DuoWing Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 So after I ended up not going with the late model 74' 260Z I had won off ebay. I shortly after found a guy even closer with a couple of Zs for sale. One of them was a 76' 280Z. It was a South Carolina car that was brought to Ohio and put in storage. It's been swapped to a 5-speed, needs a motor, and for the most part is in really good shape. Battery tray is there, the driver's side floor pan is in really good shape, the frame rails are in good shape, the rear deck tray or whatever you call it above the taillights is clean. The spare tire well is nice and clean. The worst is around the battery try and the passenger floor pan. Although from what I can tell so far the rust really isn't bad. This is going to be the body for my L28ET, so the needing an engine doesn't really bother me. Anyway the car has been in storage for years so it's going to need a wash as it's covered in layers of dust. Oh it's the brown/copper color. The interior needs some help, really the seats and the carpet are what are crappy. Anyway here's probably the worst of it. The passenger floor pan, but so far it seems like it's in really good shape. I was stabbing it with a small screwdriver. I wasn't puncturing the metal. I started pulling up that rubbery sound deadening/insulation whatever it is that people oh so hate. I started sanding and then covered with rust bullet. While sanding I was making my way through to shiny metal so that's always a good sign! I'm going to continue doing this, then paint them, then do it to the driver's side. One thing that makes it look worse is the dust from sanding, the fact that car is bronze/copper, and the fact that the old brown carpet apparently got soaked. Hence why it's torn out and the drain plug was pulled out. I was stabbing right around the edges of where that plug was and it was not going through!! So for the most part I'm quite happy with the purchase. Oh and these were in a box in the hatch: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DuoWing Posted March 6, 2009 Author Share Posted March 6, 2009 I'll need to get some better pictures. I haven't had a chance to work on it, but are you guys to give any thoughts on how that floorpan looks? Like I said, I've been stabbing away with no punctures, but at the same time I always end up getting paranoid. Any thoughts on the pans? Oh another thing I noticed is that when I scrape up that rubber insulation or whatever it is the metal underneath doesn't have paint, but looks pretty clean. Maybe I did get lucky and just happen to have a surface rusted pan. Finally it's warming up so soon I should be able to get more done on this. Oh another thing. The door windows both have issues with going up and down. The driver's window all the way up sits incorrectly in the door and leaves a big open gap. Can I simply pull apart the door panel, and readjust the window? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DuoWing Posted April 30, 2009 Author Share Posted April 30, 2009 Well my 280Z is finally starting to make progress, I've ripped out the remainder of the crappy old worn out brown carpet, the seats are out, I pulled the wiring harness, etc. The motor is about to come out soon for my L28ET that's about to go in. Should be a good time. Took off the front valence or whatever it's called, that piece in front of the hood. Here's what I have. Looks fairly clean to me. Need to sweep all that excess crap out, and probably just a little bit of sanding and I'll be good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rswilliams Posted April 30, 2009 Share Posted April 30, 2009 looks good, seems to just be surface rust. did you check the rockers yet? That seems to be a real problem with these. I bought a 71 240z off a guy here in cali, after tearing it down, i've found no rust, but the quarter panels are rusted out. Your floor pans look good, and the battery trays are always a highly rusted area. looks like a great car to start with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pharaohabq Posted April 30, 2009 Share Posted April 30, 2009 Hey that one looks like a pretty good find.. you might get an angle grinder and one of those Dewalt wire cup brushes (wear eye prot) and go after the rust with that. It really cleans it up quickly. you need to track down where that water was coming from. It looks like there was a lot in there. but so far, yeah it all looks surface! yay! Look down inside that cowl area infront of the windshield and see if you see any cracking of the sealer down there, that can cause water leakage like you're seeing. Shop-Vac does wonders for cleaning crap up. paint or coat the underside of that cowl... You might