Metallicar

You have to give Victoria British some credit for now sourcing their kit for $29.95. Part number 72-040 includes relays, wiring, and allows you to plug the existing headlight connectors into their provided female sockets. No cutting of the car's harness required.

That's a fact! With one million people or more in the deep south looking for a place to live now...... Moving to Houston and a place near you! Home Building is the business to be in. Build houses that folks who make $30K can afford, at a profit, and you will never be out of work.

I chimed in to suggest the McNichols site, a good source for perf metal goods. My grill only fills the lower side of the bumper. Since you asked, thank you!

Appraisers are folks who put "values" on homes for the benefit of protecting the mortgage holder. Yes, they use what they call "comps"; usually they need three or more, sometimes six, depending on the mortgage originator. If GOOD comps are not available, such as you have "more or less" than local recent sales; the appraiser starts making judgment calls on your "adjustments" (your pool or extra garage). The thing to remember is, he has to be conservative, because if he over-states the value, and you default, and the mortgage company cant get their money back at a sheriff sale or however, the appraiser will lose his customer or worse. Since the real estate market has been busy for the past two years, due to lower lending rates, home sale prices have gone up. These current "high" prices are considered over priced by many, and the market is going to make a "correction" and prices will fall or at least go flat. Listen to talk radio and you will hear about all of the cities where the "bubble has burst". Since the lender is worried about his money for the length of the loan, and the news is bleak, current appraisals will look weaker than they would have if done about six months ago, depending on your market. Me, I don't know if I would wait to sell, if I were thinking about it. Prices are going soft, interest rates are going up, No real government change due for a few more years. I think it's sell now, if it is not too late AND wait to buy in another year, after prices drop. A warning! DO NOT get caught up in the high price frenzy. Be very careful not to overextend yourself, because it is very easy to do. The high sale prices have made it easier than ever for folks to leverage the **** out of their homes. Plan your budget like you had to pay your mortgage based on a rate of 2.5 percent of what you pay now.

I made my grille with 1/4" stainless mesh from Mcmaster-Carr. Here is another outfit with a very good selection: http://www.mcnichols.com/

My first NEW car was a 75 280Z California Spec. I drove it home from the showroom on a clear August day (in 1976*), with the windows rolled down. I can still remeber the smell! I knew a few other new Z owners, at the time who kept going back to the dealer for "warranty repair" for this. Sure, replacement of gaskets, seals, and rubber plugs will take a big bite out of the problem, if you have failures in those areas. Remeber what more than a few have said, this is an Inherent design problem. I would guess, if you search other car forums you will hear similar complaints of fumes. Try Opet GT, Toyota Celica, and even Jeep Cj's. (*In 1976, the only Z to be found new on a dealer lot, was the California Spec, on the east coast, at the time I wanted one)

I am going to order some more colors this week, I may even go out to Eastwood and get them. I have been wondering what their retail space looks like. I bought the binder with all of the color chips from the local guy. The colors are as pleasing to look at as the HOK colors. It's a shame the local guy (I mean like 3 miles from my home), does not seem to be real interested in the line. Eastwood is about an hour away. Anyway, I promise some pictures as soon as I can, I will post. In the meantime I am searching for a scheme to put on the Z. I would like to not go with flames, but I do not want to get too far away from old school either ( that is, 70's old school, and I don't mean disco). Though orange yellow and red flames with purple pin lines would look cool on the lime green surfaces. I love the stripes on Oldestzguy's car.

I have about $35.00 in mine. Of course I made it myself. I used 1/4" stainless mesh. Yeah, it's not authentic, but it looks cool. Since I made it, it fits my 77 just fine.

I went to my local Auto- Air Colors distrib today. I walked out with four 4 oz. bottles at $7.00 each of metallic colors. My local rep has a very limited stock, sad. I think I bought out about 20% of his inventory. I went back to my shop and scuffed up a spare fender I have. I have never used an airbrush before, so my only knowledge of what I was doing was based on what I have seen on the boob tube. I laid on about two square feet of masking tape and freehand cut some odd shapes in the tape without cutting into the base paint. After figuring out how much air and how to regulate the paint flow, I approached my fender. I have to say, I have never liked painting as much as I have today. I can see now, I am going to be spending alot of time doing this. I am sorry for not taking any pictures, but I can tell you that so far, the paint is lovely to work with. I followed the recommendations and heated for cure with a handheld heat gun. Dried just like they claim. I even wet sanded some back down without a problem. I am going to pick up some stencils, more colors, some clear, paint some more, and then I will post some pictures. I also happened by Pearl Art today and found a water based clear, Check out "Aquathane" on this page: http://www.ronanpaints.com/clear.htm

No, not really. The smell is hard to detect under the new carpet and padding I installed. So far so good, but then again, I have not driven more than 1 block since install. I can say however, it has cut down on noise and heat, as I have been running the engine up to operating temps during my completion of dialing her in. The doors sound so much better when they close now, not so tinny or hollow, but solid like a heavy car. I used 1 in most places, 2 at areas such as the trans/drive line tunnel, and on the firewall/floor board areas. You know the areas, like where you feel the deep water rushing under the floor where your feet are during rain driving. I installed it on the tail end around the taillights as additional fume sealing ( probably over kill with the new gaskets). I installed a piece inside the hatch as well as covering the whole inset where the trim panel cover is located on the inside of the hatch. While I did not do my roof with the stuff, It does stick well to every surface I put it on. Use a heat gun and hard roller. I also used a light flame on a small torch. The heat is the key, the roller action pushes the adhesive into the rambling surfaces. The car looks like a baked potato inside.

