It stopped, looked at me for a while and then trotted off. Too weird!

        I have completed prep work on the fender so it is time to lay on some paint. Primer, sand with 400, base coat and clear. I was out in the garage at 7:30 this morning hoping to get all three painting steps done at a decent hour this time. I got three light coats of primer on and let that cure for a few hours before hitting it with 400 grit for base prep. After sanding the primer and cleaning the fender I laid on three coats of base. I let that cure for a little over an hour and put on three coats of clear and hit the blend area with SEM 38403 Blenz-in to bond the new and old clear.

        It has been a couple days since I painted the air dam and fender so it is now time to color sand. I did a much better job on the air dam than the fender. There is a ton of orange peel on the fender, I hope I can get it all smooth. I did the fender first since it looks the worst. I started wet sanding with 800 and finally 1500. I looked it over very carefully and hit any areas I could see that still had flaws. I then took the buffer to it using all three 3M compounds and pads. It took me six hours but it came out pretty good, certainly as good at the paint we put on ten years ago. I still have to color sand the air dam.

        It is reassembly time for the fender. I put the side marker light and the “Cuda” gills back on and declared victory on the fender. I am a little disappointed in my attempt in blending at the side skirt. The blend worked great but the base coat for some reason did not completely cover the primer right at the blend line, bad masking on my part…..oh well it is only a tiny flaw. I may attempt to fix that with some touch up paint.

        I decided to install the air dam and then color sand it. It will be more stable that way. Plus I have never liked the way I installed the fiberglass front bumper so I am going to come up with another plan for it. Like the air dam the bumper has a lot of chips on it so I will paint that too. When I first installed the front bumper I glassed in an aluminum bar the full length of the bumper. I added several bolts to that bar before I glassed it in to give me some mounting points. The mounts in the center worked really well but the ones on the outside corners did not align with any mounting holes on the car. At that time I just made some crude brackets but they were pretty lame. Today I ground out a section of glass on each end to get at the aluminum bar for a flat surface to seat a mount made from some delrin I had from another project. I did have to make these with some contour to match the car body. The mounts are bolted to the bumper and the car body making it a good solid mount. After I got the mounts aligned I pulled the bumper off to fix the paint chips and repaint it.

        I finally found some time to paint the bumper. I used black primer this time so if I get chips they won’t be as noticeable as with gray primer. I put a lot of clear, like five coats, on this time hoping to better protect it from chips.

        One thing that load of clear did was make color sanding easier, or maybe my paint skills are getting better. Granted this is a small part and I only really color sanded the top and front, the bottom I left alone. But it came out pretty nice and only took a couple hours of 600, 800, 1500 and buffing. Hopefully it will stay that way for a long time.

        I have one more issue with the Z unrelated to the deer encounter. There is a coolant leak that to tell the truth as been around for a while. But lately it has gotten worse. Although the coolant ends up on the floor I can’t for the life of me find the source. I tried using one of those pressure tester but the loaner O’reilly’s had would not fit my radiator cap. I got some coolant dye with the glasses and special light. I put the Z on jack stands, put the dye in the radiator, topped off the radiator and capped it as per the dye instructions. I let the car sit for about 4 hours and the leak is back. There was a small area on the cardboard I had laid under the car and with the light I finally see are area on the bottom of the timing cover. I can’t see any trail of coolant leading to that area. But after some searching it looks like the water pump is most likely the culprit. This should be fun!

        Speaking of water pumps I looked hard at the Corvette or Caprice pump since they don't have that extra water pipe the F-body pumps do. But they also have a different orientation for the heater hoses and I don't want to change the setup I have now. I decided to go with the F-body pump again and will put in the same style expanding plug I used before in place of that extra pipe.

        I ordered a new ACDelco 252-701 pump so today I pulled off the old one. What a mess. I tried everything I know to get the water out of the pump so it would not drain all over the optispark, was somewhat successful. The hardest part was getting the hoses off without destroying them. After I got the pump off it is obvious that this pump was on its last legs. When you turn the shaft it makes that grinding metal on metal sound indicating the bushing is toast.

        The pump came today so it is modification time to replace the extra pipe, it was a chore for sure. I used a long pipe to get leverage to free it and then used a drift to keep beating upward on it until it popped out. The expanding plug went in easily.

        It is time to put the new water pump on the Z. I have cleaned the block and the mounting bolts, picked up a new MotoRad 7307-180 fail-safe thermostat, got thread sealer, anti-seize and gasket maker all ready to go. But as usual thing immediately I had problems. I bought an ACDelco pump assuming wrongly that its quality would be good. The made in China cast into the pump should have been a clue! When I tried to install the thermostat housing one of the bolts would not even start. I ended up having to re-tap that hole. Then the bolts I took off the old pump were a ¼” too long so I cut them the length. At this point I am not getting a good feeling about this whole project.

        The pump install went without any other issues. I started the car before I put any coolant in the radiator just to be sure the optispark didn’t get trashed with the antifreeze flood. It fired right up so I guess I’m good. I filled the radiator, allowed the car to reach operating temperature and hit the two bleeders until all the air was out of the system....reverse cooling is weird.