scooterhulk

I got the practice out of the way earlier in the year when I painted my truck. I figured out you could use the rattle can to touch it up as long as it got several coats on top to even it out. Make sure it has plenty of time to dry (everyone says 8 hrs, but that bit me in the butt when I did the truck. I waited 8 hrs and one of the coats still wasnt dry. It screwed up my progress, making the layers beneath want to separate, I assume bc it had too much mineral spirits given the fresh coat of paint combined with the not-yet-dry coat). I let it dry a full day between coats. Never underestimate how much wetsanding helps the later coats. I used a lighter grit sandpaper than most recommend (they say start with 600, then 800, then I think they finish with 1000 - some ppl will go to a lighter grit), but thats bc early on in the process, before I have a good base of paint built up, the 600 will strip it right off. I didn't prime most of the car. As always, I was in a rush, but it didn't hurt anything. Except that this stuff doesn't really like to be put on bare metal. I had to redo one of the rockers bc the paint didnt want to stick. Everywhere the paint didn't stick (both of my fenders, the drivers side rocker, and the hatch top - I painted the bottom side first and it came out fine), I had to sand everything off and put a coat of primer on before starting fresh. I have a friend that roll-painted his S10 recently and it looked like hell. I know he didn't wetsand, and I doubt he thinned the paint well. He just didn't spend a lot of time on it, and it is a process that takes A LOT of time. But it's documented online that this can be done outside by someone with little money and possibly no garage space, so there's that advantage. I didn't think mine would look as good as it does, especially the jambs and the hood. That hood was almost garbage when I removed it, and so was the hatch. I had bought another hatch to replace mine, then found that the welds were cracked at the hinges. I couldn't get the new hatch to true up with the rest of the car, so I opted to try and save my old rusty hatch. I internal-frame-sealed it, ground off the rust, cut out the rot around the glass opening and welded up the holes. It is an excruciatingly slow process, but if you do anything too quickly it will definitely show, and people will immediately know it's a crap job. So far, I think by the time I'm finished you won't be able to tell it wasn't sprayed.

I'm rolling the last coat on tomorrow, but I took some pics yesterday and wanted to post them. Rustoleum Gloss White, rolling with high density foam brushes. Paint mix is a little thicker than the recommended 50/50 mix with mineral spirits. I just liked the paint going on a little thicker... Got lucky and have had more than a week of unseasonably warm weather, which I thought would help. Wetsanded every two coats - 800 grit, 1000, 1200, and I'm gonna do the last wetsand with 1200 before polishing. Car was originally metallic blue. Since I was going with a different color, I painted the door jambs with the roller and a foam brush. Also painted around the doors. My hood was almost junk when I started the project. It was on the car when I bought it, and originally came off of a 72. It had rust and bondo, both of which I think I cleaned up decently well. The bottom side of it looked awful. It was chipping from at least three repaints. So, before I started rolling on the white, I rolled the bottom side with POR15 to smooth out the surface. I think it came out pretty well. And keep in mind before I started the entire car was covered with a 2+mm thick sheet of dolphin glaze. I used a screwdriver and hammer to chisel off around the windshield. I'll do a build thread after I finish putting it back together. Til then, check it out. My welded-on gas filler

Kinda like reviving these old threads... I needed money last year. I wanted to quit my job to pursue standup comedy. My gf (currently my fiance, she's a keeper...) hated my job, and was supportive of me wanting to be a comic, but she wouldn't let me sell my Z, no matter what. We've moved twice now, and she always looks for a place with a garage for my Z. Over the last year I've been more or less unemployed - enjoying being the housewife - and I decided to restore the Z. When I did my truck (78 yota), she hated it and bugged me every day I went to work on it. With the Datsun, she actually asks how it's going, what I'm doing and why, and is really interested in learning more about the car. She loves it. Down side is she wants to drive it. I only let her drive it once, before I started the resto. She barked my tires after every stop. I had a feeling she was gonna step on the gas and blow right through a road sign or over a curb. Not sure how I'm gonna handle her driving it when I finish. I only drove it a few times a month myself. Probably won't drive it much more than that, but I know already she's gonna want to drive it a lot.

