DJ_Party_Favor

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

FENDER & ACCESSORIES OCTOBER UPDATE For Section 630 (Front Fenders), not much needed to be done in terms of replacement parts or upgrades. But what I was able to do in this section was develop an effective and efficient cleaning and coating process which I used on several parts making them look like brand new parts again. Other than that the only other item worth mentioning was to do with me finally purchasing and eventually plan on installing an OEM part that for the last 10+ years or so has been missing from my car all because of the first ever accident that I had in the Z from back in 2007. Air Duct Cover RH Side Replacement Part (P/N: 62830-40P00) For those of you who don't know about the story of my first every car accident in the Z, basically while I was on my way to pickup my partner from her parents place. I was hit by a car while travelling at about 80 kmph, where the other driver made a blind U-turn right as I was about to approach him and though I tried to avoid the impact of the car hitting me, as you can see I was unable to avoid the hit to my drivers side front fender and I was unfortunately in the wrong place at the wrong time when the accident occurred. https://i.postimg.cc/tTBxQNDy/first-accident-in-2007.jpg For the full story: https://aus300zx.com/index.php?threads/my-poor-zed-was-in-an-accident-yesterday.257664/ Anyways after getting my Z back from the repairers, I was obliviously happy to finally have my Z back and it was fully repaired and looking better then it did before the accident. I assumed that the repair shop was able to and replaced all of the broken parts on the car during the repair process but as I would find out a few years later, they didn't replace all of the parts. As it turned out they seemed to have left out one small part because its located under the front fender panel and because you wouldn't be able to see it, they obliviously didn't care to replace the part I'm referring to. However that is all about to change and after all of these years later I will finally be able to fix that mistake and finish off what the repair shop didn't do back in 2007. The part that referring to is a small plastic piece that is mounted up inside the front of the fender above where the front bumper bar mounts up to the fender. Though its not an essential part for the car to run and drive, I'm sure it suits a purpose and being listed as an air duct by Nissan, I assume it must help to channel air flow down into the intake air ducting mounted under the headlight bucket panels. https://i.postimg.cc/4ynhJHFc/62830-M-Air-Duct-Cover.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/7P912rsH/62830-M-Air-Duct-Cover-2.jpg Luckily for me this small part isn't discontinued by Nissan as of 2024 and is still available to purchase which I did from Nissan in Japan and it has been patiently waiting for me to install it onto the car when the final assembly of the Z back together again eventually happens. Front Side Splash Guards Hardware Layout https://i.postimg.cc/brMSdYKB/Front-Side-Splash-Guards-Hardware-1-Part-Codes.jpg

RADIATOR CORE SUPPORT OCTOBER UPDATE Moving onto section SEC-625 which is for the radiator core support and surprisingly there are a few interesting parts I purchased for this section which you may all find neat to learn about and though I'm really excited to put these parts on the car when the time comes, they are all just cosmetic and there isn't anything in this section that is going to improve or upgrade the radiator core support at this point in time. CZP Headlight Foam Seal Set (CZP Part Number: CZP-62568-40P00) https://i.postimg.cc/d1qRtQkv/CZP-Foam-Seals-for-headlights.jpg First up I purchased a set of reproductions of the OEM headlight rear foam seals made by Concept Z Performance. These replacement foam seals adhere to the rear section of the headlight buckets panels on the core support and they help to seal the rear of the headlight housing to prevent any kind of debris from entering into the engine bay while the car is moving. Funny enough I didn't realise at the time but back in 2011 when I removed both of my original headlight assemblies from my car for the very first time ever, there was no signs of these foam seals being present on my car at all. https://i.postimg.cc/4dB6KCVc/First-time-pulling-my-old-headlights-2011.jpg Now I'm not sure what that means exactly but its possible that the previous owner may have removed the headlights on my car in the past and removed the degraded seals then and not replaced them, or my specific December built 1989 model didn't come with these foam seals from the factory, who knows really and I guess ill never find out why but it doesn't really matter anyways. Still with all that being said, I would like to bring the car back to a factory setup for all of these little things that are missing as much as possible and though it doesn't state it in CZP's listing on their website, but I hope there wont be any issues installing this seals along with the 2000 model headlights when the time comes. Powertrix Carbon Fiber Air Guide Set (Powertrix Part Number: CF3PRAGNISZ32) Continuing with my recent desires lately of adding more and more super car carbon fiber parts to my Z, I recently purchased a complete set of the Powertrix's carbon fiber air guide panels which not just look super cool on the car, but will also serve a purpose at covering over the now repaired and crinkled looking metal radiator core support which I know would eventually drive me crazy with it not looking as it did from the factory. https://i.postimg.cc/k5NFmR5f/Powertrix-cf-Air-Guide-Set.jpg Some of the exciting plans I have for these new air guide panels is that I'm going to be installing all of the factory engine warning labels that are normally located on the core support like say the aircon label & spark plug warning label etc onto the Powertrix air guide panels in their