Hello, here is the ongoing story of my 1972 Honda Z600 coupe. " Zed"

It all started in February 2009 when I saw this N600 rotting away in a local self-service junkyard, I wanted to save it however they would not sell it whole. So I began researching the old aircooled Hondas and I just had to have one. I had alway owned strange cars, Aircooled vws, a yugo, fiat 124, etc.






Then as luck would have it, a Z600 showed up on ebay a little while later. it went up to $600 and I won it, also it was conveniently just a few miles from my house. however this orange rascal was not is great shape, and i did all the things one should not do when buying a used car: buy sight unseen, and pick it up in the rain, at night, from a bad part of town. all but one of the tires were D shaped so three other guys and I lifted it on the trailer.








The car had been rear ended back in the early 90's and has been off the road since 1996, I really dont have much more history than that on him.



the roof and lower rear quarter panels had some nasty cancer, otherwise it was a a typical California survivor



inside: I had no keys unfortunatly, seats are torn, carpet is, uuh custom house felt, head liner and rear seat fair, window cranks were jammed but the shifter works and the factory am radio made some noise

around back in the trunk was a cook tray full of goodies: the cooling fan, spare cam, and rockers with a small weed going out of it, while it doesnt look it, many of these parts were usable and necessary to get Zed running



up front wasnt much better, thankfully i didnt lose the carb on teh trip home






seems someone rebuilt the valvetrain, but lost a bunch of other key parts, missing a starter too




Finally inside, resting next to my '72 ghia, alot of work to do, the rear brakes were seized, the window mechanisms too and countless spider webs were on him.





Spare rim, the car came with a mix of Z and N rims, only one hub cap




also got the rear spare tire door open after removing the bumper full of hornet nests. and after this picture i sat in the back seat area and with a few swift kicks, pushed the rear panel back out some, needs more later
check out the hornet nest in the bumper!





Oh boy more rust

Began straightening the rear



engine may be worthy to being started, if i had a starter



easily two pounds of rat turds under the carpet and in the headliner




cleaned the dash up some, then removed it, found more spiders! and a lot more wires than i expected. cleaned out all the rotting jute and rat shit in the dash, disected the heater ducts and then put it all back together, i have to take everything apart carefully so i know what everything is and how to get to it as i cant find any manuals on it






also dug into the rust of the roof, a bit worse than i thought, but still not too bad, need to find something to replace the factory rubber strip





and i wirebrushed and pulled out all the dried and useless seam sealer, honda didnt have the formula right yet




trying some hood hinge ideas:

jumped on the brakes, all are siezed, the rear slave cylinders look dead, after soaking liquid wrench and being pounded on they just crumpled, lame! eventually ill have large and proper brakes but i want something for now, maybe ill drive it stock before it goes under the knife for bigger ans safer things



after a week in liquid wrench and alot of compressed air, i go the master cylinder apart, looks like ear wax inside





then i took the front calipers apart, , ive never seen or heard of this kind of caliper. does make for a compact 2 piston design, getting it apart was tricky too but it doesnt look bad inside







think this might be excessive?



through a friend that I later found had a 71 N600 too, gave me some spare parts to get Zed running





and for the first time in over ten years, he ran!!!!

so i did some more work to get the car running better, i got about 5 seconds of contiuous running before i had to pull the coil power beacuse i didnt have the valve cover on and oil was spraying everywhere. but it ran poorly, the valve timing was ok so i did a compression check, a decent 150psi on th 1st cylinder but just 5psi on #2 mmm so i decided to pull the head, i was thinking a bent valve. after an hour of hammering the cam bearing support that broke off when i changed the points housing, ( same part really) i got the cam out, it seems i didnt get the cam timing just right the first time






the upper valve nearest the camera was bent




So i sent it to the local machine shop and for just $40 the head that rebuilt, a new valve was installed, it was actually a newer honda valve that he cut down to fit! then he decked the head





so i had to hammer out the cam support and for some reason the new one is too big as well, having to sand it down slowing to make it fit. its a few thousands too large, keep in mind I still had no manuals on this car so I was just winging it with my years of mechanical experience





So now He ran a bit better but it drives too! for the first time and over a decade it drove under its own power!!!! it was kinda scary but the tach works, speedo works, suspension...works, brakes well no brakes goes backwards too. i really need some brakes though i want to see what He can do!

Next I cleaned up the cowl area, and POR15'd it, and found a belt for the fan so i can tun it w/o it overheating, its a lawnmower belt actually i also attempted to re key the ignition to work with my one key i have for the doors that I found buried under the old carpet, i failed, the pot metal casing of the cylinder broke apart, so I tried to a adapt a miata ignition to do the job, no more colum lock but i dont like those anyway. also cleaned up the heater hose and tried it out, it doesnt blow much air, not much of a surprise.




