Ironhead

If you can do pretty welds on the thin Datsun sheet metal, you are a better welder than me. The metal is so damn thin that if you try to completely grind the weld smooth, it is very easy to overly thin the surrounding metal. My approach, at my limited skill level, was to grind the welds down to the point that you can just barely discern a slight raised area, then use perhaps .03" or thereabouts of filler to finish things off. You will probably need at least that much filler to straighten panels anyway.

I don't know what to think of that. I did an adhesion test, where I cut criss crossed lines with a utility knife all the way through the RB and into the base metal, leaving a grid of small roughly 2-3mm squares. Then I burnished on a piece of Gorilla double adhesive duct tape over it, and pulled it off. Nothing, not one little square or even a corner of a square, lifted off. This was on clean, lightly scuffed metal...no rust... What was your substrate?

So far I have to say I have been pretty impressed with Rust Bullet. I am not using it on rusty spots, rather just brushing it into seams and what not where it will be difficult to spray in epoxy. I did a bunch of testing before using it. It dries rock hard in 24 hours, and the adhesion to clean (not rusty) and fairly smooth metal is absolutely unbelievable. It also dries to a slightly "flat" finish so epoxy sticks well to it without scuffing. With a slight scuffing, the epoxy sticks so well to it that it's never coming off... How well it encapsulates and "kills" rust, I cannot say. But it sure seems like it will effectively prevent rust from forming. Best of all, no acid prep or rinsing with water is required.

Project is looking fantastic, great work! I certainly agree with you about Timeserts. The only advantage to Helicoils is availability. I can usually find Helicoils locally whereas Timeserts always have to be mail ordered. But in terms of design and installation, Timeserts are far superior. In designing my front brake caliper brackets, I too wanted to avoid relying on threads tapped in aluminum. I just had them drill through holes to use a nut and bolt to secure the caliper. in the rear that wasn't feasible, so I just had the brackets machined in steel. The weight difference is pretty insignificant on such a small part.

Thanks for the write up. Honest accounts of customer experience with a company are extremely valuable to potential customers. I have been hearing of negative experiences with Apex for quite some time, and it is disappointing. Some of the items they have made are very cool, a few are going on my build. It is just too bad they cannot seem to get the customer service end up to speed.

I've been working on prepping the body shell for epoxy primer/seam sealer/paint. Basically the regimen has been needle gun/hammer & chisel to remove weld spatter, assortment of wire brushes in an angle grinder to remove other weld...crap....followed by maroon Scotchbrite to remove burned epoxy (from welding) and to scuff the epoxy coat that was put on three years ago. Literally every square inch needs to be scuffed, there are a lot of nooks/crannies, as you can imagine. To keep from going crazy, I set small goals for the day, and once they are done I stop, even if I feel like I could do more. Today I did the firewall and inner driver's side fender. But, yeah, the job is a freakin PITA.

I really question whether the POR-15 metal prep is absolutely necessary, or just another product they want to sell. I used to use POR-15 on small parts that I fabbed for various projects, simply because it is pretty much as tough as powder coat but you can do it at home. These were not rusty parts, just clean metal that I lightly sanded to scuff, cleaned with brake cleaner, then coated with POR-15. It worked fine without their metal prep step.

This is none of my damn business, and if you tell me that I won't be offended.... Having said that, I am curious why you decided to sell it? Did you find that you enjoy the build/project more than you do having/driving the result? I ask because I think I have a bit of that in me. I like the planning and execution of a project, then tend to become bored with it when I am finished.

I wire brush, sand, or Scotch Brite the metal to a clean state, with no rust, clean/degrease with Prep All (made by Kleanstrip), then epoxy prime. The only thing I would caution, is that Prep All doesn't work well with water soluble oils, like if you sweated or drooled or rubbed your greasy hair on the part. To clean that stuff off I use a little bit of Westley's Bleche Wite on a rag or paper towel before the Prep All. The Bleche Wite is basically just a very strong detergent, so I make sure I remove all traces of it with a damp rag then immediately blow the part dry. Prep All evaporates and leaves no residue. I have no doubt that you can apply POR15 over flash rust, since it is designed to go over rust, but it seems like the height of silliness to create rust for it. And epoxy primer is not designed to go over rust. I guess I am lucky in the sense that Nor Cal is a dry environment and I have had no real problem at all with flash rust, even after working with bare metal for three years.

I'm pretty sure you don't want to use epoxy over flash rust. I mean, I've never tried it, but I wager it's a bad idea...

I know exactly what you mean... I was going to use POR-15 in a few areas on my project, but their TDS was insistent that I had to first use POR-15 metal prep, and rinse it off with water, before applying the product. I knew that would be a horror-show of flash rust, so I just used another product (Rust Bullet). Maybe POR-15 is designed to work best over a layer of surface rust? Or maybe the company is just greedy and wants to sell as much prep as they do POR-15? I'm not going to try it.

