Me:
Adam, born 1983, interests include movies, cars, computers and video games.

 

Personal Information:

Married to my beautiful wife Pauline in 2013, our first child Sebastian was born in 2014 and our second child Alessia was born in 2018.

 

Current Job Employment:

Working as a Retail Team Leader (RTL) for Repco Auto Parts, currently stationed at the Roxburgh Park store since 2016.

 

300ZX Experience:

Z32 enthusiast and novice mechanic since 2006.

Model:
12/89 Japanese Domestic Model (series I) None turbo 2+2 Automatic. chassis #GZ32-003944

Build Description:
Complete 2000 model retrofit and OEM+ restoration

Mileage:
Purchased with 97,220km and when I began this build project, the car had reached 190,483km

Body Colour:
OEM Metallic Silver (Paint Code: #673). resprayed in 2012 in same Metallic Silver.

 

Bodykit:
Complete OEM 2000 model body styling retrofit.

 

Engine Type:

OEM 3.0 Litre V6 2960 cc (Code: VG30DE) original engine.

 

Transmission Type:
Purchased with 4 Speed Automatic (Code #re4r01a). Replaced in 2007 and then replaced again in 2017

 

Interior Colour:

Purchased with original Grey Tweed (Code #G), retrofitted with OEM Blue Velour (series II) interior 2012.

Arrival modifications:
NOS Sticker on interior rear view mirror, otherwise bone stock fresh import from Japan.

Bad parts on arrival:
Cracked front bumper bar, plenty of minor scratches and marks on OEM body paint work, badly rusted battery tray, damaged drivers seat side bolster, missing OEM scissor jack and tool kit, no OEM stereo installed and the dashboard had the common lifted demister vent damage

Date of purchase:
September 2006

 

Build Project Start Date:

January 2012 to November 2021

Build Budget:
For Parts the budget was unlimited from 2007-2012 (estimated spend was around $60k-$70k)

 

For paint/bodywork the budget was strictly $5k no more.

 

Between 2012 to 2021 the budget for the build had diminished to almost nothing, with only essential repairs and general maintenance allowed to be spent on the car.

 

 

 

My 300ZX’s Story:

The 300zx was been a car that I fell in love with back in 1997 after playing the original Gran Turismo video game on my PlayStation gaming console as a young 14 year old, with the car’s stunning futuristic aerodynamic body styling being the biggest factor of why I love the 1990 Nissan 300ZX Z32 model.

 

 

In 2006 after several years of looking, I finally found an affordable 1989 Nissan 300ZX Z32 to buy in a none turbo 2+2 automatic configuration which had recently been imported into Australia that same year from Japan. I purchased the car for $7550, and it was the biggest day in my life up to that point and I remember having the biggest smile on my face the whole trip home as I was thrilled to finally own my very own Nissan 300ZX.

 

 

Over the next 5 years of ownership, I learned a great deal about the ins and outs regarding the Nissan 300ZX and the community that supports it. I attended many community events including tech days and several victorian based car cruises to places like the Great Ocean Road and the Goldfields to name a few. Over those 5 years I  have also had the pleasure of meeting a great many amazing and passionate Z32 owners who like me love this car for what it is, a great and unquie japanese sports car. I am glad to have meet them and they will always be life friends to me.

 

 

When I purchased my nissan 300ZX, I quickly developed a desire to not just restore my 300zx over time but I also wanted to upgrade it to that of the latest 300ZX model Nissan had ever produced, that being the 2000 Version R 300ZX model sold only in Japan, and are an uncommon sight to see here in Australia and still to this day. 

 

 

 

To complish my goal I spent 10's of thousands of dollars sourcing and collecting brand new, rare and optional OEM 300ZX Z32 parts from the United States and Japan over the span of 4 years in an attempt to create the world’s first fully optional Nissan 300ZX that could have ever existed.

 

 

In 2012 I had to begin the build phase of the project ahead of sechdule as my partner and I were in the process of organising our wedding day and honeymoon events that following year and so in order for me to help out with paying for some parts of the wedding, I stopped my part sourcing efforts and began the complex task of planning out the dismantling and reassembling phase of the project.

 

It took me 12 months of hard work to strip down my car and then reassemble it using all of the new and used parts that I had been sourcing over the last 4 years to make it as close to a 2000 special edition model as I could. I was extremely proud of the amazing work my Dad and I had accomplished with the build and I brought the car to its first official outing on the 2012 GOR cruise and the response from the community was very positive and lots of intrigue.

 

 

After 2012, my new and improved daily driver was driven as much as possible, almost everyday. The car collected over 100,000 kms after 10 years of driving and though the car was basically finished, I still managed to find more and more rare and optional parts as the years past by and depending on finances new additions to the car we installed but the car remained as is for last 11 years or so.

 

My 300ZX’s Big Accident 2021:

 

My 300ZX's Big Crash 2021 (Part 1) #shorts #300zx

 

My 300ZX's Big Crash 2021 (Part 1) #shorts #300zx

 

Rebuild Project Start Date:

November 2021 - ongoing

 

Rebuild Budget:

Insurance payout was $8k after the accident, but the budget has since blown out to an additional $2k with more finances required to complete the rebuild.

 

Rebuild Project Plans:

Obliviously the main goal of the rebuild is to get the car back to a drivable state and repair the damage, so the car will look like it did before the accident occured. I also feel this is a golden opportunity for me to continue finishing off my original build project that I never really finished back in late 2012.

HORN COVERS UPDATE (PART 2)

For this month's update on my new horn cover setup, was that because the RH side horn cover is now discontinued from production, according to Concept Z performance as of 2022. I was originally planning to just install the brand new LH horn cover that I already had in my possession but I then realised later on, that if I did that it would look kinda funny for me to only be installing one of the 2 required horn covers to complete the look that nissan originally intended for this setup.

So I did a quick google search and found only one listing for sale of a pair of used horns covers on ebay in the US and what makes it worst for me is that the cost to purchase this pair of used horns cover, was going to cost me more per cover then what it cost for buy the one brand new cover I already had. Regardless with no other options to choose from, I just bit the bullet and purchased the pair of used horn covers, which then arrived to me about a month later.

The covers where in ok condition for the most part with one of the covers showing small signs of slight melting of the plastic in certain spots but thankfully that was on the LH cover that I already had brand new, so the only issue I needed to deal on the RH cover was that i needed to remove some oversprayed paint covering the front part of the horn cover.

