240ZBUILTBYME 1971 240z HS-001063 Project Sheena

[Racer X]

7 hours ago, 240ZBUILTBYME said:

After completing the chassis jig I decided to hold off on rust repairs until the car is blasted. The next step is to build my rotisserie. 

What I thought would be a relatively simple task turned out to be a nightmare. And upon trying to build the bumper mounts I realized my front end is a dog’s breakfast...

Now I knew the car had been in a front end collision but I didn’t realize it was this bad until I really started studying it. 

Notice the vertical panel kinks outward at the bottom where the front bumper mounts are, it should be straight up vertically, and flat. The radius of the bend should be round (roughly between 55mm radius rear bumper hole 40mm front hole). Mine is almost a 90 degree angle. 

so my dilemma was how to mount the rotisserie if my bumper mounts were more crooked than a politician. 

I used heat and a shrinking hammer to try and shrink the metal in the curved area and bring the radius back to pull the bumper mounts back into line. It worked reasonably well, to repair the area properly I will need to remove the bumper mount reinforcement panel where the jam nuts are. This is the after photo.

 

better but a long way to go to get to what it should look like... untainted photo below.

The same was done on the other side though the LHS is much worse. 

I wire wheeled the area to get a better look at the real damage, found some damage under some filler. 

when it had its collision the impact has sheared the areaaround the edge of the bumper mount reinforcement. 

LHS front of wheel arch is severely deformed. Air Ducting channel is crushed and misshapen. 

Area between wheel arch and radiator support has been pushed together, should be a much bigger gap. Rippling in sheet metal.

The more you look at it the worse it gets...

I am now contemplating transplanting the front nose of a untainted car onto mine due to the amount of damage that has been sustained. Anybody have any thoughts on this? As opposed to trying to pull everything out and repair it? 

Despite the significant blow to my morale I carried on and ended up starting the front mounts for the rotisserie.

I stuffed up and made the horizontal pieces too short.... they don’t clear the nose. What a fool. I had changed my design halfway through and did not account for the larger tube slipping over the vertical length.

I can make it work, but not ideal....

still so much to learn....

Some nice pictures Ryan, looks like you're moving forward.

Small trouble at this end though.

I selected the dark theme for the forum that Mike made available recently. The text in your post is the came color as the background, so I can't read it. All other posts in this thread are OK, the text a contrasting color to the background.

Did you choose a font color for this post? Or copy the text from a text editor?

 

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By the way, if you have access to a donor car with a good front section, it might be a good idea to replace the structure from the firewall forward. You're replacing the frame rails anyway, right?

Separate the structure where it is spot welded at the firewall, and save trouble splicing midway.

Also, check that the firewall wasn't deformed when the other damage occurred.

 

[240ZBUILTBYME]

3 hours ago, ConVerTT said:

Been there Ryan...

My thoughts - cut it out and replace it while you are still on the jig.  Check out my old thread - start from the bottom of page 5...

Look at the bright side...your metal fab skills are about to go through the roof 😉

https://www.classiczcars.com/forums/topic/61483-240z-fabbing-new-front-rails/?&page=5#comments

 

Kent I could read your thread 1000 times and still be amazed!

Yes I think I need to do something similar, but instead of being really talented and making everything I’ll cheat and get donor panels.

you said your old thread, do you have a new one? I’ve been wondering what stage your car is at.

ryan 

[240ZBUILTBYME]

3 hours ago, Patcon said:

One of my thoughts is good donors in Aussie might be hard to come by.

They're hard to come by where I'm at much less there...

Yes they are non existent anymore, however I am in luck. My Z specialist has a wrecked car with near a perfect front nose on it. The photo I used above to show what the stock area should look like is the same car I got my cleanish roof skin off. Here’s more photos 

Problem is the radiator support is butchered and the bottom of the wheel arch panel has been removed. But very useable for the repairs I need to do.

Edited April 20, 2021 by 240ZBUILTBYME

[240ZBUILTBYME]

3 hours ago, Racer X said:

Did you choose a font color for this post? Or copy the text from a text editor?

That’s a negative racer I didn’t touch anything as far as I’m aware... I did copy the text from my page on the Aussie forum.... could that be why? 

