First Publication!

Well it isn't the cover of Motortrend... or a feature about the fastest Z at SCCA nationals... but the Z made her first publications. The student newspaper where I work did an interview with me. Of course my hobbies came up and with it, the Z.

So this week the IUSB Preface has a nice little article about me and a picture of Me and My Z. the article is not on their website yet, but when it is I will link it here for you all to check out.

Full Article: Preface

I was touched that a student wanted to do a profile of me, and glad they showed more than just my work side of life and include my family, hobbies and other items.

All grown up... First Car Show!

The local drive in malt shop on Sundays does a classic car night. I have driven by a few times and wanted to check out the cars. Well then I thought, wait... I should take the Z!

So this past Sunday the Z made her debut at Bonnie Doons. Heather and I got there a little late, so we had to park in the overflow lot. With is alright, I didn't even detail the Z yet. She had a few people walk by and check her out.
We enjoyed the show and of course here in South Bend it means lots of Studabakers. There were a few cool custom hot rods, some classic restores and a few more modern rides and unfortunately even a couple riced up cars as well. The ricey cars make the Z mad cause they ruin the rep of Japanese rides.

So this weekend was a good car weekend. Hermen and I had a Team PLP reunion and did the brakes on the Jetta. We learned about crazy German engineering and it took nearly as long to learn how to use the fancy brake tool I bought. Ha.

Seats... yep two of them!

So I finally got the bolt out for the seat. I bought a stuck bolt remover... broke it... so I just took the reciprocating saw out and cut the backside of the bracket off. So I got the seats in, took her for a cruise and snapped a picture since the lighting was good outside.

Now I really can't wait to get the rest of the interior conversion to all black interior done.

New Seats... well new Seat...

So I have been working on a project to change the seats in the Z. The car came with ugly brown vinyl and tweed seats... luckily thanks to one of my students who spotted a Z in a local junkyard I was able to find a cheap upgrade.

The junkyard Z had white leather seats, and luckily in great condition. They had some spotting and stains, but I was going to dye them black so it didn't matter. My dad helped me go to the junkyard and pull them and the project began. I decided to go with Rustoleum vinyl and leather dye in a gloss black. It is available at autozone and the ratings online were as good as the more expensive professional stuff.

I had some issues dying the seats... not sure if it was a bad spray can, or the temp but on my last coat of dye something went wrong. So I cleaned the seats again and after some work finally got a good finish on them. They ended up looking like new! I should of painted the brackets on the seats as well, but I figure when I finally put carpet in the car I will take the seats out again and I can do it then. I was in a hurry to get the seats in the car so I could wait for more painting.
I got one short delay... which of course happens on each Z project... one of the screws on the bracket would not come out from the original seat. I have tried everything and nothing... I don't want to risk stripping the screw more, so I might have my shop try to torch it out, or maybe just buy one of those screw removing tools

Anyhow... for more pics click HERE. the black interior conversion has taken one big step forward. No more ripped up ugly seats!