DJ_Party_Favor

PARTS ACQUIRED DURING THE MONTH OF JANUARY 2025 The last item to talk about for this months blog updates, is to do with a new part acquisition I was able to acquire all the way from Japan and though this new part is not a super rare optional part that I typically am on the look out for, it was a part that I know is now discontinued brand new from Nissan Japan and finding a used unit out in the wild online was going to be the next best way for me to acquire it for my 300ZX build project. Used Intercooler Duct Outer Bracket (Nissan P/N: 14486-VP100) https://i.postimg.cc/h4w57Jj5/Intercooler-Mounting-Bracket-Fabrication-2024.png https://i.postimg.cc/KvMs7Z3n/New-custom-made-bracket-1.jpg I then coated the custom made steel bracket in a high gloss chassis paint to protect it from rusting in the future. https://i.postimg.cc/CLq6CFns/Mounting-Bracket-After-Paint-2.jpg I installed the bracket onto the car during the final assembly process in October and the custom made bracket worked great to allow me to install the 2000spec intercooler ducting's onto the front section of the car. https://i.postimg.cc/jd7k6snh/7-During-Assembly-Process-LH-Intercooler-ducting-Mounts-2-Installed.jpg Fast forward 3 months later and while I was searching yahoo auctions looking for rare and optional parts to buy, I came across this auction for a single 2000spec intercooler ducting along with the 2 side brackets that the ducting uses to attach to the front frame of the car as well. https://i.postimg.cc/vHVS7QxV/Used-intercooler-Ducting-For-Sale-in-Japan.jpg At a price of only 3,000 yen which at the time was roughly $33 AUD, not only would I be getting the OEM bracket I needed but I would also get a spare LH intercooler duct, a spare inner bracket and spare OEM hardware which for me was a no brainer and so I emailed my contact in Japan and organised to purchased the group of items off of Yahoo auctions through him and it has taken about a month or so for the parts to finally arrive to me here in Australia. https://i.postimg.cc/YCNnVb34/Used-Set-Intercooler-Duct-and-Brackets-Arrived-From-Japan-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/tg2rRJ89/Used-Set-Intercooler-Duct-and-Brackets-Arrived-From-Japan-2.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/W3z5djPh/Used-Set-Intercooler-Duct-and-Brackets-Arrived-From-Japan-3.jpg As much as I would have loved to just install the new replacement bracket onto the car, with all of the brake system and transmission issues the car has right now, I have decided to wait until the car is back to being mechanical functional once again and then when I have the time to install a few miscellaneous parts on the car, I'll do the installation process of the replacement bracket then.

REPLACING MY LEAKING POWER STEERING RACK Now its time to talk about that power steering fluid leak which my Dad discovered during the installation process of the pair of twin turbo front brake calipers. From what my Dad told me about the leak, was that it was pretty bad and when he turned the steering wheel full lock to either side of the car depending upon whichever caliper he was trying to install. He found a pool of power steering fluid on the garage floor directly under the right hand side rack end boot and he also stated that the amount of fluid coming out of the boot at the time was so much, that he reckons that if I was to have driven the car with the leak present, I would have very quickly leaked out all of the power steering fluid out of the system within several minutes and if that would have happened it would have cause all kinds of damage to the hydraulic steering pump and steering rack shortly after would and so obliviously we needed to address this power steering fluid leak as soon as possible. I will admit to you all, that this isn't just some random power steering fluid leak that just so happen to occur at this particular point in time. In fact this steering fluid leak has been an ongoing fluid leak on my car since I discovered it back in 2021, where I initially spotted the leak during a chassis inspection of he undercarriage of the car and though the leak really wasn't that bad when I discovered it. As you can see in the below photo, the rack end boot was beginning to become covered in power steering fluid but their were no signs of actually fluid dripping out from the boot at that time. As you would expect the steering fluid leak on the steering rack has been gradually getting worse as the years have past by and that leads us up to present day where the leak has now become so bad that if I didn't address it now, I run the risk of damaging several components in the steering system if the hydraulic part of the system was to run out of fluid completely. https://i.postimg.cc/VLcSQkcL/Old-leaking-Power-Steering-Rack.jpg The good news is that anticipating this was going to eventually happen to my car, I managed to found and purchased a reasonably price used power steering rack off of eBay that looked in decent enough condition and had no signs of leaking rack end boots on it. The replacement rack has been sitting in storage since I received it, waiting for the moment such as right now, when I was going to need to use it to replace my original leaking power steering rack. My Dad knowing that I was still too busy to have enough free time on my hands to get the swap over of the power steering racks done in a quick enough timeframe, he again offered to help me to do the work needed to swap over the 2 steering racks. This meant that I wouldn't get the chance to see the removal and installation process of the steering rack components onto my car, which would have allowed me to further increase my mechanical knowledge and understanding during the process. Still having my Dad be able to go through the whole removal and installation of the 2 power steering rack's for me was going to not just speed up the repair of this power steering fluid leak situation but once it was done, I could then my attention back to focusing on continuing to pull apart more brake components to hopefully find the cause of my spongy brake pedal problem much sooner then if I was to have to try and fix this fluid leak myself. Once I got home from work later that afternoon, I was then able to see my Dad's handy work with the newly installed used replacement steering rack now in place onto the front cross member of the car and finally there are no leaks to be seen coming from anywhere on the steering rack. https://i.postimg.cc/MTTSB6f1/New-Power-Steering-Rack-Installed-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/wBFz3yM7/New-Power-Steering-Rack-Installed-2.jpg To finish off this blog, the plans I have for my original leaking power steering rack will be a full teardown of the rack and then I will learning how to and going through a full rebuild of the unit myself. The rebuilt steering rack will then be put away into storage so that it can be used in the future as a backup replacement for this replacement used steering rack. I predicate that in the future parts like these will become very hard to find and also very expensive to replace and I prefer to have a spare brand new like condition unit sitting in storage now so that I don't have to worry about finding one in the future.

DISMANTLING OF MY ORIGINAL BRAKE MASTER CYLINDER After failing every attempt so far to fix my car's current spongy brake pedal feel problem over the last 2 months or so, It was time for me to take a big step back on further diagnosing the problem and instead I now wanted to alter my focus on trying to increase my mechanical experience, knowledge and understanding of the individual components within the braking system. I hope that this exploratory new process I am about to undertake, will eventually lead me to find the problem part that has been causing me to be unable to bleed all of the air out of my braking system. Targeting a single mechanical part at a time, I want to learn how to disassemble each part down to its most basic components as much as I can, from there figure out and learn how that specific mechanical part functions inside and out. Once I understand how that part works, I can then know if the part is faulty and how that part can be repaired in the future. Once I have solved the spongy brake pedal problem using this new learning experience, I can then expand my learning process to include other systems on the car such as the power steering system and maybe some electrical components as well. Starting off this new process, will me the disassembly of my original factory brake master cylinder which was present on my car when I brought it back in 2006 and then I replaced it with a 2000spec later model variant in 2011. The original BMC was then reinstalled back onto the car during the last time I attempted to do a brake caliper and rotor change on my car back in 2017 where my Dad assumed that the later model BMC was faulty. Dismantling this BMC and inspecting the 2 internal pistons and the bore of the cylinder will help me to verify whether or not this brake master cylinder is either good or bad. https://i.postimg.cc/jjCNP71t/1-Before-Photo-2.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/YSjgYWPt/1-Before-Photo-3.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/MGXRVQL2/1-Before-Photo-4.jpg The first step is to remove the primary and secondary pistons found inside the master cylinder. I mounted my BMC into a vice and then removed the snap ring cover cap found at the end of the bore section on the cylinder. https://i.postimg.cc/N0VX40hy/2b-Piston-Removal-Rear-Cover-Plate-Removal-using-Pick.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/nL5mkL8K/2c-Piston-Removal-Rear-Cover-Plate-Removed.jpg Using a pick, I gently pried on the lip of the primary piston located at the end of the bore until it had come out far enough, so that I could pull the piston out by hand the rest of the way. https://i.postimg.cc/cJj3mJqQ/2d-Piston-Removal-Rear-Piston-Removal-Using-Pick.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/nrfQywhs/3b-Front-Piston-After-Removal.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/xCzzFSn1/3b-Front-Piston-After-Removal-Close-Up.jpg One down and one to go but the secondary piston was going to require a little bit more effort from me to be able to remove it as it was still located deep down inside the bore of the master cylinder and there was no way I was going to be able to pry it out using the same method I had done for the primary piston. I initially tried using a magnetic pickup tool to try and connect to and pull the piston out from the bore of the cylinder but no matter what I did, the magnetic on the pickup tool just wasn't strong enough to be able to hold onto back end of the piston with enough force to allow me to pull the piston out from inside the master cylinder. So using the information I had researched on several YouTube videos about how to disassemble a brake master cylinder, I switched over to using compressed air to try and push the secondary piston out of the bore of the cylinder. https://i.postimg.cc/g05hD09t/2f-Piston-Removal-Front-Piston-Removal-Using-Blow-Gun-From-Compressor.jpg Using a blowgun at the outlet valve port for the rear brakes on the BMC, I shot compressed air into the bore of the master cylinder and in no time at all the secondary piston had popped out from the bore of the cylinder. https://i.postimg.cc/3w6GBwMn/2f-Piston-Removal-Front-Piston-Removal-Piston-Popped-Out.jpg All that was left to do was to pull the secondary piston out the rest of the way by hand. https://i.postimg.cc/bJttFj8L/3a-Rear-Piston-After-Removal.jpg With the primary and secondary pistons now free of the master cylinder, I thoroughly inspected the rubber seals on both pistons to look for signs of tears in the rubber O-ring seals and or deformities. But from what I could see, both the primary and secondary pistons and all of the rubber O-ring seals attached to each piston were in perfect condition and there were no signs of any kind of damage to the pistons or seals of any kind. https://i.postimg.cc/yxhSsXDc/3b-Piston-Layout-Inside-The-Cylinder.jpg I was hoping from there to remove the reservoir bottle on the top of the bore of the cylinder but after several pulling and prying attempts to dislodge it off of the 2 rubber grommets holding the reservoir to the cylinder with no signs of movement from the reservoir, I decided to just leave it in place otherwise I could damage the plastic reservoir tank trying more aggressive removal methods. So now that I had reached the level of disassembly I was willing to go to with this brake master cylinder, I wanted to thoroughly clean out the entire unit so that I could inspect the bore of the cylinder for signs of damage. I placed the BMC into a suitable sized container and filled it with a degreasing cleaning solution and place it into my ultrasonic cleaning machine and put it through a 30 minute 60 degree cycle to remove all of the remaining old brake fluid residue found inside the bore and reservoir of the BMC after its disassembly. https://i.postimg.cc/mk3FBNP5/4a-Cleaning-Ultrasonic-amp-Simple-Green-HD-Cleaner.jpg After its cleaning cycle in the ultra sonic machine, I then blow dried the BMC thoroughly to leave me with a spotlessly clean almost brand new looking brake master cylinder. https://i.postimg.cc/Pf1DWhS8/4b-Cleaning-Ultrasonic-amp-Simple-Green-HD-Cleaner.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/XN95f3s2/4d-Cleaning-Ultrasonic-amp-Simple-Green-HD-Cleaner.jpg With the BMC clean and dry, I inspected the bore of the cylinder to find it as well in perfect condition with no marks, scuffs or damage present. https://i.postimg.cc/8kLvRDZB/4c-Cleaning-Ultrasonic-amp-Simple-Green-HD-Cleaner.jpg The only thing I noticed after the cleaning process was this metal disc cover on the end of the cylinder that faces the front of the car, began to start coming off the adhesive that attached it to the body of the master cylinder. https://i.postimg.cc/tCyxDfcv/5a-Front-Disc-Cover-Falling-Off.jpg Once I removed the cover completely, there was a female hex headed bolt behind the cover. https://i.postimg.cc/xTYzg7Zw/5b-Front-Disc-Cover-amp-Adhesive-Removed.jpg And with all of that now done, I can safely assume that this brake master cylinder is in perfect working condition and there is no indications that it is faulty in any way. There is no damage to the internal bore of the cylinder and the components of the primary and secondary pistons are also in good condition. I was definitely very happy with the outcome of my first disassembly process on one of the components of my car's braking system. I set myself a reasonable goal to achieve and using the information I had gathered from my research to effectively perform the task required to disassemble the unit down as much as I was happy with and once disassembled I was able to clean and confirm that my original BMC is not faulty and was not the cause of my car's inability to bleed all of the air out of the braking system. My new plan was definitely working as i intended it to and I couldn't wait to continue to pull apart more parts and learn more about my car then I had ever done be before and thought possible.

MY SECOND ATTEMPT TO FIX MY CAR'S BRAKE BLEEDING PROBLEMS Continuing on from where I left off in last months blog updates, the huge issue I had with my inability to bleed my car's braking system, was still weighing heavily on me over the Christmas break and though I still couldn't understand why I still had a spongy full travel brake pedal feel after going though 9 complete brake bleeding attempts. Still I wasn't ready just yet to give up on trying to fix the problem myself and so during my time off from work over Christmas, I spent a lot of time researching the problem on the internet and I also watched a ton of videos on YouTube, describing how to bleed braking systems on cars as well as how to fix spongy brake pedal symptoms. The hope was that the information in these videos may give me clues to be able to find a solution that would explain exactly why and how I could fix my specific brake bleeding problem and if I could find that one piece of information I was looking for, then I could finally cure my car's current brake problem of a full travel and spongy brake pedal feel. On top of all of the researching I was doing, my Dad was also doing his own research in to the matter and during Christmas Day we both consolidated our research to hopefully find a solution and or develop a plan of attack that we would use to fix the brake bleeding problem with my car moving forward. Some of the ideas that my Dad had found in his research lead him to believe that maybe the ABS pump was faulty in some way and if it was allowing air to enter into the system that could be why the brakes wouldn't bleed properly and because I recently had an accident in the car, its possible that the ABS pump went bad or seized in some way after the accident. The other idea that he had as well, was that maybe the problem was being caused by one or more seized pistons inside one or both of the front brake calipers which again could be why air was remaining trapped in the braking system and replacing both of the front calipers might be a good idea to rule that potential problem out. Luckily for me I already had a spare pair of later model iron twin turbo brake calipers which have been sitting in storage for the last 7 or so years and as I mentioned in last months blog updates, the plan was to rebuild and restore that pair of later model TT brake calipers at some point as part of a massive restoration project I had planned for my braking system. But in order for me to get past this brake bleeding problem I had with my car's brakes, some sacrifices needed to be made in order for me to finally get my car back on the road as soon as possible. Even though I had missed the scheduled inspection date for the transmission repair process to begin at the transmission specialist by now, I was hopeful to try and get my car back on the road and be ready so that I could reschedule the inspection of the transmission at a later date with the specialist and I just needed my car drivable to make that a reality. So after all of the research and discussions with my Dad, the decision was made to carry out the easiest of the 2 suggestion my Dad made which would involve removing and replacing my original pair of NA front brake calipers with my pair of later model twin turbo brake calipers but because my time off of work was about to end after the Christmas break, my Dad wanted to step in a help me out by offering to come down to my place and remove my pair of old NA brake calipers and then install the replacement TT brake calipers for me. This way I could still go to work and do my regular day job while he is able to fast track the swap over of the old and new brake calipers, saving me time to get the job done as soon as possible. REMOVAL AND INSTALLATION OF FRONT BRAKE CALIPERS The process to swap over the 2 front brake calipers on my car is a pretty simple job to do with the first step being the removal of each brake hardline on the brake caliper and then removing the 2 mounting fasteners holding the calipers onto the 2 front hub assemblies. With my Dad's experience on my side, I was very hopeful that this swap over of brake calipers would be the fix I was looking for to cure my car's spongy brake pedal feel. Before we installed each of the later model twin turbo brake calipers onto the 2 front hub assemblies, we bench tested and lubricated to some degree, all 8 of each of the twin turbos brake caliper pistons to make sure none of them were seized inside the body of each caliper and then once all of the bench testing was done, we reseated all of the calipers pistons back into a fully seated internal position. https://i.postimg.cc/L8byrX6M/TT-Front-Brake-Calipers-Set.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/52RPZ09p/Close-Up-Brake-Caliper-Pistons.jpg Even though I was happy to finally be putting these TT brake calipers back onto my car after running with my NA calipers for the last several years. I was still very disappointed with myself that I never got a chance to properly strip down and repaint this set of TT brake calipers, as they look pretty ugly in this deteriorated stated that their in after 14 years of use on the car. But my hopes were riding on the chance that this swap over could be the key to solving my spongy brake pedal feel problem and the only the way to know for sure that it was the brake calipers, was to install the TT calipers onto the car and then bleed the system and cross my fingers that this fixes my brake problem. https://i.postimg.cc/ht5CHj4C/Front-TT-Brake-Caliper-amp-New-Vmax-Slotted-Rotors-Installed-2.jpg When I returned home later that afternoon, my Dad had wasted no time at all removing the old brake calipers and installing both of the TT brake calipers onto the 2 front hub assemblies. While he was at it, he also installed a new set of Vmax slotted front brake rotors as well as install a full set of new replacement Repco branded ceramic front brake pads to complete the installation process of my new front brakes setup. https://i.postimg.cc/BnVhd6ZM/Front-TT-Brake-Caliper-amp-New-Vmax-Slotted-Rotors-Installed-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/ht5CHj4C/Front-TT-Brake-Caliper-amp-New-Vmax-Slotted-Rotors-Installed-2.jpg ONTO MORE BRAKE BLEEDING With both of the replacement TT brake calipers now installed and connected to the rest of the braking system on the car, all that was left to do now was hopefully one more final bleed of my car's the braking system which if my count is right would be the 11th time we have had to bleed this system. This was the moment I had been dreading all day and all I could do was hope that changing the two front brake calipers finally fixes my car's spongy full travel brake pedal feel. My Dad had been waiting patiently for me to return home after work so we could do the bleeding process together using the old school two person bleeding method to bleed the brakes and if all goes well, my car will finally have functional brakes once again and I can then drive it on the road for the first time in 4 months. But after completing the bleed process and starting the car to test the functionality of the brakes, the dreaded spongy brake pedal feel was still frustratingly present and as you can imagine all of the hope that I had built up over the last week for this new plan to succeed were now gone and my angry and frustration with this problem boiled over once again with me shouting and arguing with my Dad about why this is happening to me and my car and why we can't seem to fix the problem. My Dad trying his best to calm me down, still wasn't sure what the problem was either but now believed that the problem was with the ABS pump being faulty in someway and that we should look into bench testing it and or replacing it to eliminate it from the equation. On top of the unsuccessful brake bleeding process, my Dad also informed me of a massive power steering leak that he discovered coming from the rack end boots on my original power steering rack and that even if we had fixed the brakes at that time, the power steering rack would also need to be repaired and or replaced to fix the leak and only then would we be able to drive the car otherwise I could damage something on the power steering system if I didn't act on the leak now. Unfortunately I was just too damn angry at this point to care about this and that and I just couldn't handle thinking about spending more time and energy on this stupid car right now and so the decision was made to halt working on the car and take a step back and rethink our next steps that we needed to take to continue diagnosing this braking and power steering problems. After sitting down with my Dad and going through another long deep discussion with him about my car and all of the problems it has at the moment, it was clear to me from that talk, that my lack of mechanical experience and understanding was a key component as to why my car is currently in this particular state of condition. Most of the work I had been doing on this car was mainly focused on more cosmetic changes and additions more then anything. But very few mechanical repairs and or changes were made to improve the reliability of the mechanical components on my car. Though I had tried over the last 10 years or so to dramatically increase my mechanical service knowledge on this car doing more deep dive service work as the car has been slowly working its way to 300,000km on the odometer. I still hadn't yet started exploring more deep dives in tearing down mechanical components, such as alternators and brake calipers not just restore them but to try and better understand how they work and also how to repair them myself when they eventually wear out over time. From that moment on, I made a promise to myself that I was no longer going to be afraid of pulling something apart that needed to be either repaired and or restored in the future. Instead I wanted to embrace the journey of exploration that I would need to take in order for me to learn and understand what could be wrong with something and also be confident enough with my abilities, that I could fix whatever was broken on my car myself and only then could I overcome all of this stress, anxiety and angry I have had working on my 30+ year old car in the last 10 years or so. So with a new look on things sparking my curiosity, I will be putting aside any further diagnosis on the spongy brake pedal feel problem for now and instead begin the process of pulling apart as many mechanical components in my braking system as I can and hopefully find from that journey of discovery, the location of the problem during my deep dive into my car's braking system. I will start by learning how to pull apart a couple of spare brake component parts like my original brake master cylinder and a pair of used rear brake calipers to help me learn the process of dismantling those parts and to help me understand how they work internally. The knowledge I hope to gain from these small initial steps will give me the confidence I will need to then pull apart more complex components in the future, like an alternator and or starter motor and eventually I hope to learn how to pull apart a steering rack and maybe an automatic transmission and even VG30DE engine one day. With this new knowledge and information under my belt I can confidently say I should be able to repair anything on my car in the future and never have to fear worrying about spending money paying someone else to fix it one day in the future.