Being plastic I wasn't sure which method of stripping I could using to remove the paint, with paint stripper being to corrosive to use on plastic. In the end I realised that the concentrated degreasing solution I was using to strip the paint off of all the small brackets which so far had proven to show results was worth a try. So I submerge the cover in the solution and left to soad for a few days and as expected the paint just flaked straight off with no damaged to the plastic on the cover what so ever.

Unfortunately the pitting of the plastic underneath the paint from most likely harsh road condition could not be repaired but I did give the cover a thorougher once over with a megiaurs plastX plastic polish before the cover was coated in megiaurs all season dressing, making it ready to be installed onto the car.

All i need to do now to complete the setup is a new set of fasteners and I have yet to decide if I want to go with an OEM set of zinc coated fasteners which would be cheap and easy to source or possibly got the with a set of expensive titanium dress up style fasteners which would not just look amazing but be a super anti corrosion resistant fastener but the costs for just one titanium screw might be overkill for the application, I am not sure which route I'm going to go as of yet.[/CENTER]

FRONT USDM REO BAR MODIFICATION UPDATE

With my plans to use a USDM reinforcment bar instead of a JDM fiberglass version, I needed to make a small modification to the USDM reo bar in order for it to accommodate a mounting bracket specifically used for installing the 2000 model front bumper bar onto my car as Nissan intended.

Going back to 2011 when I first installed my previous 2000 model front bumper bar onto my car, I had also sourced a new later model JDM fiberglass reo bar ([i]p/n: 62030-40P00[/i]) to complete the install as close to how Nissan would have done it back in the day. As you will see below when comparing my original 1989 reo bar to that of the later model reo bar, the later reo bar has 3 additional mounting holes moulded into the fiberglass to allow for a new mounting bracket to be installed onto the reo bar as part of the new mounting setup for the 2000 model front bumper bar.

As like with my original 1989 JDM fiberglass reo bar, the USDM reo bar would also not include these 3 additional screw holes needed for the mounting of this specific mounting bracket from above onto the USDM reo bar. So one weekend while at my Dad's place, he helped me drill to out the 3 mounting holes I was wanting to add onto the USDM reo bar I had and then he showed me how to tapped new threads for each of the new screw holes into the allumium bar. 

With the modifications completed, the reo bar is now finished and ready to be installed onto the car.

FRONT BUMPER BAR UPPER BRACKET RESTORATION (PART 1)

Another item that I needed to address, was the replacement upper mounting support bar for the front bumper bar. This support bar allows for the front bumper bar to mount onto the radiator core support and as mine was badly damaged in the accident, I had to sourced a undamaged used support bar to replace it as brand new ones are now discontinued from Nissan. But being a used item meant that the replacement part I sourced from a 300zx wrecker was in need of some restoration work done so that the item could be installed back on the car the way that I like it.

The first thing you will probably notice about the replacement support bar is, the orange overspray paint on mounting arms which from what I can tell is a common thing to happen when 300ZX's get a resprayed paint job done on the front end and unfortunately overspray paint makes its way onto the arms. 

On top of that, here is a comparison photo of just how badly bent out of shape my original mounting arms were when compared to that of the undamaged used replacement arms I will be trying to restore.

The replacement arms were of course cleaned thoroughly and then left to soak in my paint stripping solution to try and remove as much of the old paint as possible.

Unfortunately this is where I came across an issue that I wasn't expecting to have and I couldnt solved it for over a week or too. As you can see, even though all of the old factory paint work has been removed from the arms, what was left over was a rough powdery like residue substance that was stuck on the surface of the metal which no matter what I tried to do wouldnt seem to come off. I tried using a few different types of checmial cleaners including an allumiuum deoxider solution and even a steam cleaner all of which made no change to removing any of the residue on the metal. After consulting with a mate at work who suggested the solution to me, he said that the paint stipping solution I'm using doesnt work as well with alluminum parts and it does with steel parts, and so now I know why it happened but I still didnt know how to solve it.

With none of the chemical options I tried going to solve the issue I had, I decided to go with using an abrasive tool option to hopefully strip away the surface of the metal removing the stuck on residue in the process. I pulled out my trusty corded power drill and a brass wire wheel and got to work.

After 20 mins or so here is the results of the abrasive wire wheel option I tried and i was pretty happy with what I ended up with. The metal might have been a little bit shinier then I would have liked but it was close enough to bare alluminum as I could get and so I then finished off wire wheeling the rest of the mount arms to leave me with this.

While I was there I also used the wire wheel to clean up the mounting point for the arms where they mount onto the support bar itself.

INTAKE DUCTING MOUNTING BRACKET RESTORATION (PART 1)

Ever since removing my oem intake ducting setup as part of the tearodwn process from the accident, I of have been wanting to restore a pair of mounting brackets that secure the plastic intake ductings to the frame from underneath the headlight bucket panels. These brackets are part codes 62866M & 62866N and like the frame rail lower brackets from section 747, were both showing blistered paint work and rust forming where there was exposed metal from paint chips.

The brackets where stripped of all of the factory black paint and soaked in evaporust to remove any remaining surface rust left on the metal.

The brackets will be repainted in a glossy black chassis paint to bring them back to new condition again.

UPGRADED SILICONE BUSHES DISCOVERY

One neat little discovery I was able to find during the above process, was that I realised after removing that the rubber bushes from the mounting bracket look very much like the same dimensions as the Sspec Designs silicone bushes do for the power steering reservoir.

When I finally compared the two bushes side by side along with the oem collar installed ontop of the zspec bush, I was indeed correct in my assumption that the bushes are pretty much identical.:)

Though it may not make any huge difference what so ever in the functionality that the silicone bush would have over the oem rubber bush, I see it as an longer lasting upgrade path to switch over the the zspec bushes for this application and so I'll be ordering more silicone bushes in my next parts order with CZP or from Zspec Designs direct.[/center]

KOYO RADIATOR DISCOVERY & UPDATE (PART 2)

Continuing on from last months update, I was able to compare side by side my original 300ZX NA radiator with the new Koyo Maxima J30 radiator and to surprise it turns out that the new Koyo radiator is actually double the thickness in its core size when compared to that of my original 300zx radiator. This is great when you think about as the new Koyo radiator should have a little bit more cooling ability then the thinner sized original 300zx radiator.

Other then the core size differences, the radiators are almost identical expect for the couple of differences I mentioned in last weeks blog post.

OEM LOWER RADIATOR HOSE BRACKET

With all of the radiator comparsion stuff now finished, I turned my attention onto another little bracket that I think needs to be looked at and have some restoration work done to it. That being the lower radiator hose's mounting bracket.

