New Z - Decrapification Day

[TellarHK]

So today is the first day of ownership for my roommate and I when it comes to the new Z. And, as I'm sure a number of projects here have begun, the first order of the day was "decrapification" as the car had been fairly well abused by prior owners. I'll go into detail below, but at this juncture I would like to apologize in advance for comments I may make which might cause offense or ruffle a few feathers. Things were done to this car that should never be done to a vehicle of this caliber. These things have left me in a state of amusement and annoyance, but I know many car owners have done this kind of work in the past. I did a fair bit of crappy work on my first car, but an '86 200SX is not the same as a Z.

Here, I'll first post a picture of a taste of things to come...

These wires were a bundle of crap in the rear of the car, which appeared to be hooked up to LED lights that were located either on the rear of the car or inside the wheel wells. Yes, the wheel wells.


Here's an example of poor man's dynamat applied to the extreme. This foam (and some thin foam house insulation) was crammed into every nook and cranny under the hatch panels. I probably removed about twenty square feet of it this morning. You can also see the person's attempt at joining together two pieces of monster cable - several dozen feet of which have been run throughout the car for his amplifier and subwoofer installation, neither of which were in the car when we purchased it.

In the lower right corner of this picture, you can just barely make out a cluster of... something. Let's zoom in and get a better look, shall we?


There we go, wood screws holding down the ground lines. What makes this even more hilarious is that the ground lines were spade connectors - but the wood screws were just used to drill right through the spades and go through the bottom of the car.

Now for a brief segue up to the front of the car. Like many sports cars, the front bumper suffered a fair bit of mistreatment at the vicious hands of curbs. So the solution? Dremels and fog lights!

Here, we see the lower half of the bumper has been sliced off and a pair of fog lights were dropped in place. Well, by dropped I mean they were drilled in place with wood screws again. All rusted out, too. Removal's not going to be easy, so we're just going to replace the whole bumper.

Here's a quick overhead shot that really establishes the character of this whole decrapification process.


I'll just let people look that picture over and come up with your own impressions for now. But I'll be updating this thread throughout the day as work continues. There will be a few things I have to ask the crowd, as far as replacement parts and repairs go, but I'm not sure if I should do it in this thread or others? Any suggestions?

[ffrpwner]

hmm any shots of the car besides the front bumper ha i wanna see the whole thing....

if your going front bumper you should get the jspec since its around the same price as the oem....



then you should re do the interior....clean all of that stuff out go to classifieds on here and look through the part outs for interior pices...you can replace the seats with oem leather seats or find some nice sparco or bride bucket seats....

ummm other then that seems like you have a nice little project on your hands but you seem more then capable of fixing her up

[evildky]

wow, I love that the 2 wires that are tapes to 2 more wires each were so sexy they had to run taht ont he outside fo the panel soe everyone could see it! now thats just hawt

and thats nto house insulation, but hey at least they tried, I hate hearing cars rattle down the road with more panel vibration than music

[TellarHK]

Here are a couple more pictures of the car itself that I just went out and took.




With the change we found, the car only cost $1,698.60!






All those cables in the lower left? About a tenth of what was pulled out just from the hatch area.

Oh, and there was house insulation in the car, just not in that photo. We tossed it all right in the trash. It was the thin foam kind, not fiberglas. We could tell by the markings printed on one side of the pieces.

[ffrpwner]

so new front bumper...paint....complete interior overhaul sound system head unit....and then rims and suspension....then 5 spd trans

that would be my list in importance to me haha

i assume you have similar outlooks....haha

i wouldnt of bought it just because im not a project guy really but i see good things for this car in the future GL lol

[BigTDogg (MA)]

Bless you sir, and not in the Nigerian scammer kind of way. You have a long road ahead of you for bringing this car back to glory.

The seats could just be recovered if the foam is in good shape. Even not, you can add some foam under the new covers.

I've heard good things about this guy: kmahmood(interior-innovations)

but the absolute best stuff is from http://www.importsextreme.com/

The audio is just a nightmare, and you're obviously better off just running new wires to each speaker and hoping they didn't f*** up the dash wiring too bad, so you can at least find a constant 12V and switched 12v source.