With a new start to the year rolling around, the big hope for this months project updates was that I want to finally solve my car's current spongy brake pedal problem and to do this a plan was made to swap out my original pair of NA front brake calipers with a set of later model iron TT brake calipers. Unfortunately for me the brake bleeding process that followed after the swap over of front brake calipers did not produce the desired result I was hoping for which caused me to have to take a step back from further diagnosing and fixing the problem for the time being until I can better understand why this is happening and how to best to repair it moving forward. On top of the ongoing spongy brake pedal problem, a huge power steering rack leak was also discovered during the brake bleeding process and needed to be address as soon as possible. If I didn't address it now, I would run the risk of damaging several mechanical components within the steering system. This resulted in me having to fast track the installation of a spare used replacement power steering rack onto the car and thanks to efforts of my Dad, the leaking power steering fluid situation should now be all resolved. This month also saw me take my first steps in undertaking a new process I want to do to increase my mechanical knowledge and understand with the disassembly of my original brake master cylinder in an attempt to help me learn more about my car's braking system. My hope is that this new process will not just help me to dramatically increase my mechanical skillset and abilities but also allow me to be able to teardown potentially faulty parts in the future and help me to determine if a part is either damaged beyond repair and or repairable and hopefully the more parts I teardown over time, the more confident I will become in being able to solve issues like my spongy brake pedal problem myself in the future. The disassembly process of my original brake master cylinder went extremely well for me and I learnt a lot about how a brake master cylinder works internally and I was able to find out that my original Brake master cylinder was not damaged or faulty in any way and was not the cause of my car's current spongy brake pedal problems. YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ADAMZX Instagram: instagram.com/adamzx_z32

FRONT BRAKE COMPONENTS INSPECTION & REPAIR TURNS INTO A COMPLETE DISASTER FOR ME With the service work I did on my RE4 automatic transmission now completed, I have organised and scheduled a date for early next month to take my car to a local automatic transmission specialists, to have my transmission inspected and diagnosed to hopefully figure out exactly what is actually wrong with my car's transmission and then either have the transmission either repaired, replaced and or rebuilt to finally get my Z back on the road and back to being my daily driver for the foreseeable future once again. During the time that I will be waiting for the inspection date on the transmission diagnosis to arrive, I have one more final mechanical problem that I have observed which is causing a whining sound to occur from outside the car whenever I am driving the car down the road. It almost sounds like a small mechanical motor spinning up and down as the car increases and or decreases in speed but goes away completely when I come to a full stop and the car is stationary. Because the sound isn't present when the car is not moving, I am confident that the problem or sound I'm hearing is not being caused by anything engine related. But because the sound is only occurring when the car is moving, my assumptions are that I either have a bad wheel bearing and or maybe I have an issue with one or more of my car's front braking components. So on the following weekend after the transmission service was done, my Z was again driven back into my garage where I would then jack up the front end of the car using the same lifting method I had used in getting the car safely off of the ground during the transmission service, reserving the front of the car up onto a pair of low profile car ramps and then lifting the front end of the car up using my pneumatic balloon jack and placing a pair of jack stands under the front frame rails before removing both of the two front alloy OEM wheels off of the front wheel hubs to give me access to and inspect the front hub assemblies and the 2 front brake calipers. At first glance, I couldn't really see anything wrong or out of place on either of the 2 front hub assemblies as well as nothing seemed wrong with both of the 2 front brake calipers. So I decided to then check and measure the thickness of all 4 of the front brake pads as I had assumed from the start that one of more of the front brake pads might be reason I am hearing this strange whining sound coming from outside the car when Its moving. What I found from all of my measurements I got off of each brake pad, was that all 4 of them were now measuring at a minimum thickness of less then 3-2mm and they all definitely needed to be replaced. Unfortunately this put me in a bit of a predicament you see because yes I could easily just replace all 4 of the old front brake pads with a brand new set of pads with no problems. However I have been trying for years now to start and finish off a massive restoration process plan I have for my pair of later model TT iron front brake calipers along with restoring a spare set of rear aluminum brake calipers, then on top of the restored brake calipers plans, I was also wanting to install and replace my old front brake rotors with a brand new set of Vmax slotted front brake rotors and while I'm at it I would then replace all of the front and rear brake pads to overhaul my entire braking system as much as possible at some point. If I could somehow hold off on replacing all of the front brake pads just for now, then in my mind I wouldn't have to install half used brake pads onto the car after I had finish this massive planned restoration process I want to do for my car's entire braking system which I wanted it to consist of all brand new components when the process was finished. As you imagine a restoration project of that scale would take a considerable amount of time to do especially when I would also need to learn how to do everything during the process. From stripping every single component down, to then painting what needed to be painted, to then reassembling everything back together again and finally reinstalling all of the parts back onto the car. I can tell you now that their is just not enough time between now and when the car needs to be taken to the transmission specialist for me to complete that kind of restoration process on my car's braking system. All that I needed to do right now, was to make a quick fix in a sense to get rid of the annoying whining sound issue that I have been observing from the outside of the car while driving the car and then after the transmission inspection and repair was all done and dusted, then I could dedicate all of the time that I needed to finally start and complete a lengthy brake system rebuild process for my Z. Now because I have done a few brake service jobs over the years on not just my own car but a friends car as well. I have collected a few sets of used front and rear brake pads which I have yet to dispose of. I'm hoping that if I can find a half decent set of brake pads from this used stash that I've collected, then I might be able to get a few more weeks or months of use out of those replacement brake pads compared to the existing pads I have in the car right now. So I checked and measured all of the spare used brake pads I have and to my surprise I found a set of old brake pads, that were measuring within the minimum 4-3mm range and so I decided that for now these pads will do just fine as replacements to the existing brake pads in the car. https://i.postimg.cc/Pf2wVmL3/2-Front-Brake-pads-Replacements.jpg REMOVING & REPLACING ALL FOUR OF MY FRONT BRAKE PADS I began the removal process of the first 2 front brake pads by attaching a fluid catch bottle onto the bleeder screw found on the brake caliper. When I was ready, I then cracked the bleeder screw free to allow for brake fluid to flow out of the bleeder which made pushing and retracking the brake calipers 4 main pistons back inside the body of the caliper a lot easier to do and once the pistons had retracted far enough back into the caliper, I then removed the first set of 2 brake pads. This process was repeated on the other side of the car for the second brake caliper with everything going pretty smoothly during the process. The next step was to clean up and assembly all four of the replacement front brake pads, with all of the factory brake pad shims being attached to the back of each brake pad in the correct order with a layer of copper anti seize being used between each shim. Then it was a simple matter of reinstalling all of the replacement brake pads back into the 2 front brake calipers like so; https://i.postimg.cc/pdt57kPj/2-Front-Brake-pads-Replaced-with-used-set-of-brake-pads-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/28MZdrJ2/2-Front-Brake-pads-Replaced-with-used-set-of-brake-pads-2.jpg BRAKE BLEEDING PROCESS TURNS INTO A NIGHTMARE The last step to do now was to bleed the entire braking system because I had allowed air to enter the system when I opted to cracked open the brake calipers brake bleeder screws in the method I used to remove all 4 of the front brake pads. But before I could begin the brake bleeding process, I first needed to lift up the rear end of the car and remove the 2 rear OEM alloy wheels so I could then access both of the rear brake caliper's bleed screw's which I'll also need to bleed air out of on top of the bleeding air from both of the front brake calipers as part of the correct factory brake bleeding process. Using the differential as a lifting point, I jacked up the rear end of the car and safely secured it down onto a second pair of jack stands. https://i.postimg.cc/zvMVkFdV/3-Brake-bleeding-process-1.jpg Normally I would use my special brake pressure bleeding tool to force out and bleed all of the air out of the braking system but because I am currently running an early model brake master cylinder, which unfortunately my pressure bleeder tool couldn't attach to, I had not choice but to use my alternative style vacuum brake bleeder tool to complete the bleeding process this time around and with the FSM's brake bleeding procedure in hand, I began bleeding all of the brake calipers one by one going from the rear left hand caliper and then to the rear right hand caliper. This was followed by the front left hand brake caliper and then to the front right hand brake caliper. The last component to bleed from there was the ABS pump, so I opened up the rear hatch at the rear of the car and accessed the ABS pump/module and then bleed the front ABS actuator followed by the rear ABS actuator. https://i.postimg.cc/Kj41LHD6/Task-4-Bleeding-Brakes-LH-Rear.jpg So far everything was going as planned but to make sure that I had bleed the entire braking system correctly and that there was no air in the system, I decided to jumped into the car and test the brakes with the engine running. However this is where everything started to fall apart on me as when I pressed my foot down on the brake pedal, I instantly noticed that I no longer had a nice firm brake pedal feel anymore and instead the brake pedal felt soft and spongy and also now had full travel down the floor pan. My worst nightmare had just began because I knew straight away that this spongy full travel brake pedal feel meant that for some reason their was still air present in my brake hoses and lines and that basically meant that my car now had no functional brakes and wouldn't be drivable in this state. Unfortunately due to my mechanical inexperience working on braking systems at this point in time, I didn't have a clue as to what could be wrong with my brakes as I followed the FSM brake bleeding procedure to the letter and there was no reason for there to be air still trapped in the system from my point of view. Trying to remain calm, I tried to rebleed the entire brake system once again making sure to bleed everything brake caliper in the correct order and make sure that their was no visible signs of air bubbles coming out of the bleeder screws and into the catch bottle during the second attempt to the bleed the braking system. But after a second bleed was done and then I tested the brakes again the result ended up being the same as before with the spongy brake pedal feel still present. So feeling like i had stuffed up majorly doing this brake service job on my car caused me to quickly began to panic and stress out heavily on my situation. I began to feared that I must have either broken something and or I was doing something wrong to cause this issue with my brakes not wanting to bleed all of the air out of the system and because I had no idea how to fix the problem myself, all I think of at the time was just how expensive it would be to have pay to tow the car to a professional automotive workshop and have them hopefully figure out what's wrong with my brakes and fix it for me. Not to mention that most of the automotive workshops were now closed for the Christmas holiday break and that there was no way I was going to get my car fixed before the transmission inspection was due to happen. With all of the stress and frustration weighing down on me and because I had exceeded my ability to solve this problem myself, I had no choice but to ring and speak with the one person who not only taught me everything I know about fixing cars but has always been able to solve these kinds of problems for me in the past. And so I rang my Dad and spoke to him about what was happening with my current predicament and my inability to bleed all of the air out of the braking system on my car. After a lengthy chat he stated to be that he would be coming down the next day to help me try and fix the problem using some old school brake bleeding techniques that my Dad is very familiar with and hopefully together we can bleed or of the air out of the braking system and get my car back on the road once again. My hopes lifted from then on as my Dad has always found a way to fix my mistakes and all I could do now was wait until tomorrow for my Dad to arrive the next the day. HELP IS ON THE WAY, BUT THINGS DID NOT GO TO PLAN AGAIN The following day when my dad arrived, we promptly got to work bleeding the braking system for a 3rd time and the method we will be using for this 3rd bleed, involves the old school 2 person brake bleeding method where my dad would be opening up each of the brake calipers bleeder screws and I was inside the car where he would direct me, when I needed to pump and push on the brake pedal. In the past this old school brake bleeding method has always worked, so with my Dad's experience and know how on my side, I was hopeful everything would sort itself out by the end of this 3rd bleeding process. But that hope was unfortunately short lived because after going through a 3rd brake bleeding procedure and even though we used the never fails 2 person method to bleed the brakes, I still had a soft spongy brake pedal feel and even my Dad was stumped at this point. So we did a 4th bleed and a 5th bleed of the braking system, checking and rechecking everything and still the result did not change. This is where both my Dad and I were now getting frustrated and angry at one another and no matter what we did, there was just no way for us to fix whatever was causing my brake pedal to feel spongy all of the time. As tempers down in the garage began heating up between me and my Dad, my wife who was upstairs during all of this in the house, could hear my dad and I arguing downstairs in the garage. So trying to help us out, she went onto the neighbourhood "WhatsApp" group asked if there were any mechanics in the area of our neighbourhood who would be able to come over and help me and Dad out with this mechanical problem we had with my car, and to her surprise there was a neighbor who offered to come and have a look and see if he can help us out with our predicament. When the mechanic arrived, both my Dad and I explained to him what was going on with the brakes on the car. And so together we did a 6th bleed of the brakes with the mechanic now assisting us but unfortunately the result for the 6th bleed was still the same as before. The mechanic wasn't sure either what was wrong with the brakes but he wanted to come back another day and bring with him a professional brake bleeding vacuum tool that his workshop uses regularly to bleed braking systems on customer cars and he was confident that this tool should be able to suck out all of the air that is somehow still trapped in the system. https://i.postimg.cc/9XNRVcWC/Mechanic-helping-me-try-and-bleed-my-brakes.jpg I can tell you all now that having both my dad and a professional mechanic not be able to figure out what is wrong with my car brakes, made me very worried and very frustrated at the situation because all that I wanted to do was to just swap out my brakes pads to try and fix an annoying whining sound that I believed my brakes were causing before I needed to take my car to get my transmission problem inspected and fixed and it just felt like the world was coming down on me and so yeah I didn't feel very good at that point in time. The following day, the mechanic came over again now with his professional vacuum bleeder tool and quickly got to work, bleeding the brakes for about 20 minutes, but yet again once I turned the car on the spongy brake pedal was still present. The mechanic was very confused with this result so we did another bleed this time he spent about 30 minutes bleeding the entire system using the vacuum tool and again, the result was the same. The mechanic then began suspecting that maybe their was a issue with air entering into the system through one of the other braking components and so we ended swapping out the early style brake master cylinder with my later 2000 model BMC which I was happy to do anyways, as I really liked my later model BMC setup, which would allow me to be able to use my special pressure brake bleeding tool for bleeding the brakes on the car in the future. https://i.postimg.cc/hPzJtNjx/3-Brake-bleeding-process-2.jpg After what is now the 9th bleed, the result was still the same. So the mechanic then moved his focus onto the next part that he suspected might be the problem which was with my brake booster and he began checking the vacuum hose and check valve going from the intake plenum onto the brake booster to making sure the check valve was function and the booster was holding a vacuum. He stated that though everything seemed fine he was not familiar with the operation of the vacuum system on this car specifically and needed more testing equipment to know for sure if it was holding vacuum or not. By this point even the mechanic was basically stumped stated that even though its a basic brake system and there doesn't appear to be anything wrong to cause the system to still have air in the lines unfortunately he was just unable to figure out why I still had a spongy brake pedal. He suggested to me that when his workshop reopens in the new year, that I should try and bring my car over and have him continue to work on the problem and he was confident that eventually him and his fellow mechanics should be able to figure it out. This didn't really give me much hope as the amount of time that my dad, and myself have already spent trying to fix this problem would have cost me hundreds if not a thousand dollars in labour costs and I was not really keen on wasting that kind of money to fix this problem right now, especially considering a costly transmission rebuild was also needed to get the car back on the road. And so for now, I had to accept that for the time begin my car is currently not drivable and will have to remain on stands until early in the new year where I might have to get the car towed to a mechanic workshop to have the brakes inspected and repaired and then once the brakes were all fixed, i would then need to take the car to get transmission inspected and fixed and the amount of money needed to fix both of those problems was overwhelming to say the least. This made the last couple of weeks leading up to Christmas very stressful and frustrating for me and I can only hope that in the new year I will finally get some better luck and get past this situation I'm currently in with the car right now. All I can do for now though is cross my fingers and hope everything will sort it self out eventually and once that all happens, I'll finally be back behind the wheel driving this cool JDM sports car one day again.

AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION FLUID & FILTER SERVICE PROCESS After 2 months of preparations, I am now finally ready to attempt and try to hopefully fix my current irregular shifting symptoms that I've been experiencing on my RE4 automatic transmission since getting my Z back on the road in September of this year. My plan is to perform a basic transmission fluid and filter service on my RE4 automatic transmission which I developed after watching "ChrisFix's" transmission service YouTube video. I have done this service once before on one of my previous RE4 transmission's that I had been running in my Z prior to my current RE4 transmission and to my surprise the service job I did on that previous RE4 transmission did actually help to improve the shifting performance of that transmission for a short while anyways until that transmission randomly broke down on me a few months later and I then replaced it with the current RE4 transmission that its the car now. As much as I want to believe that this service might cure all of my transmission's shifting problems unfortunately I don't think I'm going to be that lucky this time around but I have to try at and see if it does or doesn't change anything with the functionality of the box and if it does great but if it doesn't I'll need to take the next set of steps to have the transmission assessed and most likely rebuilt. Before I begin, lets quickly go over the steps I'll be doing during this service process on the transmission, first up I will be draining as much of the old transmission fluid out of the RE4 transmission pan as much as possible followed by the removal of the transmission pan itself. Once the pan has been removed, I will then have access to the transmission's strainer or filter unit which I will then remove and replace with a new aftermarket strainer unit. While the pan is off I'll also check all of the valve body mounting bolts holding the valve body control unit to the transmission casing to make sure that they are all torqued down correctly to their factory torque specs of 8Nm each as according to "ChrisFix's" YouTube video, the valve body mounting bolts can loosen over time and retorquing them while I have access to all of the bolts, can potentially help to improve the shifting quality of the transmission after the service and being that mine is currently not shifting at its best, I'm hoping that this little tip, might help to cure or improve on the shifting functionality of my RE4 transmission. From there the transmission pan will be thoroughly cleaned and then reinstalled back onto the transmission casing followed by a refilling of the transmission pan with roughly 3 - 4 litres of factory recommended high quality semi synthetic Dexron 3 transmission fluid to complete the basic service process of my RE4 automatic transmission. Once the transmission has been fully reassembled, I will then start the car and let the engine idle to allow for the engine and transmission to slowly warm up before I then take the car for a test drive to check the overall operation of the RE4 transmission after the service. After the test drive I'll then check for any fluid leaks from the transmission housing and pan while the car is warming up and I'll also try and connect my laptop and Conzult monitoring program up to the car's OD1 diagnostic port to try and access my car's transmission ECU or ATCU (automatic transmission control unit) to check for error codes and all of the transmission electrical sensor readouts. Speaking of my ATCU, for the past few weeks I have attempted multiple times to connect my conzult monitoring software up to my transmission's ECU but so far i have been mostly unsuccessful at getting any kind of connection and or readout from the ATCU so far. The engine ECU will connect just fine, but I have always had a slight problem trying to get a connection and or readout with my car's transmission ECU whether that be via the manual self-diagnostic procedure you do inside the car and or by a connection via the OD1 port and using a laptop and a conzult program, with the results of a connection being very inconsistent and rarely do I get a readout from both connection attempts. This connection problem with my car's ATCU has been a ongoing problem for me on this car for many years, and I have tried running with 2 other ATCU's to try and fix the issue but nothing seems to work and what I have found is that sometimes I will get a connection and readout from the ATCU but most of the time I will get no connection at all and this has made diagnosing the issues I have currently with my RE4 transmission very annoying and frustrating to deal with at this point in time. Hopefully the ATCU will play nice for me after the service is completed and let me get some sort of information from the sensor readouts, so that I can then see exactly what the transmission is doing while the car is both stationary and most importantly while it is driving down the road and hopefully the sensor readouts might give me a clue as to what the transmission is doing and not doing and hopefully I can figure out what's wrong with the box. The last little addition that I want to do during this transmission service process, will be the installation of a replacement reconditioned torque converter clutch solenoid which I purchased from eBay. After I had my current RE4 transmission installed into my Z back in 2017. I discovered during one of my regular engine service intervals while checking the ACTU, that there is a transmission error present on the ACTU which was indicating a "T/C clutch solenoid valve" fault code that I have been wanting to fix on this transmission for many years now. Its possible that this faulty solenoid might also be the root cause of my current shifting problems with my RE4 transmission and so my fingers are crossed that replacing it along with a new strainer unit and fresh transmission fluid all combined might just be all that's needed to cure all of my transmission problems for good. [img] STEP 1: PREPARING VEHICLE FOR TRANSMISSION SERVICE The first step in this process will involve lifting the entire body of the car off of the ground as safely and securely as much as possible. This is because the 300ZX's transmission is mounted directly under the center structure of the undercarriage of the body of the car and I will need to lift both the front and rear ends of the car as high as possible to give me as much room to work with under the car as much as I can. Due to the factory low ride height of my Z, I needed to do a multi stage lift of the front end of the car to get it as high as I possibly can using the lifting devices I have. The first stage involved reversing the front 2 wheels up onto a pair of low profile car ramps to slightly raise the nose of the car to then allow for the second stage of the lifting process which uses my pneumatic triple balloon jack to further lift the front end of the car via the front cross member and this gives me a little over 300mmish of clearance from the ground. https://i.postimg.cc/nLkM4Fsv/1-New-Low-Profile-Car-Ramps-Test-Usage.jpg With the front end of the car at its maximum lifted height, I then secured the car into its raised position with the use of a pair of my new light weight aluminum jack stands placed directly under the factory recommended jack stand points along the two front frame rails. https://i.postimg.cc/k4gGw08L/1-Testing-new-aluminum-Jack-Stands.jpg The rear end of the car was then lifted via the differential using my pneumatic balloon jack before positioning and placing a second pair of jack stands directly under the car in the recommended rear jacking points on the rear subframe from the FSM before the car was lowered onto those jack stands to finally secure the car safely off of the ground. A final push test at several points around the car was done to confirm the car was safely secure on top of all 4 jack stands. STEP 2: DRAINING TRANSMISSION FLUID FROM TRANSMISSION PAN With the car now safely secured off of the ground, the next step in the process was to drain as much of the old transmission fluid out of the transmission pan as much as possible. The good news is because the current RE4 transmission in my Z is from a 1996 model, it was a simple matter of just removing the RE4's transmission drain plug from the bottom of the transmission pan and then collecting all of the old transmission fluid that flowed out of the pan and into my Toledo fluid drain pan. https://i.postimg.cc/v8jTLSmS/2-Prepping-Drain-Pan-For-Trans-Fluid-Removal.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/Bb86f2mg/2-Draining-Trans-Fluid-From-Transmission-Pan.jpg While the old transmission fluid was draining out of the pan, I quickly noticed straight away that the transmission fluid coming out of the pan was visibly more brownish and dark in colour then I was expecting to see, considering that the transmission fluid in this box had only done roughly 40,000 km since 2017 and for the past 3 years the car hadn't even be driven at all, so this was very surprising for me to see. Also while I was waiting for all of the transmission fluid to drain out of the transmission pan, I decided to do a quick visual inspection of the undercarriage of the car around the transmission casing and that's when I noticed some grime buildup along one of the exhaust pipes near the back of the transmission. Upon further inspection of the grime buildup, I found what looked like transmission fluid had been leaking out of the rear mounting port for the speedo sensor at the back of the transmission housing as you can see here. https://i.postimg.cc/6pxQF2nr/2-Speed-Sensor-Fluid-Leak-Discovery-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/Mp0Gw6mh/2-Speed-Sensor-Fluid-Leak-Discovery-2.jpg This was the first time that I had ever noticed this transmission fluid leak and by the looks of it, it has been leaking for a little while now. From what i can tell it appears that the leaking transmission fluid has been coming out of the speedo sensor port and slowly down directly below and onto the rear transmission and center exhaust mounts which are both attached to the rear crossmember. The leaking transmission fluid has then slowly overtime covered the center exhaust mount in oil and grime along with a few small areas on one of the exhaust pipes in that same general area. A much as I wanted to continue with the transmission service I knew that the discovery of this new transmission fluid leak, needed to be address as soon as possible and my thought process was that if I fix it now, then I will prevent the leak from getting worst over time. So with that in mind I decided to temporarily stop progressing any further with the transmission service and instead focus my attention of investigating, repairing and cleaning up this transmission fluid leak at the back of the box. STEP 3: CLEANING UP TRANSMISSION FLUID LEAK AND GRIME BUILDUP ON EXHAUST https://i.postimg.cc/bJrY1Qfh/3-Center-Exhaust-Hanger-Found-Covered-In-Transmission-Fluid.jpg The first step in fixing this transmission fluid leak would involve getting access to the speedo sensor itself as this is where the leak is coming from. The problem was I couldn't get to the speedo sensor because of the center exhaust hanger bracket being in the way. So that was going to be the first item that needed to be removed so I could then get access to speedo sensor and because the hanger bracket was covered in oil and grime, it needed to be removed anyways so I could thoroughly clean the bracket before it could then be reinstalled back onto the car. I removed the 2 mounting nuts holding the bracket onto the rear transmission mount as well as remove the pair of small mounting nuts for the 2 rubber exhaust hangers on either side of the bracket, to disconnect the hanger bracket from the two exhaust pipes. https://i.postimg.cc/qRFJwzpC/3-Center-Exhaust-Hanger-Removed-For-Cleaning.jpg With the exhaust hanger now out of the way, I could get a better look at the fluid leak coming out of the speedo sensor port which wasn't terrible but like the exhaust hanger I wanted to try and remove the sensor itself and clean the sensor and the surrounding area up of all of the grime buildup as much as possible. https://i.postimg.cc/NFrgzB0C/3-Speed-Sensor-Before-Removal-1.jpg I removed the single mounting fastener holding the speedo sensor to the rear transmission casing and then slide the speedo sensor out from its mounting port. From there I then tried to trace the electrical connector for the speedo sensor to disconnect it but even after tracing the wiring loom of the sensor that seemed to travel up into the void of the transmission tunnel, I just couldn't find it and after several minutes of feeling for the connector with my hand with no success, I ended up deciding to just leave the speedo sensor connected and instead hang it from the wiring loom out of the way, while I checked the condition of the speedo sensor and mounting port further for clues as to figure out why transmission fluid was leaking out in this area. https://i.postimg.cc/bdczXWDy/3-Speed-Sensor-Removal-2.jpg After visibly checking over the speedo sensor and mounting port for the sensor thoroughly, I didn't end up finding anything wrong to indicate why transmission fluid had been leaking out of the speedo sensor mounting port. I read online that the rubber O-ring seal on the speedo sensor can get pinched during installation and cause a leak like what I was seeing but from what I could tell there was no visible signs of pinching or dislodging of the rubber O-ring seal on the speedo sensor at all and after cleaning up both of the speedo sensor and mounting port for the sensor on the rear transmission casing as best I could, I then just decided to reinstall the speedo sensor back into its mounting port and hope that I had fixed whatever was causing the fluid leak to occur. Once everything is back together and after I had gone for a final test drive of the car, I'll then recheck the area where the speedo sensor is located and look for any signs of fluid leakage from the speedo sensor mounting port. If there is indications of fluid leakage from the speedo sensor after the test drive, I'll then look into purchasing a replacement rubber O-ring seal for the speedo sensor and install it on the car when I get a chance to do so. The exhaust hanger & bracket was also disassembled and placed into a small container submerged in a degreasing solution which I then put through a 30 minute cycle in my ultrasonic cleaning machine to effectively remove all of the grime off of those parts. https://i.postimg.cc/HLpksqSj/3-Center-Exhaust-Hanger-Cleaning-Process-Ultrasonic.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/6QY57MSc/3-Center-Exhaust-Hanger-Speed-Sensor-Parts-After-Cleaning.jpg STEP 4: TRANSMISSION PAN & STRAINER REMOVAL With the speedo sensor fluid leak now fixed and all cleaned up, I can now get back onto progressing with the transmission service and the next step in the process is to remove the transmission pan off of the body of the transmission housing. This required the removal of 18 x 10mm fasteners holding the transmission pan onto the body of the transmission. https://i.postimg.cc/MKVBc8YY/4-Transmission-Pan-Removal-Process.jpg Once the transmission pan had be successfully removed off of the body of the transmission casing, I then had access to both the bottom of the transmissions valve body control valve as well access the transmissions strainer unit. https://i.postimg.cc/L8VZTBwY/4-Transmission-Pan-Removed-1.jpg The old strainer unit was then removed off of the valve body and left to drain out in one of my drain containers. https://i.postimg.cc/CKLn6npv/4-Transmission-Strainer-Removed-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/yNQ3q6V7/4-Transmission-Strainer-Removed-2.jpg After 20 minutes or so both the transmission pan and strainer unit were now fully drained of all of the old transmission fluid, I thoroughly inspecting both parts to look for signs of metal fragments remaining inside the transmission pan and or strainer unit along with inspecting the transmission pans magnetic pickup located on the inside of the transmission pan. If I was to find big chucks of metal fragments inside either of these parts it would indicate a catastrophic failure of a metal component inside the transmission assembly. https://i.postimg.cc/VsSn8trp/4-Transmission-Pan-Inspection-Debris-Found.jpg During the inspection I found a lot of what I can only describe as little pieces of black none metallic debris particles on both the bottom of the transmission pan and strainer unit. I have no idea where these black particles have came from but I figured this was not normal to see especially on a transmission that has only done just under 40,000 km in nearly 7 years. The good news was that the magnetic pickup that sits on the inside of the transmission pan looked relatively normal to me with the usual buildup of very small metal particles on the magnet indicating normal wear and tear of the moving parts inside the transmission assembly. https://i.postimg.cc/ryvWFp5m/4-Transmission-Pan-Magnetic-Inspection.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/pTmhPNTz/4-Transmission-Strainer-Removed-3-Debris-Found-in-Screen.jpg With the inspections for both the transmission pan and strainer unit now done, I continued with progressing on the transmission service which at this point required me to check and re-torque all of the valve body fasteners which I hope will help to improve the shifting quality of my RE4 transmission after the service has been completed. The factory service manual states that all of the 10mm valve body fasteners need to be torqued to 8 Nm each along with torquing them all in a star pattern process starting from the inner section of the valve body and working my way out. This torquing process will help to evenly compress the gasket that sits between the upper and lower part of the valve body control valve. https://i.postimg.cc/WzrdJM04/4-Transmission-Valve-Body-Torquing-Process.jpg STEP 5: TORQUE CONVERTER CLUTCH SOLENOID REMOVAL AND INSTALLATION OF RECONDITIONED REPLACEMENT Finally its time to replace the suspected faulty torque converter solenoid which is located on the bottom side of the valve body control valve next to the strainer unit. There is a single 8mm fastener holding the solenoid to the valve body which I removed and then disconnected the solenoids electrical wiring connector to allow me to then remove the original OEM solenoid out from the transmission. https://i.postimg.cc/jqJw9rBr/5-Old-Faulty-Torque-Converter-Solenoid.jpg A visual comparison of both the original TCC solenoid and the aftermarket reconditioned replacement solenoid was done just to compare the differences between the 2 units as well and though the new solenoid looks a little bit different when compared to the original solenoid, it looks almost identical so it should mount up onto the valve body with no issues. OEM (Left) Vs Aftermarket (Right) https://i.postimg.cc/cLTrY1tf/5-Torque-Converter-Solenoid-Comparison-OEM-Vs-Aftermarket-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/8C5sb8L9/5-Torque-Converter-Solenoid-Comparison-OEM-Vs-Aftermarket-2.jpg An ohms reading check was then done on both solenoids to check they are providing the factory recommend ohms reading to indicate whether or not the solenoid is good or bad using a multi-meter. The basic test I did showed that the replacement TCC solenoid gave the correct ohms reading of between 15 - 17 ohms but the original TCC solenoid gave me a reading of 0 Ohms and or an OL or "Open" reading. This from what I know indicates to me, that the OEM solenoid is faulty and explains why I am getting a error code on the ATCU for that solenoid. With all of the testing on the TCC solenoids done, I then installed the replacement TCC solenoid onto the valve body and connected up the solenoids electrical connector back into place. https://i.postimg.cc/T18wGpBv/5-Torque-Converter-Solenoid-Replaced-With-New-Unit.jpg STEP 6: AFTERMARKET REPLACEMENT STRAINER UNIT INSTALLATION Next on the to do list was to install the new replacement aftermarket strainer unit onto the valve body control valve. The new strainer was included in the aftermarket transmission filter kit I purchased for this service. The aftermarket strainer is an identical replacement unit from the factory strainer and should install into place just fine. Even though the new strainer unit comes complete with the new rubber o ring, it is common practice from what I heard to replace the o ring from the original strainer unit and onto the new strainer unit to apparently prevent sealing issues so I did just that and swapped over the rubber o rings from the factory strainer to the new one. https://i.postimg.cc/Lsw4BJ9g/6-Transmission-Strainer-Oring-Replacement-From-Original-Strainer.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/59w9L9Zj/6-Transmission-Strainer-Oring-Replacement-Pre-Oiled.jpg The new strainer was then inserted into its mounting location and secured into placed via the 4 x 8mm mounting fasteners holding it to the valve body. https://i.postimg.cc/65X3m4dd/6-New-Transmission-Strainer-Installed.jpg STEP 7: TRANSMISSION SUMP PAN CLEANING With the strainer now installed it was now time to clean up the transmission sump pan before it will be installed back onto the transmission casing. Using some simple green and elbow grease, I scrubbed and cleaned out the entire surface of the transmission inside and out before I then wiped the pan down dry to complete the cleaning process of the pan. https://i.postimg.cc/ncpFkbJ2/7-Transmission-Pan-Cleaning-Process-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/437sdX6f/7-Transmission-Pan-Cleaning-Process-2.jpg Along with the cleaning of the sump pan, I also needed to clean up and remove all of the metal filings that had bonded to the sump pan's magnetic pickup found on the bottom of the inside of the transmission pan. The magnet was wiped down and cleaned as much as possible before it was then reinserted back onto the bottom of the transmission in a slightly raised position to help provide more surface area on the top, side and bottom of the magnetic and so collect more metal filings as the transmissions internal metal components experience wear and tear from regular everyday driving. https://i.postimg.cc/1XPQJ6LX/7-Transmission-Pan-Cleaning-Process-3.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/FzZQqz4Z/7-Transmission-Pan-Cleaning-Process-4.jpg STEP 8: REINSTALLING THE TRANSMISSION SUMP PAN BACK ONTO THE TRANSMISSION CASING The last major step left to do now is to reinstall the transmission pan back onto the transmission casing, but before I can do that I first needed to prepare the transmission pans gasket mating surfaces on both the transmission sump pan and the transmission casing itself to prevent leaks from occurring. Using a maroon scuffing pad and some brake fluid, I lightly went scuffed along the entire gasket mating surface area on the transmission pan which will help clean off any remaining stuck on gasket material and or dirt that I may have missed during cleaning process of the transmission sump pan from earlier. https://i.postimg.cc/wTwpQ1Fx/8-Transmission-Pan-Installation-Process-Scuffed-Matting-Surface-For-New-Gasket-Seal.jpg Another one ChrisFix's helpful tips from his transmission YouTube video, I applied a thin bead of dielectric grease along the entire gasket mating surface on the transmission pan. This was done to help stick to and hold the OEM paper transmission pan gasket I am using in place on the transmission pan and prevent it from moving as I attempt to reinstall the pan back onto the transmission casing and it really does work and makes putting the transmission pan back onto the car with the gasket in place so much easier to do. https://i.postimg.cc/xjyYqxzz/7-Transmission-Pan-Cleaning-Process-5.jpg The mating surface of the transmission casing was also scuffed up to make sure the matting surface was as clean as possible. https://i.postimg.cc/W1KcxxQQ/8-Transmission-Pan-Installation-Process-Scuffing-Valve-Body-Matting-Surface-2.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/4xnTLXF6/8-Transmission-Pan-Installation-Process-Scuffing-Valve-Body-Matting-Surface-1.jpg Then all that was left to do was to reinstall the transmission pan back onto the transmission casing. I slowly reinstalled all 18 of the 8mm fasteners that hold the transmission sump pan to the transmission casing and once everything was in place all of the mounting fasteners for the pan were torqued to their factory torque setting of between 7 and 9Nm. https://i.postimg.cc/W4kcVXVt/8-Transmission-Pan-Installed-2.jpg STEP 9: REFILLING THE TRANSMISSION WITH NEW AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION FLUID With the transmission now reassembled and seal up, its finally time to refill the sump pan back up with some new automatic transmission fluid. The FSM recommends a Dexron 3 type of automatic transmission fluid for this specific transmission with a total capacity of around 8 litres of fluid, which is only for a complete refill after taking the torque converter out of the transmission which I obliviously haven't done, so I suspect I will need to add around about 3 - 4 litres of transmission fluid into the transmission sump pan to reach the recommend full fluid line markers on the transmission dipstick. I inserted a suitable sized funnel that I found that is able to hold itself upright while fitting tightly inside the transmission dipstick tube, from there I gradually pumped in using a small hand fluid pump device to add in brand new Penrite branded semi synthetic transmission fluid into the transmission one litre at a time. https://i.postimg.cc/Znj1HQ8s/10-Transmision-Fluid-Refilling-Process-1.jpg Between each litre of fluid that I pumped into the transmission, I would then reinsert and check the fluid level on the transmission dipstick to allow me know when and if I had reached the correct fluid level line marker on the dipstick I was aiming for as I was slowly refilled the transmission up with new fluid. After the 4th litre of fluid had been added to the transmission, I had finally reached the full line indicator on the cold level marker of the dipstick. Now I needed to begin the final stage of the refilling process by turning the car on and letting the engine and transmission idle to allow for the transmission and all of the fluid inside of it to slowly heat up and reach normal operating temperatures. Once it had reach those temps, I could then recheck the transmission dipstick again but this time to confirm what the fluid level was on the hot level marker on the dipstick and depending where the fluid level in the transmission sits, I might need to either add or remove fluid from the transmission as I am tried to make sure that the fluid level inside the transmission is where it needs to be. In the end I needed to add an additional litre of fluid to the sump pan to bring my grand total to 5 litres of transmission fluid to get the fluid level inside the transmission to sit on the full line indicator at the hot level marker of the dipstick. https://i.postimg.cc/3JxMNKhs/10-Transmision-Fluid-Refilling-Process-3.jpg Here are a couple of comparison photos I took comparing a fresh brand new transmission fluid next to some of the transmission fluid that came out of the transmission sump pan and as you can see, the old transmission fluid that came out of the sump, is very dark in colour and its crazy to think that this is only after 40,000 km of driving. https://i.postimg.cc/cHGyLw1h/9-Old-Transmission-Fluid-Inspection-Comparison-New-Vs-Old-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/PxbGpJPj/9-Old-Transmission-Fluid-Inspection-Comparison-New-Vs-Old-2.jpg Looking at these photos makes me think that maybe, I should replacing my transmission fluid much more frequently so that I can possibly prevent the transmission fluid from getting so contaminated so quickly. So from now on during every 10,000km engine oil service on my VG30DE engine, I'll also be draining out and replacing the automatic transmission fluid out from my RE4 transmission sump pan during. Then at 40,000km Ill not just replace the transmission fluid, I'll also then replace the strainer unit as well. It might be a bit of overkill thinking here but after 3 blown transmissions in my Z's life, I am desperate to find a way to try and extend the life expectancy and functionality of my next RE4 transmission as much as I can in the future. STEP 10: POST TRANSMISSION SERVICE TEST DRIVE RESULTS With the refilling process now completed, the car is finally ready for its post transmission service test drive. The car was carefully lowered to the ground in a reserve process of the lifting procedure I did earlier in this post. I then started the car for the last time and let the engine idle and warm up while I finished cleaning up and putting away all of my equipment from the transmission service. This gave the engine and transmission all of the time that they needed to get up to and reach normal operating temperatures before I then headed off on the test drive. https://i.postimg.cc/Mpnh0dvt/11-Transmission-Service-Completed-Ready-For-Test-Drive.jpg As part of the test drive process, I quickly connected up my laptop up to and then ran my full version of conzult through the OD1 diagnostic port and to my surprise I finally had a connection to my transmission's ECU and with that I could now see all of the sensor data readouts that I needed to hopefully tell me what the transmission was doing during the test drive in real time as well as screen record the sensor readouts from conzult to use as evidence for further diagnosing the transmission after the test drive had been completed. And so off I went on a quick around the block test drive with a planned route that would take me around 10 minutes to complete. I wanted to try and get the car travelling at various speed levels to allow the transmission to provide plenty of headway for it to cycle through all 4 gears which meant I needed to drive along several low speed suburban roads before I then made my way to a main road with a higher speed limit let me safely get the car cruising up to 80 kmph and then I would head back home once I had gather all of the data I needed to see if the service had work and cured my transmission's previous shifting issues. Unfortunately it didn't take long for me to notice that the transmission's shifting behaviour as I began the test drive did not seem to have changed at all and I could still feel the inability of the transmission to naturally shift up from 1st gear and into 2nd gear with it hanging and revving up until I picked up enough speed to finally get the transmission to shift up into the next gear. Once I made it onto the main road, I then tried to accelerate the car hard to force the transmission to change up through and into the higher gears but what I experience was anything but that with the car jolting back and forth as if it didn't know what gear to go into and so I had back off and slow down back to a try not to break anything. Then made the decision to just head back home as it was clear that the service did nothing to help change and or cure my transmission shifting problems which if you all remember me saying that as much as I was hoping it would I wasn't keeping my hopes up either. When I got home and parked the Z in the garage, I stopped the screen recording and quickly looked over the sensor readouts to try see what was going on during the test drive. Here are a few screenshots I've highlighted from the recordings I took of the car at certain speeds to show you all what I can see from the transmissions sensor readouts during the test drive starting with 30 kmph, with the engine at 3,000 rpm in 2nd gear at a 15% throttle position. https://i.postimg.cc/5tvTTy5C/Transmission-sensor-readout-at-30-kmph.jpg Then at 60 kmph in 3rd gear now at 2,500 rpms at a 25% throttle position https://i.postimg.cc/JzSSpZX8/Transmission_sensor_readout_at_60_kmph.jpg And lastly at 80 kmph in 4th gear at 2,600 rpms at a 9% throttle position https://i.postimg.cc/vBsksyXS/Transmission_sensor_readout_at_80_kmph.jpg As you can see these numbers are not looking normal at all and the car definitely felt weird to drive just like it was before with the main thing I noticed was the sudden and instant of RPMs whenever I took my foot off of the accelerator pedal as the car would slowly coast down in speed instead of the expected slowly decreasing of rpms with the engine as the car slowed down. I also rechecked the ATCU's error code section to find that the TCC clutch solenoid error had finally gone from the listing but instead in its place was a whole bunch of new error codes showing up. https://i.postimg.cc/m2XvF02t/12-AT-Diagnostics-Fault-Codes-After-Service-14-12-24.png As possible as it might be, I still found it very hard to believe that what I had done with the transmission fluid service on my car, could have caused all of these sensor's to now register fault codes on the ATCU and not to mention I don't even know what half of the codes even mean and funny enough this isn't the first time I have seen all of these error codes show up on my ATCU before but that was with my previous RE4 transmission which displayed all of the exact same error codes just before and after that transmission failed on me and then needed to be replaced from what I can remember. So after all of the work I had, unfortunately for me the transmission was still not fixed and the next day I rang and spoke with a local transmission specialist shop which was the same shop that actually installed this exact transmission into my Z back in 2017. After a quick chat with the technician on the phone about the symptoms my transmission was experiencing, he stated to me that "The RE401RA transmission's are know to have weak clutch packs and that when they fail, you normally lose 2nd and 4th gears". This statement pretty much described exactly what I was experiencing with the symptoms on my RE4 transmission and this confirmed that the little black pieces of debris that I found in the bottom of the transmission pan and strainer unit was more then likely fragments of clutch material from one or more of these internal clutch friction plates found inside the transmission. It also explains why even though the sensor readouts on conzult were telling me that during the test drive I had been going through all 4 gears. In reality I am only going from 1st and into 3rd gear and that's why the transmission is making the engine rev so unnaturally to me, especially while I'm cruising at about 100 kmph and sitting at 3,500 rpms. This was not what I was hoping to hear but it is clear that my RE4 transmission now needs a full rebuild to bring it back to fully functional again. When I asked the technician at the transmission specialist shop, how much would a rebuild on this RE4 transmission roughly costs me, he couldn't even tell me a rough figure as he mumbled "its a been a long time since I worked on one of those transmissions". not leaving me with much confidence it was going to be a cheap and or quick process to have the transmission rebuilt. He then asked me if I wanted to bring the car over to the workshop their and allow him to inspect and check over my RE4 transmission. He would then be able to provide me with a proper diagnosis of what is wrong with my RE4 transmission and then provide me with a quote on how much it will cost to have them fix the transmission for me. Having done everything I could to try and fix the transmission myself, I saw no other option then to agreed to and bring the car the specialist's workshop and have them tell me what it will take to get my transmission fixed and get my Z back on the road again. Due to Christmas being just a few weeks away, the shop was due to close for a few weeks during and after Christmas and new years, so a date was set for mid January for me to bring the car over to specialist workshop once it had reopened in the new year. The only good news that I was able to get from the specialists was that even though the transmission was not fully functional, he did say that I could still drive the car as needed but he advised me not to drive the car too aggressively as it could put stress on the transmission and possibly cause it to fail. Luckily for me my JDM model has the additional transmission drive mode Hold & Power switch located on the center console which allows me to put the car into what I'm going to call an ECO shift mode (HOLD) allowing the transmission to shift more quickly through the gears at lower rpms. The downside to using this "HOLD" mode is that this reduces the cars acceleration abilities making the car very sluggish to accelerate off the line but for now this is the best option I have to use to be able to drive the car and have it shift somewhat normalish in the meantime, until I can then take it to the specialists in a months times.