This mounting bracket, I believe has been discontinued from nissan for a while now, so replacing it is not really an option and though it has been slightly modified from its original design, The bracket like all the others Ive looked at recently have been better days.

So into the paint stripping solution it went to remove all of the old paint and then the bracket was soaked in  evaporust to again make me another perfect candidite for some glossy black chassis paint to restore it back to new again.

Other then that, I am going to look into stripping down the OEM NA radiator upper mounts while I going to all this trouble paint brackets and what not and maybe add some titanium fasteners where needed. Plenty more work to be done for sure.[/center]

Post removed as requested from the poster...  needing pictures editing

Edited March 24, 20241 yr by bird
Post removed as requested from the post

TOW HOOK RESTORATION

Something I never thought I would care enough to worry about, but after seeing the horrible state that both of my  front factory tow hooks were in during the test fitting of the intercooler ducting and the removal of carbon canister, I just had to do something about it, so off they came.

Before

After

The cleaning process for the hooks and the fasteners that go with it, was done just like all the others parts ive cleaned as of late, expect that the hooks themselves would also need to be stripped of all the factory silver paint before I could attempted to soak them both in evaporust, to removal all of the surface rust present on the hooks.

After a bath in some simple green concentrate cleaner and a soak in some evaporust, the oem fasteners came up looking pretty good with little to no rust present anymore but they all came out of the process without the oem factory dark green coating on them anymore and looking more like just raw steel fasteners as you can see.

This could be issue with further rusting occuring in the future, so to combat this I am looking into coating all of the high tension fasteners that ive stripped of their oem protections, in a DIY black oxide coating that can be done at home easily but I have yet to purchase the required chemicals needed for that process to happen just yet but it is on my to buy list.

The hooks themselves were submerged in my paint stripping solution and left to soak for the rest of the couple of weeks and I hope that the paint on the hooks comes off as easily as all of the paint that were on all of the little brackets have done so far, but we will have to wait and see what happens in next months update.

PARTS ACQUIRED DURING THE MONTH OF FEBRUARY

For this months parts acquisitions, i purchase a couple of items that I think will be great improvements over their factory counterparts for not just oem carbon canister setup but for a couple of other setups in the car as well.

SAAS SILICONE VACUMM HOSES

Starting off with my purchase of several different sizes of new aftermarket black coloured silicone vacumm hoses to replace as manay of my original oem rubber vacumm hoses as I can. These new hoses will be the perfect upgrade for hoses like the ones that I took off on the carbon cansiter where the rubber hoses basically falling apart on me due to age as I was compressing them during the removal process.

For more information: https://www.shopsaas.com/performance/silicone-hose/

NEW SPRING STYLE HOSE CLAMPS

The only other parts that I purchased for the month of February was a 100pc set of spring style hose clamps from ebay. 

I have learnt over the years that regular worm drive hose clamps are not suitable for use where a hose is connected onto a plastic hose inlet/outlet as the worm drive clamps can loosen over time and cause leaking issues. These new spring style clamps will prevent this issue from occuring and as they can expand and contract along with the hoses as they expand and contract when the temperature rises and then falls during heating and cooling cycles providing constant tension on the hose which in turn will prevent leaks.

Using this knowlegde, I will be trying to replace as many of the factory worm drive hose clamps that are used to clamp down hoses to any plastic style hose inlets/outlets just to reduce the chances of having to deal with hoses leaking in the future.[/center]

After 2 massive months of working on the rebuild project, I ended up with 2 major setbacks occuring in march for the project. One being me damaging a pair of rare oil cooler hoses and the other being the devasting results of my restoration attempt on my rusty OEM power steering cooler. Even with theses setbacks occuring progress for the month of march was still made, with me finally taking at look at my used UKDM oil cooler and mounting plate parts along with starting the restoration process on my used twin turbo power steering hardline part. I also got to compare my new fancy GKTech high performance clutch fan with my OEM fan and more work was done to prepare the carbon canister bracket and front tow hooks for paint.

Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@adamzx                     Instagram: instagram.com/adamzx_z32

OEM CARBON CANISTER RESTORATION PROJECT (PART 3)

For the third monthly update on the carbon canister's mini restoration project, I wanted to begin the stripping process on the canisters mounting bracket so it can be restored back to new again. 

The mounting bracket was placed into a large container and left to soak in my paint stripping solution for a full 2 weeks expecting the old paint to just flake off the metal when I removed it from the container but that was not what happened at all unfortunately.

As you can see the solution has not been very successful at lifting the old factory black paint off of the metal bracket and I think I why. The biggest problem with this bracket for me at the moment is the size of the entire area the bracket takes up and so the container it is submerged in wont fit inside my ultrasonic cleaning machine where I can heat the solution up which seems to be the key element to making this paint stripping solution work as effective as it has done so far for me on of all of the smaller sized brackets I've stripped previously.

With the disappointing results from the chemical stripping process, I decided to try and use an abrasive type of stripping method going forward to finally get this bracket stripped clean. I connected a nylon wire wheel onto my electric drill and began aggressively stripping the surface of the metal down as much as I could. Initially the wire wheel was making quick work of the paint and I was glad to see progress finally being made, but thats when I realised that using this method might work well on flat smoove areas of the bracket but it wouldn't be able to get into all of the norks and crannies that I would also need to strip down as well.

So here is where I'm currently at with the bracket which is only about half way stripped down and I'll need to find another way to finish stripping off the rest of the hard to reach areas before I can progress with the restoration.

OEM FRONT TOW HOOK RESTORATION (PART 2)

Like the carbon canister's mounting bracket, I left the tows hooks inside a container with my paint stripping solution and left to soak for a good week or so. 

Even though the hooks did get a bake time in the ultrasonic cleaner, it didn't really soften all of the paint and the paint that was left over had a pinkish stainning to it.

With my second failure using the chemical solution on 2 different parts, I was quite fustrated to say the least and so I pulled out the electric drill and a 60grit flap wheel attachement and basically went to town on the surface of the hooks.

After about an hour of hard work, I was very happy with how both of the tows hooks came out, where most of the paint had been stripped away. But it wasn't 100% stripped as I couldn't get into the mounting holes and hook opening with the flap disc wheel, but it was good to see some progress being made none the less.

