I still like those wheels...

 

I still hate 'em and Sigfrid ain't a big fan either but he really dislikes my idea (steelies w/Moon disks or dogdishes), so we're at an impasse.
We both agree on Panasports (basically, the default option for early Z's) but have no budget.

The car survived the last week with a completely dry interior, our water intrusion issues seem to be gone. That's a big step towards roadworthiness.

An even bigger step was mounting the exhaust, which frankly, I didn't think was possible. Several hours of ludicrously crude blacksmithing made it happen...we still want the gooder version (flanged instead of slip fit) but this will do for now. It fits pretty well and is hung OK, so we're content at least until we need to get the cat and emission test.
I think it's a bit loud but the cat should mitigate that to some degree.
Sigfrid loves it and to be fair, it is very "sporty" (or, as the English would say, "rorty") sounding, not at all fartcan-ish.

I was unable to find our new valve cover gasket when I was last working and reusing the old one turned out to be a mistake as it leaks all over the place. We also have a suspected oil pump leak and I've already ordered replacement gaskets for both.

We fiddled with timing and basic carb adjustments and she is perfectly driveable now.
This is not to say running perfectly but certainly capable of city driving with ease.

We are very nearly at the end of Phase 1.
The car is more or less "built" at this point, there's little fabbing left.
(We're speaking of the drivetrain/chassis, obviously there's no interior yet)

I'll deal with the oil leaks when the gaskets arrive and we need to rebleed the brakes and adjust the drums. She needs a cat and an alignment and is ready for tags.

Before she gets any "out of neighborhood" excursions, we need at least an oil pressure, water temp and fuel level gauge, the tach and speedo (the expensive ones) can wait.

Money will be the chokepoint for the next few months but we'll keep chipping away at whatever we can as S. recovers from his extravagant summer.

We are both very pleased though...which is a bit unusual.

 

the Z is coming along nicely! pity that you havent been able to convert him over to the steelies it really is a cheap option in comparison to alloys if you dont care about the weight ..

 

Well, I've commissioned Robban to make me a set, so I figure I've got five or six years to convince him.

 

What happened, clokker

 

Maybe he just doesn't have anything to talk about anymore?

 

I'm up in Traverse City, Michigan Plastidipping the interior walls of my brother's car washes.
It's an experiment.

 

Ah. I've been gone awhile. How's the Z coming along?

 

and THEN you have to wait for the fabrication/manisfestation from imaginary to real.. panasports are sexy but i totally get the money thing. it'll probably take me all winter to save for tyres..

 

Well, I'm back in Denver and pleased to report that both Sprocket and I survived the trip with no major incidents.
Put 2800 more miles on the old girl and suspect this was her last hurrah...oil consumption is way up (8 qts. in total) but other than that, she ran flawlessly.
Averaged 23.7 mpg for the whole trip.

I have got to figure out what to do about an engine.

 

Keepin it real, yesterday Sigfrid and I did some actual, hardcore gearhead ****...we replaced the head gasket on the Z.
Okay, I must admit it was relatively simple, the hardest part is getting the intake/exhaust manifolds on right. They are a major pain.

This engine, sold to us as "recently rebuilt", actually looks as though it was.
Glory hallelujah.
All told, it took about 5 hours...five fairly laid back hours.
If pressed, it could be done in under four but there was no point, so we slacked.

The ancient, temporary battery we've been using had finally died, so a new replacement was purchased. Nothing special, just a black box full of electricity.

And she fired right up, settled into a steady, smooth idle and drives like a champ.
S. even managed to chirp the tires a few times.

The head gasket oil leak appears to be gone but the valve cover still weeps from the offside rear corner. Terrible design but relatively simple to address.

The brakes are mushy and need bleeding and rear drum adjustment.
There's a clunk in the rear which I suspect is the half shaft u-joints (historically, the most likely culprit) and we even have the parts necessary to fix this.
I just hate doing u-joint replacement for some reason.

The suspension/steering is tight and compliant and she has a pretty nice stance for a Z car.
Looks good going down the road.

I have a few loose ends to tie up before she's roadworthy...primarily finding and wiring the efan trigger. Tweak the brakes and she can be registered and driven, which is when the million other potential issues will become manifest.