For this months blog update, I went about trying to see if I could fix my car's faulty automatic transmission which involved me doing a basic automatic transmission fluid and filter service much like an oil and filter change on an engine. My hope was that the service work I did on my RE4 automatic transmission, would somehow cure my cars irregular shifting symptoms that it has developed since I got my car back on the road in October. On top of the transmission service I also investigated a strange whining sound that I could hear coming from outside of the car whenever I was driving the car down the road. During my investigation of the issue, I discovered that all of my front brake pads were worn out and needed to be replaced as soon as possible. So I went about removing the old set of worn out brake pads and then swapping in a set of used front brake pads that I had in storage so that I could not just drive the car with slightly less worn front brakes pads for a short time but to also get the car back on the road before it needed to be ready for a scheduled inspection of my faulty automatic transmission by a specialist workshop in early January next year. YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ADAMZX Instagram: instagram.com/adamzx_z32

Hey jeff i want to first thank you for taking the time to respond to my query on the possiblilty of swapping in the later model ABS pump into an early model 300ZX. I have tried my best to cover all of my bases because I know that the ABS system is a very improtant compoent to have on any car and could save my life one day knock on wood. I have never wanted to mess around with the braking system on my car for years because of that fact but now I'm in a situation where I am more experienced and more knowledgeable mechanically wise and I think I have done enough research to know this is a modification appears on paper to be possible but I know that there are still many things that I just don't understand mechanically and eletrically on a car yet and thats why I thought Id ask the question because if someone else had done this before and it worked without any issues then I know I was right with my research. As I said in my initial post the time saved not having to bleed the system from the pump would just simplify the braking bleeding process and I see that as a big win for a DIYer like myself. But there are other several reasons as to why it could be a good thing to swap over the ABS pumps beside just the fact of not having to bleed the pump as I mentioned. For one if a later model car has a failed ABS pump, knowing that a early model ABS pump could be installed as a replacement and function without any issues could be a big win for any later model owner who would have to find and purchase a replacement ABS pump and if either the early model and or later model pumps become more rarer and or harder to find at least there is an option to use either pump and repair the car for that owner as one adiditonal reason you could say is a good thing to know. The reason I even considered this modification was because back in Decemeber of 2024, I was investigating a strange grinding sound coming from my front brakes. In the process I reseated all of the front brake pads in both of my later model Iron front brake calipers and then attempted to bleed the braking system of air as you do. But I came across a problem as for some unkown reason after bleeding my brakes mulitple times, I just couldnt get a firm brake pedal feel. What follow was several days of multiple brake bleeding attempts on the entire braking system using various methods of bleeding including pressure bleeding, manual 2 person bleeding and even vacuum bleeding and after 12 bleeds of the system, I still couldnt get a firm brake pedal feel. After 2 months of diagnosing the problem I eventually figured out that the reason I was having this issue was because many years ago when I change over my brake rotors to new a set of rotors, I had accidently installed both of my front calipers on the wrong side and that meant that instead of the brake bleed nipple being on the top of the caliper, it is now on the bottom and so no matter what I did, I was never going to get all of the air out of the system and so I have solved my problem in theory. During the whole bleeding process sage I went throught, I had considered that maybe the problem could be caused by a bad or failed ABS pump which I thought was highly unlikely but I couldnt rule it out completely and because we had to bleed the system multiple times and considering the car had sat for 3 years, we thought maybe there was a stuck valve or trapped air inside the ABS pump causing our issue. So I was thinking of replacing the ABS pump in an attempt to solve the problem and when I found out that the later model pump didnt require it to be bleed I saw an opportunity to install a part that would save me a ton time of time during regular maintenance of my braking system. Even though I now know that the issue wasn't due to my ABS pump being faulty in any way, I still like the idea of not having to bleed the pump of air in the future and would make bleeding the braking system require less steps to complete and makes it whole bleed process a little less complicated. This is the biggests quesiton mark for me as to whether this modifcation is possible or not. As I said in my post that though wiring diagrams between the 2 systems are different, the pins for the ABS pumps are the exact same and the pins on the ECU's are the same but in slightly different locations. There is no real way for me to determine from the wiring diagrams whether or not the sysem will work electronically wise and thats why I was hoping that amybe someone else has already to this modification in the past proven it is possible and works. If I don't find that answer I may have to be the first guinea pig out of all of us to try it and see if its possible. One of the goals I have for my 300ZX build if you havent been following it yet, has been to covert and upgrade my early model 300ZX to that of the very last production models from 1998-2000. I did this to try and moderise my 300ZX as much as possible but keeping it period correct and yes I know that Nissan did begin alot of cost cutting efforts on the later model 300ZX's to save money but they also did improve things on the car over its production run, an example would be the power transistor unit or PTU which was upgraded in the later model 300ZX's. Everyone knows the series 2 PTU is a smart upgrade choice for any 300ZX owner and so even though Nissan were cutting costs they were also upgrading the car's components and systems to make them more realiable. Whether or not the ABS pump was changed to save on costs, I can't say but from my point of view Nissan might have changed over to the later model ABS pump because they could then save on maintence time and costs at the dealerships by not having to go through the brake bleeding process on the ABS pump on the later model cars but I guess we will never know the real reason. I don't think it is a step back to upgrade to a later model ABS pump, though it might seem like a strange modification to yourself, I see people all the time boosting their cars for street use a big step back in my eyes, the 300ZX was built as a gran tourer not a lamborghini race car but most builds I have seen over the past 20 years are of people only wanting to try to make their 300ZX's faster and have huge horsepower goals. Each to their own and if thats what floats your boat thats fine but I see all of that crap as just adding risk to you crashing the car doing something stupid on the road where you might feel inclinded to race another car on the road or during a track event make a mistake and crash into a wall totalling the car just for the thrill of going fast. I don't have any ambitions to make my 300ZX another silly super fast race car 300ZX and Instead I want to build a unquie, one of kind OEM+ 300ZX that includs all of the latests technology and compoents for the car from the era it was made in as much as possible. I want to build a collector piece that has as many optional and rare OEM parts on it that don't exist anymore and also come from not just the JDM models but the USDM, and UKDM models as well make it the best spec'd out 300ZX in the world if you could of brought it back in the day. I see the later model ABS pump as an improvement over the early model pump becauase of the fact it doesnt require it to be bleed which might mean its a self bleeding pump when compared to the manual bleeding pump from the early model I dunno but thats just me and you can agree to disagree with me on that which is totally fine. All I need to know is if its possible to swap it in and then not have any issues mechanically and or electrconically wise after the swap?

hi guys, I am in the process of restoring my braking system on my Z and recently I found out that the later model ABS pumps/modules in the 300ZX's don't require bleeding which in my mind would be a great way to not just reduce the service time and maintanence of my braking system in the future with this later model abs pump setup but also completely remove the chance of me accidently spilling brake fluid from the pump into the cabin of the car during the old early model brake bleeding procedure if I ever need to bleed my braking system in the future. I have already purhased a later model ABS pump model from Japan as well as acquire all of the metal hardline pipes from the pump to the union box in the rear hatch so I can easily remove my original early model abs pump and put the later model pump in without any modifications needed which is great. The question i have is has anyone every done this kind of modification before on an early model 300ZX with a later model ABS pump. Im confident that it is possible because the pumps are pretty much the same with regards to their inner workings from my research on how ABS pumps work in general and the main difference with the early model compared to the later model abs pump is that the early model abs pump has a pair of bleed nipples on the top of the pump whereas the later model abs pump has no bleed nipples at all. I also checked the FSM's electrical wiring diagram of both the early model and later model ABS pump circuits and yes the later model wiring diagram has more ciruictary to the abs system in it but from what I can tell the extra wiring contains just more fuses and orwarning relays or components of some kind and when I compared the ping layout and numbers for the early model and later model ABS pumps that connect to the pumps directly, they are the exact same pin layouts in the exact same location on both pumps and when I traced the wires from the pumps to the ABS ECU's, the pins numbers connectedt to the same exact pins on both early model and later model ABS ECU's. the only small difference I could see was that the pin location for the later model pumps to the ECU where in slightly different locations but they still used the exact same pin numbers. I know the ABS pump is an important safety component of the car's braking system and I dont want to install the later model pump and potentionally disable the abs system due to a mismatch of components and I just thought id ask the more knowledgable 300ZX owners on here first before I go swapping in the new abs pump. if anyone has any insights that would be much appreciated

