New Wheel! +Install

Grip Royal: Royal Grain

 I'm really happy with the wood grain quality. To get it onto the Z's driveshaft, I needed a hub adapter. Yet after finding that the most obvious choice from Momo was on a somewhat long backorder, I went the faster and slightly cheaper route with Grant products.

 The hub is nice, but quite heavy and doesn't sit far enough down the shaft. Oh well.

 Got the contact surface greased up a bit and the turn signal delete pins in and bolted it up.

Now is the point where the Grant horn button mount I bought should go on, but in consistency with some of their products, manufacturing accuracy is low. As you see, the diameter of the bolt holes on the horn mount is just slightly too small for the holes in the hub and doesn't allow every screw to properly thread. I moved on.

Next comes the adapter from 5 bolts(hub) to 6 bolts(wheel). Luckily I didn't have the same issues here as with the horn mount.

Followed by the wheel. Yaaaay.

Last is the horn button, which of course I still added on. Although for now without the mount in, it won't actually work. Also, being that this is designed for a Grant wheel with smaller hole, the button sat a bit low and loose.

But alas! I did expect this and conjured up a super advanced, sophisticated, state-of-the-art adapter... aka my girlfriends hair-tie ;) It works quite well for both alignment and snugness at the moment.

All done.

Interior Restore Pt.1

At this point everything but the drivers seat is done and I'm in debate whether to get a new red Corbeau Forza or just save the money and restore the damage the best I can.

The tear down

The old insulation had long been rotting and bonded to most anything it touched. This was the driver's side to start, the passenger side was much worse with almost 100% of the floor being black.

Luckily no rust in the spare well.

 This spare was actually about 90% orange from rust dust before the clean. Couldn't get much off the tire though.

Some old, before shots. Notice the nasty discolored old vinyl. The seat tears have become much worse since these were taken.

And the after. Very refreshed. The old to new comparison gets little justice from pictures.

No more orange spotting :)

These back panels were actually black before. Finding white ones in good shape is near impossible.

Picked up a 4'x6' sheet of nice insulation for the tranny tunnel and had a perfect amount left over to cut and fit into the hatch area. It's been much quieter from the cockpit since.

And here's the dreadful driver seat. I'm attempting to pull it all back together with some vinyl epoxy and a mat underneath. After, it'll get painted up like the rest and hopefully the final result wont look terrible.

Stay tuned!

1976

Found this little treasure(imo) and couldn't leave it where it was.

Motor Trend April 1976 Vol. 28 No. 4
What makes it extra special is the Celica feature as import car of the year!

Everything in here is so interesting because of the differences between then a now.
Here's a cool spread on the 280z of the era.

A Toyo ad featuring a rally 510.

For the VW kids.

You bet it is!