J__ Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 so this started off 11 months ago on sept 11 2005. i decided to pick up a datsun 280z car to save money and "save insurance costs"... well... it DID save insurance costs compared to my merc. but little did i knw it'd cost a hell of alot more than the mear 2 grand i saved on insurance per year as it turned into a project car..... this is what the car looked like when i got it, minus the big ugly chrome bumpers it came with that weighed 50lbs each.. i was quite excited picking the car up that day and eventually my excitement led me to smashing up my driver's side headlamp, turnsignal, and fender on my merc into an oncoming van while goin to pick up the datsun. Im cheap so to this day the front is still taped up and unfixed... i'll fix it eventually. anyway, after picking up the datsun i was pretty much in love. the interior was mint, paint was prestine. and the thing was fairly fast for a 30 yr old car. the previous owner purchased it second hand, painted it pearl white and garaged it for 15 years, when i got it, it had 11x,xxx kms and was very good running condition, pretty much fired up first turn of the key every time. After the initial joy and indulgence of excitment, the bad started to eventually show... all the bushings on the car were either worn or non existant. ball joints need replacing, wheel bearing, driveshat, suspension all shot (drove like a boat), the front sway bar wasnt even connected to the control arm on the driver side because the bolt was broken, but worse of all, the RUST. Just before throwing the cash down to buy the car i did see quarter sized bubble in the paint on the driver side fender indicating rust. i thought it wouldnt be tough to fix since it was so small and just a little area, until one day when i for some reason decided to kick the passenger side dogleg. As i drew my foot back and thrusted it at the piece, i was expecting the normal thump of rubber to metal. What i got was quite irritating. CRUNCH, as my foot impacted the "metal" surface, the deafening sound of crunching rust hidden under paint filled the air. The more i kicked it, the louder the crunch and eventually debris started falling off the car and soon i was looking at a 3 inch wide hole. Ouch. Soon after that ordeal i searched and read up one the wealth of info on Zcar forums about how these cars LOVE TO RUST. i remembered 1 post where a "newbie" asked old timers which areas of the car is prone to rust since he just got one. 1 guy replyed with 1 picture of the car and a red circle around the whole car.... great i thought, this will be fun. I finally decided that i was goin to restore the car, but as a film student, the last thing i knew was car restoration. Fortunately my good buddy who was staying with me at the time was an autobody man with experience in restoration, and with his help, i set off on another long ass project. with the fenders and major body panels off and jacked up in my garage ready for work first thing was to strip off all the damned undercoating... but then again without it the car would probably not have a floor pan to step on... front cowl fender well after chipping off all the undercoating with a hammer and chisel and washing off the residue with gasoline, the rust started to show. (this process took me about 4months where it shoulda taken 2 weeks. i got discouraged at times cause the job was so damned anoying and such a pain in the ass) these are the major rusted areas i found - 3inch hole in front driver side frame rail - 6inch wide hole around 1 of the drain plugs in the floor pan - common battery tray rust (20inch hole in firewall) - common rear hatch area rust - rusted out inner rear quarter panel (inside by the muffler) - both bottom fenders rusted out - minor small rusted areas here and there after grinding off the minor rust and coating the metal with self etching primer, we were rdy to move onto the next step but b4 that can happen, a few major components were needed, voila cant afford a tig, so mig will do. stripped interior 6 point roll cage welded and painted cutting out the rusted dogleg look what i found inside :blueguy: fabricating inner dogleg and closing up the outta Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J__ Posted September 4, 2006 Author Share Posted September 4, 2006 cut out rusted hatch area fabricating the patch panel "new" fenders to replaced the rusted old ones. these damned fenders took me 3 weeks and lots of anger lol. you dont want to see the photo with the bondo on em... shot with epoxy primer welding up the floorpan drain holes i purchased fender mirrors so i shaved the door mirrors, and of course that means more welding... new rims brake upgrades: 4 piston toyota 4x4 front caliper w/ 300zx vented rotor rear 240sx disk conversion with maxima brackets test fitting flares + rims i didnt take any pics of the suspension but i got the tokico springs with illumina 5 way adjustable shocks. i woulda definately gone with the short stroke conversion with coilovers if i didnt already ordered the tokico setup. car's still got too much wheel gap. and finally, the shaved ass with the epoxy primered car and paint... i was originally going to "roll" the paint. some of you might remmeber my post linking the original mopac forum post where the guy painted his beetle and charger with a paint roller and turned out AWESOME. well i did it to my rollcage and surely was thinking "wtf am i doin". But just like the guy said the paint self leveled to an impressively smooth and shiny surface. then after wetsanding and a polish, it was like a $4000 paintjob, well... not that much but u get the point. Although it turned out very nice the process too way too long, 2 thin coats, let dry overnight, wetsand, 2 thin coats, let dry overnight, wetsand, 2 thin coats, let dry overnight, wetsand, polish. I didnt want to spend 12 hours wetsanding the whole car 3 times so went ahead and spray the paint. and yes it was done on the grass in open air theres a "few" particles and bugs in the paint but cant complain for a $36 dollar paint job with paint from home depot. besides after a wetsand and polish the paint looks pretty much like a single stage job from any shop. i've yet to install all the interior and new carpets, alarm, and some nice sound system (currently listening to the music of the straight 6). But next on the mod list would definately bew an engine swap. As soon as the stock motor goes (or whenever i have funds) in goes an LSx :high: finally i'd like to thank ross from modernmotorsports for the sweet brake setup and all the knowledgable advice, ian from ian's auto in coquitlam for finally figuring out the bug in the brake system, my boss for giving me the paychecks to fund this damned thing, and finally my friend that helped me throughout this whole project doin the welding, body work, lending me his garage for 8 months and his life for the whole summer without you this car woulda never taken shape, you knw who you are. thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J__ Posted September 4, 2006 Author Share Posted September 4, 2006 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikeatrpi Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 Good job, the car looks great! Thanks for sharing the pictures, and keep up the good work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Austenp405 Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 Guess there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Looking great! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slownrusty Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 Wow...very impressive work and detail! I am very impressed, having lived in Canada and only owing Japanese cars...I cringe at the thought of rust So will the car appear in your first film production? Yasin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