STILLEN SMZ NOSE PANEL UPDATES NOVEMEBER 2024 (SEC-650) The last item that I wanted to address for this months blog updates, was to do with sealing up several empty and now unused mounting bolt holes I currently have along the upper lip or rear section on my Stillen SMZ nose panel. Normally these specific mounting bolt holes would allow for the installation of a set of factory rear rubber seal and bracket pieces that would mount up and onto the rear lip of all early model nose panel's like so; https://i.postimg.cc/tg50hn72/Early_Model_Nose_Panel_Setup_With_Upper_Bracket_&_Seal.jpg However because I am going to be following the later model 1994+ factory nose panel setup on my Stillen SMZ nose panel, I no longer required the need for both of the rear rubber seal and bracket pieces anymore and my plan was to block off all of the empty mounting bolt holes for those 2 pieces by using a set of factory specific blocking clips I found listed in section 650's parts fiche illustration. https://i.postimg.cc/LspBNZXz/Nose-Panel-Parts-Fiche-94-98.gif https://i.postimg.cc/nLhGQ9hT/OEM-Blocking-Grommet-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/6p0h3fty/OEM-Blocking-Grommet-2.jpg My best guess is that this option, to use blocking clips in the parts fiche illustration was probably a way for Nissan to be able to slowly change over to the later model nose panel setup on cars produced after October 1993 and most likely use up any remaining early model factory nose panel stock they might of had in left over before the changes to the nose panel setup were made and then after 1994, all factory later model nose panels produced for the 300ZX were made without any of these mounting bolt holes being drilled out anymore and looks to be a cost cutting measure Nissan was doing alongside many others during the later model production cycle of the 300ZX. https://i.postimg.cc/zfxcYCjt/Upper-Rear-Mounting-Seal-Bracket-point-Deleted-with-red-ring.jpg SEC-650 Parts Fiche Illustration for 1998-2000 models. https://i.postimg.cc/gj04fnzc/650_(Hood_Panel,_Hinge_&_Fitting)_B_(Series_6).gif Unfortunately for me during the final assembly process of my SMZ nose panel, I discovered that the factory blocking clips I had purchased to suit this exact task, turned out too big to fit into any of the unused mounting bolt holes with and so I couldn't finish sealing the holes up at that time. I would of had to drill out and enlarge the empty bolts holes to be able to accommodate the installation of the factory specific blocking clips which I didn't want to do because that would have required me to alter the Stillen SMZ nose panel further then I would have liked considering that the SMZ nose panel I have would of came off either a 1995 or 1996 and technically should not of had any of these empty mounting bolt holes present at all and must have been done by the previous owner of this nose panel. https://i.postimg.cc/Jhy7xqVP/OEM_Blocking_Grommet_&_OEM_Nose_Panel_1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/bNTvwr9H/OEM_Blocking_Grommet_&_OEM_Nose_Panel_2.jpg So because the factory blocking clips I had weren't going to work out for this application, I now had to find an alterative solution that would fit these smaller sized bolt holes and that's when I realised I could just use the same aftermarket plastic mounting clips I used for the front section on the nose panel which allowed me to mount up the front factory rubber seal and bracket setup without any problems during the final assembly of my SMZ nose panel. https://i.postimg.cc/7Z7n3NxH/Champion-Blocking-Grommet-Pack.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/Hsr2xgR7/Champion-Blocking-Grommet-2.jpg[/img] Front section of the SMZ nose panel all setup. https://i.postimg.cc/nzT0X7sy/6-Nose-Panel-Assembly.jpg[/img] After purchasing another set of these champion branded mounting clips from my work, I installed 6 of them into each of the empty bolt holes without any further issues and I was very happy overall with the end result. https://i.postimg.cc/q7SLZ58Z/After-sealing-Up-All-unused-Bolt-Holes-In-SMZ-Nose-Panel.jpg[/img] With all of the mounting bolts holes on the SMZ nose panel finally all sealed up, I can now move onto figuring out the final problem I have left to solve for the SMZ nose panel which relates to the installation of a replica SMZ badge as well as installing the very rare later model Red and Gold Z badge onto the front of the SMZ nose panel as the final assembly step I have left to complete for this part. https://i.postimg.cc/VNdgg8bC/Badges-That-need-to-be-Installed-onto-Nose-Panel-2024.jpg[/img]

TRYING TO UPGRADE MY TAIL LIGHT GLOBES TO AFTERMARKET LED VARIENTS (SEC-265) If you all remember during the mid to later stages of my rebuild project, I was able to upgrade several of the factory halogen globes for my pair of front and rear indicator's as well as my parker and front fog lights with LED versions with much success. Now it is time for me to try and do the same thing on the rear tail lights but the problem with converting over to any type of aftermarket LED globes for the 300ZX's tail lights is having to deal with the factory tail light out warning system built into the wiring circuit / wiring system of the 300ZX's tail light wiring harness. From what I know, the system is designed to detect any amount of low wattage current running through the circuit of the tail light harness via a "Stop & Tail Sensor Assembly" attached to the back of the drivers side tail light housing. If a low wattage current is detected due to a effect of a blown tail light halogen globe, the system will display and illuminate the tail light warning indicator on the dashboard. The reason this setup in the 300ZX is a issue, is because of the fact that all aftermarket LED globes are designed to be very power efficient and so produce very low wattage when compared to their halogen globes counterparts. This in turn causes the warning light system in the 300ZX to illuminate whenever a set of LED tail light globes are installed and activated either via turning the car's running lights on in low light driving conditions and or when depressing on the brake pedal which in turn causes the tail light warning indicator on the dashboard to illuminate. This situation is exactly what happened to me when I first tried to use LED tail light globes way back in 2008 when I was running from custom made DIY double clear rear tail light setup on my Z. https://i.postimg.cc/tTvGk4Tt/Custom-Made-Double-Clear-Rear-Tail-Light-Assemblies.jpg After several months of use, I began to notice that the cheap LED globes that I paired up along with my DIY double clear tail lights setup, all began to start breaking down and fail on me, to the point where I decided to just ditch the idea of using LED tail light globes and instead revert back to reinstalling the appropriate halogen globes back into the tail light assemblies which lasted until I eventually replaced the double clear tail lights setup and went with the way better looking later model "JDM' style tail lights setup as part of my 2000 model conversion project. https://i.postimg.cc/50VhbK7G/New-Look-Rear-End-After-Respray-in-2012.jpg Now I'm hoping that modern day aftermarket LED globes that I can easily purchase from my work, will be a lot more reliable then the cheap LED tail light globes I used more then 15 years ago and if I'm lucky, they may also have the ability to include an inbuilt load resistor setup inside in the LED globes which could replicate the same electrical characteristics of a halogen globe much like what the new Narva LED indicators globes did for me and defeat the presences of any factory tail light warning system found in some cars including the Nissan 300ZX. https://i.postimg.cc/1XyM8GPv/Comparions-Narva-Vs-Stedi-Vs-OEM.jpg STEDI BAY15D LED TAIL LIGHT GLOBES (P/N: LEDCONV-BAY15D) https://i.postimg.cc/dQSJm4ZP/Stedi-LED-Bay15-D-Globes.jpg The first set of LED tail light globes that I installed was the Stedi branded BAY15D (1157) LED globes which looked to be a very high quality set of LED replacement globes with a colour temp of 6000K and according to the packaging information produced a low amperage of 0.39amps and a high of 0.41amps. https://i.postimg.cc/652tHnC7/Stedi-LED-Bay15-D-Globes-Kit.jpg Unfortunately after the installation of the stedi set of LED tail light globes, I found that the dashboard warning indicator for the tail light warning system would now illuminate when i either turned on the driving lights and or whenever I depressed the brake pedal. Initially I tried to ignore the warning light as much as possible while I was driving the car around town but eventually it did get quite annoying for me to see the warning light constantly turning on and off while I was driving and I was nearly ready to give up and revert back to my factory halogen globes when I found another set of aftermarket LED globes that just might fix this problem for me. NARVA BAY15D LED TAIL LIGHT GLOBES WITH INBUILT CANBUS MODULE (P/N: 18266BL) https://i.postimg.cc/8cqQ8XL7/Narva-Canbus-LED-BAY15-D-Globes.jpg And those LED tail light globes I went with was made by Narva and the differences with this set of LED globes was that they came included with a canbus module inside the LED globes housing which according to the packaging would eliminate the dashboard warning light indicator and not require the use of a load resistor to be installed in series with the factory tail light wiring harness. https://i.postimg.cc/Prr2hQSx/Narva-Canbus-LED-BAY15-D-Globes-2.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/8z74fPQg/Narva-Canbus-LED-BAY15d-Globes-Kit.jpg If what the packaging was stating was true then this was exactly what I was looking for and I had high hopes that this new set of LED globes from Narva would finally do the trick. So I removed the Stedi LED globes and replaced them with the Narva variant's. https://i.postimg.cc/cCThwvL0/Before-Installation-of-Narva-Stop-tail-LED-globes.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/CM4mWQHX/After-Installation-of-Narva-Stop-tail-LED-globes.jpg But even with the new set of Narva canbus style LED globes installed, I was still getting the activation of the dashboard tail light warning indicator coming up just like what would happen with the previous set of Stedi LED globes. A few days later while I was at work, a Narva representative came into my store to showcase some of the new product ranges that Narva were going to releasing soon to the market here in Australia. I took the opportunity to speak to him about the issue I was having with the activation of the tail light warning system in the Z even with the installation of the canbus style LED globes from his range and his response to me was that, yes they have found that some cars tail light warning systems can still trigger even with the use of their canbus style LED globes in place and the only way now to overcome the activation of the warning light on the dashboard is to install a load resistor unit into the wiring harness of the tail light wiring system. With this new information from the Narva rep, I could quite easily install a load resistor into the wiring harness of the tail light warning system as an simple DIY option but I also wanted to look into the possibility of modifying the circuitry of the "Stop & Tail Sensor Assembly" as another option to change the way the system detects the amount of wattage it needs to be able to activate the warning indicator on the dashboard. The problem is that this kind of modification would be a very difficult and complex alteration to the sensor assembly for an electrical novice like me to do and would require a deep understanding of the inner workings of the electrical components of the "Stop & Tail Sensor Assembly" which I have yet to look into myself and I haven't seen anyone talk about and or modify this unit to allow for the use of LED globes in this system thus far. But if it was possible it would a be an simple plug and play option for other 300ZX owners to install into their cars after they had modify the sensor assembly themselves leaving the factory wiring harness all original and untouched. https://i.postimg.cc/FsWGKk6x/Stop-Tail-Light-Sensor-Assembly.png For now though I am just going have to try and ignore the tail light warning indicator on the dashboard as much as possible, hopefully one day I can possibly look into either modifying the sensor assembly and or install a load resistor into the wiring harness of the tail light system to hopefully one day overcome the issue I have with activation of the tail light warning indicator while using LED globes in my 300ZX.

CARBON FIBER LAMBORGHINI TRIM COVERS TEST FIT (SEC-260) The first modification I wanted to look into this month, was for the test fitting and installation of my pair of Lamborghini Diablo carbon fiber trim covers or eyelids for my factory 300ZX xenon headlights. As part of any new exploratory type of modification I want to install on my 300ZX, which as far as I know has never been done before. Means that I will need to figure out how, where and what important things I need to do before I can commit to installing these trim covers onto my pair of factory 300ZX xenon headlights. The first thing that I want to do is to check the overall fitment of each of the trim covers onto both of my factory 300ZX xenon headlights. This will help me to see where each trim cover will sit on both glass lenses of each 300ZX headlight to replicate the original Lamborghini Diablo headlight setup as much as possible. https://i.postimg.cc/FHtcv6fq/99spec-Diablo-Headlight-trim-piece-1.jpg So after a quick test fit of both trim covers, I found that there was no issues with the fitment of each trim cover onto both of the glass lenses of my factory 300ZX xenon headlights which confirms the truth for everyone to know that the Lamborghini diablo carbon fiber headlight trim covers are interchangeable with 300ZX headlights. With the covers in place, I was also then able to see how the carbon fiber trim covers looked visually on the car and my first impressions were that they looked absolutely amazing when fitted onto the both headlights. Though the carbon fiber effect was very minor, it still doesn't look out of place and really helps to add to that super car feel and look to the front end of my Nissan 300zx ever so slightly and the darker shade of the carbon fiber pattern on the trim covers really complimented my factory silver metallic paint finish to a tee. https://i.postimg.cc/8zHdTV25/Lambo-CF-Eyelids-Test-Fit-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/K8qK9vXn/Lambo-CF-Eyelids-Test-Fit-2.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/j2tdxG0x/Lambo-CF-Eyelids-Test-Fit-3.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/wTWTzfWz/Lambo-CF-Eyelids-Test-Fit-4.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/YCZrG4Ky/Lambo-CF-Eyelids-Test-Fit-5.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/G21bKZpF/Lambo-CF-Eyelids-Test-Fit-6.jpg The only small little issue that I found during the test fitting process of the trim covers, was that I wasn't able to properly test fit the passenger side trim cover onto the passenger side headlight due to the SMZ nose panel which is currently pressing up against the left hand side edge of the passenger headlight assembly and this prevented me from being able to slot down and the left hand side edge of the trim cover into position onto the passenger side headlight. Because of that issue it means that when it comes time for me to commit to installing both of these headlight trim covers in the future, I will have to uninstall the SMZ nose panel first so that I can then install both trim covers correctly and then I can reinstall the SMZ nose panel back onto the car. With the test fitting process completed the next item I will need to figure out and decide on is which method of bonding, I will decide use to attach and install each of carbon fiber trim covers onto the glass lenses of each headlight. This is the most important part of the installation of these trim covers as I need to make sure they will not come off of the headlights in the future which would be a very frustrating an expensive loss for me to have to go through, so I need to make the right decision the first time around. From the research I have done so far on the choices I have to be able to attach each trim cover onto the glass lenses of each headlight. I can either use a high quality double sided tape or an adhesive type bonding sealant product which will need to both have the ability to provide a strong adhesive bond for the trim covers onto the glass lenses to prevent them coming off due to wind resistance forces that might be applied to the covers as I am driving down the freeway at 100 kmph. On top of the strong bonding characteristics I require, I also need a product that will be able to also withstand for expended periods of time, the potential of either extreme heat and or extreme cold conditions without breaking and or losing their bonding abilities. This is the key element I am looking for as there will be times when the car will be sitting outside for several hours in direct sunlight where the adhesive product will be subject to high heat temperatures as well as during winter time, will experience a temperature drop down to as low as about 5 degrees Celsius here in Melbourne where I live and I need a product that wont degrade overtime due to those temperature differences and exposures over as long a period of time as much as possible. Initially I was leaning more towards using a high quality double sided tape for the bonding application of the trim covers onto the headlights but after speaking with a representative from JB Weld at my work on the matter. He suggested that I should be going more with the use of an adhesive type sealant product to attach the trim covers to the headlights over using double sided tape. The points he made were that the issue with using double sided tape was that the thickness of the tape would cause the trim covers to not sit flush and or flat enough with the glass lenses and that would allow for dirt and grime to eventually form under the raised edges of the both trim covers which could lead to the adhesive tape losing its bonding abilities over time and then with the added wind resistance of freeway driving could enviably cause the trim cover to fall off of the headlights. But if I was to use an adhesive sealant product instead, that product would allow me to have a strong bond that would be able to resistance all of the high heat and cold weather conditions I was concerned about, as well as provide a more flush flat fitting of the trim covers onto the glass lenses and because of this, the adhesive sealant application would eliminate all of the issues that the double sided tape would create and the potential of dirt and grime and even wind resistance from getting under the trim cover would not occur and this would mean that the trims covers would not fall off overtime. With this information, I feel more inclined to go with the adhesive type sealant product for my bonding application method of the trim covers onto the headlights and the JB Weld rep was even kind enough to provide me with a few product options from both his own range and even some of his competitors to help me make the most informative and correct choice of product I was looking for. For now I have achieved my goal of test fitting the carbon fiber trim covers for the headlights and I think I have enough information to proceed with the installation at some point in the future.

ADDITIONAL CARBON FIBER TRIM COVERS FOR THE SIDE & REAR VIEW MIRRORS (SEC-963) While we are on the subject of carbon fiber parts for the rebuild project, lets have a look at the 2 other carbon fiber trim covers I have acquired which I plan to go along with the installation of the Lamborghini Diablo headlight trim covers. I hope that together all 3 carbon fiber parts will add that little bit of super car styling I am aiming for without altering the car's original body styling and or factory appearance that I am trying to maintain as much as possible. CARBON FIBER SIDE VIEW MIRROR TRIM COVER I purchased this pair of carbon fiber trim covers from a seller on yahoo auctions in Japan back in 2022 and just like the Lamborghini Diablo trim covers, the side mirror carbon fiber trim covers look absolutely fantastic on my silver metallic 300ZX. The covers come complete with included double sided tape to allow for an easy DIY installation of each trim cover onto the rear exterior body of both of the factory 300ZX side mirrors. https://i.postimg.cc/FFp4rdJM/Test-Fit-of-Carbon-Fiber-Side-Mirror-Cover-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/6qjgdZrT/Test-Fit-of-Carbon-Fiber-Side-Mirror-Cover-2.jpg CARBON FIBER REAR VIEW MIRROR TRIM COVER https://i.postimg.cc/jST9xm1M/CF-Trim-Cover-Rear-View-Mirror.jpg[/img] The last of the carbon fiber trim covers I have is for the factory 300ZX rear view mirror found inside the car which I also purchased from yahoo auctions back in 2022. When I did my initial test fitting of the trim cover onto the rear view mirror back in 2022, I found that this trim cover is able to be simply positioned and clipped into place over the outer body of the rear view mirror assembly. https://i.postimg.cc/G2rgr5mk/20220628-160518.jpg Before I install the cover though I want to add a small "Nismo" decal to trim cover which will replicate the official and original factory style Nismo mirror covers found on the several Nissan models including the Nissan Skyline GTR R33 & R34. https://i.postimg.cc/Qx1wrhfB/nismo-mirror-cover.jpg Now as much as I would really love to just install all of these cool carbon fiber parts onto my 300ZX's, I know that I have way more important things to worry about right now on the car especially with regards to the automatic transmission issues I have experienced since getting my Z back on the road and I need to focus on fixing that problem first before I can then look into and install these carbon fiber parts onto the car later on in the future.

