Christine's 280z Project

[Kuro]

This rust is worrisome. Pull the front fender and check to be sure the upper frame horns are not rusted through.

(multiquote is not working for me)

 

Thanks, I'll check it tonight... although I'm not really sure what the upper frame horns are.... I'll look to see the extent of it though.

[Kuro]

The Auxiliary Air Regulator mounts on the two threaded holes of the aluminum piece. It will be a convenient thing to have working in Illinois. The valve with the hose at the end of it is the EGR piece.

 

We removed it entirely, I haven't noticed any difference yet. I'm looking to clean up the engine bay, so we've been checking to see what else we can remove and make adjustments for without issue.

[Kuro]

mine actually came exactly how your looks, so whatever you have taken off is exactly what was taken off of mine by the previous owner... im sorry i can be a little more helpful...

 

Oh that's ok... I left it on for now, I think it's better to have it on anyways so the air dam isn't flapping around all over the place.

[JZ33]

that is a good point haha

[Kuro]

Here's a couple more pics, I haven't cleaned it yet but well you know....

 

First another look at the before:

 

 

 

And now the after. I'm sure there's more tucking I can do, but it certainly looks so much better now!

 

 

 

 

 

Here's the FPR mounted on the firewall, Aaron....

[RB26powered74zcar]

WOW!! that's a ton of improvement.... I like!

[Kuro]

Oh boy, I've forgotten about this thread.... pics on the way....

[Kuro]

Most of these pictures are going to be out of order, but I just wanted to get them on... There's many more, I just need more time!

 

Body work

 

So here’s a couple of pics of what the 280z looks like with the park bench bumper removed. As you can see there’s some big holes left behind and it’s quite ugly. Although people do tend to leave it like that and that’s perfectly fine – I think it gives it some character. But in the end, I want the body hole-less.

 

Before:

 

 

 

In progress:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Checking the spoiler

She had been painted at least once after the original paint (over the original paint).

 

 

So far everything is still pointing to her being originally black, at least from most of the car that I’ve inspected (I’m cautious to verify that she was an original black).

 

 

There was some lower body work done at some point also, probably due to rust. Leo will be taking a look as he works to let me know what he’s finding.

 

 

Here's what she has under the paint - it hasn't been taken down past the surface rust yet, but you can see where he did take it down near the very rear.

 

 

 

 

Coilovers

 

Here's the Stance coilovers with the adapters (one of the camber plates is pictured next to them...)

 

 

 

Seats

 

old seat and new refurbed seat

 

Here's the old passenger side (which wasn't ripped, the passenger side looks like Freddy got to it) and the new 240z seat cover/foam on the drivers side (on the right). The small wrinkles will smooth out eventually, but I do like them either way.

 

 

 

 

[Kuro]

Some pics when I was having the coilovers put on:

 

 

 

cut down strut housing

 

Fronts

 

Complete on Spindle

 

 

Rears

[Kuro]

 

Got to do something about my exhaust

 

 

Here's some pics of the body holes, rust etc when I took it in to the body shop

 

Pic of the rear panel

 

Pic of the holes along the side

 

Pics of the rusties

 

 

Side mirrors (useless)

 

Antenna hole

 

Trim panels

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I painted them with Plastic Paint and they now look brand new!

some pics as I was painting… (there's still some touchups I need to do)

 

 

 

 

[Kuro]

Carpet

There's some fat mat under there now to help insulate the interior from the outside.

 

Sorry bout the crappy pics, I still need to glue down the rear (behind the seats), but not rushing on that until I'm ready to put the center console back in.

 

It's dirty but hey, still got work going on in there!

 

 

 

[Kuro]

Dash (is done now, but this was when I was doing it)

 

Ok just started experimenting with the repair of the dashboard....

 

Wish me luck! I have no idea how it's going to turn out, but I have a good feeling about it.....

 

Before (I've got some more pics somewhere, I'll post them up later on:

 

 

 

This is the Great Stuff foam ( I went a little overboard, but it just means more sanding later)

 

 

 

This is just after cutting off some of the excess foam:

 

 

 

Next step is to sand sand sand down all the excess and then put a coat of bumper repair over the crack (and feather sand it out after).

 

I've got some SEM texture paint coming soon to cover it after it's sanded smooth......

 

Ok well I did some scraping (with a razor - works well) and some sanding. What I didn't realize when I "thought" I was done was that the edges of the cracks were raised up significantly and if I left it like that, the finished product would be VERY wavy. Not good.