factory locations as best I can replicate. I'm doing this so that instead of the information on those labels being hidden under the panels like what I've seen most people do with these panels online. Instead they will all be clearly visible for me, other z owners and any future mechanic to see note the important information on those labels in the future which I think is good to have incase a mechanic 50+ years from now needs to note that information down and perform the required servicing correctly in the future. I also want to install my VIN Chassis plate panel onto the center air guide panel as well, that way all of my car's original factory information is listed and visible to see when opening the bonnet. But as excited as I am for installing these new carbon fiber parts, they all will require some modifications to be able for me to make them mount onto the core support which is not an ideal situation I think for such an expensive part but it is what it is and so before I can stick on any labels or what not, I will need to figure out an effective mounting setup for each of these panels so they would fall off and possibly get damaged. VIN Plate & Headlight Seals Layout https://i.postimg.cc/7hhg0BnW/VIN-Plate-Headlight-Seals-Part-Codes.jpg

2000 MODEL FRONT BUMPER BAR COMPONENTS & REO BAR OCTOBER UPDATE Another big section that I needed to go through this month was for SEC-620 which is the section where all of the components are located for the front bumper bar and the front reinforcement bar. Now considering that this is the part of the car that took the brunt of the impact in the accident, you would probably expect that I would of had to replace a lot of parts in this section, but in actual fact there was only 3 major parts that needed to be replaced after the accident and those parts were of course the front bumper bar, the bumper bars upper mounting bracket and the front reinforcement bar. 2000 Model Front Bumper Bar Rebuild Process Starting off I'll go over all of the developments i went through with getting my new front bumper bar and the rebuild process it went through over the course of the last 3 years. First off here is a photo of how bad the damaged was to the 2000 model OEM front bumper bar after the accident and I knew straight away that I would need to replacing the front bumper bar as part of the my early project goals in the early stages of the rebuild. https://i.postimg.cc/0QyFcN1m/Front-Bumper-Bar-Damage-After-The-Accident-2022.png Having made the decision to replace the damaged front bumper bar, I first toyed with the idea of changing from the OEM 2000 bumper bar design I've been running for the last 12 years and possibly going with an Escort front bumper bar which looks just like the OEM 2000 model front bumper bar but it comes included with a moulded front lip in the design which i thought looked pretty nice. https://i.postimg.cc/yx5MJC5R/Escort-Front-Bumper-Bar.jpg Unfortunately after thinking about it, there were several issues I found with me going with an Escort bump bar and the big one for me was the fact that the escort bumper bar was made out of fiberglass instead of polyurethane which I'm sure will eventually form cracks in the fiberglass from all of the little impacts I'll unavoidably make on the bar with the hitting the ground while I'm driving over things like speed bumps and going up driveways overtime in the future. Also the costs involved in not just buying this bumper bar but the cost in also shipping the bar from Japan to me here in Australia was going to be way more coin then I was willing to spend and when compared to the price of a locally sourced OEM 2000 model bumper bar including shipping from RGS Performance to me, it was a no brainer to just stick with the OEM bar and so i went ahead and purchased a new 2000 model OEM bar and within a week I had my new front bumper bar in my hands. https://i.postimg.cc/Fswvz056/2kspec-front-bumper-bar-arrival.jpg Next I needed to figure out how I was going to get the bumper bar painted so that it could be colour matched to the body colour of my car and long story short but my initial plans to use the services of either a mobile spray painter and or a body shop to get the paint job done by a professional was something that I frustratingly found out was never going to happened and no matter what I did, I just couldn't find anyone willing to help me out and paint not just the front bumper bar but the rest of the body panels that needed painting as well and so the only option I had to go with was to just paint the parts myself. So after sourcing all of the required acrylic paint products and tools to do the job, my Dad took it upon himself to prepare all of the body panels for paint and he started off by sanding down the surfaces of the panels using various grits of sand paper and scuffing pads to get a adequate rough surface for the primer to be able to bond to each of the panels we will be painting. https://i.postimg.cc/FFB5C0RK/Dad-Prepping-panels-for-paint.png After a couple of days of hard work my Dad had finished all of the preparation work on the front bumper bar and so the next step was for him to spray down some primer and so we assembled a basic spray painting setup at home as best we could and then my dad began spraying down several coats of Valspar's AP33 acrylic primer that I was recommended to use by the owner of Spray Shop Supplies, who was the person who encouraged me to use his paint products to do the painting job at home myself. Anyways after my Dad had finished laying down the required 3 coats of the acrylic primer onto the surface of the bumper bar, the results were looking very promising. https://i.postimg.cc/N04Z6HSB/Front-Bumper-Bar-Primer-Coat-1.jpg From there we gave the acrylic primer several days to fully cure on all of the panels, before my Dad then began the sanding down and scuffing process of the new primer paint layer on the surfaces of the front bumper bar and several other parts to aid in the base coat having its best chance to bond to the surface of the part as much as possible. The panels were then painted in 3 coats of acrylic basecoat matching my factory silver metallic body colour (673) and following the basecoat, we sprayed down 3 coats of acrylic clear coat and after several days of curing the results were very good and for a novice painter, my Dad sure did a bloody good job for his first try at spray painting and I am very grateful he was able to paint the car when no one else would for me. https://i.postimg.cc/BnWW4s29/Front-Bumper-Bar-After-Paint-2.