WATER PUMP CLUTCH FAN UPGRADES (PART 1)

One of the awesome new aftermarket cooling products I have chosen to go with on the rebuild, is with a GKTech High Performance Engine Fan which I did in an effort to try and improve the cooling efficiency of my OEM cooling system without having to go with an expensive thicker core radiator. I discovered this prodcut a couple of years ago and it has been on my wishlist for the Z ever since I saw but like all things before the accident, I never had the funds to be able to go through with getting one of this units until now. 

According to GKTech's website, the new high performance fan has been designed to be more capable of pulling more air through the front of the car and then through the radiator to improve cooling performance then that of the OEM clutch fan and when tested on a dyno, the new fan can apparantly pull 40% more air through the radiator then that of the factory VG30 clutch fan and though the GKTech fan has designed to fit SR engines it can easily be fitted onto a VG engine when paired with the RB/VG billet adaptor plate.

More Information: https://au.gktech.com/products/sr-ka-rb-vg-high-performance-engine-fan-60-more-air-flow?_pos=1&_sid=06b1d71be&_ss=r

With all of this information I had to get one of these fans as it ticked all of the boxes for me and my setup. It required no modifications to be fitted to the engine, it looked cool and it will improve cooling performance in the engine bay which will lower temperatures, its a win win situation the way I see it.

During the Easter long weekend I got a chance to compare the GKtech fan with my OEM clutch fan as part of my photo archieving work for the project and it was cool to see what the differences were between the two fans side by side and I thought you guys might like to see the comparison as well.

All in all I cant wait to install this new fan design onto my car and hopefully see slightly lower temperatures in the engine bay.

UKDM OIL COOLER & MOUNTING BRACKET RESTORATION (PART 1)

After several years of being in storage, its finally time to pull out one of the rarest mechanical OEM parts I will be installing onto my Z, and that is the UKDM Oil Cooler.

I picked this unit up about 2 or so years ago off of Ebay and as you can see its in pretty average condition but its intact, it doesnt have any visible holes in the unit that i can see and it doesnt leak any fluids from my initial flushing of the old engine oil inside the cooler. Now your probably wondering why I have this cooler when my car is a NA model and doesnt require the use of an oil cooler especially one this large.

Well its kinda a long story but basically it has been a pipe dream of mine for years now to create the worlds first factory style extrenal transmission cooler for a 300ZX Z32 and so this oil cooler is actually going to be part of my new transmission cooler setup for the car and should provide more then enough cooling performance for my factory 4 speed automatic transmission when compared to the tiny factory intank cooler inside the radiator.

As for the long version of the story it goes as follows, over the 18 years or so that ive owned my Z, I have been through 2 OEM transmission's and I am now very pro active when it comes to taking care of my current 2nd replacement transmission which I had installed about back in 2017. When I had the first replacement transmission installed I was told that it was advised by the shop who installed the trans, that they needed to install an extrenal trans cooler into the system to provide better cooling for the transmission and so an universal aftermarket cooler was installed by the shop onto the front of the car.

During my 2kspec replica build in 2012, I decided to remove this aftermaket cooler as it didn't fit with my project goals and because I had plans to install the PWR alloy radiator, I thought the cooler that was included in that unit would be sufficient enough to keep my transmission cool for the forseable future.

When my 1st replacement transmission randomly died on me 9 years after it was installed and a month after I had serviced it for the first ever, I learned that because I hadnt serviced my  transmission in such a long time, the none friction enviroment that the transmission had be operating in after 8+ years or so had turned into a friction enviroment causing the transmission blow.

Fast forward to today and I have now ditched the PWR radiator in favor of a more OEM style cooling setup and I now have the skills and know how to service my transmission myself which I intend to do every 40,000 km.

Anyways since getting this new transmission which I was about to service after it had reached its first 40,000 km service interval, I wanted to go with the recommendation by the shop about installing a external trans cooler to help protect the transmission from overheating and failing on me, and this is where the UKDM oil cooler comes in. I can fit it to the car in its factory location infront of the aux fan on the front cross member and use the factory oil cooler hardlines to route the coolers hoses around the condenser and then run hoses to the factory transmission cooler hardlines. Hose sizes will need to be reduced from 10mm down to 8mm and vice versa going from the oil cooler hardlines to the transmission cooler hardlines but it should all fit up fine from my research.

Being a delicate part I decided I'd first try and soak the cooler in a 1 to 1 mix of water and simple green all purpose concentrate cleaner and regularly scrub the cooler over time. So I placed the cooler into a suitable sized box and left it to soak.

OIL COOLER MOUNTING PLATE RESORATION (Part 1)

The UKDM specific mounting plate for the UKDM oil cooler was another used part I had sourced a long time ago and as you can see it needs some serious restoration work done to it as you can see. I first wanted to strip the bracket down to bare metal and so I placed the bracket into my paint stripping solution and let it sit for more then 2 weeks but like the carbon canister bracket, the paint barely came off at all mainly because I hadnt figured out a way to heat the solution to soften the paint at this point.

So this is where I brought out my hand held sand blasting gun, to try and abrashively strip the paint off in no time but that was far from what happened. 

After 30 mins or so and 5 refills of soda media for my tiny blasting gun, I just couldnt get the unit to work properly and I believe the issue lied in my compressor not being setup correctly and so I would only get 10-15 seconds of blasting before nothing would happen and I would have to reset the compressor and refill the gun and I had to give up on using sand blasting as an effective stripping method for now.

OIL COOLER HOSES ACCIDENTLY DESTROYED

So out of all of the issues I was having cleaning up the oil cooler mounting bracket, I got hit with a major setback which unfortauntely was entirely fault, sigh.

So what happen? Well I put the used UKDM oil cooler hoses in my paint stripping solution to remove some overspray paint that was on the hoses, just to restore them a little bit and I only intended to leave them in for a few hours but I got caught with other things and I ended up leaving them in the soultion for almost a week before I finally went to check on them and as soon as I pulled the hoses out of the solution both of the hoses began melting in my hands, it was a disater. I tried to rinse the hoses off with water but it was too little to late. Turns out that the solution that the hoses were submerged in was a costic form of degreaser which is great for stripping paint when heated but very bad for rubber parts and so I basically had just destoryed the factory oil cooler hoses in a moment of stupidity i guess, sigh.

Not all is lost though, as I did have a spare of the longer hose but the shorter hose, no such luck unfortunately and since then I have found out that both of the hoses are now discontinued from nissan and no longer avaliable. I even tried contacting a few UK breakers online to see if I could source a used pair again but, the only breaker who got back to me so far stated that he doesnt have any of those hoses for sale, so yeah not very happy but I differently learnt a valuable lesson after putting rubber parts in a costic solution thats for sure.
 