Still I always think of crazy Ideas for my silly cars such as this Porsche 4.7L V8 swap, ergonmics may not work well






But fear not I never began that crazy plan.

Now we come to the part of Zed's story where he gets put on to the back burner and ignored for almost a year.

The date is now June 2009 and after 17years of wanting one, I Finally was able to purchase my dream car, a 1981 Delorean DMC 12







so with this new and much more appealing project taking up all of my spare time and interest, the car sat for a few months until i decided i need more room in the garage for the DMC, so I loaded Zed up and took it to the shop i worked at, A race car fabrication shop in West Sacramento, where i could perform the body work in the corner of the shop. but many great things were still to come upon Zed

Naturally I started in the rear where it was worst.
so I started stripping the paint and body filler that had been slathered on there, I bought a used rear door what was much straighter, and got good ignition lock, so finally i has a set of keys too.



but i could get all the dents out so I cut the corner off, there was alot of damage






a Mini came to the shop for a roll cage, look the z600 is small than a mini!






So now Zed was running well it was time to see how many ponies were left under the little hood. So Zed was strapped on the company's Mustang Dyno, the stock ignition coil was failing so i retro fitted a modern waste spark coil from a mazda. this really woke the car up, it starts so easily



[img][img]http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/vwdmc16/z600/CIMG2345.jpg[/img]

A few more months fell off the calender with most little cleaning jobs done, The shop moved to a newer location. and by now it was april 2010 and the delorean was in pretty good shape so attention could return to the z600

rear body work was almost done and I began to delete the enormous stock side markers in favor of smaller ones. I also got a free set of tires that were in decent shape to roll the car around on






I replaced the tachometer cable that snapped witha used Ebay part, so that works somewhat again, kinda jiggly but it works. also went to the junkyard and snagged some door weatherstripping off a BMW, $5 score. now the door seals and sound proper when shut,






Coming up on one year of owning the car and I still had no brakes. a local hydraulic hose shop made new ones with the originals as templates





I also bought a master cylinder rebuild kit and installed it into the nicest of the two cylinders that came with the car but I had no luck getting it to pump fluid, $60 wasted. I was really starting to get irritated that a year of searching for functional brake components had ended unsuccessfully.

the MC has pissed my off enough to throw it away, grab the plasma cutter and go at the car's firewall with it. hour later a mazda Miata MC took its place, had to install miata hose fittings as they are a different thread pitch,10x1.1mm vs the honda's 10x1.25mm. but after some clearancing with a big hammer it fits well. Now the miata bore size was a bit larger than the Honda's so the brakes would be a bit touchy but im fine with that as i doubt the stock brakes were too responsive anyways




so i got all excited and bled the system which took a while but felt promising, but alas the rear cylinders leak badly, need to have them bored and sleeved i guess. the front had no flow past the brake booster, must be clogged with the ear wax shit that filled the old MC. so i stood on the brake pedal really hard and pop the crap flushed out, but i doubt the booster works. so i went to the brake and clutch shop to get a tee to delete the booster, uuugh wrong thread pitch again. try again later.







played around mocking up a future turbo set up with this small IHI turbo I found at a swap meet for $20

More body work had to commence, so again with no leads on usable NOS or replacement parts i had to improvise and i decided to just delete the roof trim strips too, also shaved another corner light






Like I said before I found alot of Rat poop in the car, even found another nest when i cut the roof open. the car still still smelled horribly so I spent a good 2.5 hrs alone scrubbing the floor with degreaser and Bleach. i may end up removing all of the factory sound deadening to replace with modern stuff, I just cant get the smell out completely






brainstorming new brake ideas, i may have something.

also finally started cleaning up the front suspension, need to turn the rotors to remove pitting






took some work but got the strut apart,shock is in great shape, cut 2 coils out too so maybe the nose will come out of the stratosphere





playing around with ride heights








took the front sheetmetal off to clean out more bug nests and really just learn more on how the car is put together, got some ideas too on making the car look cleaner and sharper. maybe ill delete the bumper and fill the mounting bracket holes, shave the large turn signals, etc.

you can kinda see the resemblance to the N600 when the sheetmetal is off









lowered abit, but needs alot more

September 2010:

$80 later I finally have a airfilter housing and a voltage regulator which I didnt know i was missing at all until i noticed the car didnt charge the battery, damn i really wish it had brakes, i could start driving it!