Thanks for the input dudes, I sincerely appreciate it. I too am dubious of some of the claims of these sorts of products, but keep in mind I am by no means "pushing the envelope" in terms of what they claim to do. AFAIK, I have no rust. I am just forcing this product into seams where it is impossible to be sure. I live in a very dry climate, but my car has been "in progress" with a lot of bare metal for three years. The only surface rust that really appeared during that time is a little bit on the right rear quarter (because that is near where I drain the water from my compressor), and a little bit on the dash bar underneath the clamps I fabbed to mount my dash. All the visible rust will be wire brushed off before epoxy. I am only using Rust Bullet in places where I cannot see, in the crack formed by pinch/lap welds. It is purely a precaution, since even if I could detect rust in those joints, there is no mechanical way to remove it short of dismantling the shell. I would have to chemically neutralize it with some product or another anyway... So my choices are to do nothing with Rust Bullet, seal the seams, and paint the car. I am 98% sure I would be fine with that plan. Or I could brush in epoxy, which has no claimed rust countering ability. That would be fine as long as no surface rust cropped up in the seams in the past three years after I stitch welded the shell. I have given this a lot of thought, and I think I am covering my bases about as well as is possible to do.

Nowhere near 1/2 gallon in my case. I just ordered one of these: https://www.rustbullet.com/product/six-shooter-combo-industrial-automotive/, because it is a product that if you do not carefully clean off the lid/rim of the can after each use, it is impossible to get the lid off again. I have just done the seams on the interior of the car so far (two coats), and that used up one small can. Yeah, chassis prep sucks. It is hard dirty work in awkward positions and there is little satisfying about it. The stitch welding in particular. Try to meticulously get the joint clean enough of seam sealer to make a sound weld (you can never get it all...unless you burn it out), then you get a contaminated weld anyway, grind it off, start over....rinse...repeat. I never found anything better for removing surface seam sealer/undercoat than a wire brush in a grinder....but even then it kind of partially melts and redeposits in other places. In large seams, dental picks and small screwdriver blades. In small seams, use a torch and burn it out. The fumes from that crap probably took five years off my life.

I cannot say whether it is an epoxy or not, but I can tell you it is a one part product. You just open the can, brush it or spray it on. You can thin it with xylene, or their own thinner, but neither product will soften it once it cures. They claim that once it is hardened it is solvent proof, and that has been my impression as well. I test stuff like this a lot before I actually use it, and after 24 hours of drying it is immune (as far as I could tell) to acetone, brake cleaner, lacquer thinner, prep sol, xylene, and 91% IPA. It has a fairly thin viscosity...it runs easily and will flow...I would say it is just a bit thicker than milk....like a light cream. The main reason I used it...in fact really the only reason....is that it can be applied over rust and neutralizes it...just like POR-15 and similar products. I was concerned that in the 3+ years I have been working on my body shell, rust might have taken a toehold in some of the lap joints where I had burned off primer with welding. Since there is no way to know, nor any way of sanding/wire brushing it off in such places even if I knew it was there, I figured this was a wise precaution. If I was positive I had 100% clean metal everywhere I would have skipped this step and just used epoxy primer, even to the point of brushing it inside the lap joints, which you can certainly do even though everyone assumes epoxy primer must be sprayed. But, theoretically at least, epoxy primer will fail if applied over even light surface rust. Rust Bullet, it is claimed, will not. Simple as that. Obviously these painting prep steps are the sort of thing that you only have one chance to get right, so I am checking all the boxes even if it is a bit of a PITA. I wanted to add, even though you didn't ask, that prepping the entire shell for paint is a tedious f***ed up job. Weld spatter, old seam sealer, pinholes I previously missed, ugly welds that I just have to improve, and simply having to scuff every square inch/nook/cranny. I'm sort of hating life ATM.

Getting ready to paint the interior of the body shell. While working on this project, I have sort of been pondering how best to rustproof all the non-original lap joints that have resulted from the assorted modifications. Where possible, I primed the blind side of all the parts I welded on with epoxy, but there is still going to be bare metal (burned off) in close proximity to all the welds. There are also multiple seams where I removed the OEM seam sealer/paint and the epoxy in the course of stitch welding the shell. Since these cars like to rust as they come from the factory, and this specific one had pretty much dodged that bullet by living it's life in the desert, I did not want to add potential future corrosion areas....at least no more than absolutely necessary. Searching the internet for information on rustproofing car bodies during restoration revealed surprisingly little information. There is no consensus on the best way to do this (short of dip-priming, which for all practical purposes is unobtainable). As usual on the net, there is a wide variety of opinion, and those who seem to know the least are the ones who state their opinion in the most aggressive and obnoxious manner. I have some past experience with POR-15, some of it good, some not so good. But their recommendations for prep practically insisted on using their brand of metal prep followed by washing the surface with water. My project has huge areas of bare metal, and this just sounded like a questionable plan. I couldn't see how I could possibly dry it all quickly enough to avoid flash rust all over the place, including in many areas that I could not easily access to remove. I don't know if this is really absolutely necessary, or if POR-15 just wants to sell their metal prep. But I believed their advice, which led me to look at other products. So I tried "Rust Bullet". I tested it on some scrap metal, it adhered very well even with marginal prep, over light rust, you name it. It was also totally compatible with an overcoat of the epoxy primer I am using in the next step. It is an "apply on rust" product, which I wanted in case some unreachable surface rust has appeared in some of the lap joints during the time I have been working on the car. So after scuffing and cleaning everything, my next step was to apply Rust Bullet, with a brush, to all the joints where I felt there might be a danger of future corrosion. I chose the brush over spraying because it allowed me to force the chemical deep inside the joints in places where welding probably burned away all the primer. Next step is a light scuff on the Rust Bullet, overspray the joints with epoxy primer, seam sealer, then an overall coat of epoxy followed by single stage color. Then, Lizard skin sound/heat in specific areas and finally cover that with Raptor Liner. Thanks for looking.

