Miles' zCoupe

[feltonminicycle]

Finally making progress on my 72 coupe. Normally a car in as bad of shape as my 72 would be parted out, but there was really no good parts on it. This car and I have history. It belonged to my friend Zach when I met him in 1993, he lived in Cupertino Ca and used it as a daily driver. He would bring it to my shop in Felton or I would go to his house too work on it. After he moved to Santa Cruz he used it as a daily commuter to drive to San Francisco. After some time he and the car moved to San Fran and it just sat undriven. Cars in San Francisco rust away pretty fast. He said people would leave notes on the car or ask him to sell it weekly.
By the time I got it all the paint was peeling off, rust through in the roof channels, dents in the fenders, 4 bald tires, interior was trashed, dashboard cracked etc, it was a real cream puff. The only thing good about is was it still ran. My then girlfriend wanted it really bad so she and I did all the repairs to make it road worthy (except the steering rack). She drove it for years, then she moved away and left the car with a friend. By the time I got it back again everything was bad including the battery and brakes. I drove it home down a mountain road and to my house using compression braking and the hand brake.
The only other car that tops this one is a z600 I had which was shot 26 times with a .22. Not sure why it was shot up but that one got parted !
So, I have been reworking this coupe over the past months, rebuilt the calipers, rear brakes, booster, new front hoses, rebuilt the master cyl this last week, rebuilt the steering rack & installed it. I Made an arbor to fit a heater motor as to make an electric cooling fan.
Today I built a strut compressor out of an old brake rotor, a motorcycle sprocket, 2 pieces of 3/8" all thread and 2 custom made 4" long brass nuts from hex stock on my lathe. Works well and is safer than the strut tool I had that squeezes down the spring. Did you know the only thing holding your strut together is a tiny clip thinner than a wrist pin clip? Anyway, I needed to tear down 6 struts to find some good ones.
It's still the ugliest car in town of any make or model, but I will be on the road soon !

[lyletrudell]

Hi Miles, sounds like a few of us are restoring cars now.
Is everybody on the other coast? Need to find a few florida Honda folks.
We can help each other alot even long distance. We need to do what Dave did and have a place to show pictures, info and parts suppliers.
I will look into it.
Glad your saving your car.
I have an Opel GT that I've had since I was 19, 50 now.
Like yours, it was really rough....but now it looks great.
Lyle

--- In
2cylinderhondas@yahoogroups.com
, "feltonminicycle" wrote:
> Finally making progress on my 72 coupe. Normally a car in as bad of shape as my 72 would be parted out, but there was really no good parts on it. This car and I have history. It belonged to my friend Zach when I met him in 1993, he lived in Cupertino Ca and used it as a daily driver. He would bring it to my shop in Felton or I would go to his house too work on it. After he moved to Santa Cruz he used it as a daily commuter to drive to San Francisco. After some time he and the car moved to San Fran and it just sat undriven. Cars in San Francisco rust away pretty fast. He said people would leave notes on the car or ask him to sell it weekly.
> By the time I got it all the paint was peeling off, rust through in the roof channels, dents in the fenders, 4 bald tires, interior was trashed, dashboard cracked etc, it was a real cream puff. The only thing good about is was it still ran. My then girlfriend wanted it really bad so she and I did all the repairs to make it road worthy (except the steering rack). She drove it for years, then she moved away and left the car with a friend. By the time I got it back again everything was bad including the battery and brakes. I drove it home down a mountain road and to my house using compression braking and the hand brake.
> The only other car that tops this one is a z600 I had which was shot 26 times with a .22. Not sure why it was shot up but that one got parted !
> So, I have been reworking this coupe over the past months, rebuilt the calipers, rear brakes, booster, new front hoses, rebuilt the master cyl this last week, rebuilt the steering rack & installed it. I Made an arbor to fit a heater motor as to make an electric cooling fan.
> Today I built a strut compressor out of an old brake rotor, a motorcycle sprocket, 2 pieces of 3/8" all thread and 2 custom made 4" long brass nuts from hex stock on my lathe. Works well and is safer than the strut tool I had that squeezes down the spring. Did you know the only thing holding your strut together is a tiny clip thinner than a wrist pin clip? Anyway, I needed to tear down 6 struts to find some good ones.
> It's still the ugliest car in town of any make or model, but I will be on the road soon !