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/K8t6YV5K/DSC-0109.jpg As part of my buildup to the eventual reassembly of the front end of the Z, we test fitted the newly painted front bumper bar onto the car several months later to not just check the fitment and alignment of the bar against the headlights, nose panel and fenders but to also compare the colour match of the new paint job against the existing paint on the fenders and as you can see the new paint is very close to a perfect colour match and I couldn't be happier with the end result my Dad was able to achieve. https://i.postimg.cc/q7k5v7RY/Front-Bumper-Bar-Test-Fitting-After-Paint-1.jpg Upper Mounting Bracket Replacement for Front Bumper Bar Though the front bumper bar was relatively easy to source and replace, finding a replacement part for the front bumper bars upper mounting bracket was going to be a little bit more difficult as according to Concept Z Performance, this part is now discontinued. So a used unit would have to be purchased to replace my original one which was bent out of shape and beyond repair. Luckily for me I managed to source an undamaged used replacement mounting bracket off of a guy who had a backyard full of wrecked cars including 8 wrecked 300zx's where I was able to grab one of these for a very cheap price. https://i.postimg.cc/1Xfx53WP/Before-Cleaning-Paint-Stripping-4.jpg Not wanting to put a dirty old part back onto the car, I decided to try and restore the used mounting bracket as best as I could which required me to disassemble the bracket and then strip down the various metal parts attached to the bracket back to bare metal. The mounting arms for the bracket I left unpainted in their raw aluminum state which actually matches the OEM setup these parts on all 94+ models. https://i.postimg.cc/wBpdcHBc/After-Wire-Wheel-Cleaning-1-02-03-24.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/Y9XKHWzb/After-Wire-Wheel-Cleaning-5-02-03-24.jpg A steel bracket that i removed off of the mounting bracket was repainted using a spray on chassis paint before I then reassembled everything back together completing the restoration process for this part. USDM Reinforcement Bar (Reo Bar) Replacement Story The last item that I needed to replace was of course the reinforcement bar or reo bar for short. My original fiberglass reo bar had been completely destroyed in the accident and finding a replacement reo bar was going to be like the front bumper bar, a definite purchase for the rebuild project. Though I could have easily have gone with and purchased a brand new replacement reo bar from Nissan in Japan, I was more interested at trying to sorta upgrade the reo bar setup on my car this time around. And so I have always wanted to look into the possibility of running the very unique USDM reo bar which differs from the JDM, UKDM and even ADM models standard one piece fiberglass reo bar you all should be running outside of the US. So what is so special about the USDM reo bar your probably wondering by now. Well instead of being a one piece all fiberglass panel, the USDM reo bar is instead a multi piece designed reo bar with an aluminum center bar which provides the main reinforcement protection of the car as you would expect. Then there are 2 opposing sided fiberglass fog light bucket panels which are attached to either end of the aluminum center bar piece and obliviously allows for the typical mounting of the OEM fog light assemblies onto the reo bar. The last unique feature of this reo bar design is how it mounts up onto the car and instead of bolting the reo bar directly to 2 front frame rails, the USDM reo bar uses a pair of shock absorber mounts which not just mount to the frames but also partially inside them as well. https://i.postimg.cc/pd64cHW6/USDM-Reo-Bar-2.jpg This different type of reo bar design was made so that all of the USDM 300ZX models sold in the US, could meet a restrict government road law called the "5mph Bumper Law" introduced in 1974 in the USA. The law required that all auto markers at the time selling cars in the US had to design a front bumper bar so "that no damage to the car's lights, safety equipment and engine would occur in the event of an angled 5mph impact". Also the fact that there are a lot of 300zx cars still driving around over there and with a larger supply of spare parts If i ever need to replace any parts from this new reo bar I should be able to source used items them from either Z1 motorsports and or eBay. The last reason as to why I wanted to go with this reo bar setup was the simple fact that no one here in Australia has even done this conversion before, that I know of anyways. Because of this having this setup on my Z would make that little bit more unique and different to all the 300ZX's cars out there on the roads over here in Australia, even though I know you wouldn't be able to see this unique part on the car without having to remove the front bumper bar off. So with my mind made up, I sourced a used USDM reo bar from the US off of eBay and it ended up costing me around $400 including freight to me here in Australia. https://i.postimg.cc/CxYgbS5C/USDM-Reo-Bar-Ebay-Photo-1.jpg After the reo bar had arrived to me in Australia, it was disassembled into its individual components and cleaned thoroughly. https://i.postimg.cc/yNd2TdHR/USDM-Reo-Bar-After-Cleaning-1-25-02-24.jpg