mom'sZ

I wanted to revive this thread because I just found out... for 2006 the 280Z gets a whooping 225 lb. weight break in ITS... YES!!!! Down from 2730 to 2505, just 75 lb. heavier then the 240

I just wanted to add something to this thread, I haven't read the whole thread so if this has been mentioned already, I apologize. I was replying to anouther thread about the bottom of the fenders rusting out because of the water draining from the plenum getting caught in the fender. Here is a link to the thread http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=107620 As I mentioned in that thread, leaves and pine needle often get trapped in the fender bottom where the plenum drains and cause rust. Well from experience as a paint and body man for over twenty five years, I know junk can also get trapped in the plenum itself, causing the firewall to rust. Sometimes this causes exhaust fumes to be vented into the interior from the engine compartment. Also, because the pressure inside the car is lower then on the outside, any holes in the floor boards can also allow exhaust to leak into the car. Often people don't even realize there are holes in the floor boards because carpet or undercoat is hiding them. If you have replaced your rear hatch seal and the tail light seals or confirmed they are in good shape and exhaust is still entering the car, this may be your problem. Checking the floor panels for holes isn't that difficult, but really checking the firewall is tougher. The dash really must be removed to get a good look. Sometimes you can crawl under the dash with some caulk. Also any holes in the trunk / spare tire area or even the inner quarter panels could allow fumes in.

That is where the water is coming from, the plenum between the windshield and the hood. That is the area the air conditioning, vent and heater draws air. The air is drawn in through the vent slots in the cowl panel. What causes the rust is that a lot of other junk ends up entering through those slots as well, such as leaves, pine needles, dirt and sand, whatever. This garbage is washed down into the drain area at the bottom of the fender. It becomes trapped and inturn helps trap more garbage. It holds mosture and eventualy causes rust. To prevent this from happening, you can try a number of different things. First, don't park the car under trees, or park the car inside a garage or cover it. Obviously this isn't always practical, so... once the fender has been cleaned out down there, when you are washing the car, run water down into the cowl and wait to see if it is draining out the bottom. If crud comes out, keep rinsing until the water runs out clean. Hey... the alternative is worse. Many times junk gets trapped in the plenum itself and causes the firewall to rot out. Then the water leaks in to the interior of the car. This is common in many other makes of car as well and I think a lot of times when guys think exhaust fumes are leaking in from the rear hatch, it may actually be coming from this area.

I also used some from Home Depot / Lowes to redo mine some years ago. Has sticky on one side. Comes in rolls. cheap. works. done

I just answered a question about sanders in another thread. Check out the last post in this thread http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=107455 To answer your original question, yes I believe if you're just doing one car and you're not going to take up bodywork for a living, the cheese ball thirty dollars sander will work fine. In fact it would be dumb to buy a good one. Like cheap spray guns, the cheap sanders seem to work pretty good at first. An important warning about DA sanders... don't drop it. If you do, it could bend the shaft and then it will have a mean wobble.

Beren: No. DA is (like you suggest) dual action. It spins (like a grinder) and orbits. A random orbit sander (jitterbug) simply orbits. Here's a link to National Detroit's web site showing the original DA http://www.nationaldetroit.com/tools/tooldetail.aspx?model=DA One thing to note is the spinning action is not directly driven(in most cases), it simply freewheels from the orbiting action. They seem to work really well for automotive refinishing and are the standard of the industry. Here's a link to the Hutchins web site. They make (IMHO) the best DA sanders for automotive work http://www.hutchinsmfg.com/products/standard.html One thing to note, if you are going to use a DA to sand before buffing, be super careful not to catch a speck of sand under the sander. You'll drag it around and scratch your finish all up. Additional sanding will be required to remove the scratches and you may break through the clear coat. I always prefered to do it by hand with a running water hose and wet paper wrapped around a sponge pad.

Bartman: excellent choice. That is what I was going to suggest. some supply shops lease you a bottle, but generally you pay for the first cylinder, then they exchange them from then on. If you purchase the cylinder from another source, sometimes they can get funny about exchanging it. As John says, it's well worth it. As a automotive professional, I purchased thousands of dollars worth of tools over the years. My old mig welder was the best money I ever spent. It paid for itself many times over the years.

Richard: motor oil (new, used, whatever) tranny fluid anything I was going to say, you are not going to get many spot welds drilled if you don't have some way to keep the bit cool. Same goes for regular drill bit. I did paint and body work for 25 years. Never really took to the spot weld cutter thingies, to easy to burn up and expensive. Stuck to regular drill bits, steel drill bits so I can resharpen them myself when they get dule. Jon: if your not going to reuse the parts... why not just hack them off with the air chisel? Quick! just chisel along where the metal bends downward away from the floor pan leaving just a strip of metal with the spot welds. Once you have only the two stripes of metal, you can practically grab the end with some vise grips and yank the spot welds loose, or work it back and forth until each one breaks, or drill or grind or whatever (a combination of all of the above) The point is, once the majority of the panel is gone, the welds have very little strength.

I'm with toplessz... that doesn't look bad at all. zowner, just be aware, when you fire up that sand blaster, sand is going to go EVERYWHERE! If the car isn't completely stripped it will be in the heater vents and every nook and cranny. Even if the car is stripped, it's going to take work to vacumn / blow / sweep all the sand out of the body. You should try to clean up most of the panel using the grinder, sander, wire wheel or whatever first, then use the blaster on only the pitted rust and areas that are shaped such that you can't get them with a grinder or whatever. On areas that would be patched, cut back to clean steel.

Mull: thank you... cool link, ordered one. the other link you posted didn't work for me but this one did.

