Leaderboard

A new year has started and my battle to get the 280z road worthy goes on. I had liked to get some more things done over the holidays but sickness and other obligations got the better of me. That doesn’t mean I didn’t get some progress in. To prepare for a new years eve party I had to temporarily get the Z inside the garage so I continued my journey of stripping down the Z by removing the fenders and wiper cowl. I kind of regret but I'm also glad I did. Turns out the last “restauration” was a fairly cheap one. Some threads where damaged and instead of repairing the thread or welding in a nut they just left the bolts out, or in case of the lower mounting points of the fenders just weld and bondo them on. After getting them off I was met with the nice surprise of finding out they never painted the inside/back of the fenders or any non-exterior part for that matter, only primer. As a result I was met with a lot of surface corrosion spots. I also discovered the car has some crash damage on the front left that was never properly repaired. Some sanding, rust treatment and painting later the car already looked a lot better. At least now I know the Z won’t rust away in the next couple of years. Every panel I remove it becomes more and more clear that a full restauration to the bare metal of the body is necessary if I want this Z to survive at least another 10 to 20 years. I really wanted to start installing some of my new goodies from Apex so I decided to install the rear strut brace as it won’t interfere with any of the bodywork. It was freezing outside but with the help of a heater it was quit doable. I do love the look of the Apex rear strut brace. It’s strong, elegant, functional but doesn’t scream “aftermarket modification” which I like a lot. I don’t really want my car to stay stock but also not heavily modified, just tasteful, functional and a bit more modernized but still the classic look and feel. The last few couple of days have been pretty cold so I moved back to the garage for some of the car work. Unfortunately my garage isn’t insolated and I don’t have a strong enough heater but it’s better then outside and good enough for some paint work and rebuilding the hinges. Rebuilding the hinges was easier then I though at first. Having a vice does make life a lot easier when removing and installing the hinge pins. To get them out I just used an impact socket and an old bolt that was slightly smaller then the hinge pin. With some force they came right out. All hinge pins where worn which caused the doors to sag and the passenger side (which sagged the most) was even bent! The rebuild kit I bought from Zservices EU was great with the exception of the hinge pin bushings, both the outer and inner tolerance was out of spec on all of them. If it was to tight then that wouldn’t be that much of a problem as I could modify them but the tolerance was to loose causing the bushings to sit loosely in the hinge and the pin to have some play. I decided to rebuild the passenger side hinges anyway and will install them soon to see if they sag with these bushings installed. If they do I will have some custom made at a machine shop. Continuing with the doors I decided to do some spot repair on the upper corners of the doors as both sides had some corrosion under the paint, and the doors where off the car anyway so might as well do them now. Here to I discovered the inside of the door was never painted causing some corrosion on the inside of the doors. The more I work on the car the more I want to punch the previous owner and bodyshop in the face. Even so I can't wait to drive the Z, I guess that’s the S30 life for yea….