USDM Reinforcement Bar (Reo Bar) Modifications There was one thing that I needed to modify on the new reo bar just so that I would able to install a specific OEM support bracket onto the reo bar to allow for a complete installation of the 2000 model front bumper bar onto the car just like how it was done from the factory. The bracket in question mounts onto the underside of the front center section of the reo bar and up against a lower tab on the 2000 model front bumper bar with 3 mounting holes in it hidden under the licence plate location. https://i.postimg.cc/cHCkf5fB/Reo-Bar-and-Mounting-Bracket-Feb-Update.jpg The later model JDM fiberglass reo bar I found out back in 2010, included the required 3 mounting rivnuts for the bracket to be installed onto and I would need to recreate those same 3 mounting holes on the USDM reo bar which would have been easy if we hadn't through the now destroyed JDM reo bar away weeks earlier. Top (Early Model Reo Bar) Bottom (Late 2000 model Reo Bar) https://i.postimg.cc/C1rttVw2/JDM-Reo-Bar-Differences.jpg With no other option to go with we decided to roughly guess the location of the 3 mounting holes using the 2000 model front bumper bar as a guide to hopefully get the location of each mounting hole correct. We marked the holes and then drilled them out before my Dad tapped a thread into the aluminum so that the screws could be installed straight into the reo bar instead of using rivnuts like from the factory. Once the modifications were complete the OEM support bracket could now be installed onto the reo bar as per the factory setup on the 2000 models. https://i.postimg.cc/g0dfLDMg/Bracket-attached-to-reo-bar-2.jpg We also test fitted the USDM reo bar onto my JDM model 300ZX just to see if the bar would for one bolt up the frame rails as expected which it did. And second see if with 2000 model front bumper bar would fit to the car and everything line up as it was suppose to and thankfully it all worked out in the end and the installation of the USDM reo bar was a big success for the project. https://i.postimg.cc/9MX5KpZD/2-Reo-Bar-Fitted.jpg Reinforcement Bar & Hardware Layout https://i.postimg.cc/V6hGgBRQ/Reinforcement-Bar-Hardware-Parts-Codes.jpg

2000 MODEL XENON HEADLIGHTS OCTOBER UPDATE Now here's a section I haven't talked about much during the rebuild and now that we are at the tail end of the project I can finally talk about what's been happening with regards to my repaired factory xenon headlights. So as you all know my beautiful and expensive pair of factory 2000 model xenon headlights were crushed in the accident and a lot of the plastic housing on the back of the lights were damaged. https://i.postimg.cc/K8GwG08g/Damaged-Headlight-1.jpg I managed to find a workshop early on in the rebuild who offered to help me to repair the damaged headlight housings using a plastic welding technique to get them all back together again and I gave them no specific timeframe to get job done as I had plenty of other things to worry about at that stage of the rebuild. In late February of 2022, the workshop contacted me saying that they had finished off the plastic welding repairs on both of the headlights housings which I was able to inspect and though they didn't look pretty on inside but they were at least tnow fully intact and all in one piece again. https://i.postimg.cc/gkDtT3Hc/Xenon-Headlight-repair-progress-March-2023.png Now while the headlights were in this dismantled state, I wanted to look into restoring the internal chrome trim bezel found inside the headlights as I had noticed that on both of my factory xenon headlights, the factory chrome effect on the bezels had began to delaminate after years of sun exposure. I had seen on YouTube a special and expensive chrome paint that was easy to apply and would give me a mirror like chrome finish that would be perfect at replacing the factory chrome effect and being a paint finish if covered in a 2k clear coat would be able to withstand the effects of prolonged sun exposure when compared to the factory chrome finish. So I asked the guys at the workshop if they could restore the bezels for me and they stated that they had a paint company that had a chrome paint they were wanting to test out for future projects and would be willing to use it to restore my bezels with. After a few weeks of waiting I got an update from the workshop who sent me this photo of the newly painted trim bezels and though they did look really good, they were no even close to a mirror like chrome finish and instead looked more like a basic silver paint coating to me. https://i.postimg.cc/CKtQ4YHj/Headlight-Bezel-1st-Painting-result-in-silver-2.jpg Wanting to go that extra mile for the project, I looked into purchasing the chrome paint I had seen on YouTube which turns out is called Ezi Chrome, a new reflective mirror like chrome paint product on the market that would give me the mirror like chrome effect that I wanted to replicate on the bezels. So I purchased a small quantity of the chrome paint from a paint company in Queensland and then give that to the guys at the workshop and had them redo the painting job on the bezels which they were more than happy to do for me. The results with the new chrome paint product were amazing to say the least, and I was extremely happy with the new look of the restored trim bezels. https://i.postimg.cc/K80VRt1p/Chrome-Painted-xenon-headlight-bezels.jpg Shortly after the bezels had been painted, I managed to find a listing for the sale of a used LH side xenon headlight on yahoo auctions in pretty average condition which was going for around $800. As expensive as that is for a used average condition xenon headlight the chance to replace one of my damaged headlights with an undamaged headlight housing was to hard of an offer to pass up, so I purchased the headlight off of yahoo auctions and once it arrived here in Australia I gave it to the workshop to use as a replacement to the damaged LH