FULL CAR DETAILING PROCESS AFTER REBUILD So it has been a week now since the events of the reassembly process of the front end of the car and one of the things that I never got a chance to do before I drove the car home from my Dad's place, was to give the car a full inside and out detail, so that I can then remove all of the years of dirt and dust buildup that had settled onto the exterior and interior surface of the car while it sat for 3 years in the front yard of my Dad's place under a car cover. Here is how the car looked before I started with the detailing process and besides the dust buildup that is visible on the rear hatch in the below photos, the car doesn't really look that dirty on the outside. Still after sitting for such a long time and now that its finally parked in its new home, I definitely wanted to give my car a decent bath and clean off all of that dust as much as possible. https://i.postimg.cc/XYBrry2r/Before-Cleaning-2.jpg As for the interior of the car, that too really wasn't that bad either but there was a thin layer of dust that was covering the dashboard, both of the door cards, the seats and all of the surrounding trim inside the car. Not to mention that it had been quite a while since I had last vacuumed the interior of my Z even before the accident occurred, so it was differently due for good cleaning of the whole interior while I was planning to detail the outside of the car anyways. https://i.postimg.cc/tJgTp1ZC/Before-Cleaning-3.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/HnPLxpX0/Before-Cleaning-4.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/W1dk0y4b/Before-Cleaning-5.jpg Starting off the detailing process will be a thorough vacuuming of the entire interior of the car, followed by a wipe down of all interior trim surfaces using a interior cleaning spray product and a microfiber towel. To finish off, all of the trim panels will then have a high quality interior protectant applied to all of the plastic panels in the interior which will help to protect those pieces from the damaging rays of the sun and bring out the depth of colour in the vinyl. Things were off to a good start with the rear boot area and passenger side foot well coming up looking fantastic after I going through my thorough detailing process in those areas but unfortunately for me, things then took a turn for the worst unexpectedly when my new BigBoi SuckRpro vacuum cleaner machine decided to die on me midway through the vacuuming process which pretty much ended my ability to finish off the rest of the cleaning process of the interior of the car for the day, which was pretty annoying considering it was the first time I had tried to use the machine to clean the car since I got it from work several weeks ago. Luckily it was a faulty unit that I managed to grab from work before it was to be thrown out under warranty. This meant that the unit didn't cost me anything so there was no lose for me in hindsight. I may try to pull the unit apart and possibly fix the machine later down the track if its possible of course. Now because of the breakdown of my new vacuum machine, I didn't feel happy enough to take any "after" photos of the detailing process for the interior that I had managed to complete before the machine died on me and I will need to go back to my Dad's place at some point in time and collect and bring home my old workshop vacuum which was working fine when I swapped it for the BigBoi unit. Once I have my old vacuum cleaner machine back at home I can then finish off the cleaning process for the interior. Moving on now to the exterior detailing process of the car and I began by thoroughly cleaning all 4 of the factory OEM wheels which were covered all kinds of gunk including spider webs and grass clippings along with the usual buildup of brake dust that had bonded to the surface of the polished aluminum wheels before the accident occurred. Using a high quality wheel cleaning product along with a pair of different styled wheel brushes, I first chemically dissolved and thoroughly scrubbed each alloy wheel to remove as much of the gunk buildup on each wheel as I could by hand. Then using my Karcher pressure washer, I thoroughly rinsed down each wheel to wash off all of the wheel cleaning product as well as all of the grass clippings and spider wheels in and around the wheels and even in the wheel wells as much as possible. The next step was to do a quick touchless pre wash of the entire exterior of the car to safely remove as much of the surface dust and grime off of all of the surfaces of the car as much as possible. This process will help to eliminate and or minimise the chances of me causing micro scratches to all of the painted surfaces of the car during the manual hand washing process. This step included a quick high pressure rinse down of the entire exterior of the car which was then followed by a pre foam wash, which was left to dwell onto the body of the car for about a minute or so and should help to gently lift off as much loose dirt and dust off the paint without me needing to touch the car at all. Then I thoroughly rinsing off all of the remaining foamy suds from the surfaces of the car to leave the paint as clean as possible before moving onto the next step. Then using the classic 2 bucket wash method, I manually hand washed every surface of the exterior of the car thoroughly using a high quality automotive body wash and a microfiber wash mitt by Bowden's, to effectively and safely remove all of the more stubborn stuck on grime that did not come off the car during the pre wash process. Once I had finished washing down the entire surface of the car by hand, I then dried the entire car down using a high quality 1200 grams per square meter (GSM) drying towel and my new BigBoi BlowRProMini blowing machine, which together allowed me to quickly and effectively dry off all of the remaining water on the surfaces of the car and leave me with a very clean and shiny looking 300ZX and I was very happy to see my pride and joy looking like a million bucks once again. https://i.postimg.cc/wx0gFq4q/After-Cleaning-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/TYn8FTC5/After-Cleaning-2.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/gjvMS2mY/After-Cleaning-3.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/bw8Xj4BC/After-Cleaning-4.jpg With the car now thoroughly cleaned on the outside at least, I could now look into installing and finishing off a few little minor modifications to the car that I wasn't able to do during the reassembly process.

After multiple months of massive updates and progress made for the rebuild project, this month saw a quite a bit of a slow down in new developments and work done on the Z but with all of the issues I was now experiencing with my automatic transmission since getting the car back on the road, I had decided to try and play it safe and not drive the Z very much over the course of this month. I was also now 6 months behind in the back end for producing and releasing my rebuild projects monthly blog updates for you all which I again apologise for and so moving forward I wanted to spend more time on writing up and releasing as many of the delayed blog updates that I hadn't posted up yet as fast as I possibly can and eventually I hope to catch up to where I am now with the current developments I am working on for the Z. But even with all of stuff going on in the background for the rebuild project, some exciting progress was still made for a couple little things that I managed to do this month including giving the car its first bath in almost 3 years. I also test fitted several aftermarket and real carbon fiber exterior trim pieces for the Z that I am planning to install onto the car at some point in the future as well as install a couple of different types of aftermarket LED replacement tail light globes into the car with mixed results and to finish off I did a little bit more work on the Stillen SMZ nose panel which I wasn't able to complete during the reassembly phase of the rebuild project. YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ADAMZX Instagram: instagram.com/adamzx_z32

Black and silver z badges were the most common on all models from 89-98 except for convertibles modules where the black and gold badges were used. In late 98+ for the final 99spec models silver and red badges were used and replaced the standard black and silver badges on all models and the extremely rare red and gold badge was an optional extra you had to buy for a new 99spec model. That's what I have discovered from my research

Thank you so very much peage, it really brings a smile to my face hearing that and it will help me to continue with motivating me to push on progressing with this still ongoing build for my Z and I hope future updates will be just an informative and enjoyable for you all to read about when new developments drop for the project. I also hope that one day, I'll be able to transfer all of this hard work and effort from this build thread into my 300zx YouTube channel which will be an even bigger, more ambitious place for 300zx content with not just all of this build blog in video format to watch but also a place where I'll be doing all kinds of 300zx video content including things like part comparison videos, how go guides and a tons more and I can't wait to get to that point one day.

Thanks for the suggestion mate and yes I am aware of the transmission self diagnostics that for some reason I have never been able to activate ever on my Z. Good news is I do have a full version of conzult and a tablet and conzult cable to overcome that problem but unfortunately at the time I got the car back together again I realised I had forgotten to bring my conzult cable along with me, so without the usb consult cable, I couldn't check the transmission for error codes before driving the car home. As this update is 7 months old by now a lot of diagnostics on the transmission has been done plus other work to try and solve the issues I was having with the box but I'll explain all of that in the next few blog updates as I try to get everyone up to speed on whats has been going on with the car after the events of this month's blog update.

REASSEMBLY PROCESS (DAY 3) So this is it everyone, the final day of the reassembly process is finally here and even though things didn't exactly go to plan how I wanted them to yesterday, for day 3 I wanted to overcome those setbacks as much as possible. So I began today feeling confident and determined to finish off what I had started and with a little bit of luck, I hope to be able to complete the process of getting my Z back together again and then drive my pride and joy home for the first time. With only a handful of parts now left to install onto the front end of the car, my main focus for today was to continue with completing my primary goal of getting the front bumper bar mounted into place onto the front radiator core support. The remaining list of parts still left to install for today would include the installation of the USDM reo bar, the replacement OEM bonnet, the Stillen SMZ nose panel, the pair of front fog and side indicator light assemblies as well and a whole bunch of miscellaneous parts, not to mention the installation of the drivers side xenon headlight which my Dad was about half way through repairing at this point after I accidently broke a plastic mounting tab off the housing on the headlight when I attempted to the install it onto the car yesterday. USDM Reo Bar Final Assembly & Installation Starting off today will be the installation of the USDM reinforcement bar which mounts onto the 2 front frame rails. But before I could the mount the new reo bar into place, I first needed to install a couple of additional items onto the new reo bar which are part of the factory mounting setup for the 2000 model front bumper bar and those parts included a lower mounting bracket specifically for the 2kspec front bumper bar and an OEM upper spacer foam support which spaces the bumper bar up against the reo bar. https://i.postimg.cc/G2cTgYrQ/1-USDM-Reo-Bar-Assembly-2.jpg With the USDM reo bar now fully assembled, I then installed the new reo bar into its factory mounting location onto the 2 front frame rails like so; Before https://i.postimg.cc/1XXnsQ8V/1-USDM-Reo-Bar-Assembly-Before-Install.jpg After https://i.postimg.cc/fbQ9Xpr1/1-USDM-Reo-Bar-Assembly-After-Install-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/cLn3v0XQ/1-USDM-Reo-Bar-Assembly-After-Install-2.jpg One point to note with regards to installing a USDM reo bar onto a JDM model car like mine was that 2 of the 6 mounting bolt holes on each of the two front frame rails had not been installed by the techs at the Nissan factory it would seem, probably because the JDM fiberglass reo bar doesn't require the use of those 2 mounting points when compared to the installation of the USDM reo bar. Me wanting to make sure that the new reo bar was installed correctly as it would have been from the factory as much as possible, I had planned to overcome this issue by pressing into place a pair of threaded rivet nuts onto the 2 open mounting holes to allow me to install the 2 remaining OEM mounting fasteners for the reo bar onto each of the 2 front frame rails. However when I attempted to install the first rivet nut into place, I discovered that the open mounting hole I was trying to fill, was too big to accommodate the rivet nut that i had found suited the correct size and thread for the pair of factory mounting fasteners I had left to install for the reo bar and there was no way that these smaller diameter rivet nuts were ever going to fit into place with these larger sized diameter open mounting holes onto the two front frame rails. After consulting with my Dad about the issue, we worked together to come up with a solution that would allow for us to mount the rivet nut into place by using flat washers to bridge the gap in the mounting hole so we could then clamp the rivet nut down into place and lock it to the frame rail. In the end the washer idea I had didn't really work out but a similar method my Dad used with a thinner piece of metal made into a washer did surprising work to secure the rivet nut down onto one of the mounting hole on the drivers side front frame rail. Unfortunately after several attempts to use the same method on the passenger side frame rail, we just couldn't get it to work and after about half and hour of trying with no success, we decided to just forget about installing a rivet nut and instead I opted for just installing onto the back of the last mounting fastener a washer and nut combination which will basically lock the fastener up against the mounting hole on the passenger side front frame rail. Drivers Side Xenon Headlight Installation Update By the time I had finished installing the USDM reo bar onto the car, my Dad and I had also completed the repairs to the drivers side xenon headlight and I was very happy with the modifications my Dad had devised and then we implemented to fix the broken plastic mounting tab on the drivers side headlight. The installation of the driver side headlight went on without any further issues and as much as I wished I could have installed the pair of replica headlight foam seals along with the pair of restored xenon headlights, I guess it just wasn't meant to be and I'll definitely look into researching more into a solution to hopefully make the headlight foam seals work on my car in the future. https://i.postimg.cc/J0Fyh2X6/2-Driver-Side-Xenon-Headlight-Installation-1.jpg Here is a close up of the replacement metal bracket that my Dad had fabricated and we installed into place on the body of the headlight assembly. As you can see the new bracket uses multiple factory mounting points from the body of the headlight to secure the lower mounting frame piece back onto the body of the headlight assembly and we also applied a waterproofing sealant under the bracket to seal the hole and prevent any moisture from getting inside the headlight assembly. https://i.postimg.cc/pVc5kpSf/2-Driver-Side-Xenon-Headlight-Installation-2.jpg As happy as I was to finally see my pair of factory xenon headlights back on my car for the first time in 3 years, I could tell that this incident highlighted the fact that even though my drivers side xenon headlight had been repaired professionally, it was still never going to be the same was it was before the accident obliviously and so it occurred to me that in order for me to be truly satisfied with the repairs to my Z after the accident one day, I'll need to look into replacing the driver side xenon headlight in the future assuming I can even find a replacement undamaged drivers side xenon headlight or even a pair of xenon headlights for sale and also be able to afford the several thousand dollar regular asking price that I see these used headlight assemblies usually go for on sites like yahoo auctions over the past few years. For now though I'll just have to live with what I have but I think one day I'm sure I'll be able to find an affordable good condition used undamaged driver side xenon headlight that I can then buy and then use to replace the current repaired driver side headlight I have. Bonnet Installation Moving on now and next up will be the installation of the replacement factory aluminum bonnet which will be going back onto the car for the final time. Working with the help of my Dad, we carried the bonnet from the backyard over body of the car and then we both held the bonnet in an upright position over the rear part of the engine bay before we then attached the bonnet onto to the 2 hood latches to secure the bonnet into place. https://i.postimg.cc/9MJR6MQj/3-Bonnet-Installation.jpg 2000 Model Front Bumper Bar Final Assembly & Installation https://i.postimg.cc/jdWw1RVG/4-Front-Bumper-Bar-Assembly-1.jpg At this stage of the reassembly process, it was finally time for me to install the replacement 2kspec front bumper bar back onto the car making this step quiet a big moment for me as you could imagine. But in order for me to install the bumper bar correctly as it would have been from the factory, I first needed to assembly and pre-install all of the bumper bars factory mounting hardware in to place onto the underside of the 2kspec front bumper bar. This would include the installation of the pair of OEM side brackets as well as the upper OEM mounting support bar that holds the bumper bar onto the core support. I also installed the OEM 2kspec front grille mesh into place along with several other miscellaneous parts to complete the factory setup of the 2kspec front bumper bar. https://i.postimg.cc/JhQGXnJB/4-Front-Bumper-Bar-Assembly-2.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/8c75xmYh/4-Front-Bumper-Bar-Assembly-3.jpg With the bumper bar and core support all prepped, I picked up the bumper bar and tried to mount it onto the radiator core support but straight away I could tell something was wrong as no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn't get the bumper bar to line up and mount onto the radiator core support and I was noticing that the front center section of the bumper bar would begin bulging outwards during my attempts to install the bumper bar into place. After several attempts to mount the bumper bar with no success, I found that whatever was causing the bumper bar to bulge outwards was located under the center section of the main intake opening mouth on the bumper bar and after checking that area while the bumper bar was barely hanging in place onto the radiator core support, I noticed that the issue I was seeing was being caused by a OEM bracket that mounts directly under the center of the reo bar and would normally sit flush with the 2kspec front grille mesh. Instead what I saw was this bracket was now pressing up and flexing the OEM grille mesh outwards which in turn was then pushing the center section of the entire body of the bumper bar forward causing the bulge I was seeing. So in a process of elimination, I removed the factory 2kspec grille mesh from the bumper bar and then attempted to reinstall the bumper bar back onto the radiator core support and this time around I was successful at getting the bumper bar to mount up onto the radiator core support with the bulging issue no longer present but even though the bumper bar was now sitting where I expected it too, I then noticed that I couldn't get all of the mounting points for the bumper bar and core support to line up with another correctly and this was now preventing me from installing the bumper bar onto the core support. After assessing the alignment issues I was having with the bumper bar's mounting arm's and the corresponding mounting points along the center section of the radiator core support, it was clear to me that the issue I was having was due to the fact that my repaired radiator core support was still bent out of shape and not 100% in alignment like it would have been from the factory and no amount of pulling and pushing the bumper bar in any direction was going to get all of the mounting points to line up as they needed to be, preventing me once again from installing the bumper bar onto the radiator core support. After consulting with my Dad about the issue, the solution we eventually decided to go with was to enlarge a couple of the misaligned mounting holes on the one of the mounting arms, which would then allow for me to install the remaining factory mounting fasteners for those mounting arms into place to finally secure the bumper bar down onto the radiator core support. https://i.postimg.cc/SsTRZvgS/4-Front-Bumper-Bar-Installation.jpg As much as I hated the idea of having to modify the mounting arms on the bumper bar to solve this problem, i know that in the short term it was going to be the easiest and best option to go and it did work to allow me to succeed in securing the bumper bar done onto the radiator core support. From there it was a matter attaching the rest of the bumper bars mounting hardware onto the 2 front fenders to completed the installation process of the front bumper bar. Now as happy as I was to finally see the new 2kspec front bumper bar back on the car, I couldn't help but think about how difficult things will become whenever I need to take the front bumper bar off and on again in the future. Because I had fast tracked the reassembly process, I wasn't able to install parts like the OEM power steering and transmission cooler options I had planned during the rebuild project and in order for me to install those items in the future, the bumper bar will have to come off again just so I can have better access to the area underneath the bumper bar and I just hope that I wont have any problems reinstalling the bumper bar back onto the car once those modifications are complete but I guess I'll have to cross that bridge when I get there. Miscellaneous Bonnet & Core Support Parts Installation With the replacement front bumper bar finally on the car, I could now go about installing several miscellaneous parts to both the radiator core support and the replacement OEM bonnet to complete the factory setup for those parts. For the core support I'll be installing a pair of replacement replica CZP silicone bumper stops along with replacing the broken hood rod base grommet with a new one and I also installed a pair of OEM hood rod hold down clips onto each of the 2 upper radiator mounts. https://i.postimg.cc/kMHDKLVw/5-Hood-Bump-Stops-Installation.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/02JjfZDv/5-Hood-Rod-Grommet.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/bwcJFb9t/5-Hood-Rod-Holder-Installation.jpg As for the bonnet, I installed the OEM upper and lower rubber seals for the bonnet as well install the factory bonnet insulation. The last few items to install on the bonnet was the pair of OEM hood washer nozzles as well as connect all of the new silicone hose lines for the windscreen washer system that will link the new washer nozzles to the windscreen washer reservoir. https://i.postimg.cc/QtxVJ3kY/5-Bonnet-Assembly-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/mkKD4FxK/5-Bonnet-Assembly-2.jpg Installing The Remaining Parts Onto The Front End Of The Car By this point in time, there was only a handful of parts now left for me to install back onto the car. This included the installation of pair of factory 2000 model side skirts, the remaining Z1 alloy undershroud, the Stillen SMZ nose panel as well as the installation of the pair of front fog lights and 2000 model side indicator lighting assemblies and because those parts where going to be relatively easy to install, I kind of rushed through the install process for those items and that meant that I didn't end up taking any photos during that process. The pair of factory side skirts were installed onto the left and right hand lower sills on the body of the car and secured down into place using a complete set of factory mounting hardware. The new Z1 front alloy undershroud was next to be installed under the front of the car and once in place, completed new engine lower splash guard setup for my car and they looked great. Next was the installation of the brand new pair of upgraded 2kspec side indicator's and fog light assemblies, with the side indicators mounting onto the factory location on the front bumper bar and the pair of fog lights being installed onto the 2 fog light ducts attached to the USDM reinforcement bar. That meant that the very last item that I needed to install to finish off the reassembly of the front end of the car was going to be the Stillen SMZ nose panel but before I could install the new nose panel, I first needed to assemble and preinstall all of the rubber seals and mounting hardware for the nose panel so that it could then be installed into place onto the radiator core support. https://i.postimg.cc/jjRjRb9q/6-Nose-Panel-Assembly.jpg Once the fully assembled SMZ nose panel was ready to be installed, I then attempted to mount and secure the nose panel into its factory location onto the top of radiator core support in between to the 2 front headlights. But what I found was that several of the mounting points for the nose panel did not line up with the corresponding mounting points on the radiator core support just like what had happened with the front bumper bar and they were out but quite a bit too. As you can imagine I was pretty annoyed and frustrated to once again have to deal with this issue which I had hoped would have only affected the installation of the front bumper bar but as it turns out it would seem like the nose panel is also going to be affected by the misalignment of the repaired radiator core support. After consulting with my Dad once again to find a solution to this problem, it turned out that like the front bumper bar the easiest and quickest way we were going to solve this issue was going to require us modify and enlarge the upper 2 mounting points on the SMZ nose panel which would then allow for me to insert and install the factory fasteners for those mounting points into place securing the nose panel to the car. So my dad pulled out his Dremel tool and began grinding away fiberglass material to enlarge the 2 upper mounting holes on the top of the nose panel and it was killing me inside to see us alter this rare and iconic SMZ nose panel to make it fit onto my car but this was the only way it was going to work and even once the modifications to the nose panel were completed we also had to add several washers and spacers in between the core support and nose panel just so that everything would fit correctly enough to make it look as it was suppose to. As glad and relieved as I was to finally have the final part now installed onto the car, deep down inside me I was very concerned and worried about the misalignment issues I now had with the repaired radiator core support and I now know that the only way I would ever be satisfied with fixing those issues once and for all, would require me to replace the entire radiator core support one day in the future and the reason why I didn't do that in the beginning was because according to CZP in the USA, it appears that Nissan has now discontinued brand new replacements for both LH and RH headlight bucket panels and on top of that Z1 motorsports who listed used headlight buckets panels online have told me directly via private message that they are currently out of stock of this two items and have been for several years now and during this entire rebuild project they have not restocked those items on their website from what I can tell. I currently have not been able to find a supplier or seller here in Australia or online who has for sale an undamaged set of 300ZX Z32 headlight bucket panels and or a complete radiator core support that I could then buy and use to replace my damaged radiator core support with. For now all I can do is continue searching locally here in Australia and online for the hope that one day I will find someone willing to sell me the parts I need to replace my repair radiator core support and if that day ever comes only then will I be able to fix all of damage that my car suffered because of this accident. Reassembly Of The Front End Of My Z Is Now Complete So after all of the ups and downs I have been through over the past 3 days, here it is everyone my pride and joy, my unique and special to me 1989 Nissan 300ZX Z32 in all its glory and all I can say is I love these cars, they look so cool with their sleek aerodynamic body styling and sports car aesthetics and I cant wait to drive this awesome machine that I own home for the very first time. I know that the problems and issues that I encountered over the course of this rebuild project were expensive and time consuming and some things will undoubtably cause me grief in the future but at least for now I had my car back and finally its time for me to enjoy all of that hard work that I spent fixing this dream car of mine. https://i.postimg.cc/NLhgSqmc/7-Final-Assembly-Completed-3.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/QtyNgWMV/7-Final-Assembly-Completed-2.jpg The Test Drive So we of course took the car for a quick shake down test drive just to check over everything and make sure that the car was running and driving as expected and if everything checked out, I would then be able to drive the car to its new home for the very first time. We started off by driving around a few suburban streets before we made our way down the road to a quite warehouse district area that my Dad knew about that had a very long stretch of road that was safe for us to do all of our driving tests on without the fear of any traffic getting in the way. Once we had arrived at the testing area, we began the process of testing the car's ability to accelerate as well as test how the car would then behave when cruising at a various speeds and then testing how the car would act when depressing on the brake pedal to check the car's overall braking performance and for the most part everything seemed to be functioning just fine. During all of the testing I also kept a close eye on both the oil pressure and coolant temperature gauges on the instrument cluster and thankfully there were no signs of low oil pressure and or overheating during the entire test drive of the car. Now even though everything seemed to be working just fine during the test drive, there was a part of me that was noticing something was a little off when it came to the automatic's transmission shifting behaviour and I just couldn't quite figure out what was exactly going on with the transmission. From what I could tell and also feel was that the automatic transmission was definitely shifting up and down as it should but I only ever felt it shift up and or down from both 1st and 2nd gear regardless of how fast I was travelling but the biggest and strangest behaviour I saw was when I got up to speed and then took my foot off the accelerator pedal and let the coast down the road to slow down, what was happening then was that the engines rpm would just suddenly drop down and sit around about 1000rpm like I had just put the car into natural and then when the car had slowed enough for me to then need to pick up some speed again. When I would then try to accelerate the car back up to a higher speed, the engine rpms would just shot up real quick like I wasn't in gear for a few seconds and the rpms would slowly match up to the he speed I was travelling at and I could even bounce the rpms of the engine up and down if I rapidly depressed and let off the accelerator while car was coasting down the road until I picked up enough speed for the rpms to level out with the speed I was going. Needless to say I was very puzzled and confused with this behaviour I was experiencing with the Z's transmission but as I couldn't really figure out what the issue was and because the transmission was still shifting and driving down the road, I just figured that this just must be how the re4 transmission shifts and operates while in use and though it felt like unusual behaviour to me, maybe I have just gotten too accustomed how the automatic transmission operates in my Dad's Ford sedan which to me felt natural and smooth and maybe I just needed to adjust myself to how the different way that the re4 transmission shifts while driving the Z and that everything is fine and nothing is broken. When we arrived back to my Dad's place, both my Dad and I were very happy and confident that the car was now mechanically sound enough for me to drive it home even with my concerns with the transmission. So I packed up all of my tools and equipment and any parts I wasn't able to install and put them in the boot of the Z and headed home. The Drive Home As excited as I was to be finally be on my way home after 3 long days of working on the Z, that excitement quickly turned into worry and stress as during the drive home, the issues I had experienced with the transmission during the test drive did not go away and instead they were more amplified then before and instead of thinking about how much fun it was going to be drive my pride and joy to work tomorrow, I was now thinking about whether or not the automatic transmission would either survive all the way home or break down and leave me stranded on the side of the freeway and or possibly blowup on me which would have been the worst case scenario and considering it was a 40 minute drive from my Dad's place to my house where I lived, as you can imagine all of these thoughts did not make the drive home very fun and exciting for me. Thankfully after nearly an hour of driving, the Z made it all of the way the home without breaking down and without blowing up on me but I was convinced that there was a major problem with the car's transmission and I just couldn't understand why this was happening as I had only replaced this transmission only 7 or so years ago and it had only done just under 40,000 km since it was installed and serviced by a specialist transmission workshop after the last transmission I had in the Z blowup on me back in 2017. I immediately called my Dad after unpacking the car to detail out to him what had transpired during the drive home and after describing to him all of the symptoms I was experiencing with the transmission, I was convinced that what was happening was that the transmission was no longer able to shift up from 2nd gear and into either 3rd and or 4th gear for some reason and that would explain why during the drive home the engine was now screaming at around 3,500rpms while travelling at 100kmph like I was stuck in a too lower gear for that speed. Even with all of this information, neither my Dad or I could really figure out what was causing all of these issues with the transmission and without gathering more information and doing further testing of the transmission, there wasn't really anything else that my Dad or I could do about fixing those problems with the transmission before tomorrow as it was nearly 8pm by this time and the Z was now my only form of transportation to get to work tomorrow. Now I know what your all thinking, that driving the Z tomorrow with all of these transmission problems wasn't a very wise choice to do but as I had no other way to get to work tomorrow, I really had no choice but to take the risk and hope that nothing goes wrong during the 30-50 minute drive it usually takes me to get to and from work everyday. Now the good news is that during the time that I am driving to and from work, it is normally during the morning and afternoon peak hour traffic times where the roads are full of traffic and most of the time I only travel at speed of around about 20-40 kmph along those roads and because the average speed limit of those main roads I take are around about 60-80 kmph max, I was actually confident that during the drive to and from work, I wouldn't going fast enough to really put any massive amounts of stress on the mechanical components inside the box and as long as I didn't go above 80kmph I figured everything would be ok. The next day I enacted my plan and drove the car all of the to and from work which was as stressful as it was annoying to do because at such low speeds in heavy traffic the transmission just didn't want to shift up into a higher gear and so the engine would be constantly revving up and down as I creeped down the road. The good news is that nothing bad happened to the car during the each trip it took me to get to and from work. But when i got home after a long 8 hour shift, I contacted my Dad and told him that even though the car can drive and get me to and from work it was so annoying to drive that I wasn't willing to continue to drive it on a regular basis moving forward and so my Dad offered to bring the Ford sedan back to me and drop it off the next day which would allow me to use a more reliable car to get me to and from work and then me and my Dad can work together over the next few weeks to try and diagnose and repair the transmission if it turns out to be something simple that we can fix ourselves but if it turns out to be something majorly wrong with the transmission then I would have to consider taking it to a transmission specialists to get it fixed which I'm sure is going to cost me an arm and leg and it is probably a ton of money that I do not have right now but whatever the case may be it needs to be done if I want to continue to drive this car in the future. So even though I was able to complete the reassembly of the front end of my car back together again, I am now faced with a new mechanical problem that I will try and diagnose only the next few weeks or so. My immediate plan with the transmission is to do a basic filter and fluid service on the box as at the time of the accident the transmission was almost due for a service anyways so I may as well do that and hopefully if I'm lucky that might just fix all of the problems the transmission has right now but its probably a long shot at best.