For now though, we're both pretty much ecstatic, we seem to have done something demonstrably right for a change.

 

Oh, how ephemeral the happiness of Man.

What's it been...two weeks?
Damn car wouldn't even cooperate for two damn weeks.

The fuel pump is dead.
I had only a few minutes of hands on time but was able to confirm voltage/ground at the bulkhead connector (so the wiring is fine). I couldn't get into the tank and decided there was no point anyway till I had a replacement pump in hand.
New pump will be here Wednesday, so Thursday I get to find out if my "tank access" strategy will work.
Remember, I've cobbled a FC tank into the Z and although pump access was definitely considered, I've not yet actually tried to do it in situ...so we'll see how it goes.
I think I can, I think I can....

Prior to the discovery of the crap fuel pump I'd been vainly searching for the pigtail for the mythical BMW fan switch...two trips to the yard and time on the interwebs had turned up bupkis.

Our weather was so nice yesterday (80-some °) that I decided to ramble the yard one more time, more as exercise than anything else.
And hit the bloody motherload.

Sometimes, just getting ripped and magpie-ing "shiny ****" is the way to go.
I wobbled through the rows just looking for interesting widgets, anything that caught my eye really.
And useful stuffs just fell into my hands.

I've wanted to replace our leaky valve cover bolts with studs and it turns out that Audi conveniently makes just what I needed.
I found the elusive Volvo fan fuse assembly (they are vanishingly rare for some reason). I don't need it but couldn't pass it up.

I found an airbox on a 626 that might work. It's at least configured mostly like I'd need, but the area is so weird it's hard to tell. Worth the $8 gamble (including filter!) to try it out. Just sticking a K&N on a tube strikes me as too easy and not OEM enough.

And I found the BMW pigtail/switch.
Turns out the little bastard is on the radiator, not the thermostat housing as I'd been lead to believe. Also turns out that even models that have mechanical fans (2 of the 5 Bimmers in the yard right now) use electric helper fans and use the same switch.

What a relief.

After the pump is delivered I'll go over and see if any of this stuff is gonna work and if I can get her running. Sigfrid is ready to tag her so she'll be street legal.
We'll have 45 days to get her e-tested and need a cat installed first, so being able to drive her around would be very useful.

I'm hoping the fuel pump failure is just a blip on the screen and not indicative of a bigger problem, so, fingers crossed.

I spend so much time in "fingers crossed" mode that my hand is deforming.
Kinda like foot binding in China.

 

The pump showed up late Tuesday, so I installed it yesterday.
It was no trouble at all, bulkhead access was not an issue. The entire job took about 45 minutes.

There were no external signs of failure and the new pump plugged in and worked immediately, so I have no idea what might have caused the first pump to die.
Just one of those things, I guess.

I also installed the Audi studs in the head, replacing the bolts that used to hold down the valve cover. Hope that cures the seepage from the rear corner of the gasket. Time will tell.

The third planned project was wiring in the BMW fan switch but I ran into a small problem.
Although all the L-series engines use the same thermostat housing (interchangeable from 70-78), the ports are different. I had fit the switch to our spare engines housing but it happens that the housing in the car doesn't have a 14mm bung, so I'll have to remedy that. Not sure this can be done in situ, I should probably remove it. It'd be nice to prep a port for the eventual temp gauge sending unit but we haven't acquired that stuff yet.

Gauges are at the top of the list though, if the car is to be driven it'd be nice to know it has oil pressure (which our leaks used to confirm), what the water temp is and how much fuel she's carrying.
Sigfrid and I have been discussing it but disagree about the layout.
We both agree on Speedhuts though, so whatever we do it'll be from them, I think.

After I deal with the thermo housing, there are two more little things to do.
Actually, one of them- the airbox- might become a bigger deal but I wasn't able to spend much time "imagining" it yet. That could take hours of fiddlefapping and I'm saving it for last.

I'll immediately address the second issue, which is putting some sort of return spring on the throttle cable. It hangs a bit on decel, just needs a smidgen of assist. I have a plan, only need to look it over closely and get some bits.