 

I took my razor and scored some of the black plastic, probably a good 1/4 to 1/2 outside of the original crack to lower the profile a bit and make it more even with the rest of the dash. It's not perfect but it's much better then it was.

 

I will have to work a little more on the area in between the gauges and just above them on the vertical dip to the gauges.

 

I still have a good feeling about this right now.... here's the pics:

 

 

 

 

 

Well here's the progress on this project:

 

So I'm learning a lot on what NOT to do when working with this bumper repair epoxy. The biggest thing is to put it on smoothly, cause it's a ***** to sand. Here's some sanding progress and then another skimming of the bumper repair stuff over the top. I didn't tackle the gauge pods very well yet, I just got the edges knocked off and put another layer on.

 

The pics seem to show a hump on the new layer of repair stuff but trust me it's just a reflection. It is pretty smooth.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I was just about done sanding finally.

 

 

Not quite done, but getting there….

 

 

What a pain.

 

 

And then…. another pain surfaced.

As I was sanding down this section I heard a clicking sound as I went over the valley between the gauges. I realized what was happening.

That area was weak from being dried out and had actually lifted away from the original foam. I pressed on it a little, it was ok, I pressed on it a bit harder and it broke through. Damn, here I go again.

I pressed on it so that all the weak spots cracked off and then decided I’d better check the other areas a little more.

 

 

 

 

Then there were two. :sadface:

 

 

Now I’m tired, I hope I didn’t put this **** on too sloppily because of it. I think I did. Oh well, we’ll see how it goes.

 

Second coat was a little neater then the last….

 

 

 

 

Almost done..it’s not perfect but it looks 1000000x better then it did.

 

I finally removed the dash top from the frame and noticed that only one crack made it all the way through the foam underneath. My “Great Stuff†fix came through the bottom and acted like a nail head underneath. WIN!! I may add some more great stuff underneath for good measure.

Here it is after I cleaned it with mineral spirits (after the complete sanding while it was on the frame still).

 

 

 

Here is the first spray with the texture stuff

 

 

 

Here it is after about 3 coats of texture spray.

 

 

 

 

Looks pretty good, although the texture spray sometimes “spit†at the dash and I ended up with some blobs here and there. Nothing I can’t live with!

 

 

This is after sanding it all down with 1000 grit. Basically just to knock off the rough areas.

 

 

Liking it!

 

 

Need to do a little more sanding here….

 

 

I didn’t do the paint yet. I wanted to make sure it sits for a day before I do paint, so probably tonight it will be done!

 

I ended up using rubberized undercoating over the texture stuff. It came out better then I thought!

 

Here it is installed (just to drive it to a shop, lol). Better pics to come later, once I get my car back!

 

Still needs the metal trim near the windshield and a few more bolts in but it survived the bolting into the dash frame, fumbling around in the car with it, attaching hoses, and hands all over it. Seems to be sturdy enough now. More pics later, here’s some crappy cell phone pics.

 

 

 

 

 

[Kuro]

I just wanted to post a quick closer look at one of the gauges (speedometer) with 4 bulbs and 2 green covers

 

 

 

Here’s the bulbs side by side, the bigger one in the back is the 4watt, I just realized that I said 3.5 for the stocks, but they are actually 3.4watt. I just wanted to make that correction.

Oh and for the record, don’t EVER try to do this while you’re pumped up on caffeine and haven’t eaten. It took about 10 min to get the last four little screws back in! LOLOLOLOLOLOL!!!!!!!

[Kuro]

So here’s a couple of pics of what the 280z looks like with the park bench bumper removed. As you can see there’s some big holes left behind and it’s quite ugly. Although people do tend to leave it like that and that’s perfectly fine – I think it gives it some character. But in the end, I want the body hole-less.

 

Before:

 

 

 

In progress:

 

 

 

 

 

[Kuro]

 

Some more shots from when we stopped in at the body shop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kuro]

 

[Kuro]

A pic of us trying to see what the spoiler will look like (but the bolts won't let us really see)

 

[Kuro]

She had been painted at least once after the original paint (over the original paint).

So far everything is still pointing to her being originally black, at least from most of the car that I’ve inspected (I’m cautious to verify that she was an original black).

 

There was some lower body work done at some point also, probably due to rust. Leo will be taking a look as he works to let me know what he’s finding.

Here's what she has under the paint - it hasn't been taken down past the surface rust yet, but you can see where he did take it down near the very rear.

 

 

 

 

[Kuro]

Another pic, more progress.

 

[Kuro]