headlight. https://i.postimg.cc/ry5P5Bdr/Used-LH-Xenon-Headlight-from-yahoo-auctions.jpg It would be another couple months of waiting before the workshop finally contacted me stating that they had finished the restoration work on both of the headlights and I was going to be able to pick them up later that week which was a huge relief for me because this restoration process had now taken nearly 10 months to get to this point and I was now at a point in the project where I needed the headlights back to be able to continue progress with the repairs to the car. When I finally saw the now restored pair of 2000 model xenon headlights, I was over the moon with excitement with the quality of the workmanship done on the repairs and modifications by the guys at the workshop and the headlights themselves looked amazing with the new paint job on the bezels and I couldn't be happier with the final product I got in the end. https://i.postimg.cc/hPg3s2x3/Restored-Headlights.jpg Unfortunately here is where the story took a turn for the worst for me. You see when it came time for the payment side of things, the once friendly and supportive workshop began to show its true natural and I had one person giving me one figure to pay and the other giving me double that amount which I couldn't afford to pay at the time. Basically when I spoke with the owner of the business who I original organised getting this repair job done with 10 months ago, the plan was for them to do the job off the books so to speak, do it after hours and they would give me a fair honest price for the restoration of the lights. I did not signed or agreed to any specific per hour pricing and I gave them no timeframe to meet, hoping that this would help them not have to fast track the job as I didn't need the headlights during the early stages of the rebuild. When I spoke with owner of the business the week I was picking up the headlights from his shop, he apologised to me for how long it took for them to get the job finished and to compensate me, he offered me a verbal $800 AUD price for the cost of the entire repair/modification process the workshop did for me. I was surprised but happy with that price as I was expecting the work to cost me over a thousand dollars initially. But when I went to the workshop in person to pickup the headlights, I was dealing with a different person at the shop, the actual person who did the work on the headlights. When I offered the $800 payment to him he said to me "no its $1800 for the job." I was obliviously confused at this point and I had told this other guy that his boss and I had agreed on $800. He said no its $1800. So I called the owner of the business via phone to confirm with him the price for the job and at first he said yes $800 was fine before quickly changing the price to that of the workers price of $1800, like I had heard him wrong the other day and that I was now $1000 short of the payment. At this point in time I just wanted my headlights back and me not wanting to make fuss about it, I asked them if I could pay the rest later on, as I didn't have the extra $1000 on me at the time and the owner said yes that will be fine. So I took my headlights and drove home knowing my wife would absolutely flip it at me as we didn't have a spare $1000 to pay the workshop at that time having overspent on the budget for the rebuild project by then. The next day while discussing the situation I was in with my work colleagues at work, I was told that in their opinion I was being taking advantage of and that because they had let me take the headlights from them the day before, that any further costings for the repair job that they wanted from me were no null and void. Taking this advice I decided to ghost the workshop as I hoped that they would forget about me, as it took me 10 months of constantly messaging them for them to get the work done and maybe they would be so busy doing other things to not care about chasing me for the remaining funds that I apparently owed them. Funny enough I ended up seeing the owner and the worker from the workshop a month later on separate visits at my workplace who while chatting with about stuff, never mentioned anything to me about the money I owed them from the headlights and so I figured, maybe I was off the hook but then I got a message from the owner about 2 weeks later asking me about fixing up the money I owed them for the headlight repairs. Sticking to my guns, I blocked the owners phone number so I wouldn't be able to receive any more messages from him regarding the money owing and I hoped that if I didn't respond for a certain amount of time, he might just forget about me and not be bothered to come down to my workplace to chase me for the money. However another month goes by and then all of a sudden the owner of the workshop turns up to my workplace and after a quick chat with him, he asks me about when I'm going to pay the rest of the money that I owe them. Prepared for a verbal fight with this person, I tried to discuss with him calmly about how I felt like I was being taken advantage of and that his initial offer he gave me verbally of $800 was all I was willing to pay him for the job and that I will not be paying them anymore money. He insisted to me that he never offered me $800 and was additament that he said $1800 was the total cost of the job. I stuck to my guns and told him that the during the whole time the repairs were being done, I had to constantly contact the worker to get updates on the repairs and the fact it took 10 months to complete meant that for me $1800 was way to much for them to charge me considering this was suppose to be off the books so to speak. Not to mention that no price per hour costing had ever been consulted with me so what was I paying for with this job and before I could go any further with my complaints and say I wanted a receipt to know exactly what the costings breakdown for the work done was, he abruptly said to me "If