Bringing the Z back!

[BeZerK2112]

I picked up my 1994 300ZX about a month ago now. The car wasn't in perfect shape and needed a lot of TLC. In fact it dosn't even run! My brother-in-law got the car about 2 years ago. After investing 1800 bucks in a custom stereo the drivers side turbo blew a seal. He only got to drive the car for a total of 2 months. The car has since been sitting covered in a garage. He's moved the car 3 time as he moved and could never afford new turbos or have the time and ablity to fix it himself. He needed close to 2500 to get a shop to get it working again. It hurt me to see this happen to him, expecially with such a nice car.

He recently got in a bind with money. It's actually the straw the broke the camels back for him and his wife. She didn't pay rent. She blew the money on something else and now he was being evicted for not paying rent. They finally decided to get a devorce and she owned their only car. He was out of money cause she spent it all and had no car. I didn't want to just give him money, I would never see it again. I didn't want to loan him my car. So I came up with a deal the benifited both of us. I traded him a good running car and 1500 bucks for his Z. And now it's mine. My dream car!

Heres a few pics!





It's not in the best condidtion but it is workable. It actually has a salvage title. I did some research to find out why. The car was in an accident and the owner decided to do nothing about it. Defaulted on his loan and the car was repoed. The bank totaled the car and sold it to a body shop who repaired it and reinstated the title. The sad part was it was only about 2000 bucks worth of damage. But now I have an amazing car for cheap!

The Project Begins!

Well now I have to replace the turbos. The 300ZX isn't known for how much room is in the engine bay. In order to do any work on the engine you have to remove a lot of stuff, or the engine itself. To replace the turbos its an engine removal. I ordered the turbos just before the deal was finished on the car, I was going to be moving and wanted them before it was too late. I got them used.


The actuall project got started last weekend. I got out there and really dug into the thing. I started on top and pulled the radiator, intake hoses, and fan. Then it was too hot to do anything. I put the car up on jack stands which is nice.



Slowly this week I have been taken care of all the additional odds and ends that needed to be done. I droped the power steering and AC pump, removed the exhaust, and unbolted the transmission. I'm currently still in the process of disconecting the wireing harness and any rubber lines that may be holding the engine in. Really all I have left is the 2 engine mount bolts holding the engine in! Thats exciting for me. It's my first engine pull!

I'll leave pictures and updates as I go along! Thanks for checking it out!

[BeZerK2112]

Yesterday was a long day. I got the engine out at about 12:30. It was a mess. Oil everywhere! Leaking from one turbo and from the oil gasket. Worked on the replacing the turbos. Most of my time was taken up from putting the oil and coolant lines on the new turbos and getting them to fit. Everything is almost back together. I'll be putting the engine in latter this week. I'm taking a brake today. I'm totally wasted!


My engine stand I barrowed was less then functional. Next time I'll be getting my own and making sure it works properly. I decided to us it to keep the engine from spinning around as I was working on it. Thats about all it was good for.

[BeZerK2112]

Got a few more pictures of the bad turbo. Man this thing was hosed.


Heres a picture of that the fins looked like.


And the wonderful shaft play that it has

[Polygon]

I grant this the worst turbo I've ever seen award.

[BeZerK2112]

Well it's almost time to put the engine back in. I have an oil pan gasket comming today and want to put that in since the engine is out. Heres a picture of the turbo swap.


Here are the pictures of the installed turbos.

[BeZerK2112]

Well last night I worked on the oil pan. Oil was leaking from the crank seals. I pulled my old ones off and the rubber was nice and hard. Not brittle but hard. It was a pain to get to them. I ended up having to remove the entire passenger side turbo, engine mount, and oil filter mount just to get to it. But it's all back together now. Found some interesting parts in my oil pan. I know what they are do you?

[JROBDATSUN]

Just letting you know that i had a blast on this rebuild. Hope there will be another down the road...

[BeZerK2112]

Welcome to AF John!

[BeZerK2112]

Well I put the engine in on Saturday. Everything went very smooth. I hooked up the transmission and most of its bolts ( minus the hard to reach ones) and was able to remove the supports for the transmission. It's exciting to see back in the engine bay.

Tuesday I was able to get the power steering pump, AC compressor, and alternator back in the car. No belts yet. It took a while because of the weird angles of the engine bay and I didn't have the correct tools. I tinkered with a couple of connections on the wire harness, but mostly cleaned up all the extra crap I had and putting my tools back i n their right place so I could find them again.

Yesterday was good. Spent most of my time getting the belts back on the pulley system. Lost the starter bold. I need to get a few washers for the new one. Hooked up a bunch of vacume lines and piping. So far I only have a few things left to work on:

On the bottom
Starter
Heat shielding
Exhaust

On the top
Wiring harness
Vacuum lines
Balance Tube
Turbo Piping
Radiator

I need to put oil in it again and I defenintly need some new transmission fluid too. Had to disconnect the transmission cooler lines and they leaked everywhere. On me once or twice too! I took my battery to be charged and hopfully today or tomarrow will be the day!

[spddracer]

Hopefully you put a new Timing belt and cam seals, Tensoner ect while you are there, I would hate to see you do all that work and the tbelt go and ruin the entire engine.

[BeZerK2112]

That can all be accessed without having the engine pulled. I'm checking all that today too.

[BeZerK2112]

Well everything is hooked back up. It started on the first try!

A bit of bad news. The last person to change the spark plugs cross threaded 2 of the cylinders. One of them didn't tighten at all. Just spun in the hole. The second went in wrong. I'm going to have to fix it later. I have one coolant leak coming from somewhere. I need to find that. It's going to take a bit, but at least it's drivable.

There was so much oil in the exhaust that it looked like I seafoamed the car. It's gotten better but I need to run it for a while to get it better. I'll post some pictures and videos later.

[coled91]

wow thats amazing i love 300zxs i wish i had one great car though and great job!

[Pornogratherapy]

Originally Posted by Polygon

I grant this the worst turbo I've ever seen award.

Roffle.

[BeZerK2112]

Originally Posted by coled91

wow thats amazing i love 300zxs i wish i had one great car though and great job!

Thanks for the support. I still have a lot left to do on the car.

Heres a picture of the car just after I pulled it out of the parking space it had been in for over a month.


You can see into the trunk and see all the crap I had. I loaded everything in the back after I was finished.

Today I'm going to address a few more things. I want more power and for my boost gauge to work. My buddy came down this weekend to show off his new Z. It was quite impressive, but he wasn't boosting. We looked at mine and decided that his vacuum lines were messed up. Turns out it was my vacuum lines that were wrong. I'm fixing that today and hopefully that will fix the idling problems I have. I dont think my EGR valve is working. Hopefully it will after this.