It was warm and not raining today and on top of that I only had one class to go to this morning, so I decided to dedicate the day to working on the ZX.

Progress made today:
-pulled out old carpet in passanger area
-installed dash cap
-mocked up new taillights
-mocked up new CD player
-discovered some rust

The new dash cap, CD player and CRX seats



Round taillights mocked up on one side


Sum of damage from the garage that collapsed during a big snow storm. Damn snow...


Only rusted spot in the entire car (passanger's side footwell)


The hatch weatherstripping will have to be replaced (notice the standing water)

 

thats too bad about the garage collapsing. The interior is looking good though.

 

Very Nice. Id be extremly pissed about the garage

 

Gotta love those AZ plates!

 

at least you do not have to replace twooden bits fotr the garage--another tarp works well, with some metal work-----oh well---you have given me a weird and wonderful idea for a garage where i live.....the round lites make the car look so very opel gt........

 

I had some more time to work on it today so I pulled off the valve cover to polish it up and take a look whats going on down in the head.

Everything looks good


Wait, whats that?


Major carbon buildup..? Did someone try to run the car on coal..?


Seriously, WTF?

 

A little interior update... ITS DONE!
Well, practically done, i still need to pull the gauge cluster, clean it up, and install the 130mph speedo.




On to the engine bay. New battery tray in the works since my old one turned completely to Fe2O3 .





Next in line is the suspension. I have a whole ton of parts waiting to be installed.

-ball joints
-tie rod ends
-Energy Suspension full bushing kit
-Tokiko blue struts & 1" lowering springs
-Bump-steer spacers
-Cusco strut bars

...probably forgetting some stuff.

 

good job. I like that interrior

 

When I finish up the suspension guess whats next on the list

 

Sick! How much did that whole exhaust run you, including the header?

 

Those look like the headers from MSA, can't tell if they're coated. MSA sells those headers for about $220, but the coated ones sell for more, like $300 for the coated ones.

I got my headers coated from MSA and the new pipe/muffler/tip for another $200.00

 

I paid just under $400 for the header + exhaust package from MSA, but I just looked at their site and it looks like they took that deal down. It's not that much more at regular price though.

 

New stuff!

1. Suspension install is complete
2. Header & exhaust are complete
3. 130mph speedometer installed
4. Ugly orange lights in gauge cluster replaced with white ones
5. All fuel leaks fixed
6. Power steering lines replaced
7. It is insured and registered!
8. Its at a shop now getting new tires, brake fluid flush, braided brake lines, an oil change, and an alignment

 

Got the car back from the shop today. They did all the work well, though the tire installer managed to scratch up the lip on one wheel pretty bad. I'm going back to have a talk with the manager on Monday.

However there was a new problem, none of the gauges, except for the speedometer and the battery gauge, were showing any signs of life. I went back to the shop but the guy in charge told me exactly what I thought anyway; that none of the work they did was electrical in nature so the problem couldn't be a result of anything they did. I pretty much believe him on that one.

First I assumed that an electrical connection fell out as I had taken the gauges out just last week to install the 130mph speedometer. However, before pulling out the gauge cluster I checked the gauge fuse, and sure enough, it was burnt out. Instead of the specified 10 amp fuse there was a 25 amp fuse in the slot. I went ahead and installed a new 10 amp fuse, turned the key, and the fuse burnt out before the car even cranked. I then put in a 30 amp fuse (the largest I had) turned the key, all the gauges came to life - for about 5 seconds - then the fuse turned red and burnt out just like before. Without this fuse the tachometer, fuel gauge, coolant temperature gauge, and oil pressure gauge do not work.

What could be the cause of this new problem?

 

Make sure that everything is grounded properly; I had the same problem and I had to go back and check all the wires again. You could have a damaged wire that could be exposed as well.

 

Yes check to make sure, you don't have any bare wires touching metal anywhere. I have already went through this, with my '82 slicktop. It kept blowing fuses because of a bare wire touching metal.

 

while the valve cover is off you should check your lash pad gapping.

 

The last time the valve cover was off was in April, look at the date of the post. lol


I'm pulling the dash today to see if I can find any bare wires or whatnot that are causing the short circuit. I have less than two weeks before I'm supposed to be driving this thing across the country

 

Your car's looking great. What kind of center/ arm rest is that?

 

The kind that MSA sells

 

So I pulled out the entire dash to look for the cause of the short, cleaned things up, found no bare wires, reinstalled the dash, put in a new fuse, and now the gauges work. No idea what I did to get them working but there it is.

The mess underneath


Dash out of the car


Wiring harness seems to be in good condition


I took the opportunity to paint the front vent area in front of the dash cap which was the only piece of the interior which was not black so I don't feel so bad about spending the afternoon dealing with this mess.

 

If you don't mind me asking, what shifter **** is that...do you have a better pic of it? Good to hear you made the problem go away....for now.

 

Some POS from autozone that was in my friends F-150. The threads don't even match the shifter so it is just glued into place. The deal is that when I got the car the shifter **** that was on there had turned to sticky goo (sitting out in the sun in AZ will do funny things to plastic parts) so I 'borrowed' this one from my friend's truck that was on it's to the junkyard. I guess that makes my Z a hybrid. lol

 

So I took my Z for a little roadtrip this weekend down to a HybridZ meat in southern NY, which was about 140 miles from my house. The car performed flawlessly, aside from having the coil wire arc to the AFM causing it to stall out once I got there. The problem was fixed on site with some electrical tape and I have already replaced the plug wires so thats solved. After a BBQ and some general BS we did a cruise through Punam County, down some of the funnest roads I've ever driven on. The suspension proved to be flawless, holding the car flat through the corners while staying soft enough on rough pavement. I did have a hard time keeping up with the turbo cars however, to the extent that I blew the plug out of the EGR port revving it to 5k rpms trying to keep up. I had always planned on swapping a Nissan V8 (vh45 or vk56) in my car but now I think I'll go the turbo l28 route, maybe bore it out to 3.1L with the kit thats out there. Thats all in the future however. This Saturday I will be embarking on a cross country road trip from NY to AZ. 2550 miles in all. I put 350 hard miles on the Z this weekend and I'm pretty confident that the car is ready for the trip. If not I am a AAA member

Here are some pictures from the meat

 

wow nice pictures, I recognize some of those cars from HybridZ.

On a side note... I was look at your dash cap and does it cover the right speaker? Is that a full dash cap? Im about to order one so I was just wondering

thanks