My first car was an 84 300zx na. My granddad gave it to me when I was 16 (I suspect because he couldn't sell it). It was a junker, but had decently low miles. I started learning how to work on cars with it because I had no money. When I sold it, I had fixed it up very nicely for very little money. I spent alot of time on zcar.com finding out how to fix this or that, and I kept hearing about S30's. I'd hear things like, "If you want to make your NA fast, push it off a cliff". S30's kept coming up, and they really seemed like the ideal car for anyone who liked z cars. Everyone seemed to talk about them like they were the holy grail. So, not really being aware of what one even looked like, I looked it up. Turns out, it was one of my favorite cars from when I was a kid, I just didn't know what it was until then. I decided I wanted one, preferably with a turbo swap. When I graduated college, with no money and about to start my first (and worst) real job, I found one on zcar in Dallas. I have a friend who's a pilot, and he got me basically free tickets to go to see it. I bought it for $1500, got drunk and flew home. Had it delivered a few weeks later, and that was 4 1/2 yrs ago. Since then, it's been megasquirted, and I've added a million things that it was missing when I bought it. I'm about to finish a budget resto on it now. Rusty sheet metal has been replaced with new, POR-15's both sides of the floorpan, replaced frame rails, added ac on it (but probably won't have it working until summer, but won't really care by then), and painted Rustoleum gloss white (just put my next-to-last coat on today). I had to learn to do a lot to finish the project, and I'm not totally finished with it yet. I have alot of memories of doing very stupid things, yet fun, things while owning this car. I once stayed up all night changing the clutch before going into work at 7am at my crappy dealership job. I ended up getting in trouble because of my appearance - scrapes on my arms and grime under my nails. I used to spend breaks sometimes washing the car behind the dealership. Here I am now fixing things on the car that previously I didn't know existed. Internal frame sealer? Pfffft! What's interesting is that I remember whey I bought the car knowing nothing about zcars and knowing much less about cars than I do now. It's a little surreal. The last part to the story is that I have to be moved in less than 3 weeks (another city an hr and a half away), and I'm hoping to have the car reassembled by the end of this weekend. So, I've been on pins and needles hoping that this car will both start and run when I'm finished with it.

I thought about getting the chrome piece as well, but since I'm painting them black it would be a waste of money to buy a brand new piece and paint over it, when I can just paint over my crappy one and (hopefully) attach new rubber. I have a feeling this is easier said than done.

Yea, both of my windows are scratched. That's how I found out what these and what they (used to) do. I'm hoping I can polish it out. Anybody ever do that with glass before? How'd that...work...out?

Someone pointed out to me recently that one of my fuse blocks had been cut out, and the remaining wires wire-nutted together. And the other fuse block had wires connecting the terminals, as opposed to fusible links. So, I wired in the distribution block. On my car, it's (the installation guide online, I think it's on atlanticz) showing 3 of the wires get a 50a fuse, and one gets an 80a (for a 77 model year, which mine is). So, it didn't matter which wire went where in the block as long as the wire needing the 80a had an 80a fuse. Checked out a wiring diagram online. It appears that three of the wires go to the same plug, while one of them goes to the alternator. Makes sense this would be my 80a (I tried searching this but was surprised not to find anything that explained differentiating these 4 wires. I know I saw it somewhere...). So, I checked for continuity between the alt plug and each of my 4 wires at the fuse block. Found one wire with continuity, so I stuck the 80a there, and the remaining 3 slots got the 50a's. I also put in a key switch (from Black Dragon) between the starter and the pos terminal on the battery. After I get the car back together (painting and pretty thorough budget frame-off), I'm gonna wire the stereo and fans straight to the battery with an inline fuse (and toggle switches for the eng fan and ac fan). I figure that way I won't lose my stations if I take the battery key out. And later, I'd like to get the megasquirt to control the engine fan, but I'm putting it off at the moment bc of time constraints (moving in...2 weeks?). And the fans will all get their own relay. My question is....Does all that sound right? I've been looking at this car for 6 months and I feel like Jack Torrance in The Shining. So, does all that sound logical and won't immediately burst my car into flames?

Today I did the second coat of a Rustoleum Gloss White roller job.

I don't remember my exhaust being very loud when I just had the cherry bomb. I have a feeling the Borla isn't gonna make it any louder. I'll find out in a week or two, but I may like it louder than you and end up with the Borla and no cherry bomb. But I'll post pics and a vid when it's all done.

I'm planning on using a pneumatic staple gun, I'll let you know how that works when I do it. I assumed that's what the factory used to punch the staples through the first time.

Bartman, not the fuzzy, the rubber on the other side of the glass. It's the stuff listed on morbias' link. I found some on ebay though for cheap. hopefully it's decent quality. It's supposed to be OEM but we'll see.

Thanks. I looked through the entire catalog twice and apparently missed it both times. Ihavearustedz, I think those are the same things. They're alot more expensive than the ones in Black Dragon. Hm..

So...I noticed today that Black Dragon doesn't sell this, nor can I find it on ebay. Know what I'm talking about? The rubber that slides across the window when you roll it down. It's stapled to the chrome pieces at the top of each door. Where can I get these. Maybe I can salvage one with some baseball glove oil and the oven...but my other one is broken. What are you guys doing to replace these?

I have a cherrybomb under the driver floorpan and a garbage (like, junk) truck tip on my car right now. I'm about to cut that tip off and put in a Borla xr-1. Wondering if anyone thinks the cherrybomb will adversely affect the sound of the Borla (just sound, I drive it too little and too softly to care that much about performance aspect). I figure there's someone on here, or multiple people, who have the experience to know what I'm about to do and can tell me if I'm going to love it or if I'm gonna dislike it until I decide to replace the rest of the exhaust.

I didn't blame them. I said I poured too much in too quickly. I've used it before with no problem. So yea, I blew my own head gasket.

Btw I did figure out that lock washers are useless in heat/heavy vibration. One of those little things I didn't know at the time.