REASSEMBLY PROCESS (DAY 2) For the second day of the reassembly phase, the plan is to start installing as many of the parts for the front end of the car as much as possible with the primary goal of me getting the front bumper bar mounted up and bolted down onto the car as the final step in the process. This means that I'll need to install a whole bunch of little parts first in a specific order to make sure I don't miss installing anything along the way before I eventually get to the installation of the front bumper bar. Nissan Murano Sports Horn Installation Starting off will be another new and exciting set of parts to install onto the Z which will be the brand new set of Nissan Murano optional sports horns which will be replacing my original OEM factory horns as an upgrade to modernise the sound of my car's horn setup. But straight away I was confronted with an annoying little problem that i wasn't expecting to have to deal with when I tried to install one of the new sports horns onto the front frame rail. As it turns out the new larger sized sports horns were now to big to fit in between the tiny gap between the front frame rail and the new intercooler ducts. Even though I had spent a good deal of time test fitting the new sports horns onto the front frame rails successfully months ago, I unfortunately never accounted for the intercooler ducts to end up posing a clearance issue for the sports horns once they were installed. Not wanting to give up on such a small problem, I tried every possible position and or angle to try and find a way to make the new sports horn fit in the original factory location but after several minutes of trying it was clear to me that nothing was going to work as the gap between the frame rail and intercooler ducts was just too small and the new horns were just too big to fit. Luckily for me, I was able to use to the mounting point on both of the frame rails that are used for the mounting location of the OEM horn covers as the perfect substitute mounting location for the new sports horns. Being further towards the center of the car meant that this new mounting location would allow the new set of sports horns to fit between the gap between both of the front frame rails and intercooler ducts with room to spare but it also meant that I obliviously wouldn't be able to install the set of OEM horn covers alongside the new sports horns that I was really looking forward to see mounted onto the car but it was either going with the above setup or revert back to installing the original OEM horns onto the car instead of the new sports horns which I very much didn't want to do. https://i.postimg.cc/jdXSzzS7/1-Sports-Horn-Installation-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/NfY09NBt/1-Sports-Horn-Installation-2.jpg With the new mounting setup for the sports horns finally figured out, I then orientated the body of each sports horns to point downwards which will tuck the new horns away behind the intercooler ducts nicely and hopefully prevent any further clearance issues occurring when it comes time to install the replacement 2kspec front bumper bar onto the car later on in the reassembly phase. https://i.postimg.cc/66C3Qssz/1-Sports-Horn-Installation-3.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/htZ4Ycx4/1-Sports-Horn-Installation-5.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/8CFkQ9BR/1-Sports-Horn-Installation-6.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/YCCq8hvy/1-Sports-Horn-Installation-4.jpg All in all I am very happy with the setup and installation of the new Murano sports horns onto the Z. Its just disappointing that I couldn't also add the OEM horns covers to the new setup. Lower Frame Rail Brackets Installation The newly restored lower frame rail brackets were then mounted into place under each of the front frame rails even though I wouldn't be able to utilise them for mounting the OEM horn covers anymore, I still wanted to have them back onto the car like they were before the accident. https://i.postimg.cc/CKWhF7mW/2-Lower-Bracket-Frame-Rail-Installation-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/0QD8rS4r/2-Lower-Bracket-Frame-Rail-Installation-2.jpg CZP Headlight Foam Seal Installation https://i.postimg.cc/pd1ZyhjN/CZP-Headlight-foam-seal.jpg The next set of new and exciting parts to install now was going to be the pair of CZP replica headlight foam seals that attach to the rear of the front headlight bucket panels and help to seal the rear of the headlight assemblies up against the openings in the headlight bucket panels. But of course there was the tiny issue I had of me not knowing how the hell I was suppose to install these new foam seals onto the car and because they didn't come with any included instructions, I had no choice but to do a quick google search to find whatever photos I could on the internet to figure out the correct way to install these replica foam seals onto the car. Thankfully, it didn't take me very long to find a handful of photos that I was looking for that showed me the correct factory position and orientation of both foam seals on each of the headlight bucket panels and even though my core support is slightly warped and crinkled in some areas, I was still able to install both of the foams seals onto the car without to much trouble. https://i.postimg.cc/5954VwvR/3-Headlight-Foam-Seal-Installation-4.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/2yYCW6pG/3-Headlight-Foam-Seal-Installation-5.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/Wz7TwvTv/3-Headlight-Foam-Seal-Installation-3.jpg Now the only thing I wanted to mention regarding the installation of these new foam seals, is that I found it very odd that more then half of the rear adhesive backing on both of the foam seals didn't end up having anywhere to mount onto on the rear of the headlight bucket panels and my concern is that those exposed adhesive areas will eventually collect all kinds of dirt and grime overtime which may or may not cause other issues done the road but I found it very strange that this was occurring at all. In my opinion all Nissan would of had to do to fix this issue I am having with the foam seals, is to only apply adhesive tape onto the back of the seals where it will contact up against the bucket panels unless I'm missing something here. Unfortunately as these new foam seals that I installed are exact replicas of the original OEM foam seals, I guess this must be how they are suppose to be like from the factory and even though it might be bugging me like crazy after installing them, there isn't really anything I can do to fix the issue, so I'm just going to leave them as is for now and look into it more later on in the future if needed. 2000 Model Xenon Headlights Installation So with the new headlight foam seals now in place, it was finally time for me to reinstall my very expensive and professionally restored set of factory xenon headlights back onto the Z after both of them were badly damaged in the accident. The passenger side (LH) headlight was first to be installed into place and though the installation was a success I did noticed a bit of resistance in getting the headlight assembly back far enough to align all of the mounting points for the headlight to where it needed to be to slot it into place onto the headlight bucket panel. https://i.postimg.cc/FKJvncNG/4-Xenon-Headlight-Installation-1.jpg Moving onto the drivers side (RH) headlight now and here is were things went from good to bad. As I was trying to install the drivers side headlight into position on the headlight bucket panel, I was having a lot of trouble getting the body of the headlight back enough to get all of the mounting points on the headlight assembly to line up with the 4 mounting holes on the RH side headlight bucket panel. As I struggled to get the headlight assembly where it needed to me, I was having to push the headlight assembly back with more and more force in an effort to overcome the resistance the new headlight foam seal was now creating and even though I was trying to be as delicate as possible, eventually the unthinkable happened and I heard a snap sound come from the headlight. What ended happening was I unintentionally broke off a plastic side mounting tab piece on the outside of the headlight's plastic housing and this mounting tab is what secures the LH side lower mounting frame piece for the headlight onto the plastic body of the headlight assembly. As you can imagine I was very upset and extremely frustrated at what had just happened and my fear was that the damage I had just made to the headlight was unrepairable. After inspecting the break in the plastic housing more closely, it appears that the mounting tab I broke off was repaired and glued back onto a very thinly repaired part of the damaged plastic body of the headlight housing which had been plastic welded back together. According to my Dad it was probably only a matter of time before it would have probably broken off on its own anyway and on top of that, the break had caused a small hole to form where the mounting tab had once been which would now expose the internal parts of the headlight assembly to the outside elements and would definitely allow moisture to enter and form inside the headlight overtime so it was a big problem to now have to deal with. Like always my Dad came to my rescue and took charge to start the process to repair the damage I had caused to the headlight assembly. The plan was to fabricate a replacement metal bracket that we will use to reattach the plastic mounting tab back onto the headlight assembly and we use the new bracket to hopefully cover and seal up the hole I created in the plastic housing to prevent any moisture from entering inside the headlight. With my Dad now off working on the repairs to the driver side headlight, I was left to figure out where to go next but I was so upset with what had happened that I took one look at the headlight foam seal I had just install and in a moment of anger I just grabbed the seal and ripped it off of the car tearing it into pieces. With my emotions running high at this point, I felt like the world was coming to an end and I wanted to blame something for the situation I was now in and the new headlight foam seals felt like the main reason this had happened. I even went as far as to uninstall the passenger side (LH) headlight assembly to remove the replica foam seal as well from the rear of the headlight bucket panel and though I just wasted $30 USD doing so, I was too angry to care. https://i.postimg.cc/15995fr5/4-headlight-foam-seals-removal.jpg The repairs to the headlight assembly will take a while to complete so once I had calmed down, I decided to push ahead and continue my reassembly of the front end of the car hoping my Dad could pull a rabbit out of a hat and fix what I had broken. Upper Fender Air Guide Installation https://i.postimg.cc/W1zTgCyB/5-Upper-Air-Guide-Piece-1.jpg With only a handful of minor parts left to install now, I decided to go with a part that I have been wanting to install onto the Z for a long time now and that is because it was a part that never got replaced during the repairs done to my Z after its very first accident that occurred way back in 2007. This air guide piece as Nissan calls it, goes up inside the front fender just above where the fender mounts to the front bumper bar. Though installing this part would have been a lot easier to do with the fender off of the car, I was confident I could snake the part and mount it into its factory location without to much trouble. Eventually I did managed to succeed in installing this part up into the front drivers side fender but it did take me a good 30 minutes or so of fiddling with the damn thing to get it finally in place and clipped down. https://i.postimg.cc/9FJc4CLP/5-Upper-Air-Guide-Piece-2.jpg Front Side Lower Splash Guards & Upper Center Air Guide Installation Next was the installation of the 2 front side splash guards and the upper air guide that mounts onto the air filter housing assembly which were pretty simple items to the car. https://i.postimg.cc/fRPZK5nJ/6-Air-Guide-and-Side-Splash-Guard-Installed.jpg Z1 Rear Lower Engine Splash Guard Installation The last item to install for the today was the new Z1 alloy rear engine splash guard which I was very excited to finally see mounted up onto the car. The install was very easy and all of the included mounting screws with the new splash guards worked great to mount the new splash guard onto the underside of the frame of the Z. Very happy with the new splash guard indeed. https://i.postimg.cc/9Mdhch47/7-Z1-Alloy-Rear-Engine-Splash-Guard-Install.jpg Unfortunately for me at this point in time, I still couldn't get over the fact that I had broken one of my very expensive xenon headlights pretty badly and I felt very defeated and responsible for what had happened. So I decided to stop any further progress for today and try and reset myself mentally as i know that accidents do happen and though it was my fault, it was probably a blessing in disguise as if the breakage hadn't of occurred I probably would have had an even worser issue to deal with later down the track with moisture forming inside the headlight degrading it further and I wouldn't exactly know what was wrong until it was too late. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have been able to move on from this incident and be excited again at finishing off the rest of the installs for the front end of the Z and fingers crossed the car will be all back together once again.