3 hours ago, Racer X said:

By the way, if you have access to a donor car with a good front section, it might be a good idea to replace the structure from the firewall forward. You're replacing the frame rails anyway, right?

the thought of doing that scares the bejeezus out of me racer! I’d be much more comfortable leaving the main structure intact and patching what needs replacing. I will check the firewall but nothing that I’ve seen so far. I am indeed replacing the frame rails. 

[Racer X]

7 hours ago, 240ZBUILTBYME said:

That’s a negative racer I didn’t touch anything as far as I’m aware... I did copy the text from my page on the Aussie forum.... could that be why? 
 

That would likely be it.

7 hours ago, 240ZBUILTBYME said:

the thought of doing that scares the bejeezus out of me racer! I’d be much more comfortable leaving the main structure intact and patching what needs replacing. I will check the firewall but nothing that I’ve seen so far. I am indeed replacing the frame rails. 

You mentioned the front of your car is higher on one side. How much?

If you keep the original structure, you will need to determine how much out of position it is, and then figure out how to pull it back where it belongs. A frame machine is how body shops do it, anchoring the chassis down and forcing everything back where it should be.

The engine bay is a large box. After sustaining a hit that deformed that box it is no longer square. Getting it back into shape is crucial for getting the bodywork to fit well again.

 

 

[240ZBUILTBYME]

On 4/20/2021 at 5:30 PM, Racer X said:

You mentioned the front of your car is higher on one side. How much?

Racer I ended up buying a self leveling laser level, have checked most structural points on the body and found the car is level. I was using a bubble level and it’s difficult to get an accurate reading. The photos of my laser leveling are in this thread:

 

[240ZBUILTBYME]

I decided to plough on with the rotisserie build as I won’t be attempting repair on my front end until I have the car blasted and up to replacing frame rails/removing radiator support. 

 Progress is coming along nicely.

I realized that if I flipped my mounts and drilled new holes I wouldn’t have to cut and reweld. So now the mounts clear the nose. I love humanities proneness to be lazy.

notched pipe and mocked up horizontal joiner piece. 

welded up brackets and jam nuts. My welding is slowly getting better, soon I’ll be able boast about stacking dimes 😂

mocked up front base, notched upright for the pipe to fit into snuggly.

Next on the list:

- tack everything together and add extra supports to the base

-install castors

- do a mock install from jig to rotisserie, My goal is to be able to transfer the shell between jig and rotisserie with minimal fuss and effort 

-all going well, weld up front frame and base and move onto  the rear.

[Patcon]

It's just as well your front supports extend upward. The balance point for the car is on that side of the bolt holes if I remember correctly

[240ZBUILTBYME]

1 hour ago, Patcon said:

It's just as well your front supports extend upward. The balance point for the car is on that side of the bolt holes if I remember correctly

I’m basing my design loosely off Kent’s @ConVerTT and trying to go on what he said in his thread which is front mount is 3 inches below the axis of rotation and rear is 5 inches below. 

though not exactly sure where he took that measurement from 

[240ZBUILTBYME]

Nearly knocked off the front section of the rotisserie this week, so close! 

I keep stressing that my progress is too slow. But I try to remind my self it’s one tiny task at a time, every little job complete is one little job less on the list. The old how do you eat an elephant thing....

Base and pivot point welded up and complete, castors installed. 

Next on the list:

-weld in supports on the base and pivot 

- due to the damage to the bumper mount section on my car I have decided to add additional tie in points, I will be using the front tow points, however the bolts had snapped on all the points so I will need to tackle that before hand

- move onto the rear of the rotisserie 

ryan

 

 

Edited May 18, 2021 by 240ZBUILTBYME

[240ZBUILTBYME]

also picked up a set of shiny new bumpers from bumper automobile out of Vietnam. My experience using them detailed in this thread: 

Very impressed with the quality.

[dutchzcarguy]

8 hours ago, 240ZBUILTBYME said:

The old how do you eat an elephant thing....

Haha.. I guess bit by bit is the answer? i never heard of that expression!

Ryan, could you do a experiment with the bumpers..?  As they are stainless i expect then to go a bit dull after some time.. so as they are not going anywhere, you could do a test.. wrap them up again in the paper and put them in plastic so it's airtight. And leave one part, the rear mid part out..  wash it with ordinary auto wash and dry it and leave it at the air. Then we can see after a year the difference in shiny-ness, i for one would be very curious what the difference will be!  (store the set in one and the same room offcourse)

I think that there will be quite a difference..  Would be a nice test!