No it was actually #2 I think. Might have been #1. Yea, apparently it *grabs dictionary* hydrolocked. Probably poured too much in too quickly. I remember that at the time it was running insanely rich. The back side of the car was covered in soot. It was before I put the Megasquirt on it, which stopped that. I never could get the AFM set right no matter what I did to it.

It's been two years and I never replied to this thread to tell anyone what happened. The nuts on the turbo were loose and I did need a gasket. Used the Merkur gasket from Oreilly's and it worked fine, but that wasn't the cause of my problem. I had a blown head gasket. When I did the compression test I immediately knew what caused it. SEAFOAM. I blew the head gasket when I seafoamed my car the previous summer and had been driving it the entire time thinking I had an exhaust leak. I did, sorta - exhaust blowing out the left side of the engine. Used a Beck-Arnley metal gasket with copper spray and ARP head studs. Even used that little wood-block-in-the-timing-chain trick I think I learned on here. Has been fine ever since.

BluDestiny, I think the member you're talking about is WingZr0. He's off the radar at least for now.

I can't reply to my last thread... Anybody know where to get these? I called ANSA this morning, they're in Raleigh maybe an hr from me, and the guy had no clue what I was describing. I thought it would be a fairly popular item, they must sell a whole hell of a lot of everything else. Sent him an email with pic, and he forwarded me to "the guy that came over from ANSA. God, he's been here forever." I'm afraid it's going to cost $535,207,111 You can find the horizontals much easier. They were even listed on the ANSA website, but when I gave the part number, the guy said it didn't exist. This experience has made me feel old... So they're gonna get back with me, soon as they rouse the old timer awake and pump him full of gin, so's he see if he can understand what this crazy guy on the phone was talking about, 'single inlet, dual chrome outlet, resonated exhaust tips'. Pffft. Whoever's heard of such a thing. fun

I like the flares, but don't really wanna do them, at least not right now. Maybe sometime down the road. My hood has been rustoleum flat black for 3-4 yrs now. I just don't have it in me to bring it out of the shop with the hood still black. Maybe I'll put a set on when it's time to get tires. I plan on getting a set of the Rota RB's that everyone seems to have whenever my current set of tires die. I have the factory slots with ebay tri-bar spinner centercaps. I like em except for the slightly mismatched finishes. Would like them better if I could find white letter tires in 14". Shooting for a tasteful vintage look that's fairly simple. I learned on my truck not to reuse the roller brush. I was using them 2x with good results until apparently some extra mineral spirits ended up in a brush and bubbled up a huge section on my Toyota. Ended spending an extra few days just on that section and vowed never to risk that again over a brush that's less than a buck.

I don't want to sound whine-y but that air dam plate looks like a pain to make. I think I'm just going to leave it black for the time being. Otherwise my car will look awesome for exactly ten minutes until I drive it, sounds like. Maybe I'll get used to the black air dam.

If you only brace the center, won't the sides still flex? Mine feels pretty solid, but it sure seems to flex alot now that I have it off the car. Almost rubbery. Just wondering what you think. Maybe because of the shape, the air puts more force on the center, and the shape being like an arch distributes force such that the sides become slightly more rigid. I may be thinking about this way too much. Should I use that BULLDOG adhesive promoter before rolling it? Or would Rustoleum self-etching primer be just as good..? I get what you're saying about the center. Probably alot more movement is gonna happen there than anywhere else. I'd like to see a picture of one, I'll try to find it.

That looks really good. I assume you just did it. Was the cold an issue working with the paint? I painted my 78 Yota pickup the same way in March, and I seem to remember it being cold and having no problems. Very cool look with mixing the colors, it looks pretty great to me. I'm surprised you wet sanded after every coat. When I did my truck, I was told to wet sand every two coats, and the first time I sanded I immediately sanded through the two coats I'd just put on. Ended up sanding every three coats after that and wet sanding very lightly with a lighter grit (800-1000). I'm worrying about that a little with mine, painting in the cold. Just hoping for the best because I don't have much of a choice, because of the time factor. I'll start the body work tomorrow and will plan on starting paint Monday or Tuesday. Thanks for the motivation.

Thanks for the input..... Hurry up and drive it so I'll know whether I'm about to waste my time haha. I started typing a question asking whether you thought I'd be okay rattle-canning it white. But I'm with you, I think I'll take my chances and roll it. It's easy enough to remove if it screws up. I'm sure if I put braces on the bottom of the air dam that it would be fine. I haven't looked into that too much. Perhaps I should... Are you in the middle of a big project with yours, or is it in storage? I've been doing a budget resto on mine. Started in the summer - new frame rails, 4 floor patches, new bottom paint and undercoat, struts, RT dif mount, tie rods, you get the idea. Goal was to keep under about 1500. I'm not doing okay. My gf is cool enough that she's trying to find me one of those ANSA twin tip mufflers for Christmas. I've been trying to build it pinching pennies for 4 yrs now getting ready to do something like this, fixing everything I can for as little as possible. I had no idea I would have gone through so much. Just got lucky and a friend had an empty garage and offered to let me keep it there until I was finished. The down side is I've got about 6 weeks to finish it. We're moving. So, I eat sleep and crap this car right now, which would be awesome except for the deadline.