S. returns to Denver in two weeks and we plan on getting her shipshape for the road.
Bleed the brakes, check the suspension...that sort of thing.
Assuming it goes well, he'll tag her and we'll be "legal".
Then a whole new level of fun begins.

 

Damn, I would rather have that problem. The "oil" level rises in my car as fuel washes past, the side seals were cut like ****(not my doing).

 

Progress lurches forward on the Z, albeit glacially.
Sigfrid returns this weekend and supposedly the car will be tagged...assuming I get her driveable.

The new fuel pump is in and working, no clue what caused the first one to fail.
The BMW thermoswitch is installed/wired. It tested fine in my kitchen but hasn't been run up to temp in the car yet, so it's only a qualified success as of now. Pretty sure it'll be fine.

A return/helper spring has been fit to the throttle cable/carb linkage but again, she needs to run some more to see if it works. Our car has mechanical enrichment and I can't just mash on the throttle without threatening to flood the engine, so again, we'll see.

I want to put fresh coolant in before the weather turns nasty and realized that now would be a good time to finally hook up the heater core, a job I've let slide for over a year.
The Miata HVAC system is fully fitted but the heater core hoses aren't anywhere close to the Z firewall openings. I've casually searched for an OEM molded hose solution but finally decided that homemade would have to do. Gates makes a line of fittings specifically for repairing heater systems, so I've ordered four 90° splices and 10' of hose and will just tinkertoy the shapes I need to make the connections. It's not terribly complex, no one will ever see them and we'll have heat in the cabin, so...good.
Parts should arrive by Wed.

After a week of sitting there wasn't a single drop of oil/coolant under the car, she seems to finally be fluid-tight. Big step, that.
Assuming it continues.

It could be a big week if all this pans out.

 

My apologies if this has been answered in the thread previously. (I don't have an excuse, I've read the whole thing twice!)
But what process did you use to clean up your new-old replacement hardware? I don't think that's how you got them, haha.

Edit: I still haven't gotten the hang of forum typing. Buttons are for lazy people.

 

All the way through twice?
Remarkable.

Anyways, about the "hardware".
If you mean hardware hardware- like nuts and bolts,- well, most of it is new and rest is junkyard sourced (usually from the interior, where things are generally as new).

Everything else just gets washed (Purple Power is the degreaser of choice, followed with hot, soapy water and a rinse) and then (generally) sprayed with a satin black rattle can.

Recall that the Z is still (regrettably) in Stage One of the project, where we were evaluating the purchase to see what we had and where it may end up, so all the work was kinda "temporary".
More permanent finishes (like powdercoating) were planned once the setup is finalized.
Which may never happen.

Half of the Rock Auto order has arrived, the rest comes Wednesday.
Thursday I plan on hooking up the heater core and final filling the cooling loop with fresh antifreeze and distilled water. With any luck, that should finish the engine work.
And the HVAC (in our case, HV-noAC) will be complete and functional.

Baby steps.

 

Heater core installed and cooling system flushed (again!).
Poured in three gallons of gas, she fired right up.

Took a surprising amount of time to open the thermostat (still have the "original" all brass rad) but she finally got hot enough (195°) to activate the fan, so I know it works.
I've wired the fan so it's not ignition switched, it runs till the coolant drops below the trigger temp after the car is shut off. The two times I tried, this took about a minute- which is fine.
Definitely keep my eye on that.

Sigfrid flew in last night, today we tag the car and make a last check for roadworthiness and she's a runner! She'll get her first real fill up and we might have time to see about getting a cat installed.

This is good.

 

it is!

 

Temp tag acquired.
Things have changed since 2007 when I last went through this- back then a temp tag was good for 45 days and you could get an extension of another 30 days. Now it's ten days with a ten day extension.
That drastically accelerates our timetable.

On the way back from the DMV we detoured to an exhaust shop recommended by a friend of his and they said they could fit us in if we came right back with the car. Rushed home, threw in the dash, controls and steering wheel and dropped her off for the cat install.

We chatted for a while and then I went home.
The install was done at 7 last night and he's got her back home again.
Apparently did a nice job and even added some hangers we didn't have.

Today Sigfrid gets her tested.
Because the Z is pre-1985, our e-test is completely different and infinitely simpler.
A tach is hooked to the engine and a sniffer in the pipe...if you pass your vehicle year standard, you're done. No visual test, no safety inspection.