your not happy then don't worry about it" and he stormed off. As I was at work, I managed to walk away and into the back storeroom of the shop away from any customers to kind of hide from having to deal with him any further before he eventually left store. I couldn't believe I actually managed to talk my way out of this very scary situation I found myself in and I was lucky that I didn't get taken advantage by someone who I thought was on my side and wanting to help me, like i see on YouTube channels all the time. Thankfully it has been almost a year now and I still haven't had any contact from the workshop at all and so I think I managed to pulled it off and save myself from having to pay the extra $1000 they wanted from me. Though I wont mention the workshops name ever again, they did do an amazing restoration job on the headlights and if things hadn't gone down the way they did, I would have been promoting their workmanship to the hills and back but it was not meant to be i guess. Lamborghini Diablo Carbon Fiber Trim Cover Upgrades Moving on from the headlight repairs now and I'd like to talk about a modification that I have been wanting to do on my headlights for over a decade now and its a modification that I'm pretty sure no one in the Z community has even considered doing and or installed on their Z ever. That is to install the Lamborghini diablo carbon fiber trim covers that are famously known around the internet and most likely the world as the way Lamborghini was able to use the Nissan 300zx headlights on the diablo and be able to hide that fact by covering over the Nissan logo moulded into the glass lens of the 300zx's headlights. https://i.postimg.cc/c4NPjxqh/99spec-Diablo-Healdight-trim-piece-1.jpg https://i.postimg.cc/Vst3DSh5/99spec-Diablo-Healdight-trim-piece-2.jpg Before the accident this idea was just a pipe dream for me to implement onto my Z, as to buy a pair of these carbon fiber trim covers directly from Lamborghini was going to cost me around $1200 for a set of 2 which is crazy lambo tax stuff right there. However after the accident I obliviously had a bit of spare cash to spend on the project and so what I ended up doing was buying a cheaper aftermarket replicated carbon fiber trim covers which only set me back around $800 for the set off of eBay which was still expensive but more affordable for me to buy at the time. https://i.postimg.cc/X7ct6R4b/Aftermarket-CF-Lambo-headlight-trim-covers.jpg When the trim covers arrived the excitement for me was extreme and I can't believe these 2 little trim covers cost me $800 and the biggest issue I still have yet to really figure out is how I'm going to install these onto the headlight lens themselves as I don't want either of them to come off in the future while driving the car. https://i.postimg.cc/7h1tDzvV/Kit-3.jpg My current thoughts are to use either 3M branded double sided tape or maybe an adhesive silicone to stick the covers down onto the glass which I believe is how Lamborghini did it from the factory for the Diablo's headlights. Still I want to do more fitment testing to see how the covers will sit on the headlights first and slowly figure out which is going to be the best method of gluing the covers down so that these very expensive pieces never go missing once they are on the headlights. Headlamp & Fasteners Layout https://i.postimg.cc/nzDwR50N/Headlamp-Fasteners-Part-Codes.jpg

BATTERY & BATTERY MOUNTING FINAL UPDATE Next up is all for the components for the battery section (SEC-244), which included the main 12V battery, insulation cover, plastic drip tray and mounting hardware. The battery I had needed some recharging after sitting for 3 years and was dead flat when I tested it several months ago. As you all know I replaced one of the corroded battery mounting arms and I added rubber grommets to prevent a electrical current running through the battery hold-down and everything else in this section was cleaned up to look as good as new again. Battery, Box and Hold-Down Layout https://i.postimg.cc/C1H6Fqc6/Battery-Box-and-Holddown-Part-Codes.jpg

COOLING SYSTEM OCTOBER FINAL UPDATE After last months huge update on several sections, this month I will be starting off with SEC-214 which has all of the components related to the radiator as well as the auxiliary fan which are going to be necessary for me to install if I intend to drive the car home once it has all be put back together. OEM Radiator Foam Seal Installation (P/N: 21496-30P10) A part most people forget to install when replacing or changing over the radiator in the 300zx, is the upper foam seal for the top tank of the radiator. It's purpose I think is to prevent airflow from escaping from the gap between the radiator core support and the top of the radiator. https://i.postimg.cc/RFmf0R4z/Radiator-Seal-Before-Assembly.jpg To install it, you just peel off the adhesive backing of the double sided tape on the seal and then stick it onto the top tank of the radiator like so. https://i.postimg.cc/SKCCq50r/Radiator-Seal-After-Assembly.jpg NA Radiator Mounts Assembly The last item to finish off for the cooling system, is the assembly of the newly restored upper NA radiator mounts which I painted nearly 4 months ago. https://i.postimg.cc/4yN96xYL/Radiator-Mounts-Before-Assembly.jpg I inserted the rubber bushing into the center of each of the 2 radiator mounts like so. https://i.postimg.cc/FH23Mv6z/Radiator-Mounts-After-Assembly.jpg The rest of the cooling system was checked over thoroughly and everything has been accounted for and I am now ready to install this system back onto the car. NA Radiator Cap & Hardware Layout https://i.postimg.cc/SsL6LPDs/NA-Radiator-Cap-Hardware-Part-Codes.jpg Radiator Fan & Fasteners Layout https://i.postimg.cc/fR3YqyB1/Radiator-Fan-Fasteners-Part-Codes.jpg Radiator Hoses & Mounts Layout https://i.postimg.cc/65bdhnLd/Radiator-Hoses-Mounts-Parts-Code.jpg NA Transmission Cooler Hoses & Clamps Layout https://i.postimg.cc/5yxwsmRm/NA-Transmission-Cooler-Hoses-Clamps-Part-Codes.jpg Overflow Coolant Bottle & Hardware Layout https://i.postimg.cc/vHZr939Y/Overflow-Coolant-Bottle-Hardware-Part-Codes.jpg Aux Fan And Hardware Layout https://i.postimg.cc/yNZXxxR0/Aux-Fan-And-Hardware-Part-Codes.jpg