Interior panels and the front fascia, you can usually find in classifieds on here or twinturbo.net (another Z32 specific site, not just for twin turbos). Members are always selling that stuff, and used will save you big bucks over new.

Best of luck with the project!

[Cyman]

There will be a few things I have to ask the crowd, as far as replacement parts and repairs go, but I'm not sure if I should do it in this thread or others? Any suggestions?

personally, I would make a Restoration thread of some sort and put all this info + updates in there.

it's sad to see such a molested Z most people would stay clear from something like this. it's nice to know you're going to make it pretty again.

I think the body panels were left pretty clean, all things considered. you need a front bumper and some paint, but everything seems straight and what not.

I found the duct tape amusing.

[TellarHK]

personally, I would make a Restoration thread of some sort and put all this info + updates in there.

it's sad to see such a molested Z most people would stay clear from something like this. it's nice to know you're going to make it pretty again.

I think the body panels were left pretty clean, all things considered. you need a front bumper and some paint, but everything seems straight and what not.

I found the duct tape amusing.

We found a lot of what's been pulled out to be quite amusing. Duct tape, lots of "spray tape" globs, LED lighting strung up in ridiculous places all over the car. Better yet, the LED lighting the guy used? Windshield sprayers with LED's in the front. And the sprayers with LED's he actually put on the hood? Disconnected. Don't even work as sprayers.

I just thought I'd split the threads up a little, the decrapification one for now and then a proper resto thread as soon as we start getting parts in. That's probably going to be a week or two out, since there aren't any parts cars in the pick and pulls near Reno.

[TellarHK]

Bless you sir, and not in the Nigerian scammer kind of way. You have a long road ahead of you for bringing this car back to glory.
Best of luck with the project!

Thanks! We'll be working hard on getting it restored to something more respectable soon. The links you offered up are great, and we'll be looking at those if it looks like the seat frames and foam is salvageable. Seats are going to be tough, as shipping a new pair would get pretty pricy and the pick and pulls don't have any cars in them right now. A rebuild would probably be good, but my roommate might have other ideas and will be posting here on the forums sometime today as well.

[tg]

definitely a mess, but it'll be a good learning project and an impressive before/after

[Corvidae]

Tellar's roommate here. Thought I'd throw in another couple of fun tidbits:

* There were LEDs jammed in the holes where the reverse lights go (center rear panel in the trunk). It looks like they were connected to a panel that was attached with machine screws (and wood glue!) to the plastic panel with an on/off switch. This is part of what was connected to that twisted pair of red/blue cables in the first shot.

* The rear speakers were replaced with what I believe were 5x7 400W Pioneer speakers. Not too bad, until you realize that in order to get them in, he had to cut most of the bottom of the bracket away and drive 6-8 screws into the sides of the bracket at strange angles to get them to stay put. The best part? They were blown. Considering some of the wiring crimes against humanity in this car, it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if his shoddy wiring trashed a few hundred dollars' worth of stereo equipment.

* All the major cables connecting to the rear are Monster Cable, and not the "cheap" MC either. I think he basically ripped the entire interior out to run the power + signal cables along the centerline of the car (they go under the center console). I'm leaving them in there for now, just so I don't have to take the front half of the car apart to get rid of them. Without all the foam there, there's plenty of room to stash them away.

* For some unknown reason, every other number on the speedometer is blacked out with a Sharpie.


At least he didn't try to add his own turbo to the engine or anything.

[SarahLovesHer300zx]

* For some unknown reason, every other number on the speedometer is blacked out with a Sharpie.

WTF!?

[Corvidae]

WTF!?

That's what I said. We'll take a pic later. Maybe someone out there has an idea why the previous owner would do something like that.

[TellarHK]

Here's the speedometer clusterf**k, for those amused and interested.



Speaking of which, would it be forum kosher to start a "parts wanted" thread someplace here or in technical? It's looking like we're going to have a heck of a list going here.

[ffrpwner]

WTF all i can say

why would he go through all the trouble to take that apart just to black those out

[jedijeff123]

and go thorugh all that trouble only to black it out with...a sharpie...at least use real paint if ur gonna do that lol

[SarahLovesHer300zx]

Probably to make it like those speedos that go so high they only show incriments of 20 mph.. wait, our speedos already do that.. wow, this guy should be shot in the face!