Unless that's been changed also, so I guess we'll find out.

Lost in our semi-frantic day, the Z's trip to/from the exhaust shop was her first drive on public roads in nearly ten years. We've had her since June 2013 and she'd sat for seven years prior.

Sigfrid's impressions (he was driving):
-The chassis is good...steering, brakes and suspension are tight and work well, there are no weird noises
-Probably running rich but perfectly drivable as is

My impressions (following behind in the chase vehicle):
-Sitting in the garage, I've lost sight of how tiny the Z is. Out in the wild among other cars, it's almost comical how small it is. A Mini dwarfs it.

-The revamped tail lights work perfectly, our brake/TS are very bright and attention grabbing.
With a small, matte black car, visibility is a good thing.

-She's a very handsome car

Now to see if we can climb the last mountain and get her fully legal.

 

Well that is a logical, common sense approach to smogging older cars compared to what we have to deal with in CA.

Pre 76 is no smog, after that the car basically has to be cleaner than when it left the factory and we officially have to have special cats.

 

Well, the e-test didn't happen.

Months ago, when we'd first gotten the carb intake, Sigfrid had the carb rebuilt at a hot rod shop.
They told him to come back when the car was running and we'd get a discounted dyno tune session, so he called them Friday and they basically blew him off...couldn't squeeze us in anytime soon.

That's why we planned on jumping in and getting tested, basically just to see what happened.
Early Sat. morning they called S. and apologized and there was now time to fit us in, so he drove it out and left it.
Sigfrid leaves Monday, so his wife and I will have to retrieve her and then I'll go test her.

This should be interesting.

The drive to the shop involved some interstate time and he took her over 80mph (as registered by his wife in the follow car, remember, we have no gauges yet).
He said there was a little shimmy over @65mph but not too bad...we've not had her aligned yet.
The fan never came on, so temps appear under control.
The fuel tank got it's first fill up, no leaks and the tank didn't fall out, looks like that's all good, too.

Now I just wait.

 

Great update, nice to hear the Z finally hit the streets!

 

Thanks, although we're not through the thicket yet.

After the "tuning session" is over (and yes, I'm dubious...this was all Sigfrid's idea), she does still need to actually pass the inspection.
It's been a long time since I last went through a pre-85 etest and if it's been changed, well, who knows?

I spoke briefly to S. this morning and found out that he thinks we have a four-speed transmission.
We'd always assumed it was a five-speed...mainly I guess because it has a five-speed **** but we'd never driven her to actually confirm.
He couldn't find fifth- if it exists- when on the highway and I don't think it's a shifter issue, so we'll have to see.

I'm not that bothered- yet- because we really did expect teething problems when she finally got running and apparently, this is the first.

 

I am a goddamn hero...the Z passed emissions.

Today was just full of milestones, becoming legal was the biggest obviously but this was also the first time I've driven the car on the "real" street (i.e., not just up/down Sigfrid's block).

It was gloriously awful.

She actually drives pretty nicely- steering is tight and relatively low effort (it's manual), she shifts smoothly and the clutch is easy to use. Brakes need bleeding but they work OK.
The suspension is softer than expected but the whole car kinda hops around, much like a MGB.
It's just gonna take some getting used to.

After the "tuning session"- where she made a whopping 115 RWH on their dyno- she did run nice...maybe a little flat off idle but it's hard to tell.
So far nothing has fallen off or started leaking, so there's that.

Of course, the completely bare metal interior is just unbearably noisy...I don't see why people would intentionally strip the interior from a street car. I can't wait to start working in there.

The e-test was fraught with peril; the "tuners" had achieved a nice smooth idle and tip-off was fine but it was idling too high for the test. "Low speed idle test" is below 1100rpm and I was at 1350.
I dialed it down and failed the test.
Went home, made some adjustments and tried again.
Closer, but still no.
Clever me brought my screwdriver this time, so I made some more adjustments in the parking lot and tried again.
She would have passed but she stalled halfway through, so I raised the idle a hair (@850 rpm according to his machine) and we finally made it.

What a bloody relief.