phantaz Posted November 11, 2007 Share Posted November 11, 2007 have a few more pics ready for you viewing pleasure...... or hostile comments =0) which ever come first.. now that the clutch, radiator and suspension is done.. body work has commenced. My dad and i stripped the body molding off ( which was in great shape underneath) we decided to try something different with the rivets. Normally we take a little punch and pop in the hole left after drilling out the rivets.. this has led to some waves along the body line that the trim was.. so since we had acces to a welder we decided to weld in the holes which would hopefully lessed the amount of bondo/body work needed. we also removed the lower body trim off which was kinda scary.. every Z we took those skirts off of had tons of rust under since they are riveted on and water collects inbetween and rots it out.. amazingly only once spot had rust. Was a major rust spot but the rest was great. whoever owned this car in Portland, OR must have kept it garaged. all that rain and almost no rust on the car. ok for the welders on here... try not to zing me to bad.. this is my second attempt at welding and we were not sure it was going to work but here ya go The Welder. Door guards removed. random shot of welds and grinding. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phantaz Posted November 17, 2007 Author Share Posted November 17, 2007 Almost done with the back... little bit of finishing up with glazing compound and the rear panal should be done.... welding in that patch panal was a nitemare... im not a welder and i couldnt clamp it. gettign it to arc and try to get a nice bead was impossible for me. all i could do was tap it and get little weld spots. i think im throwing in the towel as a welder =0). It worked though.. i could tap it from behind and front with a dolly and it never broke. i pushed it in from the back to reduce the amount of bondo used and drilled a few holes so it had something to adhere to. start of the day.. And the mostly finished rear. instead of trying to fill in the indentation in the middle of the rear area.. i molded/sanded the bondo into a simliar shape as the opposite side and im going to glue my datsun symbol that came off my hatch into it. looked good when we taped it to see how it looked. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phantaz Posted November 17, 2007 Author Share Posted November 17, 2007 Here are some better shots of the body molding repair that we did. the patch job on the big rust spot is not quite done... has a small indentation left but is braced well from behind so i think its not going to fall out when i hit my first pothole LOL This is the driver side front.. only big rust spot and wouldnt you know it, the rubber flap that is in the finderwell is gone so it was packed with nice wet debris for who knows how long. still have some work to do and the ofcourse the other side.. no rust on that side so it should go quick. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phantaz Posted November 17, 2007 Author Share Posted November 17, 2007 Hood actually went really quick.. i thought getting all the clearcoat remains was going to be a nitemare and all the little pits... thick sandable primer IS YOUR FRIEND!!! hit it with some 200 grit and wet sanded it with 400 and shazam... sometimes i like bodywork. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FJ 280z Posted November 17, 2007 Share Posted November 17, 2007 hey, don't give up on the welding, looks like you either need to grind the paint away a little bit more so your welding on bare metal, and make sure you have a good ground, looks like the ground you have may be insufficient, practice on some other panels first before you go laying boogers on your Z otherwise, looking good ! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TravRMK Posted November 17, 2007 Share Posted November 17, 2007 Drilling holes in the metal for the bondo to adhere is not a good idea. It will absorb moisture from the backside, rust under the bondo, and eventually pop off. I would grind it out now, and spot weld the holes in, grind it smooth, and put a thin layer of bondo, or glaze over it. FYI all you need is to hit the area needing filler with some 80 grit sand paper. What filler are you using? Looks like the pink Bondo stuff. There are alot better fillers out there these days. I really like the Rage Gold, and the Rage Extreme fillers from Evercoat. Looks like you are doing a pretty good job, and I would hate to see you have problems in the future, that could ruin your nice pait job. One other thing before I get off my soapbox, run your fingertips accross the panel, and any indentations, or anything that your fingers feel WILL show up when the final paint is applied whether you can see them with the primer or not. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
datsun40146 Posted November 17, 2007 Share Posted November 17, 2007 I'm sorry to have to tell you this but if that were my car I would grind off that work you have done on the rear. Your final product looks nice and smooth, you have a good eye for body work it seems. However that weld job and the fact that you drilled holes in it is going to spell trouble for you later on. I don't think that weld will hold for very long with the body twisting and moving about. What you should have done would be to cut the patch panel to fit inside the hole so you could weld it flush with the roll pan, not behind it that should help you get better results. Doing this should also reduce you "bondo" thicknes. To me it looks like you weld was clean it just either A. wasn't turned up enough, B. you had a bad ground, or C. your tip was SHOT on your MIG. The work you did on the other panels looks nice, when you filled the door bumper line you did that very well. Just appy what you learned there to the rear of the car. Good luck with your project. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
