1977 280z

[HDAtom]

Thanks @240zadmire, I assumed it was riveted in and didn't even look close. 

[wheee!]

28 minutes ago, HDAtom said:

Thanks for the tip, the stripper definitely evaporated. 

I am just trying to run my sander on the compressor. My sander says I need about 3 cfm @90 to run it. I think I am able to pickup the dewalt 4.5 gallon 235 psi tank, 5 cfm@90 for a reasonable price from someone online. Do you think this will be able to run it? I have also been looking at buying additional 10 gallon 150 psi tank from HD for $30 (on sale if anyone else is interested) and making that into additional tank space. Although I think with the low PSI, it won't help that much and will need to be post regulator anyways. I am also ok with buying a 15-30 gallon one and selling it after the process, although with this smaller one, it would work with our tight garage setup. This would not be used for painting.

Any air tool that runs for more than a few minutes will benefit from a large reservoir tank and a decent CFM rating. I run a sandblaster as wellas a paint booth on my 60 gallon 19 cfm unit. It barely handles it. A sander will burn out a 5 gallon tank in shor torder. I even have a 20 gallon unit that I use mainly for an air gun to clean work areas. Go big and sell it when you're done if you have to.

2 minutes ago, HDAtom said:

Thanks @240zadmire, I assumed it was riveted in and didn't even look close. 

It should be riveted but they drill out easily. Same as the door plate.

[240zadmire]

Look like you've dismantled the car completely.  I hope you bags, tags and take load of photos.  I just went through the same process you did.

I bought the car July 2017 and start dismantled it sometime November.

The budget was few thousands ... yeah right.  I stop counting the receipts and even fear of looking at the bank statement after a short while ? .

The time frame was set for 3 years as I have young kids and can only work on 95% night time and some weekends/holidays.

first 2 years primary hunting for parts and tools and do body work.

Everything else was grease elbow, just like you.

I consider myself extremely lucky thanks to this forum that help me bring back the car alive (still hasn't done the smog test yet)

even did the paint job, not great ... will need to repaint at some point.

 

fast forward 3 years later, minute the smog, I came out on time.  But definitely budget is just a number as you've read other response.

btw, I kept my car as stock as it can be.  Matter of fact, no exotic hot cam, over bore ... that's for the professional.  I just want a fun, derivable car and possibly a daily, if possible.  Keep your head clear and focus!

 

good luck and keep at it.  You'll get it done.

 

[HDAtom]

Sadly the previous owner did most of the interior stripping. So that is just a mess, I assume everything there is broken or missing. Only thing I took out is the dash and heat exchanger (I think, ac thing??), everything else was in boxes when I bought it. I am not looking forward to interior and the cars interior probably won't be ready for a year, although this will be easy to wait for parts and just keep going on it.

I used a chest mounted GoPro for the entire teardown. I am hoping for about 75% useable footage for putting it back together. I figured 100,000,000 random photos better than 100 good ones that always seem to miss something. Although I do have some photos. 

Luckily no smog checks will be required for this car in WA (as far as I know lol) so I will be lucky on that.

Any tips for the paint job?? I am quite nervous about spending $1600 at Sherwin Williams on paint to do a crappy paint job haha. I have a high quality paint gun and paint, so nothing to blame but myself....

[wheee!]

3 minutes ago, HDAtom said:

Any tips for the paint job?? I am quite nervous about spending $1600 at Sherwin Williams on paint to do a crappy paint job haha. I have a high quality paint gun and paint, so nothing to blame but myself....

Cleanliness is imperative. Clean your awork area and vehicle meticulously and also wear a cleansuit (cheap paper overalls) and full face mask. If you have the space and resources, turn your garage into a downderaft paintbooth (see my thread).  Take your time and prep the vehicle with quality fillers and primers. Use a seal coat before paint. If possible, use waterbased paint. Less toxic and less fumes. Take a night class on painting or get some experience at a local shop if you can. Practice on test panels. Watch mix ratios and temperatures closely! Spray your paint in the early spring or late fall when there are less bugs. Winter is great if you have a heated shelter/paint booth.

