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Is it worth it?


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ok,so im new to this forum,im here because my dad found a 260z

 

my dad bought a mechanic shop and when he bought it the owner left a lot of crap behind including the 260z,i think that the car is wayy to rusty and damaged to repair it but since in not an expert,that's why i come to this forum lol

 

i have a couple of pictures here

 

http://picasaweb.google.com/eldominicano20/CAR#

 

click on the images to enlarged

 

please tell me any opinions,ideas or anything you have to say

 

Thanks...

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Most of the outside looks like surface rust. You really need to check the floorboards, frame rails, doglegs, battery tray / firewall. Post those pictures and we can give you a better idea. It doesn't look great but by far not the worst i have seen.

 

+1

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there is one spot, along the roof support about centered along the top of the rear quarter panel; it is a weld point, and it frequently rusts, and this car seems to have no rust at that point whatsoever.. click "Fusible Links Blow" in my sig and look at my car; I'm sure one of those pics shows a rust hole at about 11 o'clock on the rear quarter window. That'll show you the spot; your car looks fine.

 

+1 to the comments above as well; floorboards, frame rails underneath, T/C rod mounting boxes, battery tray, the latch area of the rear hatch (snap some pics of the space above the tail light panel with the rear deck opened up; also, the underside of the rear deck.)

 

Pull the seats and any carpet out of the floorboards to get the FULL picture.

 

The car ACTUALLY looks like it might just be largely superficial; an ugly duckling as it were. This is a GREAT car in some ways, because its a later 260; this car has most of the advantages of the stiffer, safer 280 chassis (except for the '77 revision with different doors) and the dashboard wiring is MUCH MUCH less than even my 75 280; the difference was SIGNIFICANTLY notable when holding the two dashboards; I would say five to ten pounds or more. Also simpler and easier to work on underneath; I have a late 260 dash I am probably going to recon to put into my car.

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it's either worth nothing and you should give it to clive or...lots because of the flames on the left front fender and batman air freshner!

 

i agree with the above posts-you need to dig deeper and look-under seats, spare tire well, rocker panels, frame rails, floors from above & below, battery box, etc.

 

this 260z is an early not late, as evidenced by the smaller front bumper-unless it was swapped at some point in it's life. the mfg date will verify this.

 

770 area code appears to be atlanta georgia

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this 260z is an early not late, as evidenced by the smaller front bumper-unless it was swapped at some point in it's life. the mfg date will verify this.

 

I hadn't really noticed it being a 240ish bumper, but I was looking at the end caps and thinking something wasn't quite right. I'm not 260 aficionado, but that looks like a 240 bumper, bolted onto a 75 280 bracket, with the trim pieces from the 75 bumper altered to fit on there.. it looks WEIRD somehow and I couldn't figure it out before. Now that you mentioned the earlier bumper I see it IS a 240 style bar, but I think it was mounted on after the fact. I would LOVE to see pictures of that bumper coming off the car...

 

ps

 

The "early 260" front bumpers weren't just what I described, were they? 240 bumpers spaced WAY OUT like the early 280s were?? I have always thought that:

"early 260 bumpers"== 240 bumper bar, rubber trim, and steel bar bracket

"late 260 bumpers"== 75 type 280 bar, rubber trim, and shock absorber, 5MPH megabracket

 

largely because the standard description is "the early ones were like the 240s and the late ones were like the 280"

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Daeron - more or less, the early 260s had bumpers just as you describe them, they are very similar - with a few minor differences - to 240 bumpers, and they've been mounted on shocks, with rubber and plastic trim pieces filling the gaps. Pulling the trim and collapsing the shocks is a fairly simple affair and makes the car appear as if it has 240 bumpers.

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uhmm seems a lot of confusing here with the bumpers,but my lazy brother doesnt want to do what i tell him,tommorow they open the shop and ima beg to him until he does take more pictures and get the mfg date

 

 

2eighTZ4me haha my family in georgia lives in lawrenceville too,and you can go check the car of course,just tell me when you want,its nice to know theres some Z's around lol

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Daeron - more or less, the early 260s had bumpers just as you describe them, they are very similar - with a few minor differences - to 240 bumpers, and they've been mounted on shocks, with rubber and plastic trim pieces filling the gaps. Pulling the trim and collapsing the shocks is a fairly simple affair and makes the car appear as if it has 240 bumpers.