"Im sorry officer, i couldnt see how fast i was going.."

[BigTDogg (MA)]

Speaking of which, would it be forum kosher to start a "parts wanted" thread someplace here or in technical? It's looking like we're going to have a heck of a list going here.

There is a 300ZX Classifieds section, you can place your wanted ads there.

[Cyman]

This car is *win*

I really wish you could have snapped pictures at night with all the LEDs on.. it would have been funny to see what the Z would look like after being converted into a Christmas tree.

as for the speedo.. it is pure sex, but he should have gone a bit further and given the speedo a mustache or something. or maybe made the speedo/tach look look like some boobs. idk.

[alright2020]

hope you enojy wiring ahah

[TellarHK]

This car is *win*

I really wish you could have snapped pictures at night with all the LEDs on.. it would have been funny to see what the Z would look like after being converted into a Christmas tree.

as for the speedo.. it is pure sex, but he should have gone a bit further and given the speedo a mustache or something. or maybe made the speedo/tach look look like some boobs. idk.

Oh, that would have been fun... if a single one of the LED's actually worked. All... uh, checking ... five. All five inverters for LED powering (that we know of) are blown, three of them are now in the trash. Two are still under the hood with snipped wires that we need to track down. And yes, we _will_ be tracking that crap down.

Fortunately neither of us really _enjoy_ wiring, but Corvidae's pretty good at it. Also, he's the skinny one so he gets to crawl around and do that sh*t. We've got a couple of power drops we need to figure out now, but I'll be getting into detail on those in the "Begging for help" threads to come.

[z32pilot62]

Here are a couple more pictures of the car itself that I just went out and took.

Hmm, looks like my front bumper...

[TellarHK]

Speaking of which, would it be forum kosher to start a "parts wanted" thread someplace here or in technical? It's looking like we're going to have a heck of a list going here.

There is a 300ZX Classifieds section, you can place your wanted ads there.

Read, processed, written, and parts-wanted-na-1990-2-0-black-gray-int-t500925.html ... done. Hopefully people check out that forum on a fairly regular basis.

[TellarHK]

I thought I knew how to swear.

Today has shown me that my vocabulary of vulgarity is in dire need of a proper vision for vileness.

I present to the assembled masses, a vision of automotive horror so pure, so Hitchcockian in its bloodcurdliness, that your hearts may indeed cease to beat from shock. The management assumes no liability for your continuing beyond this point. I bring you... the Tweety Omelet.



Yummy. I've always loved eggs, especially when they're scrambled with a nice helping of milk in the mix to get them all extra-fluffy! So here I see a real bonus with this poor Z, free eggs!




It's like I have my own chickens now, eggs forever! But at the center of every egg, there's a little bird waiting to fly free.



I'm not sure if I want to cry, or behead someone. Is there any easier way to dissolve this crap? Or am I now officially in "Just get new parts" territory here?

[DanDrath]

why is there a tweeter burried in ure vent?

[ZXdriver]

* For some unknown reason, every other number on the speedometer is blacked out with a Sharpie.

What a f**kin idiot...

[ZXdriver]

Here's the speedometer clusterf**k, for those amused and interested.



Speaking of which, would it be forum kosher to start a "parts wanted" thread someplace here or in technical? It's looking like we're going to have a heck of a list going here.

Wow it's so custom!
douchebag.

[TellarHK]

why is there a tweeter burried in ure vent?

That's a really good question, especially in light of this discovery Corvidae made while I was in here checking on some things.



The tweeter is completely full of foam.

Which actually comes as a surprise, seeing how we discovered the previous guy installed the splitter for the two speakers in a really good fashion.



And yes... that's more packing foam tucked inside there.

[ffrpwner]

wow poor z this thing is so in need of your guys help....i personally want to thank you it breaks my heart to see a z get raped like this

[DanDrath]

i think the p.o wasa crackhead and his parents were monkeys. What kind of moron would do any of that, i mean even if u dont know how to do it still wtf. lol i am glad you are saving this poor z