POWER STEERING TT HARDLINE RESTORATION (PART 1)

In order for me to consider putting the UKDM Oil Cooler onto my car, another important part that I needed to acquire was the twin turbo version of the power steering hardline that runs from the reservoir and along the front cross member.

The None turbo version of this hardline runs along the top of the cross member as shown below. 

The twin turbo version however has a section in the hardline where it dips down and along the front of the cross member so that the oil cooler mounting bracket can be fitted to the cross member.

So it was vital for me to get one of these twin turbo varients of the power steering hardline as the NA hardline would block my ability to mount the oil cooler mounting plate onto the top of the front cross member. But buying one brand new is of course a no go as they are discontinued and a used unit would have to be sourced to progress any further. I did try several wreckers for a while but noone really knew or had what i was looking for.

But in 2022 I was lucky enough to find a gentlemen advertising 300zx parts for sell here where I live in victoria and after meeting up with him at his yard, I had a plentyful supply of Z parts to collect along with one of these TT hardlines.

After being in storage for over a year, I was finally ready to pull this part out and try and restore as best I could.

I first had to disassemble all of the hardware attached to the hardline leaving me with more rusty Z parts to deal with.

A soaking in evaporust overnight fixed all of that though.

The plans are to strip down the paint and rust on the hardline itself so it can be repainted in either a silver or factory green paint. The mounting hardware for the hardline I was hoping to paint them in a gold paint and maybe add some new fasteners in either titanium or stainless steel.

UKDM POWER STEERING COOLER RESTORATION (PART 1)

This has to be one of the hardest and rarest parts I've ever tried to source for my Z project and it took me nearly 10 years of research and being in the right place at the right time to finally get my hands on one of these very rare OEM 300zx p/s coolers.

The UKDM power steering cooler was only avaliable on the UKDM models due to the fact that the higher speed highways over there like on the autobarn could cause overheating issues for these region specific models, which is why the UKDM models got a larger oil cooler, twin automatic trans coolers in the radiator, a differential cooler and a power steering cooler. The power steering cooler is mounted in front of the factory oil cooler on the UKDM specific oil cooler mounting plate which is mounted to the front cross member.

There were 2 versions of the P/S cooler released during the production run of the UKDM & euro based 300ZX's. The series 1 p/s cooler (90-93) was routed to the HICAS pump inside the engine bay.

The series 2 p/s cooler (93-96) was re-routed to be part of the loop for the power steering hardline as the hicas system went from hydraulic to electric and I believe the series 2 cooler had a slight redisign making it have a better cooling efficiency over the series 1 varient. This is the setup I will be trying to replicate on my Z.

More Information: https://z32enjoytheride.wordpress.com/2015/05/19/post-39-euro-spec-power-steering-cooler/

I attempted to dismantle my p/s cooler back in 2022 but I was unable to remove the rusted hose clamps at the time. Months later I asked my Dad for some assistances and he was was able to help me get the hose clamps removed which then allowed me to remove the old p/s hoses off of the coolers inlet and outlet pipes which allowed me to separate all of the attach parts from the cooler.

As you can see everything is in an extremely rusted and crusty state, the amount of metal flakes coming off of this thing was crazy but I was hopeful that after a bath in evaporust the cooler might not be as bad as it looks.

And to my surprise it came out looking heaps better then it did before the treatment.

Even the hardware didn't look to bad after the treatment and I was over the moon to say the least

Though the cooler and its hardware looked more like car parts again and not all rusty looking. I then began the pain staking process of gently scrapping off all of the remaining old factory black paint or coating that was still on the coolers piping and what was left of the cooling fins, my plan was to repaint the cooler to protect it from rusting in the future.

This is where things took a turn for the worst, after chipping away at it for a couple of weeks I noticed one morning before heading off to work, that the cooler which had been stored in a sealed container after its derusting treatment had began to flash rust while inside the container which was not a big deal at first but when I inspected the cooler more closer, I found the one thing that I never wanted to see and that was several pin holes in two of the inner cooling pipes.

Needles to say I was devasted and I knew straight away that this cooler was now toast and unusable going forward. I did a quick leak test of the cooler which was found to be leaking at the pin holes I had found. Unfortunately the weakened thined out metal can not be welded close and I will have to source another cooler to keep this mini project alive.

I did contact a couple of 300ZX breakers in the UK hoping I might get lucky twice but the only one that got back to me stated that they didn't have one of these coolers avaliable to purchase, bringing me back to square one again.

All is not lost though as it has always been in the back of my mind that this cooler was not usable and that it would be just as valuable as a working unit is as would a template would be for me to get another cooler fabricated. Or use it to find an aftermarket cooler that i could then purchase to replace the oem cooler with. I am currently looking into my options but who knows how long it will take for me to find a solution.

Interesting updates as always. Lesson learned on using stripper on rubber! Never a good idea, even for a short while. I realise you are going for an OEM parts build but I would just run some oil grade hosing cut to size for those parts. Any OEM hoses you find are going to be ancient anyway. 

As for the UK engine cooler as a trans cooler - will you be retaining your OE cooler for the engine then? Personally, you'd be better off using the UK one for its intended purpose as an engine cooler and reworking your original smaller engine cooler for the trans. Not sure how both would mount up though as you are looking to the the UK mounting plate but I am sure you could figure out something.

 

6 hours ago, Peage said:

I realise you are going for an OEM parts build but I would just run some oil grade hosing cut to size for those parts. Any OEM hoses you find are going to be ancient anyway. 

This was what I was going to do if the hoses I had were too far gone to be used.

I have been researching into ways of making a custom hose that replicates the bends from the original hose and I found a product that uses a copper hose bending tool which you can insert into the rubber hose and you can bend the hose to the shape you want and then heat it up with a heat gun to set the rubber in place. It looks promising but I need to do more research.

The other idea I have is to make a replica hard-line pipe in the shape of the original hose I have and use rubber elbows to join it to either end of the cooler and oil cooler hardlines.

7 hours ago, Peage said:

s for the UK engine cooler as a trans cooler - will you be retaining your OE cooler for the engine then? Personally, you'd be better off using the UK one for its intended purpose as an engine cooler and reworking your original smaller engine cooler for the trans. Not sure how both would mount up though as you are looking to the the UK mounting plate but I am sure you could figure out something.