Brad-manQ45:When body filler first began being used, (a long time ago) it had a lot of adhesion issues. It really would only stick to bare metal. So a lot of old timers, like myself, would tell you you can only use it on bare metal. Since then, body filler has come a long way. Some of the new formulas such as the glazing putty type filler will stick well to primer. This is a very smooth spreading version made for filling imperfections, pinholes and sanding scatches that takes the place of the old lacquer glazing putty (red lead). It mixes like regular body filler and comes in small cans. You can use it in the manner you describe, on top of primer, for all your filling. Regular body filler, the kind that comes in a gallon can, especially the cheaper stuff, might not stick to primer quite so well. You may have feathering issues, where the edge of the filler doesn't want to sand smooth. My suggestion, if you want to do it this way, is to purchase high quility filler.

ezzzzzzz... that's it!!! I knew it was somewhere but couldn't remember the address THANK YOU! i'm looking for a number of parts that I would like to be able to call Courtesy or somewhere just to check if they are still available from the factory and order if they are.

I have searched the net and this site and I am sorry if this is somewhere and I've missed it. Is there a place where the factory parts book is on the net where I can look up the OEM part numbers for a part. My car is a 78 280Z btw.

Best way to remove rust = sandblaster! I've said this before... rust is very hard, steel is soft. Rust is brittle, steel is elastic. Take your body hammer, tap around the rust spot, not hard enough to bend the panel, but hard enough to cause it to flex a little, and the rust will pop out. The only really good method for getting rid of rust on thin sheet metal body panels is to sandblast them. You can buy a gravity feed set up for a few bucks at the paint supply house. It makes a terrible mess though, do it outside. Search for sandblast, there has been a couple of recent threads on it.

You guy's are killing me... Wagz, I know exactly what you mean, when something is on fire, it's like you go f-ing blind! I was a kid, maybe 17, working in a shop, I knew there was an extiguisher hanging on the wall somewhere. I looked up and down that wall, screaming like a banshee, and finally my workmate runs up and grabs the thing and hands it to me!!! Later (after the fire was out) I'm looking at it and it's a big white wall, nothing on it, big red rectangle, maybe 3' x 4', six inches wide, with big red fire extiguisher hanging there... didn't see it...blind... BLIND!!! 260ondubs... dude, you're lucky, really be careful people, think ever heard of the darwin award? And I'm not saying smart people don't do dumb stuff. I've seen it. What makes it worse is racing because it is sort of like a self created emergency situation.

When the paint store mixes paint, they do it by weight, using a digital scale accurate to the thousand's of a gram. Each paint company has different tints and formulas to make colors from those tints. Posting the 'correct mixing amounts' would be... ah impractical. If you have a piece of a car the right color, the paint store can hand match it.

Tony D: Thanks for the ideas about the brake light. As soon as I saw that picture I was like hmmmmm... his is stuck on to. Mine came on when I was working on the suspension and had the brakes apart. I figured it would go out once the brakes were properly bled. My understanding is that the switch down near the frame rail senses pressure difference between the front and back and lights when there is more then some amount. (I searched it a couple of times here) Well I've bled and my brakes are good, but the light is still on. (78 BTW) When I apply the hand brake, it gets brighter. So when the hand brake is applied, the switch gets grounded? Same thing with the one in the engine compartment below the master cyl.? Anyhow, sorry to org. poster for thread jack.

That's why I was considering one That's what I figured, it will get the car on the track and later when I have the time and money to have a pro custom cage installed, I'll do it. What? this is the first I've heard of this... and exactly what is a "Uber" 240Z roll cage?

I just wanted to state that I've heard a number of people on this web site comment on how the Autopower bolt-in roll cage / bars bolt to the rear wheelhouses. The general consensus seems to be that the wheelhouses aren't a very strong attachment point. I did collision repair on unibody cars professionally for twenty five years. The wheelhouses are actually one of the strongest parts of any unibody, and the Zcar is no exeption. (so long as the structure hasn't been compromised by rust) I have never seen an Autopower roll cage / bar or owned one but am considering buying one for SCCA competition. By the way, I believe John Coffey, a member of hybridZ, is a dealer for AutoPower roll bars and could probably do you a deal on one. Here an e-maill address mailto:johnc@betamotorsports.com

Also the paint store has color books with chips for all the factory colors. If the store has been around awhile, they will have books old enough.

Here is a disscusion from about a week ago. It is a guy with a car damaged from a wreck and a lot of the same information will be very helpful to you, check it out. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=106895

I read this somewhere, stick the insert into the strut housing tube. Thread the gland nut on. make sure the insert is fully extended. Let the insert sit all the way down inside the housing. put a piece of tape around the shaft where the gland is on the shaft. then pull the strut insert up against the bottom of the gland nut. measure the distance between the gland nut and the tape, that is the MOST you can section the strut. Although you have disassembled the suspension on the car, you don't have to fully reassemble it to measure. Assemble one side front and back with no spring. Use a jack or what ever and test the travel of the new suspension. It's a good idea, just to make sure nothing binds or something funky. You will learn by doing it, don't bolt up or connect the sway either, just the strut and control arm. Use pvc pipe to make spacers. When you have the perfect length for the spacers, cut or have a metal shop make you some in steel or alum tube.

I think you may need to just adjust them out a little more. When I last reassembled mine, I started out like you with them just barely starting to drag. Before they would work though, I ended up having to adjust them out a good bit. You couldn't do it with the drums off then slip them on. You had to put the drums on and adjust through the little slot in the backing plates. It was actually a little hard to turn them until the wheel was bolted on, then there was enough leverage to spin it by hand. Up until that point I couldn't get the pedal high and hard. After that, the pedal travel was minimal and pedal was hard. Drum brakes only pivot on one end so the wear pattern is never going to be even across thier whole face. Just relating my experience, YRMV.

corvairs..... cool, my grandpappy had one when I was a little boy