[240zadmire]

Merely share my experience....

send your family to relative if you’ve kids. Heck, send the whole neighbor away ?

read instructions, set timer of each layer you put on.  Absolutely take your time on the painting.  The primer and base coat laid down beautifully.  Poorly planned and executed on the metallic coat ; ahhhhhhh still hurt till today.   I’m not blaming my kids for my distraction... that’s what I would do next time.

[HDAtom]

Thanks for the tips Mark I will definitely try and implement those.

The guy from SW said he would print off instructions for me for every part and I intend to follow them down to a T.

9/17 Update:

I am not sure if I will keep doing daily updates, I feel like I am just going to put too much junk on here, we will have to see. Maybe someone would like to see the daily struggles of this and how slow progress really is...

Anyways I was only able to sand for about an hour as I could not make any noise for a while (event near my house), but here is what I got done.

The dewalt sander shown in this first image has been absolutely insane, this thing just throws the paint right off and has a vacuum attachment, though it doesn't honestly work that well and there is a lot of dust created. I would say it catches maybe 40%... 

I was able to get the stripper on the other half of the bay and covered it this time, I feel this will work much much better



I was able to strip a bunch off the other side, but didn't spend too much time on this, there were other parts I was excited to work on... Some areas were bubbly, but most is not, hopefully covering will fix this for the other half. I used a brass scrubber thing on my drill to get that stuff off. I will need to sand out the scratches later so this may not be the best method...

I got a bunch of sanding done on the roof and WOW, the roof is soooo thin, is this normal? Can this thing even kind of support its weight upside down? A pillar bar over windshield? I will figure it out later.

 

 I found this weird stuff on the roof, it is quite hard to getup and it looks like it is raised, not sure what it is. ?‍♀️ hopefully I am not using too low of a grit for this...

 

It looks like the car was repainted at some point... I was really confused on why some of it was orange and some of it was red. The colors have been so weird. The passenger fender was orange on top and red on the side. I feel like it could also been from exposure...

 

These rusty spots down here also dont look too bad, which is very exciting.

[gwri8]

I stripped mine with Aircraft Stripper (that's the brand name). I also used a razor scraper and It took off 4 layers of paint with no problem.  Mask , gloves,eye protection and long long sleeves are required. Just be sure to get all the stripper out of the seams.

[240zadmire]

25 minutes ago, gwri8 said:

I stripped mine with Aircraft Stripper (that's the brand name). I also used a razor scraper and It took off 4 layers of paint with no problem.  Mask , gloves,eye protection and long long sleeves are required. Just be sure to get all the stripper out of the seams.

I used the same brand name as well.

 

isn’t that there is a phosphorous layer to protect the metal? Sanding or wire brushing might defeat the purpose.  I use the aircraft stripper to remove the paint and I left bare metal for 2 years without any surface rust.  Of course it’s Southern California weather.  I parked in garage with bedding sheet on. 

[grannyknot]

10 hours ago, 240zadmire said:

I used the same brand name as well.

 

isn’t that there is a phosphorous layer to protect the metal? Sanding or wire brushing might defeat the purpose.  I use the aircraft stripper to remove the paint and I left bare metal for 2 years without any surface rust.  Of course it’s Southern California weather.  I parked in garage with bedding sheet on. 

We all wish we had Socal weather,  in the winter I can get away with a couple months for bare metal, in the summer, a couple of days.

[Patcon]

Aircraft stripper has been reformulated. Doesnt work as good as the old stuff

[siteunseen]

The best stripper I've ever used was made by a local chemical company. It was their "floor stripper" for basketball/gym court floors. When you opened it it had built up pressure and would "poof" out. Super strong stuff that worked on everything. Some things we hit with a pressure washer to get down to the bare. You need gloves and a respirator for the good stuff. I hope you find what works but you won't at a chain store. Call your local chemical company.

Edited September 18, 2020 by siteunseen