At long last everyone, I have finally finished writing up my 2024 October monthly blog update for my Z's rebuild project and I know I have been struggling lately to maintain a constant update schedule for the rebuild project as of late with the last several monthly blog updates taking me longer and longer to finalise and then post up online and I hate the fact that you all are the ones really missing out of all of the developments I have made behind the scenes and are now months behind where I'm at with the rebuild project right now. That is why I have really slowed down making further content progress on the car after the events of this month in an attempt to try and reduce the amount of work I will need to do to hopefully smash through posting up the next 7 - 8 blog update posts on the project to try and bring everyone back up to speed as fast possible to where we are now as I post this blog in June 2025. So moving past all of that, let me give you a brief description of what has been going with the project and more importantly what has happened to the car after the events of October 2024. Well I have some big news to tell you all and it relates to the fact that my beautiful silver metallic pride and joy Nissan 300ZX is finally all back together again as you probably would have already noticed from the above thumbnail picture and boy what a ride it has all been for me over the last 3 years or so getting from the massive set back I had with crashing the car in 2021 to now having my Z fully reassembled back into a car once again and I am very proud of myself for what I was able to achieve during the course of this 3 year rebuild project. So continuing on from last months efforts i finalised all of the remaining part sections I still needed to complete for the front end of the car and once that had became a reality, I then prepared myself to reassemble phase of putting the car back together again over a 3 day long weekend at the end of the month. The plan I devised was to first get the car mechanically all back together again before my Dad and I would then start the car and get it running as functionally as possibly. The next step was to then spend the next 2 days slowly putting the rest of the front end of the car back together again installing all of the new, used and restored parts back onto the car during the process and as you can imagine there were plenty of ups and downs along the way but ultimately I succeeded in completing the primary goal I had put on myself to get my car back together again and if I was lucky I would then get to drive the car home for the first ever. Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ADAMZX Instagram: instagram.com/adamzx_z32[/center]

AIR INTAKE DUCTING SEPTEMBER FINAL UPDATE For the final section I'll be covering this month, will be SEC-747 which has all of the components related to the lower engine splash guards or under shrouds. It also contains the part codes for the front upper air guide panel and a pair of lower frame rail brackets which I was able to restore back to brand new again. Upper Air Guide Restoration Completed The upper air guide panel went through a quick and easy restoration process way back in February. BEFORE AFTER One of the exciting discoveries I made with this part during the rebuild project, was figuring out the original mounting location and setup for this air guide panel which mounts onto both the reinforcement bar and the air filter housing. Lower Frame Rail Brackets Restoration Process Completed Located underneath the front 2 frame rails these mounting brackets went through a lengthy restoration process which included stripping the brackets down and then repainting them using the KBS coating system. BEFORE STRIPPING AFTER STRIPPING Once stripped down, I used a wire wheel to scuff up the metal surface before paint was applied Then the brackets were coated in KBS rust Seal and KBS Black Top topcoater to achieve the desired look I was going for. Overall I am pretty happy with the end result of the restoration of these brackets. Front Air Guide & Frame Rail Brackets Layout Z1 All Aluminum Front Lower Splash Guards or Under Shrouds (Z1 Motorsports P/N: 21033) One of the new and exciting upgraded parts that I purchased early on in the rebuild project was the new 2022 Z1 all alloy set of front and rear lower engine splash guards which have been designed to replace the original plastic versions of the 2 front and rear engine splash guards that over time get covered in oil, sag, discolour and eventually fall apart. I replaced my original pair of OEM lower engine splash guards back in 2011 with a brand new set and I was hopeful that these brand new splash guards would last at least 20+ years before they would start to deteriorate but what have I found is that even after only 10+ years of regular use while on my Z, the new OEM plastic guards have already began to show their age and for a long time now I have been looking into buying a replacement set of metal splash guards and it just so happened that Z1 released their new set of all alloy under shrouds soon after I had my car accident. The new Z1 under shrouds as they call them, will be able to hold up against all of above issues with no problems as each splash guard's metal surface has been professionally coated in an stain black anodized finish and on top of that the new guards come included with additional air vents to help increase airflow through the front of the car to help direct outside cooler air into the engine bay from under the rear splash guard which could assist in keeping engine temperatures down for my Z in the future. The kit also came with a full set of anodized mounting fasteners to replace the old factory units with and I was very happy with the overall quality of the new splash guards when they arrived. I did a quick comparison between the Z1 guards and the OEM variants and the only main difference I found that wasn't included in the new Z1 under shrouds was the mounting points for the factory lower support foam panel for the lower lip of the front bumper bar. The new z1 design had removed the 3 mounting points from the guard and there was no way to retrofit it to the new front splash guard either which was a bummer but not a deal breaker for me. I am very excited to install these onto my Z in the coming weeks. Z1 Aluminum Front Lower Splash Guard & Hardware Layout Z1 Aluminum Rear Lower Splash Guard & Hardware Layout

