In February 2014 I removed the calipers from the car. In January 2020 I bolted them up to the car… just as well I’m not getting paid to do this for a living! Before starting this project I would have looked at well used parts and considered them scrap metal. I did in fact scrap a perfectly good exhaust manifold becase it had a bit of surface rust on it… I threw it out! What possessed me at the time I do not know. That exhaust manifold, along with many parts like the brake calipers here, have been eye-opening lessons …
Summer 2020
There are some parts that you just know are abundant but you struggle to find anyway. The transmission crossmember for an early gearbox had eluded me for months and months as I persisted in limiting my search to Australia only. I relented and after posting on Instagram one was on its way from the US in less than a day. In early December I decided to free up some floor space and take the engine in to Stewart Wilkins Motorsport. He has already reconditioned my differential and transmission and I trust his many years of working on these cars will …
Brake Warning Switch
The brake warning switch from the Datsun 240Z is a simple design. It detects a difference in hydraulic pressure between the front and rear brake system and alerts the driver via a warning light on the speedometer gauge. The unit receives the front and rear brake lines from the brake master cylinder. It splits the front between left and right while the rear is sent via one line and is split between left and right at the rear proportioning valve. When a loss of hydraulic pressure is detected at any point beyond the unit’s exit ports of around 13 to …
Autumn 2019
This season I was detirmined to get the car finally back on its wheels. I always feel like I’m working slowly – and I am – but the results are worth it and I can’t see anything changing. This will take me a long time to complete but I am enjoying every hour in the garage. A large piece of the puzzle was the new shocks from Koni made availavble by MSA. The timing was perfect and I took advatage of the pre-order as soon as I could. The fit and finish is fantastic but obviously it’ll be a while …
Suspension Detail
Immensely satisfying to be finally assembling components instead of cleaning decades of grease off them. This is what I was picturing all those years ago when I set out to restore a car. The reality is not far from the fantasy in this case. A smile grows to a grin each time the roller door winds up. Hopefully I can keep up the momentum now that I’m on a roll. Get it?
Rear Drum Brakes
When I took on this project in 2014 I pictured myself assembling factory new parts in a lab like environment and everything worked just as it did in 1970. Reality rarely meets fantasy; it takes time and effort to achieve fantasies. Some of the brake hardware has been purchased over 2 years ago and the rest has just sat around waiting for its restoration. The biggest time waster is finding myself short of a nut or something trivial that needs to be plated which has a month turnaround. Even simple things like painting parts properly has to be executed with …
Hardlines… Tick!
Very pleased to have learned a new skill and I’m happy with the results. Let’s hope they don’t leak!
Autumn 2018
Reproduction Autumn started off with a bang! On day one I finally joined the exclusive club of RH door mirror owners thanks to Ian from the Gong. I can clearly remember scouring eBay for door mirrors as early as a month into purchasing my rusty shell back in January 2014. They might not be as rare as I make them out to be but you do need a lot of luck to find one. A couple of weeks ago Chinese reproduction RH door mirrors popped up on eBay and by all accounts are an excellent copy and likely to be …
Are Copper Nickel Brake Lines Legal in Australia
Copper Nickel alloy brake lines, otherwise known as Cupro-Nickel, Kunifer or Cunifer, are mainly used in Europe to protect the braking system from failure due to corrosion caused by salt on their roads. In Australia there is no salt on the roads, unless someone drops their McDonald’s chips, so the product is not widely known or used. Cupro-Nickel came to my attention as an alternative to zinc coated steel bundy tube in early 2018. It appealed to me for three very good reasons. Inherrently corrosion resistant with no coating to wear out Bends much easier than steel or stainless steel …
Summer 2018
Collaboration I dabble in a bit of photography and I keep hearing the arty folk liberally throw around the ‘collaborate’ buzzword. At work we recently dealt with a young company and their hip employees couldn’t resist using it in every paragraph of every email they sent. I’m not quite that hip but allow me to use it just this once. I’ve been collaborating with some amazingly generous and passionate people lately. Without their assistance my results would be sub par but I’ve come to realise that, outcomes aside, it’s the relationships built that are far more precious. Progress was elusive …
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