Slowest Z Tweak Thread in the History of the Forum

[buze]

MOT passed! Not flying colors, but passed... The brake job did remove an advisory, but I now got a few others. I knew about the powert steering...
Car is at my Indy, he's going to go and do the advisories, and check a few other things...

Another year of zedding!

 

[buze]

So, after the idiot who drove into my Z left me with repairs to be done myselfs, the car is now on the bench. Program is,
+ Remove all front bits and sills
+ Clean any bits of chassis visible
+ Fit new bits, sills, bonnet, and front 'wings' for size and fit
+ Treat every inside bits with antirust + waxoil
+ Remove every single bit of trim possible
+ Painter! She gets a full respray!
+ Fit it all back on

And drive into the sunset, with the top down.

 

[buze]

So, here goes progress on the Z

Removed pretty much all trims from the back:

Installed new bonnet, new front bumper. took a little bit of convincing as the accident (or a previous accident) had slightly bent the driver side inner weel arch, so the bumber had a bit of a gap to the bonnet.

Outter sills were DIRE and completely rotten.

But inner sills were actually quite OK -- driver side was worst, but still pretty easy to clean up, solid metal all around after angle grinder cleanup.

Oh and there was a 'spare' pair of sport seats with the exact colors of my existing seats...

Tomorrow, trying to in-freeze the driver door mirror, and a couple of trims to remove, and it's ready for the painter!

 

[jcfaeecht]

So, here goes progress on the Z

Removed pretty much all trims from the back:

Installed new bonnet, new front bumper. took a little bit of convincing as the accident (or a previous accident) had slightly bent the driver side inner weel arch, so the bumber had a bit of a gap to the bonnet.

Outter sills were DIRE and completely rotten.

But inner sills were actually quite OK -- driver side was worst, but still pretty easy to clean up, solid metal all around after angle grinder cleanup.

Oh and there was a 'spare' pair of sport seats with the exact colors of my existing seats...

Tomorrow, trying to in-freeze the driver door mirror, and a couple of trims to remove, and it's ready for the painter!

Following this thread with interest as doing many of the same jobs on my Z. Keep up the good work

 

[DaveP]

Good luck with the rebuild. You look to be on the right track. Nice facilities there too

Dave

 

[spurs fan in a coupe]

Great progress, will be stunning when done

 

[buze]

So, car is out of the paint booth, panels re-adjusted (some places needed some 'convincing'!)

 

[buze]

And re-assembled enough to drive it home, to finish the job on my driveway... Added blingy chrome kidney grids, I think they look awesome with the other chrome bits.

I managed to lock myself out of the boot too -- luckily it was after I emptied the boot of all the important bits for the reassembly!

Paint job is overall very good -- I found ONE small run on the whole car, and in the bottom of the front bumper; the rest is OK with some orange peel that can be polished off -- so I'm quite happy since I paid less than half the price of a "normal" respray, and the guy also help me with panel alignment, and he also fixed a few little bumps and stuff along the way.

During disassembly I also snapped the driver mirror -- had to replace that as well, and I still need to refinish /that/ before the car is back to normal. Oh I also need to replace the 'new' seats bushes...

So it goes on and on!

 

[t-tony]

Great to see you're getting the car back to how it should be.

Tony.

 

[Paul H]

Do those headlight washers work?

 

[buze]

Do those headlight washers work?

Nope! They are part of the replacement bumper. I looked online to see what's needed to hook them up and mostly gave up

 

[buze]

So some more work and tweaks on the Z -- refurbing the driver mirror completely, changing the bushes on the new sport seats, found some water under the carpet so worked on drying /that/, detangoed the replacement light, and now I'm preparing to refurb the driver seat leather. All the usual!

 

[buze]

So, car has had not problem for a while; passed MOT with just a few little nags (including worn rear tyres, now replaced). Changed thermostat, water pump, and Idler too

I've just gave it a clean since it hasnt rained today (yet) and it's looking good -- apart from the new noise from the exhaust (separate thread).

I might buy a new steering wheel, I find the one in the X5 so bloody good that now the Z3 ones that is all shiny/polished feels a bit awkward and thin!

 

[Ianmc]

Like the shadow chrome wheel colour.

 

[buze]

Like the shadow chrome wheel colour.

Thanks unfortunately can't see the nice red calipers in them in this light!

 

[buze]

Ordered a new steering wheel too. £180 shipped, so not to bad. There's a much fancier one with a flat bottom etc but I think it would look a bit out of place in my "slightly classy" car.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/183108896967

 

[the Nefyn cat]

From "Autofun Extreme", eh? Not sure I'm going to be googling that.

 

[buze]

Received the new wheel, very nice actually, not /exactly/ as the auction showed as the little plastic ears aren't covered, however the rest of the wheel is absolutely spotless, it looks OEM quality; stitching is even, it's 3 colour "M", the leather is the same very dark gray you get from OEM. Quite frankly it looks awesome.

I'll take come pics tomorrow. I migth try to find some extra leather to cover the plastic 'ears' too..

 

[buze]

Wow, I had promised a slow thread, and I delivered! Still Zedding along with the same car. It was stable and good for a long time really, not much had changed! Now theres a few 'nags' which I need to sort out!

Mostly screen washers -- seems the mini 'pumps' (CheckValves!) behind the jets have perished (?) -- the leak a lot of water, and there's barely any going out the jet -- most come out inside the bonnet!

Also, I *definitely* need to change the contact in the electric roof as it's now next to unusable, despite having sprayed in some contact cleaner.

Anyone know replacement part #'s for these two already?

 

[Witchsilver]

One thing I would say, but it may be different for you being a techie, I found the Bentley book ok for reference, but that was it.
For actual "how to do it" information, I looked/asked on here, or the Pelican site where they have really detailed photo's etc for most main jobs, and for anything else there is Youtube!!
Welcome to the club!!