INTERCOOLER DUCTING, UKDM OIL COOLER MOUNTING & CARBON CANISTER HARDWARE SEPTEMBER UPDATE Moving onto something a but bigger and a little more complex is SEC-640 which contains several different components for 3 key setups located in the front of the car underneath the front bumper bar. They include the 2000 model NA intercooler ducting setup as well as the remaining components for the rest of the carbon canister setup. The last set of components listed in this section is related to the mounting setup for the UKDM oil cooler which I plan to install as part of my automatic transmission cooler upgrade sometime in the future one day. Carbon Canister Mounting Bracket Restoration & Lower Vacuum Hoses Preassembly Having already preassembled the upper part of the carbon canister in SEC-173, I can now finish off the assembly of the lower vacuum hose setup as well as go over the restoration process I went through with the carbon canister's mounting bracket. Like the upgrades I mentioned in SEC-173 where the 3 upper rubber vacuum hoses were replaced with cut to length silicone vacuum hoses, the lower hoses also got the same treatment but only for the smaller 6mm sized diameter hose, as there are no silicone replacement hoses, that I know of for the special Y hose piece that connects to the lower hose port on the bottom of the carbon canister. All of the original spring style hose clamps for these hoses were also replaced with new aftermarket hose clamps to complete the upgrades for the carbon canister. Then there is the restoration process I went through with the carbon canister's mounting bracket which like the several other metal parts mentioned eariler, required months of work to strip down a prepare the metal surface of the bracket so a new more durable paint coating could be applied to not just restore the look of the bracket but to also protect it from degrading in the future. Due to the mounting brackets size, chemically stripping the old factory paint turned out to be quiet difficult to get any kind of results, so an abrasive method was used to finally get the bracket down to bare metal. The mounting bracket was coated in KBS Rust Seal before a second coat of KBS chassis topcoater was applied to complete the restoration of the mounting bracket. Pretty happy with the results overall. Carbon Canister Parts Layout 2000 Model Intercooler Ducting NA Model Setup Final Update Next we have the final update on the very rare 2000 model NA intercooler ducting setup which I am going to be installing onto my Z to further follow the factory setup of the 2000 NA models cars as much as I can. I was lucky to have been able to source 95% of the components for this setup brand new from Nissan when I did and I only had to fabricate one of the outer brackets as they are now discontinued new from Nissan in Japan. The fabricated bracket that we had to make, was cut out of a flat sheet of steel, which we hand bent it into shape using the original bracket I was able to source as a template along with installing a pair of nut rivets into the lower section of the bracket which will hold one side of the plastic intercooler ducting. The bracket was painted using a Raptor gloss black roll bar & chassis spray paint (RRBGB/AL) to protect the metal from corrosion and renew the gloss black paint finish to be better then brand new. Overall I am wrapped with the new bracket my Dad and I were able to make. Intercooler Ducting Complete Part Layout UKDM Oil Cooler Mounting Bracket Restoration September Update Last but not least is the update on the restoration process for the UKDM oil cooler bracket that I will be using to install not just the UKDM oil cooler onto but to also install the Sonny power steering cooler onto as well one day in the future allowing me to complete the factory setup for both of those items. Anyways, the process like all the others required me to strip away all of the old factory paint off of the metal surface and I tried several difference methods, including chemically trying to strip the paint away, then I tried soda blasting which didn't end up going so well for me and I barely removed anything off of the bracket but that ended up being my air compressor not being setup correctly for me to blast properly. Anyways like I have discovered during this rebuild project, nothing beats a good old wire wheel abrasive paint stripping and once I figured that out it was a breeze getting the mounting bracket back to bare metal. The next step in the process was to paint the entire mounting bracket using KBS Rust seal and KBS chassis topcoater to make this part look a million bucks once again and I am wrapped with how this mounting bracket turned out. Unfortunately I will not be installing this oil cooler bracket setup onto my Z just yet as I am fast tracking the re-assembly process for the front end of the car and the extra time it would take for me to complete the restoration of several other parts for this setup to be functional on the car would just drag this rebuild project out longer then it already has gone on for, so I will be skipping the installation of the oil cooler bracket setup for another date in the future. UKDM Oil Cooler Mounting & Support Bracket Part Layout