got 2 more tires, $40 a pair, slightly used BF goodrich banderos
they should be good and sticky tires for the track atleast but far too small for highway driving






November 2010

Finally found a set of properly rebuilt rebored rear brake cylinders for $00 a piece, So now the brakes are IN and WORK! it locks the rears up in a panic stop, its still scary doing a panic stop >40mph but thats probably just the shitty 20 year old pads and shoes on it. to get the front the fluid they needed, i had to kinda hack up the remote booster, i gutted the piston and disgusting diaphram out of it and weled the hole that supported the inner linkage up to basicly turn it into a glorified T fitting since i couldnt find a double flare Tee with 10x1.25 threads.






so after some more bodywork, a fresh set of tires, some interior work, and the required DMV hassles I COULD Start to drive this beast to and from work

Febuary 2011

Few major repairs were remaining, one was the exhaust which was in rather sad shape. the center tube was replaced some years ago with a 2" tube then crudely welded back to the stock center muffler that was rotted and leaking everywhere, the rear pipe had fallen off ages ago

I decided to replace the center section back using a pair of scrapped miata glass pack mufflers, but was not pleased with it, it sounds nice and mean at idle, like a hot rod V- twin but above 3k rpm you cant hear yourself think over the noise. much too loud

heres the stock muffler, lots of rot and restriction, check the horrible oxy/ace weld someone did years ago. nasty





I cut it apart to see how i was made, below is the new muffler set up with glass packs







and a short video of the noise




So I began again and removed the remost muffler in favor of this chambered one i modified. now the car made a respectable noise, the valvetrain was now louder than the exhaust

[img][img]http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c396/vwdmc16/z600/th_MVI_3557.jpg[/img][/img]

Ad that brings us to today


Roof rust repairs



lower quarter panel rust repair.







how about another engine swap. 10 times the displacement. each cylinder is 1.25 times bigger and 1.56 time more powerful than the Honda






So with all the rust reapirs complete, a sound but still temporary exhaust in place. i decided bring Zed home. almost 22 months after he left

Wow, you've really taken this little guy a long way.
Looks like it was in a sorry state when you got it.

I would be scared taking on such a project.
Big props!

What are your plans for the car?

Full body restoration with paintjob and everything?
Or are you just going to get it mechanically sound, and drive it as it is?

PS: The DeLorean is awesome!

_________________
-74 Honda N600 restoration project

Nice work! I'm really impressed with the work you did repairing the rear sheetmetal, I would have passed that car right by. You stuck with it and it's shaping up to be a great project!

_________________
-Cam
1988 Mazda RX7
1980 Toyota Celica
a bunch of cool other cars I'm not allowed to list

do you have any spare n600 rims left?

_________________
-2001 s2000 all motor built on itb's
-1971 n600
-1947 chevy style master low low

G.T.S crew

thanks for the kind words guys. I plan on making the car cosmetically presentable but it wont be a concourse restoration. along the way ill upgrade the brakes and engine output, because i do want to make this a driver that i can take to work everyday if i feel like it, no garage queens in my fleet.

the biggest hurdle is the body work, it still needs dozens and dozens of hours just to get ready for paint, I wish to repaint it white as i dont car for the orange. also im de-federalizing the exterior, to make it look more like the non US export models that had smaller side markers and better looking bumper.

Rasta N

im not sure which rims are N or Z, can you clarify that for me? I'd trade all my wheels for one matching set. I think the car came with 6 wheels, and ive installed a 3x10' scooter tire as the compact spare

spent a few hours on some of the mountains of dirty work that has to be done, scrubbing nearly 4 decades of dirt out of the cracks. thankfully all the rubber fuel hoses are still in decent shape. most of the seam sealer is the rear is in bad shape like the front, so some new sealant will replace it, then some paint. Still havent decided on the new interior color, white like the exterior or almond like that Duck season N600. you can also see the rear seat rust fill panel.

Fantastic work so far! Its great to see these cars saved Im in for more!

ok the pic you have of the silver spare with the 4 square holes by the track only tier you have a pic of is the z600 rim the other set you have pics of on the car they dont have the square holes it looks like a lil hub cap pops on to it where the lug nuts are those are the n600 rims. or if you go on my post the ones on my car are the z600 rims.

_________________
-2001 s2000 all motor built on itb's
-1971 n600
-1947 chevy style master low low

G.T.S crew

Ok then I have 3 Z wheels and 2 N wheels, i guess I lost the other N rim Had. I would trade my pair of N rims for a pair of Zs

ok ya im down for that let me know when you wana do the trade.

_________________
-2001 s2000 all motor built on itb's
-1971 n600
-1947 chevy style master low low

G.T.S crew