Necessary Stuff

Someone once said "Change is good." - probably one of those beggars that drives a Mercedes....

First off, let me apologize for not updating the site in SIX months - probably had something to do with holidays and 3 trips to the orient in the interim, family time, along with time spent working in the shop.  So, here's the first of numerous things that have been completed.

The stock throttle arrangement was not going to work with the V6, so I spent lots of hour here and there browsing Ebay looking for a throttle assembly that could flat mount to the firewall, have its own return spring, be about the right size, that could be modified to work.  I ended up with one from a '93 Mazda Protege' which met the above citeria - the arm is 3/8" rod, which is easy to bend and flatten when heated to cherry red.  Made the bends a little at a time until it was right, then flattened the end to fit the clevis on the throttle cable.

 

Got the pedal covers on Ebay as well - had Type R or some such nonsense silk screened on them, and came with little bendy tabs to mount them - just what you want, the throttle pedal coming loose and jamming under the brake.....  A little lacquer thinner and some fine steel wool took care of the rice-logos, and the steel pedals were drilled and tapped so the aluminum pedals could be mounted with hex-countersunk machine screws.  Still need to fill that pesky hole in the trans tunnel.....

On the engine side of the firewall, I fabbed a doubler plate with weld-nuts for the pedal mounting bolts, and tacked on a large washer for the cable adjuster to fit into.  The length of the arm on the pedal assembly was adjusted to give me about 1/4" more travel than is needed at the carb which can be fine tuned with the pedal-stop on the floor. 

Anyone who's worked on a Datsun Roadster will recognize this collection of parts - all the components for the heater / defroster - large sheetmetal box, squirrel cage fan, and various hoses and ducts  to connect them all.  (These, and lots of other stock parts will all be offered to the list or off to Ebay at some point in the near future.)

Since I don't forsee ever driving it in the winter ( and the position of the alternator precludes hooking up heater hoses) there'll be no heater core, hoses or valve ( heater core already has a new home, valve will go to list / Ebay).  There's going to be enough heat in the engine compartment for a brisk Spring of Fall run with the top up.  I will need, however, a defroster to handle Summer evening dew, or a fogged window on a rainy day.  I was originally going to use the stock setup with a ceramic,DC heating element, but got to thinking about all the weight of the stock parts.

So, one evening I scrounged around the shop, and found a 4" PVC toilet flange, and a 3" PVC pipe cap, and a light bulb appeared over my head.  Cutting off most of the floor flange on the toilet fitting yielded this.

A little work with the flex-shaft grinder created a mounting pocket for the ceramic element.

Four mounting holes for a 92mm 12VDC case fan.

 

A couple of 45 degree 1" elbows, a hole saw and some PVC cement.

Along with some sanding to neck down the fittings for an 1-1/2" heat riser hose to fit.

Add a 190 CFM 92x92x38mm Tornado case fan...

...and you've got a compact, lightweight defroster that weighs about 2 lbs and really BLOWS.  Heats up quickly, maintains a warm temp, and is much quieter than the stock squirrel cage.  It'll mount to the stock box locations using an aluminum bracket that will be made using the template shown, and a 4" wire hose clamp.

Quite a comparison....

I'll be using the same hood pins and sliding keepers that we have on the Z, to keep a "family" look going, so these were located on the front of the cowl.  Won't drill the hood until final fitment of fenders and hood.