From .... to This ... Photos Before During Refreshment After ... Coming Soon   The History of the Car:     So this Z came from my uncle. He has owned it for as long as I can remember but he was the third owner. The first owner was a young woman who couldn't make the payments on the car and had it repossessed after 6 months. The second owner was a guy who worked at the bank which repossessed the car and he owned if for a year before he sold it to my uncle.     The Z sat in the garage till about 1999 or so when my uncle and his daughter began to fix it up. He had the engine rebuilt and made it mechanically sound so that it could be daily driven and refreshed on the weekends. After a year the clutch went and the car sat in the garage till November of 2005. This is when at Thanksgiving dinner I was talking about how I would rather use an audio input jack than a cassette adapter to run my music in my 96' Sentra. My uncle said, "Well you can have the one out of the Z before I have it towed away." I was like, "What? Your going to have the Z towed away?" In the back of my head I knew I would like to have another car when I moved to Hamilton, Ontario with my fiancee, so I asked if I could have the car. A week later and the car was at the mechanics and the journey begins.     I am going to have this one as a daily driver. I am firm believer that cars are meant to be driven. Look to Jay Leno, he own a boat load of cars and drives them all. So I am going to refresh this to a high standard and enjoy the car. But first, it's time to prepare it for the world out there and all the rust it brings.   What has been done so far: New Carpet All new rubber seals and window seals Refurbished the stearing wheel Replaced headlights with new Halogen headlights Added Headlight relay system Upgraded to a JVC CD/MP3 Player Upgrade to a 500 watt 5-way amp Upgraded to 4, 4-way Sony Speakers (5' in the front, 4' x 6' in the back) Upgraded to a 500 watt JVC Supwoofer Added custom built rear deck speaker panel Replaced Front windshield Painted the car with high quality Du Pont paint Replaced Exhaust and Header with different performance system Replaced Fuel Filter Replaced Brake Master Cylinder Replaced Rear brake lines and rubber Milled rear brake drums Replaced Rear wheel brake pads Replaced Rear wheel brake cylinders Added a Full Dash Cap Flushed and de-rusted the gas tank, coated outside in Por-15 and inside was sealed Added a Cold Air K&N system Replaced Alternator with High Power 105amp model from Z-Specialites Added Sound Insualtion to the car, over two rolls Hurculiner added to the bottom of the car Por-15'd most all of the underside and inside of the car Stripped all old tar insulation off Replaced Frame Rails with Bad Dog Parts - 01/25/06 Replaced the Fuel Injectors with new ones - 12/20/05 Replacement of the battery - 12/20/05 Replacement of Clutch - 12/27/05 My Log of what is happening: 10/20/09 - Well I ended up getting the Z over the pond without to much hassel. I got it registered and had it running for about a year when I ran into a problem with the motor (a suspected vaccum leak somewhere). At the time money was tight as we were saving up for a house (which we later bought) and I am still renovating which has lead to very little time or money for the car. I should have some more news on the car later next year when I have both more time and money. 4/05/07 - The Z is going to be heading over the pond on the 14th of April. I have to say that I miss the car and working on it. I also will be glad to have a car with some power. My car here in Europe that I bought will only go 130kph with a tail wind and a downhill. The Z should arrive at the end of the month along with all of our household goods. 1/20/07 - I really won't be updating this section any time soon. I am busy preparing for a season in Europe with my new cycling team and most all Z projects have been put on hold. I am going to be taking my Z with me to Europe and once there I plan to have it re-painted (to fix a few spots I don't like) and I will finally get some really good photos of the Z posted, but that will take a while. 5/15/06 - The car was towed to Canada on a 1,600 mile trip. The tow-bar attachment I made worked quite well and the car is just about all together. Now it's time to get it mechanicly running well and in top form. 04/13/06 - The car is back at the mechanics to put on the header, exhaust and some other things that need to be done to it. 04/04/06 - The car has been painted and it's time to reassemble the car! 03/25/06 - The paint has been delayed, but some of the smaller restoration projects on the car have been done 03/11/06 - Again the updates have been slow, but things have been busy. I have stripped away all the exterior pain off the car down to the metal. It's been a HUGE pain in the ass, but it's been worth it as it has allowed me to get to all the smaller rust issues and such. The car will be going in for paint soon and after that it will all be put back together. The light at the end of the tunnel is there. Yeay... 02/21/06 - It's been a little while since I updated the website as I have been away to Canada taking care of sorting out my house and other things there before I love. I've since finished putting on Por-15 to the bottom of side of the floor pans and on the rear hatch bottom. Then added some Herculiner to the over the top of the Por-15 (with Por-15 self etching primer as bonding between the two). It looks really good and I should have some photos up soon. 01/28/06 - I welded on the Bad Dog Frame rails, they went on without to much problem and I will do a little write up on the whole process a little later. 01/21/06 - Finally got the dash off after a bit of hard work. I also stripped the bottom of the floor pans in anticipation of my new frame rails coming from Bad Dog Parts. I used dry ice to take off most of the large area's of tar that line the interior of the car. It's a pain in the ass to take off, but hey, it's hiding rust!!! 01/18/06 - I have stripped the rear hatch area down and added some POR-15 to the area. It's finally looking like it's having some actual progress happen on the car! See a photo here. 01/15/06 - Today I get a nice little letter in the mail from the HOA (Home Owners Association) that "Vehicles must be driven daily or stored out of street view - blue car". Can we say vague as can be? My dad's 2500 series Dodge Ram hasn't been driven in three days, so I guess it has to go in the garage. Oh wait, our garage can't fit a truck that size. Anyways, the Z moved to the garage more out of ease of working in the bad weather than threats of the HOA. See the letter here. 01/10/06 - So the car is down to the bare essentials of where I want it to be. It's a been a lot of hard work, but it will be worth it in the end to have a car that is going to be so much fun to drive around town. 01/08/06 - Today was mostly about removing the front bumpers and fenders from the car. The doors are also off. The whole process is coming along nicely and I have ordered a bunch of goodies for the car. 01/06/06 - I started my dismantling of the car starting with the interior. At first I thought the problem would be the passenger side floor board, but it was the drivers side. 12/31/05 - I am going to build a body roller (and adaptation between a car roller and a rotisserie). It will be similar in design to this but will be connected to the car at the typical rotisserie points. It will be a cheaper and safer alternative to the standard ways of doing things. 12/28/05 - All the mechanic work is done, time to bring the Z home and see what I can do with her. 12/19/05 - I was able to get the car started at the mechanics shop today. It was seemed like the fuel pump was dead but then someone asked "Does it have gas in it?". A quick tap on the tank said nada. So I filled up a the tank with 4 gallons and it started after a few times being turned over. The clutch was bad and three fuel injectors are bad, so I will have them all replaced. 12/14/05 - I picked up the Z from my uncles house and brought it to my mechanic to give it a good once over. It wouldn't start so I borrowed a car trailer (single axle and small) and it barely fit on it. If it wasn't for how high the bumper rides I would have been screwed.