search on here for Dash restoration, theres a few guys who've repaired theirs good as new with "great stuff" and some sealer. You should pull off the front fenders and see what it looks like under those. Maybe look into Por15 for undercoating behind the panels and up in the wheelwells when you get it cleaned out... Jack up the car and look at the floorpans from underneath. my 2nd 280z rusted out from the outside rather than inside. so you should look there. Also the area just behind where the front suspension mounts to the body, is a good place to look. Other than all that, it looks like you've got a winner. I didn't see anything obvious. Keep posting the pictures, we love em. Other than that, just read and search and read and search. there's answers to just about anything you could ask on here... oh, and your brake fluid looks low Phar Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DuoWing Posted May 4, 2009 Author Share Posted May 4, 2009 I finished scraping out all that coating on the passenger floor and nothing was rusted through. No little holes or anything. The rockers so far look pretty good, there was a little spot of bubbled paint that I poked at and then the paint sorta chipped away to reveal rust, but it looks pretty manageable. As for the floor pans the only part that I'm having a hard time getting at to clean up the rust is in the section of the floor pans where the seats bolt to. There's all the overlapping metal, and it's hard to get anything in under there to clean away. We got the car up on a lift and took a look around. I have a mechanic I know with me so he he's got more experience in looking for rust and he said he thought it definitely was a good body. Battery tray is actually surprisingly clean. There is surface rust around where the passenger inner fender meets the frame rail at the firewall, but that looks like where acid ate away the paint. Looks again like surface. That will get wire wheeled or sanded then painted. Clutch and Brake reservoirs are bone dry. I don't know if the previous owner had drained these or not. He claimed that everything was good, so I'm thinking he had drained it in preparation to put new lines. We found when we got under it that he had put stainless braided brake lines on the car. Mods coming to this car: Engine: 83' L28ET with 99209 miles on original motor Rebuilt P90 solid lifter head ARP head Studs Kameari MLS head gasket New Timing Chain kit N42 egr-less intake manifold 2.5" MSA Turbo Downpipe to 3" exhaust Drivetrain: Early 5-speed Fidanza Aluminum Flywheel ACT Street Performance Clutch Suspension: New Bushings Tokico Illumina Struts/Shocks Tokico Springs With more to come as I get to it. This car when I bought it was claimed to have a dead engine or an engine about to die only though it's claimed that it has 62k miles. I bet it's actually 162k. Anyway the previous owner said that it was a failed or clogged spraybar which stopped lubricating the cam and you can figure what happened from then on. Anyway this became apparent as to why this would have happened when I looked under the valve cover. The thing looks like it maybe had one oil change over the course of it's life. The cam, lifters, rockers, spraybar, chain, etc is covered in sludge. Looks like my firs 85' 300ZX. So it will be pretty awesome to go from driving a stock auto 280ZXT to a 76' 5-speed S30, with a lightened flywheel, larger exhaust, 10psi of boost without a boost leak, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DuoWing Posted September 2, 2009 Author Share Posted September 2, 2009 Well I need some pics, but this long project keeps getting sidetracked, but it's coming together. I finally have it running. The oil pump needs to be dropped and reinstalled as the timing is way off. Currently this is how the car sits: Suspension: Tokico Springs Tokico Shocks/Struts Energy Suspension Bushings all around New Ball Joints New Tie Rod Ends Brakes: Rear Stock Brakes 4-Piston Toyota Front Calipers with new rotors Stainless braided brake lines all around Engine: F54 Dished Piston Block P90 Polished Head A-Stamped Non-Turbo Cam 2-Row Crank pulley ARP Head Studs Polished Valve cover Shaved/Polished EGR-less N42 intake manifold Pallnet Fuel Rail Polished Timing Cover New Water Pump New Timing Chain Kit New Oil Pump New Oil Cooler setup with -8 AN Stainless braided lines New Starter New Alternator MSA 2.5" Turbo Downpipe Trans/Diff: Early Z 5-speed trans Fidanza 10.5lb Aluminum Flywheel ACT Street Performance Clutch New Slave cylinder Body Coming Shortly: 240Z Xenon Front Air dam MSA Front/Rear Fiberglass Bumpers More to come soon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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