With my Z being a JDM NA model, I don't have an engine cooler setup from the factory which is why I am able to use the UK cooler for my trans cooler and not be altering any mechanical setup of my engine. The UK cooler will add to my OEM parts list to my car that it never had from the factory which is one of my projects primary goals.

I know the UK cooler will be overkill for a trans cooler but as I said in my post, I am very pro active in protecting and maintaining my current 4 speed auto as I don't want to go down the blow transmission hole for a 3rd time as much as possible.

April has been one of the biggest months for project so far, I have spent hours and hours of work stripping down, derusting and grinding a ton of metal parts for the front end of the car so that those parts can then be painted making them look better then ever did when brand new. Also this month I got to use for the first time my new sand blasting attachment for my pressure washer to help not just strip down larger parts I am trying to restore but to also speed up the paint stripping process on existing parts I was having difficulty in cleaning up last month. I also made changes to my plans for my cooling fan setup from last month and I finally got to apply paint to a couple of parts bringing their restoration work almost to completion.

Though I didn't recieve any new parts for the second month in a row, I was able to make a big parts order this month from Nissan Japan mostly containing a heap of OEM replacement fasteners and various other front end parts I missed in previous orders from Japan. These parts will be vital to me being able to re-install not just the existing part setups that were on the car that I took off during the teardown of the front end but will also help me to be able to install all of the new parts I'm currently working on restoring at the moment.

There is still a ton of work left to do on this rebuild project, but thanks to my efforts this month I am one step closer to getting my Z back on the road.[/center]
 

2000 MODEL NA INTERCOOLER DUCTING UPDATES (APRIL)

Last month, I didn't get a chance to make any updates on the progress of the 2kspec intercooler ducts mini project I started back in Janruary, as I got caught up working on other things. However this month I was able to get the replica mounting bracket prepped and painted in a gloss black epoxy chassis paint which was a huge achievement for me to see the finish product of me and my Dad's handy work replicating this now discontinued mounting bracket.

The bracket had been put into storage after its de-rusting process was completed back in February and this is how the metal had faired after a month of storage in a sealed plastic ziplock bag.

The first step I needed to do was to prepare the metal surface of the bracket as best I could and my chosen method to achieve this was by using an abrasive brass wire wheel to strip the surface of the metal down as much as possible. This process will not just clear away any of the remaining surface contaminants off of the metal but it will also scuff up the metal surface up which will help allow the epoxy chassis paint I'm going to use to have something to bond to when I paint the bracket.

I spent about 30 minutes or so working on this prepping phase making sure to get into as many of the tight areas as much as possible. As you can see the metal surface is now no longer dull looking and has abit more shine to it.

When it finally came time to paint the bracket, I first wiped down the entire metal surface of the bracket using wax and grease and a microfibre cloth to clean the surface of metal as much as possible. Then I painted the bracket with 3 coats of Raptor's gloss black epoxy chassis paint waiting 10 minutes between each coat.

The bracket was then left to dry over a entire week in the garage to allow the paint to dry as much as possible. 

And here is the finished product, a nice fully coated metal bracket in a durable epoxy coating which I hope will last for 10+ years or more. I am very happy with how the bracket now looks and I can't wait to get it installed on the car.

FRAME RAIL LOWER MOUNTING BRACKET RESTORATION

Again another item that I didn't get a chance to post an update on last month was for the lower frame rail mounting brackets and so here is what I was able to get done in April. 

Starting off where we were back in February, the brackets had been stripped of their factory black paint coating and the brackets were then soaked in evaporust to remove the hidden rust buildup that had formed under the factory black paint.

Like the mounting bracket restoration for the 2kspec intercooler ducting, I wanted to coat these frame rail brackets in the same gloss black epoxy chassis paint to not just make them look brand new again but to also prevent the metal from corroding and or rusting in the future.

Even though I had removed the rust on the metal using evaporust 4 weeks ago, Upon removing them from storage, I noticed that the metal surface on the brackets had already begun to flash rust again even though the brackets had been left in a sealed zip-lock bag.

So to prevent further rusting of the metal I went about preparing the surface of the metal on the brackets for paint using a power impact drill and a brass wire wheel attachment. The process probably took me about an hour or so to complete the stripping down of the metal which removed all of the flash rust and as you can see the metal surface is now cleaner look and abit more shiny. 

Unfortunately I ran out of time to paint these brackets this month but now that I had started the painting process on other parts of the car, I can fast track the painting process on these brackets in the next update.

BATTERY & BATTERY MOUNTING APRIL UPDATE

One of the newer items I have decided to try and restore or improve upon this month, is a couple of OEM Battery Tie Down Bracket's. Originally when I brought my Z back in 2006, I didnt actually have a battery tie down bracket at all and so over the years I've managed to acquire a couple of spares before I brought a brand new OEM tie down bracket in 2008 and installed it in 2012 as part of my 2kspec conversion replica project.

With all of my efforts currently this month working on restoring several old OEM parts with new paint, I thought Id give the spare set of OEM tie down brackets I have the same treatment. My plan was to simply stripped down the old factory black paint and then repaint them in some Raptor branded epoxy gloss black chassis paint. Simple enough I thought but it would turn out to be much more difficult to just remove the factory paint from the brackets then I anticipated but more on that later.

Before I begin the restoration process on anything, I like to take a before photo of what the part or parts looked like before I started. 

Starting with the silver painted tie down bracket which I found in a wrecking yard back in 2007 or 2008, where the metal on this bracket had already began to rust quiet heavily at the end points by the time I had found it, and the reason it was painted silver was due to my Dad painting it that colour while we were repairing and replacing my original factory battery tray which I found out after buying the car that it had rusted away almost completely and so I was able to source a good condition used tray and install into the engine bay alonbg with the tie down to bring the oem setup for the battery back to factory once again.

The other OEM tie down bracket is a another used item which I purchased to replace the ugly looking silver bracket. It was in almost new condition except for a couple of rust spots forming on underside of the bracket which lead me to then buy a third brand new tie down bracket which I have been using ever since.

Comparison (New Vs Old)

Anyways the first task I wanted to address with both of these bracket was all of the rust on the 2 brackets which required a soaking in evaporust overnight.

The results were mixed to say the least, the rust on the old silver tie down looked pretty bad even after the evaporust treatment, the other bracket however was looking much better with almost all of the rust now removed from the exposed metal.

The next step now, was to strip away all of the old factory black paint from both brackets to prepare the metal surface for the new paint I would be spraying over the brackets in the last phase of the restorartion process. Using the easiest method first, I soaked both brackets in my costic degreasing solution and cooked the brackets for about an hour inside the ultrasonic cleaner.