 

Is the bumper any more substantial than a 240 bumper? Thinking in terms of crash protection.... This is news to me. Been too long since I've seen a 260 apparently :)

 

sorry for the threadjack!

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This is super thread highjacking, sorry

 

Daeron - I have early 260 bumpers on my 280 [look at my sig], the brackets are shorter than the 280s but bolt right onto the 280 location. The bar is pretty light, If you are worried about crash protection stay with the 280 big nasty bumpers.

 

Back to the thread:

 

The car looks kind of nasty outside but do you know if it runs or not? It might be a fun project to learn off of if it won't cost too much to get it back on the road...

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  • 2 months later...

Okay so i know this is like a long lost thread but my dads mechanic shop was going through a bad situation so he said no-no about fixing the Z for now...but now things are getting better and he's getting me the info. so i got the VIN for the car

 

RLS30-0423155

 

idk what can be find out from this but someone asked for it here.

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YEah +1 to the Comments at the start. esp to what Daeron was saying. It looks to me that the Car has a ton of surface rust. the Batman air freshener should have saved it tho. So I expect the interior to be tight :wink:

 

really though, It doesn't look that bad, How good are you with a welder? I can tell there's some real trouble areas I would expect to be bad. The rear deck almost certainly will need metalwork, along with the panels below the door.

 

So, assuming the frame rails are okay. I'd be looking for:

 

New hatch

New right fender

New left headlight bucket

New Windshield

MAYBE new hood. DOC

MAYBE left fender DOC

 

The rest is hard to say, but the doors look decent. the rust on the Roof looks like all surface. The floor might be okay, looknig at the interior. the seats are torn but doesn't look too bad on the wear side. That dash is pretty cracked, but I'd be willing to try that "great stuff" Dash repair on it. Who knows on the Engine at this point, but it's replaceable/rebuildable for cheap.

 

The part that concerns me most is the tail end. The rust on the hatch is nothing, esp if you replace the hatch. if you don't you might get lucky with just surface rust. Y said replace those panels, because it'd likely be cheaper to replace than to fix those, esp te bucket and the holy fender. I'm most worried about the rust on the lower edge of the tailight panels, and the right rear seam. The only time I've seen rust like that is when the deck was way rusted through and allowed the wheelwell and the back panel to rust out. but hey, it could just be surface rust right?

 

If you take this on, you'll need to invest a bit in a lot of liquid wrench or other penetrating oil. Guaranteed, most all the bolts are rusted. likely some will snap off and need to be drilled out. so I'd spray a lot of the bolts you'll need to take off every couple days for a week or so just to be sure they're well lubed, make your life easy that way.

 

But hey, Free Z right? Can't beat that. More picts! more Picts! esp the floorboards, and the area behind the front wheels maybe tap on things with a hammer. also open the hatch and show us inside under the carpet. If your dad has a rack at that shop, have him put it up on there and take a lot of picts of the frame rails.

 

So far not too bad, not cheap to fix, but not too bad. It would be a fun project.

 

Phar

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Hey thanks for the reply,what you just told me really clears out a lot of stuff for me :D

 

im gonna be telling my dad if he can take pics of the frame rail and everything else there..but thanks to looking at this and helping out

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Well,on the surface it is in better shape than my 260 2/2: your dogleg (in front of rear arch) doesn't look too bad. the 1/4 panels have the usual bottom edge rust, but replacement lower repair panels are readily available. the large volume of surface rust means that some serious sanding or media blasting is in order.

 

BTW those bumpers are the same as on my early (1/74) 260, so i assume they are correct (stock). But the chrome is pretty rough on yours so may need to swap them out anyhow.

 

For rust also check out the gas cap area and spare tire well.

 

Check out the carbs to see if you have the infamous flat top hitachis. if so, hang them as a warning to bad carb design.

 

Finally, recognize that some 260 parts are a bit obscure as they were made in the US for the one year. But maybe i say that because I hae a 260 AND a 2+2. (BTW, i have learned that obscure does NOT equal rare :eek:).

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