Ernie, I was looking forward to re-reading some of your advice at lambolounge, when I discovered news of your forthcoming book. I wish you the best with it. Please don't be bashful, post some more info about this.

I modified the original 280Z Bumper mounts. First, I removed the stock mounts from the car (all four) and released the gas and oil from the pistons. Then I removed the inside tube and piston assemblies. I learned, after the first one it was easy just to sawzall them off as opposed to trying to unscrew the plunger inside. I welded 1" x 1" x 1/8"angle, approx 12" long on both sides of the outer tube so that 6" extended out to the approximate bumper location. I then figured out where I wanted the bumper to be. After a bit of dry fitting, I cut a bird mouth on the ends of the angles to weld a 1-1/4" pipe to. The pipe is about 5" long and intersects both of the angles and now sits inside the 240Z bumper. I drilled the pipe to fit the stock 240Z bumper. I am now sorry I did not photograph along the way. This is a quick and dirty drawing: The Rear Mount was even more fun. I did not like the bumper sitting as low as it would have, if I merely did the same as the front. The bumper was too low for my taste. So I had to make my new extenders offset upwards out side of the rear apron and added small gussets to provide strength.

Thank you all for your positive remarks. All of the black pieces I painted are Satin Black (Rustoleum). I read on this site, that a few have done this, with good results. I thinned it, out of the can with Acetone, a bit on the thin side. It did spray well. This week, I went though another right of passage, I istalled new windscreen and hatch glass weatherstrips, by myself. I am amazed that it went as well as it did. I first did the hatch with coaxial wire. Never again, what a pain in the ***. For the front, I spent some time reading on some web sites and decided to use 3/8" rope. The rope was much much easier. The fat diameter was the right size for sure.

DO NOT use Herculiner for this application! Regaurdless of the colors it comes in! By the way Herculiner also has a new UV topcoat product, for what that information is worth.

FYI, One Gallon of Herculiner weighs in at 8.6 pounds. http://www.herculiner.com/images/herc_spec.pdf The rubber pellets hurt like hell on skin. It is as course as 24 grit. So don't wear shorts in yer car.

I'm Jealous! I love the way it looks. Another great green.

BillZ260, The car is still on old "rollers", I am going to install a set of 14X7 American Racing Slotted Wheels (as shown in my "test picture" early in this thread). The struggle for me there, is making a choice in the limited availabilty of tires in 14". I would like 205, 215, 225 x 60's (somewhere in there). I would like tires that grip well in dry and wet conditions and are quite. I don't really care about snow traction or tread life. Okay, I welded a frame made up of 1/4" x 1/4" steel. I made the frame in the same angle as the original grille. I laid a strip of 1/4" stainless steel mesh I bought from Mcmaster-Carr inside the frame. Then I welded in a 1/8" rod around the inside of the frame to "pinch in" the mesh. I welded up 3 tabs to line up to the original mount locations of the stock grille and drilled 1/4" holes. Painted it satin black, and installed with stainless fasteners. Because it has the steel frame and rods, it is heavy, maybe 3 pounds. If I were to make another, I would use aluminum angle and rods. Here is the grille shot:

zgeezer, My Z is a stock 77 280 2+2. The hood is bone stock. I guess the satin black has a way of deception. The only two exterior mods are the early 260 bumpers and the homemade, lower front grille.

Thank you for the remarks. The Hatch is also green now, just not installed yet. Waiting for the Glass Man. I will post better pictures tomorrow.

Wow, I started this thread on September 1 2004. I am not sure if I should be depressed about my slow progress or feeling good that I am turning the corner. I have started to put all of the goodies back into the interior and I have put all of the exterior trim back on. So what do you think so far? I still need to; buff more, paint the left rocker black as the right, install the new windscreen gaskets, and some small things. http://home.comcast.net/~hopharrigan/wsb/media/350385/site1052.JPG It is impossible to see in this picture, my homemade lower grille of stainless 1/4" mesh welded into a frame. http://home.comcast.net/~hopharrigan/wsb/media/350385/site1050.JPG

For some plastic repairs, I have had some luck using fiberglass resin. Make a mold of some sort. Over apply and sand down, then paint. Since the interior parts are generally cosmetic, the only stress points are the fastener locations.

Oldestzguy, Your car had the coolest stripes. Very 70's.

Mat73GNZ, you could use the H3 for a 55Watt Signal Light! Phil1934, I think that the mount problem would be that the bulb housing does not fit in the stock headlamp bucket, or am I confused about your question? If the stock bucket is modified, the same 7" ring could hold the new bulb housing into the bucket.

I had a link to some 7" bulbs from a VW supply in the past for these, but I lost it. Here is one I found doing a quick search thru some more VW suppliers. I hope this helps. http://www.800luvbugg.com/shop?frame=6.55.3305

The ZAP; Here is a link to Zhome: http://zhome.com/ Your find looks like it has the right mirrors on it, does it have the rear louvers?