I ordered some items from them a couple of years ago, and IIRC at that time they were working out of Wisconsin. For the record, my experience with them was good, but I am aware that more recently there have been some complaints about misquotes for delivery time and poor communication. I just noticed from the links above that the Apex website shows no phone number, no email, no physical address, just the "contact us" link page. Over the years, I have ordered all sorts of items for project cars (not just Datsuns) and I have learned through hard experience that this contact setup should be regarded as sort of a red flag. It nearly always means the business is run from home, as a sideline, and the contact link is setup to filter and shelter the proprietors of the business from customer communication should it become too bothersome. I'm not saying that is what Apex is doing, because I don't know, but I have definitely learned to be wary dealing with a business on those terms. I hope this isn't inappropriate to the thread, if it is mod please delete.

Welcome! I've had an E30 project car for many years as well.

I got the last removable part painted...the car chassis/body is all that's left. I am actually starting to think I might finish this one day.... Sorry for the endless pics of green parts...it's all I have ATM.

The issues of safety in a car as it relates to seats and belts/harnesses really needs to be approached with some thought and common sense. If you just buy/bolt on hardware without thinking it all through it is very easy to have a net decrease in crash safety. Aftermarket/racing harnesses will only provide a safety increase if they are installed properly and in concert with other hardware in the car. Since there are so many variables, I think you just have to consider what you are trying to accomplish in your specific application and what you have to do to make it work safely. I have found the standard canned internet responses of "never use a harness in a street car"....."stock seatbelts are safer in a rollover"...."a harness will kill you without a full six-point cage and a helmet" while they have shreds of truth, are overly broad to be very useful. I guess I am just saying: Think about what you are doing.

I have this monstrosity that I built as a front diff mount. It is .25" steel, and simultaneously ties into the suspension pivot mounts, the four strap mounts, and a .18" reinforcing plate welded to the top of the driveshaft tunnel. I am certain it is strong enough, but it is bulky, heavy, and a bit of a PITA to install. If the "new" TTT setup fails me, this will be waiting in storage as a replacement.....

Yeah, when I initially ordered the T3 parts, they came with the front mount in the top photo, which it is very easy to see is far too weak for the job at hand. When they came out with the lower setup, I upgraded to that, which of course is just more money after what was already an expensive "kit". The new one does seem to be a good design though....how they should have designed it all from the start. It also can fit the Ford 8.8 diff should I need to upgrade to that down the road. I posted above that Matt Isbell's LS7 powered car started with the shortnose R200....just because I saw an underside photo of it at one time. I just read somewhere else that it now runs a Ford 8.8. I'm sure he didn't swap them for fun.....

I've been pondering these issues as well. My build has 486 torque, and I am using a short nose R200 with the T3 parts and Q45 CV axles. It isn't running yet, so I cannot comment on whether it is up to the task, but I admit to being worried about the R200 surviving hard driving. There won't be drag racing starts, but I'm not going to baby it either. My initial plan was to just use the R230 and be done with it, but I didn't like the available gear ratios. Part of my decision was made when I saw that Matt Isbell's LS7 powered Z road racer used the R200 shortnose, at least initially, and is doubtless putting out more power/torque than mine will. I don't know how it has held up in his car... Meh, too much invested now, so I am going forward with the R200 setup, sink or swim. But if I was starting over I would do the Ford 8.8.

Think how much better the world would be if it was just an airtight law never to use filler thicker than a quarter. There is never any legitimate reason to....

The LF fender had to be cut up and re-glassed to fit my car, so it took some sanding and fiddling to get it ready for paint:

I have figured out how to minimize them, but not completely eliminate them. I'm sure you know the problem. It is a very, very fine line between a nice wet coat of clear that smooths out nicely, and a coat that sags and runs.... Mainly I have become skilled at sanding/polishing out runs. I used to live by the "you don't have to be a good welder as long as you are a good grinder". Now that I'm painting, it's "you don't have to be a good painter as long as you are a good sander...." LOL It's all good though. I'm mostly happy with how it's all coming out. My labor correcting my screw-ups is free. If I worked at a shop though, where time is money, my ass would promptly be fired.