I was expecting the brackets to come out of the ultrasonic cleaning machine completely stripped down to bare metal but this is where I hit my first brick wall on this restoration process. It turns out that the paint on these brackets seems to be very durable and the costic solution did barely anything to the old paint.

So on my second attempted, I pulled out the brass wire wheel and my trusty power impact drill setup hoping that this more abrasive method would do the trick.

But this is where I hit my second brick wall and even after switching over to a 60grit flap wheel, the time I spent tyring to remove the paint and prep the metal surface of just one of these brackets was taking far to long for my liking.

At this point I had decided that the old silver tie down bracket was becoming to difficult and time consuming to continue the restoration process on and so instead I would solely focus my efforts on the better condition bracket which I was hoping would take less time and effort to strip down and then paint.

Knowning how difficult it was to strip the factory paint off of the first tie down bracket was using the wire wheel and flap wheel attachments on the power impact drill, I figured Id go all out on my next attempt and use a sand blasting method to acheive the results I wanted and having just recieved my new sand blasting attachment for my pressure washer and a 20kg bag of kilned dried sand, I gave it a shot and the results were mixed yet again.

As you can see the sand blasting on this part did remove alot of the paint but I wasn't able to remove all of it and even though it was removing the paint efficively, it was still taking alot longer to do then I was expecting and being that the sand was going everywhere using this specific blasting method and even after trying to continue the paint stripping on this part using a wire wheel attachement on my impact drill the paint just wouldnt budge so I ended up deciding to stop and leave the bracket in its current condition.

Unfortunately a really disappointed outcome to be honest, maybe I was expecting to much from all of the paint stripping methods I have tried on these battery tie down bracket's but after spending all of this time on them and I still have yet to get the results I am wanting, I have decided for now to postpone any further restoration plans for these parts. They are not essential to getting the car back on the road anyways and I already have a perfectly good condition tie down bracket which will do the job fine for the time being.

FRONT BUMPER BAR & REO BAR APRIL UPDATE

For this months update on the front bumper bar section, I continued stripping down and preparing several parts for paint. During that process I was hit with several setbacks which did slow down my progress but after some presistences and hard work, I was able to spray down the first couple of coats of epoxy chassis paint onto the first of many parts I intend to paint for this rebuild and this success helped to motivate me to continue pushing through with my efforts ive been working on over this month.

FENDER SUPPORT BRACKET RESTORATION (PART 1)

Starting off with a couple of spare sets of fender support brackets which mount between the points where the front bumper bar meets the front edge of the front fenders or wings as they are called in the UK.

As you all know, the first task to be done was to remove all of the old factory black paint which included the usual soak in a costic degreasing solution while it was also baked in the ultrasonic machine for about an hour or so. Unfortunately the results from my first paint stripping attempt on these brackets was mixed which i have now come to expect at this point. Out of the 4 brackets I treated, 2 of them come out pretty much stripped of all the old paint, but the other 2 brackets were alot more resilient to the process and still had most if not all of the old factory paint still intact.

So a second soaking treatment was done but with a longer 2 hour cooking time in the ultrasonic machine. This resulted in one more of the brackets coming out mostly stripped of all of the old paint coating while the last bracket still had no change to the amount of paint that was removed, making me feel a little defeated at this point.

Fead up at the lack of progress I had made so far, I decided to just go ahead with the next step of the process and soaked all 4 brackets in evaporust to remove all of the surface rust that had formed underneath the paint.

The last step in the process was to prepare the surfaces of the metal on all 4 brackets for paint. To do this I use a couple of different abrasive methods to strip away the remaining paint and to also rough up the surface of the metal to help give the chassis paint I was going to use as good of adhesion to the to the metal as much as possible. I ended up using my new sandblasting attachment on my pressure washer to strip down the last troublesome bracket which was followed up by all 4 brackets getting a quick once over with the brass wire wheel.

All that is left now to do, is to paint the brackets in a couple of coats of epoxy chassis paint which will not just make the brackets look better then brand new but will also protect the metal underneath from rusting in the future. Unfortunately you will all have to wait to see the finish product as I ran out of time to get it done this month.

FRONT BUMPER BAR UPPER BRACKET RESTORATION (PART 2)

Another part that I wanted to restore in this section was the front bumper bar's upper support bracket which I last touched on back in February. This bracket is part of the alluminum mounting support bar that mounts onto the top of the front bumper bar and is part of where the nose panel will slide and lock into when installed into place on the core support. The used support bracket that came off the mounting support bar had signs of rust on the paint which is why I wanted to restore it back to new again and like with the process of the fender support brackets this bracket would be getting the same treatment.

However one of the biggest challenges with just stripping the paint off over this part in particular was the fact that it was quiet a long piece that would not fit into any of the plastic containers I have been using so far to soak parts in my costic degreasing solution. I had no way to submerge the part and heat the costic degreasing solution to allow the old factory paint to be soften and then be removed. So to overcome this problem I specifically looked into purchasing a sandblasting attachment for my pressure washer as it seemed like a quick and easy tool to use to achieve the results I was after.

once I had acquiring all of the necessary equipment and a 20kg bag of Kilned dried sand, I strapped down the part to a metal wire draw and began blasting the part down.

The process was pretty satisfying to watch and being a mostly flat piece, the sand blaster work wonders on stripping away all of the paint from the bracket.

With the bracket stripped, I then prepped the surface of the metal for paint which again being a flat part meant that the wire wheeling process was not to difficult to get done in a about an hour.

With how well the stripping and prepping process had gone on this part within the span of a weekend, I fast tracked the painting process the following weekend. I applied 3 coats of an epoxy black chassis paint to the part which came out looking fantastic and I was really happy with the new high gloss shine of the epoxy coating. I planned to let the part hang in place for about a week to let the paint fully cure before I can show off the finished product of the restoration of this part next month.

INTAKE DUCTING MOUNTING BRACKET RESTORATION (PART 2)

Just a small update on how the intake ducting's pair of mounting brackets are going with their restoration.

If you guys remember the last time I worked on these brackets was back in February and since then they have been in a seal bag while I worked on other parts over the next few months.

Unfortunately after all of that time in storage the metal had begun to flash rust which is something I wasn't expecting to see but as I'm new to all of this metal work prepping i know now.

As i needed to prep the surface of the metal anyways, I just went over each of the brackets with a brass wire wheel and the brackets both turned out looking better then they did before.