REASSEMBLY PROCESS (DAY 1) [PART 2] 2000 Model NA Intercooler Ducting Setup Installation Time to move onto something new and exciting to install onto the car, which will be the installation process of the 2000 model NA intercooler ducting setup which once installed will further complete the factory look of my 2000 model replica 300zx. Starting the process off, I first installed the pair of NA model specific factory mounting brackets for the ducts which I installed onto both the two front frame rail's and under each of the headlight bucket panels like so. https://i.postimg.cc/RVwwq63c/7-During-Assembly-Process-RH-Intercooler-ducting-Mounts-2-Installed.jpg I then attached the intercooler ducts onto both of the mounting brackets using all factory hardware to complete the install. https://i.postimg.cc/Pxc1v1zM/_7_During_Assembly_Process_(LH_Intercooler_Ducting_Installed).jpg https://i.postimg.cc/7PFgxMLH/7-During-Assembly-Process-RH-Intercooler-Ducting-Installed.jpg Once everything was set in place, I was definitely very happy with how it all went with this new factory ducting setup on the car. Coolant Overflow Bottle Installation Next was the installation of the coolant overflow bottle, which required 3 mounting fasteners to hold the overflow bottle in its factory location underneath the LH side front headlight. https://i.postimg.cc/Qds1785v/8-During-Assembly-Process-Coolant-Overflow-Bottle-Installed.jpg Auxiliary Fan Installation Moving my attention now to the front of the of car along the radiator core support, where I installed the new later model auxiliary fan assembly onto the lower radiator support in front of the condenser. https://i.postimg.cc/FKCLw0qQ/9-During-Assembly-Process-Aux-Fan-Installed.jpg Air Filter Housing Assembly Installation The restored air filter housing assembly was next to be installed onto the car and will be replacing the old aftermarket K&N pod filter setup I had on the car before the accident. After positioning the filter housing in its factory location between the two front headlights, I was faced with my first challenge of the day where the alignment of some of the mounting holes along the core support did not line up with the mounting arms for the air filter housing assembly. Fortunately for me, I was expecting this to occur as you all know the core support did suffer some damaged in that area from the impact. So with my Dad's help we did some minor panel beating work to the core support which helped to realign all of the mounting holes for the air filter housing assembly just enough to allow me to then install all of the factory mounting fasteners for the air filter housing assembly which secured it to the radiator core support. https://i.postimg.cc/htrxbk1v/10-During-Assembly-Process-Air-Filter-Housing-Installed.jpg Cooling System Installation Process The last group of components I wanted to installed for the first day of the reassembly phase, was for the cooling system which needed to be in place before I could eventually get the engine running by the end of the day. Starting off the installation process will be the factory cooling fan, which I mounted onto the fan coupler assembly. Each of the 4 mounting fasteners for the cooling fan where installed and torqued as per the FSM to 8 Nm's each. https://i.postimg.cc/SKx9Zggr/11-During-Assembly-Process-Installing-Torquing-Clutch-Fan.jpg Next I fully assembled all of the components that mount onto the new Koyo radiator which included installing the new replacement OEM fan shroud, as well as install the new Z1 silicone overflow bottle hose. https://i.postimg.cc/QtRWdhh4/11-During-Assembly-Process-Radiator-Assembled-1.jpg With the radiator all set up, I then inserted the new radiator into its factory location behind the core support panel. Thankfully the slightly larger sized Koyo radiator fitted into place perfectly and no clearance issues were found with this new radiator when compared to the fitment issues I had with my previous PWR alloy radiator that was on the car during the accident. https://i.postimg.cc/pT9Fvpb5/11-During-Assembly-Process-Koyo-Radiator-Installed.jpg To finish off the radiator install, I mounted the pair of newly restored NA radiator mounts onto the top of core support which will hold the radiator in place securely. I also connected the new Z1 silicone overflow bottle hose onto the hose port on the factory coolant overflow bottle. https://i.postimg.cc/d3rZ7p0q/11-During-Assembly-Process-Radiator-Mounts-Installed.jpg At this point in time, we were now ready to start filling up the cooling system with antifreeze and then the plan was to start the VG30DE engine for the first time in 3 years. I will admit I was a little nervous about starting the engine as it had been sitting for such a long time without being run once but I was hopeful everything would go as planned and the engine would start up with no issues. I installed a factory specific 12V lead acid (75D23L) battery onto the car's factory battery tray compartment which for me is located on my JDM car on the LH rear of the engine bay. The battery which was the original battery I had on the car during the accident had already been fully charged several weeks prior. Then we attached a spill free cooling system funnel tool to the top of the Koyo radiator and began filling the new Koyo radiator with a 50/50 mix of green coloured antifreeze until the overflow funnel was half way full of coolant. All that was left to do now was to start the engine, So I got into the car, insert the ignition key into the ignition barrel and turned the key to the start position to start the car. https://i.postimg.cc/9QhypYVb/12-Prepping-Cooling-System-for-Coolant.jpg Thankfully my solid as a rock VG30DE engine roared to life, with the rpms initially fluctuating slightly before the engine slowly started smoothing out the rpms and idle around 900-1000 rpms. For me this was such a relief to see and hear as I was worried that there might be a small chance that the engine wouldn't start after sitting for so long and with any number of things that could of prevented the car from starting but luckily for me that didn't happen and I was very happy with the status of the engine's being able to start up and run after 3 years of sitting. https://i.postimg.cc/5NvwLRcj/12-Engine-Running-bleeding-Cooling-System-of-Air.jpg After giving the engine a good 5 minutes of idling, the rpms had smoothed out to around about 800 rpms and with the engine temps slowly rising we moved our focus onto bleeding all of the air out of the radiator and cooling system. We closely monitored the escaping air bubbles coming out of the radiator and into the spill free funnel for about 20 minutes or so until we were satisfied that all of the air had been bleed out of the system before we then removed the spill free funnel and installed the new Z1 radiator cap onto the Koyo radiator. By the end of the bleeding process the engine was now idling as excepted, the engine temps were holding and I was definitely feeling over the moon with the running status of my 30 year old VG30DE engine with nearly 300,000 km on the odometer and with that I decided to call it a day for the first day of the reassembly phase. I can only hope that tomorrow will be just as productive as today was and if all goes well I may even have the car all back together again but as I have come to expect you never know what could happen when working on a 300ZX.

REASSEMBLY PROCESS (DAY 1) [PART 1] Finally after 3 long years of working on fixing my crash damaged 300ZX, I am now ready to begin the final phase of the rebuild process which includes the reassembling of the front end of my Z back together again. The plan I have devised over a 3 day long weekend will included getting the car mechanically back together again and then attempt to hopefully start and run my VG30DE engine for the first time in 3 years. Once I have successfully confirmed the status of my engines running condition, I will then continue the process of installing all of the parts that I have either replaced and or restored over the last 3 years back onto the front end of my car so that i can not just make my Z look like a car again but to hopefully drive it to its new home for the first time since I have owned my Z. A quick clean up of the headlight buckets, front lower radiator support area and the lower frame rail sections using simple green and some elbow grease got everything looking smick before I began the process of installing everything back onto the car. Before https://i.postimg.cc/Hnc0dPm4/2-Before-Assembly-Process-LH-Frame-Rail-Before.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/XY0K68zd/2-Before-Assembly-Process-RH-Frame-Rail-Before.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/5tbmL35b/2-Before-Assembly-Process-Front-Chassis-Section-Before.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/J4X3FgPR/2-Before-Assembly-Process-LH-Headlight-Panel-Before.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/BZXgZncg/2-Before-Assembly-Process-RH-Headlight-Panel-Before.jpg After https://i.postimg.cc/SQ37DqLZ/2-Before-Assembly-Process-LH-Headlight-Panel-After.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/z3Yh5z08/2-Before-Assembly-Process-RH-Headlight-Panel-After.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/CK7sNqJD/2-Before-Assembly-Process-LH-Frame-Rail-After.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/br7xJHNX/2-Before-Assembly-Process-RH-Frame-Rail-After.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/3RbCMQsx/2-Before-Assembly-Process-Front-Chassis-Section-After.jpg Front Tow Hook Installation Starting off the reassembly process will be the installation of the 2 front tow hooks, which was a straight forward install for this item. https://i.postimg.cc/Y2ZxvBdw/3-During-Assembly-Process-LH-Tow-Hook-Installed.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/GhDxYgfT/3-During-Assembly-Process-RH-Tow-Hook-Installed.jpg Very nice:) Carbon Canister, Mounting Bracket & Hoses Installation Next I installed the carbon canister, its restored mounting bracket as well as connect all of the new silicone vacuum hoses onto their respective hardline ports leading back to the fuel tank. https://i.postimg.cc/FHQgxgtW/4-During-Assembly-Process-Carbon-Canister-Installed.jpg Windscreen Washer Reservoir Installation On the other side of the car on the RH side frame rail now, I installed the windscreen washer reservoir back onto the car and reconnected all of the washer fluid hoses back onto the washer pumps for the washer nozzles. https://i.postimg.cc/d0s2bsVG/5-During-Assembly-Process-Windscreen-Washer-Reservoir-Installed.jpg Air Intake Ducting Components Installation The intake ducting and hoses were next on the list to go back onto the car. I first installed the upper mounting brackets for the intake pipes that connect off of the intake filter housing. https://i.postimg.cc/hG2LgkX6/6-During-Assembly-Process-LH-Air-Intake-Pipe-Mounts-Installed.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/xCqKd6HC/6-During-Assembly-Process-RH-Air-Intake-Pipe-Mounts.jpg Then both the LH and RH intake ducting's and all of the joining hoses were installed into place. https://i.postimg.cc/Bnc57L4q/6-During-Assembly-Process-LH-Intake-Ducting-Installed.jpg

FACTORY SIDE SKIRTS OCTOBER UPDATE The last section to talk about this month related to SEC-767 or more importantly the section that illustrates all of the components for the factory 2000 model Version R side skirts. During the rebuild project my pair of factory side skirts went through a restoration process to repaint both side skirts as well as fix all of the factory mounting hardware that came off when both side skirts were removed off of the car. Once the pair of side skirts have been restored the plan is to then reinstalled both side skirts back onto the car during the big reassembly phase of the rebuild. 2000 Model Version R Side Skirt Restoration Process Going back to 2012 when I had my Z resprayed by a professional spray painter, my brand new pair of 2000 model version R side skirts were painted and installed by the spray painter onto my car and wow they looked absolutely amazing finally on the car and I was very happy with how my car's new side profile looked with the new side skirts in place. https://i.postimg.cc/HkRpb51w/New-Version-R-Side-Skirts-Look-2012.jpg Fast forward 10+ years later, and it would seem that the paint finish on both of my 2000 model side skirts had deteriorated quite a bit and unfortunately for me I never had the funds or even the means to get the deteriorated paint finished fixed. However thanks to the extra funds made off of the insurance payout after the accident, I finally had the ability that I needed to put a plan in place to finally get the side skirts paint finish repaired and restore them back to how they were when they were fitted to the car back in 2012. So the first step in the restoration process for the skirts was to remove both of the side skirts off of my car and though my dad managed to do that in 2022 the removal process caused more then half of the side skirts 24 factory mounting tabs to pop off and so an extra step of re-bonded all of the popped off mounting tabs would need to be done after the skirts had been repainted. https://i.postimg.cc/RV098GM1/After-Side-Skirt-Removal-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/ZnbZJx6S/After-Side-Skirt-Removal-2.jpg In January 2024, when it came time to begin the painting process on all of the body panels for the rebuild project. Both side skirts were stripped down to remove all of the old flaky paint finish and then scuffed up before an acrylic primer was sprayed onto the both side skirts and left to cure for several days. https://i.postimg.cc/hvjwCy9f/Side-Skirts-During-Primer-Process.jpg Then a silver metallic basecoat and clearcoat was applied to both side skirts which completed the new look paint finish for the skirts. https://i.postimg.cc/50pTSdQh/Side-Skirts-During-Painting-Process.jpg A follow up mock up test fit of one of the skirts was done a few months later to compare the paint colour match which i think turned out pretty close to matching but a wet sanding and polish will need to be done to finish off the paint coating on the skirts. https://i.postimg.cc/kXznr8Y2/Side-Skirt-Test-fitting-4.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/SQZSrHW7/Side-Skirt-Test-fitting-2.jpg The last item to address now was with all of the side skirts separated mounting tabs which will all need to be in place on each side skirt so that I can then reattach both side skirts back onto the car. With the help of my Dad, we first began by scuffing up both of the matting surfaces for each of the separated mounting tab's as well as the matting surfaces for each of those separated mounting tabs on the underside of the both side skirts. This was done to assist the bonding agent we were going to be using to not just glue the mounting tabs back into place but to also provide a long lasting bond so that in the future this situation of the side skirts mounting tabs separating and popping off wont happen again. https://i.postimg.cc/fbnGwvhr/Side-skirts-During-Grinding-2.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/LstrhZ96/Side-skirts-During-Grinding-3.jpg A bonding silastic glue was applied to each of the mounting tab's matting surfaces before they were then pressed down onto the backside of each side skirt in their original position and left to cure for a as long as possible. https://i.postimg.cc/BnKW9VRF/Side-skirts-After-Grinding-3.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/4NMC0g2Z/Side-skirts-After-Grinding-2.jpg And that concludes the restoration process for my factory side skirts, I am very happy with the new restored look of my 2000 model version r side skirts came out and I look forward to installing both of this parts back onto the car hopefully in the coming weeks. Side Skirt Rear Panels & Hardware Layout https://i.postimg.cc/qq1rq6GC/Side-Skirt-Rear-Panels-Hardware-Part-Codes.jpg

BONNET & NOSE PANEL OCTOBER UPDATE So here we are at section 650, and this is one of the big ones for me as it was the section that saw one of my biggest scores ever when it comes to finding and buying rare 300ZX parts and thanks to me being in the right place at the right time, I managed to win an auction for an original fiberglass SMZ nose panel. Another big ticket item that was worth mentioning in this section was the process I went through with replacing and restoring the new replacement factory aluminum bonnet for the car which along with the nose panel are the two last items needed to finish off the rest of the front end body work for the project. Stillen SMZ Nose Panel Restoration Process (Stillen P/N: 10882) Probably one of the biggest purchases I made during this rebuild project so far was with me finding and buying an extremely rare and valuable original Stillen SMZ louvered nose panel. Many years ago while researching information on the Stillen SMZ 25th Anniversary models, I discovered a set of photos of one of these rare nose panels which was being sold off online and in these photos I was able to see the 3 unique identifying markers that these panels have when compared to an original polyurethane Stillen louvered nose panels which you can find online and are readily available to purchase even today. So there are 3 specific things you need to look for to know if a Stillen louvered style nose panel is an real SMZ nose panel or just a regular polyurethane nose panel. First of all and most oblivious is the fact that all of the Stillen SMZ nose panels were made out of fiberglass when compared to the more common place polyurethane versions you can buy nowadays. Also all of the SMZ nose panels have a Stillen business card glued into the resin on the underside of the panel as well as a hand written Stillen part number of '10882' present next to the business card also on the underside of the panel. The polyurethane nose panels only unique identifying marker is that the 10882 part number is embossed on the underside of the panel and that's about it. https://i.postimg.cc/tgDLMBRR/Stillen-SMZ-Nose-Panel-Red-1.webp https://i.postimg.cc/9MnsWzqv/Stillen-SMZ-Nose-Panel-Red-2.webp So one random day while looking through yahoo auctions which I do frequently, I found an listing for an auction which showcased the sale of a Stillen style louvered nose panel and contained within the auction were several photos of the item being sold and what I found was evidence of both the Stillen business card and the hand written Stillen part number '10882' which identified that this nose panel was a real and original SMZ nose panel. I of course immediately emailed my Japanese contact in Japan and organised with him to make a bid on the item for me and after several days of waiting I was lucky enough to end up winning the auction and as you would expect I was over the moon with excitement at winning this item and I couldn't wait to get it in my hands. https://i.postimg.cc/x8NhqYvq/Stillen-SMZ-Nose-Panel-White-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/pyN7F7CC/Stillen-SMZ-Nose-Panel-White-2.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/RC3ZwHGJ/Stillen-SMZ-Nose-Panel-White-3.jpg When the panel arrived to me here in Australia, I quickly got to work and removed all of the factory hardware off of the panel as the intention was to repaint the panel to match the same paint colour as my car as I will be installing and running with this nose panel when the car is finally back on the road. https://i.postimg.cc/T3j8rRZD/SMZ-Nose-Panel-Stripped-Down-08-10-22.jpg From there the nose panel was sanded down and painted in an acrylic primer and left to cure for several days. https://i.postimg.cc/sDhCgPmK/SMZ-Nose-Panel-Paint-Prep-2-12-02-23.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/d1NcL4gN/SMZ-Nose-Panel-Paint-Acrylic-Primer-19-02-23.jpg A factory 673 Silver Metallic acrylic basecoat and clearcoat was then applied to the nose panel. https://i.postimg.cc/9QH5R4N2/Stillen-SMZ-Nose-Panel-Painted-Silver.jpg In August of 2024, I went about removing a small section of the aftermarket wire mesh screen which had been bonded to the underside of the panel by the previous owner and is covering over and making it hard to see the two identifying markers that prove this nose panel was made by Stillen and would have come off of an SMZ 25th anniversary model. After a bit of cutting of and pulling, I was able to remove the wire mesh screen directly above the center section of the underside of the nose panel and with its removal you can now clearly see the presences of the Stillen business card and hand written Stillen part number, confirming the panels authenticity as being real and genuine. https://i.postimg.cc/jjKb9Wzc/Nose-Panel-During-Removal-of-Wire-Mesh-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/59kf02V9/Nose-Panel-After-Removing-Wire-Mesh-1.jpg The last modification I wanted to make on this panel before I could install it onto the car, was to paint the exposed wire mesh screens on each of the 6 cutout louver's on the topside of the panel. I first masked off the areas around the louvers with masking tape to prevent the new KBS paint I was applying to the wire mesh from getting onto the rest of the body of the panel which i wanted to keep in my factory silver metallic paint colour. [img]https://i.postimg.cc/76HqCChh/After-Paint-Rust-Seal-6.jpg I then painted the wire mesh sections using KBS rust seal and chassis topcoater to achieve the look I was going for and I was very happy with the end result. https://i.postimg.cc/0QVP78Kf/After-Paint-Chassis-Topcoat-2.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/0Nd82G8h/After-Paint-Chassis-Topcoat-1.jpg Replacement Bonnet Restoration Process One of the few parts that were damaged beyond repair during the accident was of course my original factory aluminum bonnet which had suffered a slight bend in it that would be near impossible to massage out and so the decision was made to replace the bonnet with a good condition used bonnet which I managed to source from a local 300zx parts guy for $200 AUD. The replacement bonnet was painted in a black and so the first step in the restoration process was for the old paint to be chemically removed using paint stripper. This process didn't go to well generally speaking and required my Dad to put in a lot of man hours to strip the bonnet down enough so that it could be primed and repainted to during the painting process. https://i.postimg.cc/MKvKbjDj/Bonnet-Paint-Stripping.jpg Once the bonnet was ready for paint, my Dad sprayed down 3 coats of Valspar's acrylic primer to both the top and underside of the bonnet surfaces. https://i.postimg.cc/x1mfBDBf/Bonnet-Primer-Painting-Stage.jpg Once the primer had cured over the course of several days, my Dad then painted the bonnet in a factory silver metallic acrylic basecoat and clearcoat paint and with very promising results once the bonnet had finally cured a week later. https://i.postimg.cc/DyHfCyjp/Bonnet-Painted-Silver-Metallic.jpg Bonnet Seals & Hardware Layout https://i.postimg.cc/wMPzb0VR/Bonnet-Seals-Hardware-Part-Codes.jpg