Beau M

Thanks for the tips. I know I would have to have it chromed after the part was made, but with SS I was worried about getting discoloration on the cut edges. I'm still a ways off from making these things.

Run a screw or a rivet in where the pipes overlap? Back in my youth I had a simmilar problem on an 81' Fairmont. I put a clamp on each side of the joint, then used some bailing wire and pulled the clamps together. It was ghetto, but held and was cheap.

The neon green is growing on me.

As much as dirty hands may look macho to some, the old lady does not apreciate it much. Like they say, no glove no love.

Tough call, but if I had to make a spur of the moment decision:

That thread went from Days of Thunder to Days of Our Lives real fast.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/05/automobiles/collectibles/05EGO.html?_r=1&nl=wheels&emc=wheelsa2

I'm going for good old Torch Red.

That first Skyline pic reminds me of my 2+2, and is the look I am going for with my tails. Thanks!

I think the stock lights look like poo, and just about anything else is a step up.

Red, so I will know what my 2+2 will look like.

Happy b-day. Having a bit of a 1/3 life crisis? I did in Dec when I turned 30. Odly enough, on my b-day I bought a red sports car, a 78 280z. And... it also is 30 years old. Crazy.

I will let you know after I try and make a set

Have faith, you are on the right track. I think I can pull it off.

I dunno, I had a little 96 Accent that I thought was a blast to drive. No power, but it was still fun. Reliable also believe it or not.

I also shaved the antenna hole. Nothing too hard, but it was fun. I also think this will turn out good.

Here it is tacked into place: And with some primer on it: No matter how hard I tried, I could not get nice consistent tacks. Some are beautiful, sometime it blew holes in the seam. I got frustrated. The panel is nice and secure, but there are holes. Then I looked on my shelf, and all those years of watching McGyver and the A-Team paid off. I had some JB weld. I mixed some up and crammed it in the holes and gaps like it was the play-doh fun factory. It set up over night. If this was going to fail, it was here when I had to grind it all flush. It smoothed out like a dream. It did'nt clog my sanding disk, just left a nice, hole free seam. I was stoked. I threw some bondo on it, and it sanded down pretty good. I am happy with the results so far.

I hate body work. Always have. So I figured, why not get it out of the way first. Its fairly cheap, and will let me know if I really want to get into this project. Here is the lower front quarter before I started. I read how you can chop up a coupe panel and whatnot, but lets be honest. I don't have the skill for that, and if I screw it up, I'm out the 50 bucks or whatever they cost. Having a 2+2 will be a PITA some times, but it just makes me use some creativity. Then, I cut out the rust. What I found behind there was.. more rust. But its not cancerous, so I ground it down and slathered it in rustoleum. Then I took a chunk of metal, an made some bends and whatnot. I wish I had a break to make nice angles, but I pounded them over the edge of a 2x2 instead. For the large curve, I bent it on my leg and eyeballed it.

The first thing I did was take off the hood and the fender from the side I wanted to start working on. I have been bagging and tagging all the bolts and whatnot. That's when I found this awesome surprise. I'm sure there will be more to come. Well, my lovely wife got me a welder for x-mas. I have no clue how to weld, but Paulie and Vinnie make it look easy. I have been practicing on a few scrap pieces, and they haven't turned out too bad. My welder can't use gas, but I have a friend who used to say "A poor craftsman blames his tools". So, I work with what I got. I cut out the rust, and welded in a new panel. Then I made a new frame horn extension, and used seam sealer like its going out of style. Its very strong, I'm not worried about that at all. Its just butt ugly.

I have decent room on all sides, but its a little close for comfort. So, I got some furniture dollys from Harbor Freight for 10 bucks a pop. They help in so many ways, I can move the car side to side and it props it up 6 inches, which makes a difference when you are working on lower body work. Oh, here is one of my inspectors. All work must be supervised and inspected for Cat Quality.

So there it sat, in my driveway. I had to re-model my garage to fit it in. This required me to remove a wall, hang all new drywall, electrical, and build new benches and shelves. Oh, and some plumbing needed to be re-routed. That took some time, but the car is now in the garage. These pics are from the first day it was in its new home.

I guess its about time I started a thread for "The Piece" as my wife calls it. I have wanted a project car for some time now. I have tinkered around on many vehicles in my life, but mostly stereo installs, a head replacement, that kind of stuff. I have always like the Z's, and when I found they had strong aftermarket support and a good following, I decided to build my own. My goal for this car is to have a nice weekend and sunny day driver with a little oomph under the hood. Nothing crazy, just a nice car. First, a disclaimer. I don't know what I'm doing. Everything I know I learned from doing, or catastrophic failures in the past. No classes, no formal training. So, I am going to screw up. I am going to do some things wrong, and my mistakes will probably cost me time and money. But, this is what I do for fun, and as long as I don't injure myself or burn down the house, I will be happy. With that said, here she is the day I bought her for 800 bucks. Non running. Oh, that's not me in the pictures. The guy I bought it from said he noticed a head gasket leak. He started to take the head off, then lost money and motivation. I'm not too concerned with that, a swap was planned from the beginning. There in one small hole in the frame that I saw, and of course the lower body panels will need some attention. Other than that, it seems like a solid car. But, they probably all seem that way at first.

I've never worked with aluminum. Once it is polished, how do you heep it looking good?

Amazing. I can die happy now.

This is all assuming I have a drill press and a band saw... I have neither. I may have access to those tools though. If I did not use stainless I was going to use normal sheet steel and have it chromed, probably with some other bits. But I have no idea how much chroming costs... ah, hell, I'll just wrap it in tin foil when I'm done and call it a day. This project isn't happening any time soon anyway, I got quite a bit of rust to deal with first.