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HybridZ

The Start of a Long Journey


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Well, here it is. My first car! what a choice, right!? I just picked it up a few days ago and have lots to do till I get my liscence in a month. Its a 74 260z and all I can say is I have a lot of work to do, though I do think I got a deal for 1400 bucks :2thumbs:. First things first, I took the seats out to look at the severity of the rust on the passenger side. This is the only patch of rust I have discovered so far. Then just today, I took off the body kit because it ABSOLUTELY had to go. I have it for sale in Seattle-Tacoma craigslist if you're interested. the car looks 100% better without it.. to tell you the truth, I bet my car is gonna lose about 15 pounds from the amount of bondo.. I even found a glob about the size of a baby's fist!!! check it out: :huh:

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here is the rust holes..

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and the hideous body kit before and after..

 

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and the bondo scrapin' to free the skirts. :bonk:

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Much more to come!!!! :2thumbs:

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That passenger floor pan looks like mine! Your drivers side - is it salvageable? IMHO,that front bumper/spoiler combo looks pretty good. I am considering getting one because it might be more cost effective that fooling with the rusted out parking light valances and then fooling with a real bumper and mounts.

Floor pans and floor rails are almost a given in most of these cars.

 

Where I would be concerned is the engine frame rails. Take a look at my pics in my signature and see if yours are as bad as mine. The stiffeners rust out pretty bad. With my limited fabrication skills, I am going to make the rear units and the sheetmetal inner fender. But, not the triangular shaped stiffners that are above the cross member. They are beyond my skill level. So, I am going to contact folks that are cutting up California type parts cars for them.

 

Oh yeah, welcome to the red-headed, bastard, stepchild 260Z club!

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That passenger floor pan looks like mine! Your drivers side - is it salvageable? IMHO,that front bumper/spoiler combo looks pretty good. I am considering getting one because it might be more cost effective that fooling with the rusted out parking light valances and then fooling with a real bumper and mounts.

Floor pans and floor rails are almost a given in most of these cars.

 

Where I would be concerned is the engine frame rails. Take a look at my pics in my signature and see if yours are as bad as mine. The stiffeners rust out pretty bad. With my limited fabrication skills, I am going to make the rear units and the sheetmetal inner fender. But, not the triangular shaped stiffners that are above the cross member. They are beyond my skill level. So, I am going to contact folks that are cutting up California type parts cars for them.

 

Oh yeah, welcome to the red-headed, bastard, stepchild 260Z club!

 

yes, my driver's side is actually in very good shape strangely. there is maybe one small hole near one of the rubber plugs. Other than that, I am going to have to purchase a new frame rail for the passenger side. It's the only way. <_<

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Nice ride. General thought do people look under cars anymore before they buy them?

 

yes, we did but we were looking for a project car and this fit the criteria perfect. My dad is a very skilled fabricator so its all good...

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Nice ride. General thought do people look under cars anymore before they buy them?

 

Please just cut me a break, I am kicking myself for it. Because of my time and stuff and the other guys I only got to look at the car in the dark. I did get under it and look, it was all smoothed out and undercoated so it looked nice. Found out today the passenger fender on the bottom was WELDED! to the car. I got it from HLS30Turbo on here.

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my friend you are doing a good job removing that horrible kit!! you will definitely learn a lot repairing the car, and probably some good father/son time haha. congrats on the purchase! an awesome first car, just be sure you get a tetanus shot! lol

 

thanks a lot sileightygx! This is gonna be a great learning experience! just like my older brother when they did his vw bus.

Check it out>>

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  • 1 month later...

Finally got back to working on this thing again.. its been months! well, two but thats mighty too long! Here's an update:

 

 

My car ready for Kemo..

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Our new toy which has gotten many use in the past week ;)

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and here's the new donor 75' 280

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And what we did to it.. ;)

 

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And the saga continues!!

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Edited by Zhunter
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Good luck on your Z. My first car, still sitting in my garage stripped down, is also a Z, only it's a 200 dollar beast.

I hope your project gets on the road faster than my will, its been the most agonizing thing I've ever experienced, not being able to do work on my car because I don't have the funds.

Hopefully I can bug my dad enough to loan me the money for my floors.

Anyways, I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

If you need any help finding parts, I know all the sites, just let me know.

 

Good job getting rid of that atrocious body kit. I don't know why I used to think those kits looked good.

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i like the front air dam from the kit, but thats about it as far as that kit goes. keep on truckin, im pretty sure mines getting the grinder and flat black paint job here soon to fix some micky mouse rust issues on the body panels.

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i like the front air dam from the kit, but thats about it as far as that kit goes. keep on truckin, im pretty sure mines getting the grinder and flat black paint job here soon to fix some micky mouse rust issues on the body panels.

 

I like the way the front air dam looks, from the front. From the side it it much too large, I think anyways. The rear just throws me off and confuses me. I don't know whats up with it, but it just bugs the crap out of me.

 

And good luck with the grinder. Hopefully you don't run into any too unpleasant discoveries. As you are bound to find something. People seem to enjoy bondo way too much. It was over an inch thick in some areas on my car. Like on one of the fenders. It was nice looking with primer on it. Got through that, found about a half inch thick coat of that stuff covering almost the whole thing. Only dent i could find was about the size of a quarter. Just doesn't make sense to me.

 

Alright no more of my unrelated rant. Good luck man.

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I'm amazed at how excessive people are with bondo sometimes........ like they have stock in the company or something

 

Me too. They think that you have to have like a barrier between what they are smoothing. There is a weld line where the new quarters were put on my car. Not 1/2 inch of bondo worthy.

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Well here's the weekend's work:

 

First, we salvaged pieces from the 280 rail, and refabbed the 260 rails after removing the cancer. Lookin' purdy!

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Then, we made a convertible!!!

 

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then put our recycled roof to good use..

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Floors is the last stretch!!! stay tuned for the battery box, and a rollcage!

Edited by Zhunter
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  • 1 year later...

Wow. It has been TOO long since I updated this thing. OVER HALF A YEAR!!! In that time, I was able to get the car running and driving for the very first day of my sophomore year. Couldn't be happier. Minus the fact that neither of the gauges worked, a hole was still in the driver's side floor, AND that the straight pipe was enough to make any deaf person want to run...

 

In these many months of nothingness, I have acquired many goodies for my sweet little S30.

 

SO FAR, I have:

 

*MSA type 1 air dam

*BRE spoiler

*A good coat of black primer (since nobody enjoys a tri-tone mix of blue, red, and black)

*Vintage Corbeau racing seats out of my dad's mini race car

*All that stereo stuff that us meddelin' kids seem to enjoy

*MSA flares

*Wheel spacers

*And most recently, WHEELS AND TIRES!! Purchased Wheels in March. Tires just yesterday. Still waiting to mount.

Edited by RB26powered74zcar
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