datsun40146 Posted November 17, 2007 Share Posted November 17, 2007 Also since you fixed the holes in you fender, I would pull them sand down the BACKSIDE and POR-15 them. Think about it, all you seeing is the rust in its final stage by the time its coming through. Go head and kill that rust while its young. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phantaz Posted November 17, 2007 Author Share Posted November 17, 2007 hey guys... thanks for the comments and keep em coming.. welding... yep.. pretty much figured it was a bad ground since i had to hold it in place by hand until i got the first spot on it. fly by trail here since ive never had an welding experience.. as for the back of that panell. we did clean it up and use por-15 on it. the FIller plate i used for the hole in the back panel was also cleaned up and used por-15 on it also =0). just didnt do it all that first week. after getting the stuff smoothed out we went back to everything we could find and did the back side.. the rivit holes though..some of those we cant get to with out taking the fenders off so.. going to hope that my welds dont have little holes and cracks to let moisture in. once again thnx for any thoughts... welding boogers.. i like that LOL Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Techtron Posted November 21, 2007 Share Posted November 21, 2007 A magnet can hold stuff for you while you are tacking things in place. Here are some 'booger' prevention tips I've learned from practicing: First, if you are using a gas mig welder make sure your gas regulator is adjusted for the proper flow. Second, having too much wire stick out will make the boogers as well cause the gas is not able to sheild the weld from too far away. Stick out is the length of wire that comes out of the end of the welder....so try to keep this to half an inch to an inch max. An easy way to do this is to use a pair of side cutters to cut the wire off to the proper length before you make your next weld. Allways positon yourself so you can see the weld pool or you will just burn through and make mistakes. You can hold the gun on a slight angle and push or pull the gun to help you see what you are doing. Just use a series of tacks to weld sheet metal. Space your tacks all over your work area to minimize heat warpage.This is called stitch welding. If you want to lay a bead of weld dont lay a bead longer than inch between tacks or you will have unreapirable warpage. Miller and Hobart both have excellent websites with tons of info to help you trouble shoot your welds. Hope this helps and good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
z-ya Posted November 21, 2007 Share Posted November 21, 2007 I like your jack stands Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phantaz Posted December 21, 2007 Author Share Posted December 21, 2007 I like your jack stands Cant fall off that way =0) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phantaz Posted December 21, 2007 Author Share Posted December 21, 2007 Some updated picks of the grill area... filled the empty center section that the bumper used to cover with the grill from a 71 240 Dad had laying around.. trimmed the edges to match the contour of the opening.. it was really close to begin with.. used little tabs we attached to the back of the grill peice and screwed them into existing holes on the turn signal bracket.. kinda handy. had to bend it a little to git it to line up but thought it came out great. this is just a mock up with everything in place.. not painted. There are actually 3 sections.. they are all staggered if you look at them from above. .. we tried to line up the top to the bottom but because of the angle the center section was almost straight up and down compared to the lean angle of th e top and bottom peices so we leaned it at the same angle instead.. sounds strange until you see it but it works. Tools of the trade.... Dad snapping pictures of me fighting the sanding block.. you ever have that one folding piece of sand papaer that just does NOT wont to go... sigh. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theianmonster Posted December 22, 2007 Share Posted December 22, 2007 Progress is looking good. Body work is such a pain, but so worth it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phantaz Posted December 22, 2007 Author Share Posted December 22, 2007 Thnx monster... like that yellow and black look.. =) very nice.. is that the type 3 airdam? did you have mounting problems with fitment that everyone else seems to have had? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phantaz Posted March 28, 2008 Author Share Posted March 28, 2008 Finally figured out what i was going to do with the rear..... liked the cleaner look with out the 75 pound monster bumper but wanted something back there so heres what we came up with.. originally just had the plates attached to the old bumper brackets with a single bar across it... then added the angled pieces and that just really set it off.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tech9 Posted March 31, 2008 Share Posted March 31, 2008 I was just talking about making some of those for my project, but decided to just take all the bumpers out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phantaz Posted April 4, 2008 Author Share Posted April 4, 2008 Few pics of the round tail lights we are attempting to set up... and a view of that rear bumper actually attached.. =) lights are from Tractor Supply for $8.95 each.. comes with rubber grommet accent. kinda cheap but this is a first attempt to see what to do later and while i had my rear assembly apart, my Dad went to town with his idea for his Z. So mine turned into the practice car.. =) We found some rubber "v" trim that will slip on tightly to the sheetmetal so it cleans up the outer edges really well. more pictures once we get all the lights in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cockerstar Posted April 5, 2008 Share Posted April 5, 2008 Those lights don't look like they will be bad at all I'm really not feeling what you did with the bumper though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mcmike280z Posted April 5, 2008 Share Posted April 5, 2008 I love the two light look. (so did Enzo , take a look at early Ferrari's) Here is a pic of mine it might help you with final spacing. I played around with all different positions and I am still not sure if I like this one the best. But hey! the resin is set up now, lol! Thought you might like to see mine incase you want to move yours around. I also placed mine behind the panel and glassed back into them to give that frenched in look. Your hard work is showing. Good Luck, Mike Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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