Obliviously the next step is for both brackets to be painted, but again I was unable to get that done this month but I hope to get them all finished up by the next update.

POWER STEERING TT HARDLINE RESTORATION UPDATE (PART 2)

Another small update on the restoration work being done on the twin turbo power steering hardline.

All I was able to get done was a quick once over of the mounting hardware for the hardline with a wire wheel in preparation for paint.

Before 

After

The plan is to coat this in a gold paint to replicate the gold cadium coating the hardware has from the factory.

RADIATOR, TRANS COOLER, COOLANT OVERFLOW AND AUX FAN UPDATE (PART 2)

Another section of the rebuild which has seen a couple of minor updates to mention this month was with a couple of radiator related parts which included the lower radiator hose bracket and a pair of spare radiator mounts which were both in need of restoration.

OEM LOWER RADIATOR HOSE BRACKET UPDATE (PART 2)

Starting off with a small update on the lower radiator hose bracket which just needed a quick once over with the wire wheel to get the metal surface prepped for paint.

Before

After

NA RADIATOR MOUNT'S RESTORATION UPDATE (PART 1)

Another spare set of parts which I wanted to strip down and paint was my original na radiator mounts which for me had always been an eyesore ever time I looked at them when I opened the bonnet and looked at my engine bay. I thought replacing my original mounts with a brand new set of mounts in 2012 would satisfy my OCD which they did for a couple of years but now its been 12 years since they were installed and the new mounts have suffered some dulling and fading of the factory paint.

So I pulled out my old original mounts and began the stripping process.

This was followed by the de-rusting process.

And then the mounts where cleaned up using the wire wheel to finalise the paint prepping process.

With the mounts ready to go, I set them up and spray them with 3 coats of epoxy chassis paint coming out looking amazing even when compared to my 10 year old brand new mounts that have now faded from the sun.

Comparison (Painted Vs OEM)

The mounts were then left to dry for a week before I could apply a couple of touchups to the mounts where needed which I havent done yet.

OIL COOLER & RELATED PARTS UPDATE (PART 2)

With the excitement and thrill in beginning the restoration process on the UKDM oil cooler last month, I had to continue my efforts this month to restore not just the oil cooler itself but to also restore the oil coolers mounting bracket and the oil cooler's related hardline assembly piece which connects to the cooler on the lower front cross member and helps route fluid to the cooler from around the condenser.

UKDM OIL COOLER RESTORATION UPDATE (PART 2)

In last months blog post of the oil cooler, I had submerged the unit fully into a container which contained a solution of simple green all purpose concentrated cleaner diluted at a ratio of 1 part cleaner to 1 part water. 

The cooler was left to soak in this solution for about 2 weeks or so before I pulled it out of the solution to see how well the cleaner has done to remove all of the buildup of road grime and salt that was present all over the surface of the cooler. Unfortunately the soaking in the simple green solution did not help remove much of anything off of the cooler and instead more or so dulled the alluminum which was a little disappointing to see.

As a test of how well cleaning the alluminum would be on an area no one would see, I hit the underside of the base of the cooler using a brass wire wheel attachment to clean up the metal and also remove years and years of dried on salt and corrision.

It took some time but most of the corrision and salt is now gone but as alluminum is a softer metal it has left the surface of the cooler with scratches and marks which is not ideal on the rest of the cooler, its ok for this area as it will be hidden when the cooler is mounting in place ontop of the mounting bracket.

With the cleaning process not going how I had planned it at this point, I felt it was worth changing my focus to fixing another huge issue with this oil cooler which was to repair as many of the bent / damaged fins on the face of the cooler as I could. To do this I basically used a small metal pick to try and wedge between the bent fins and then attempt to gently pry the fins back into their original position. All I can say is that this is a very time consuming job to do and though I was able to fix some of the bent fins back into place, alot of them were so badly bent out of shape that they either broke off the mounts they were attached too or they broke off completely.

Anyways after about an hour or so of work, here is how the repair process is going on the bent fins and i reckon its not too bad and though it will never be brand new looking again, its a start.

For next month's update, i'll be looking into alternative cleaning products to use to help me hopefully actually clean the alluminum surfaces of the cooler and get the cooler looking as brand new again as possible and Ill also finish off repairing all of the remaining bent fins as much as I can to complete the restoration work.

UKDM OIL COOLER MOUNTING BRACKET RESTORATION UPDATE (PART 2)

Last month I was in the process of trying to strip down the old factory paint from the surface of the mounting bracket using a soda blasting method which didn't end up working too well for me because my air compressor was not setup correctly for blasting. What I ended up doing this month was give the bracket a long hot soaking in my costic degreasing solution which did manage to soften most of the remaining paint from the surface of the metal.

The mounting bracket was then soaked in evaporust as you would expect to remove as much of the rust off of the surface as possible.

Once the rust was all gone, I then hit the surface with a wire wheel attachment, to clean up the rest of the metal surface so that I can now paint the bracket in an epoxy chassis paint.

OIL COOLER HARDLINE ASSEMBLY RESTORATION (PART 1)

The final part related to the oil cooler setup that I needed to restore, was the oil coolers hardline assembly which mounts onto the front cross member next to the oil cooler and wraps around the lower left corner of the condenser. The purpose of this hardline piece is to help route engine oil coming from the engine and around the condenser to the oil cooler and then back again. I'll be using this same setup for my new trans cooler setup but instead of the fluid travelling to the side of the engine it will flow towards the front of the engine and connect to the existing trans cooler hardlines to complete the new trans cooler setup for my transmission.

I gave the hardline piping assembly a thorougher cleaning to begin the restoration with some simple green hoping the staining on the metal would be removed but as you would of guessed it wasnt going to be that simple for me.

Due to the complex shape that the pipe assembly has, I decided the best way to strip down the metal surface of the piping assembly was by sand blasting it which I hoped would be a simpler way to get into all of the tight areas of the piping assembly.

Though the sand blasting method did work well to strip down the piping assembly, it didnt get into ever nook and cranny which was due to the way I had to mount the part to a wire basket to be able to hold the part while I was blasting it. Still it was a great and fast method to strip the metal down.

To prep the metal surface further so it can be ready for paint, I will be using a wire wheel attachment and going over the metal as much as possible but due to the complex shape of the piping, I found it difficult to be able to hit every surface at ever angle possible. But I did manage to get alot of the metal cleaned up after about an hour of work.

I will continue with the wire wheel prepping using a dremal going forward which should allow me to get into the harder to reach areas which I couldnt get before using the big impact drill.