240hoke Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 So let me see here. You spent a ton of time on body work and rust, and you shot the car with epoxy primer... but you didnt want to spend 80 bucks for a gallon of single stg PPG or nason paint? I can see saving money... but 50 bucks? Oh well look nice at any rate from the pictures! Lots of work there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexideways Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 Thanks, very inspiring as I'm about to go down the same path, with RB swap in the process. The car is going into hibernation soon and'll wake up like a brand new car with a modern heart beat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sparky Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 nice! some euro 240Z bumpers would look great on the car with those chrome fender mirrors... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
280Zone Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 The car is looking good and the documentary is very motivating! Thanks for the post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ZXR_KiD Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 Nice wheels... what brand/model are they and how much they run? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LS1 240Z Posted September 4, 2006 Share Posted September 4, 2006 fyi you have one of the most rust free 240Zs ive ever seen, the most rust free ive ever seen actualy. you did lots of work and it looks great. you going to paint it back pearl white? it looks beautiful in that first pic Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J__ Posted September 4, 2006 Author Share Posted September 4, 2006 thnx guys. i owe my friend big time for sticking with me throughout the project 240hoke, yes originally i was goin to roll the paint so i bought all the paint, mats etc etc. since i didnt have a booth to spray it in, or the "proper" spray environment and i didnt want to build a booth in the middle of my friends back yard. i only sprayed it because i was running outta time and the roller method took too long. so spraying in the open, i had to wetsand watever paint i sprayed on anyway to get smooth from dust, bugs, and dirt particles. the tremclad protects just as well as single stage ppg and easier to work with imo since u can butcher it and touch up, sand, polish, etc etc. After sand and polish, the shine is pretty much like any single stage out there. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J__ Posted September 4, 2006 Author Share Posted September 4, 2006 wheels i bought off club4ag from a guy in cali. 15x8 -31 offset. 5 inch lip on all 4 with very little backspacing... makes for horrible handliing but very pimp im gonna be keeping my old enkeis for track and drive these for daily driving. yea im actually very fortunate for having such a low rust car from vancouver. have to thank the previous owner for taking such good care of it, and thank his garage i didnt paint it pearl white. it looked nice but will be pain in the ass to match. car is painted Champion white. same color as an integra/civic Type-R. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbk240z Posted September 5, 2006 Share Posted September 5, 2006 Looks pretty good for being painted in the "open". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodboxer Posted September 18, 2006 Share Posted September 18, 2006 nice job on the redo, I am looking at shaving the rearend on my 81 , how did you do yours and do you have any pics, did you reinforce under the metal? and how did you get the side into match the new rolled rear? thanks bob Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmurphz33 Posted September 18, 2006 Share Posted September 18, 2006 Nice job man! Looks like a pretty intense "de-rust" process-- but well done. I'm going to have to do some of that to my car too, not looking forward to it. But this inspiring me, maybe it won't be so bad. BTW, great detail and pictures. -John Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roninjiro Posted September 18, 2006 Share Posted September 18, 2006 that is an awsome job, big props to you. im painting soon as well. did all the dust an bugs come out after the wetsand? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J__ Posted September 24, 2006 Author Share Posted September 24, 2006 nice job on the redo, I am looking at shaving the rearend on my 81 , how did you do yours and do you have any pics, did you reinforce under the metal? and how did you get the side into match the new rolled rear? thanks bob i didnt take any pix. but after the bumper came off, i just filled up the holes with fiberglass. did about 5 layers of glass, hard as crap. then started to block sand like mad... until only the holes were filled in and get the excess glass off the rest of the body. then layered on fiberglass filler, blocked, repeat, until i was satisfied with the smoothness, finally did a few layers of icing to fill in the rest of the pin holes. try to use as little bondo and icing as possible... it does absorb moisture and eventually will bubble. fiberglass filler doesnt. the sides were easy, i didnt do anything to em, just welded up the 2 bolt holes that were there for the bumpers. that is an awsome job, big props to you. im painting soon as well. did all the dust an bugs come out after the wetsand? yup they're very easy to sand off. but make sure u sand them off before u do another coat... or it wont be coming off or u'll have an imprint of a bug in the paint. also dont try to pick off the bugs when the paints wet, u'll screw it up even more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woodboxer Posted September 24, 2006 Share Posted September 24, 2006 ya thats sounds good , i think mine will be different becauce it is a 81 , so its dented in quite a bit , i think i am going to place a 4" channel iron where the bumper was then place a rolled piece of metal over the whole area. I do have to make the sides with a crease as it is the body line front the rest of the fender. I will post as I proceed. I did the lower part of the rear passenger fender last night after I redid the tire well. it turned out good with my welder as I am now using gas opposed to just flux wire. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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