Well I wanted to get back to posting here so this will keep me busy posting .

Years ago I had a friend that had this car sitting at an apartment and it was about ready to get towed off . I offered him all my money in my PayPal account ( 800$) even though I didn’t have a place for it . It was sell it or lose it and he was just glad it didn’t get hauled off .

My garage(workshop) wasn’t even done yet but there was a z waiting . This was 2017 . A year later I had surgery on my back so it sat around for a while .

It was a complete car with a blown engine . It sat outside for years

To be continued

It seems I’m having trouble finding more pictures of the car before I dismantled it . All the exterior panels were in decent shape . Someone went crazy with the red primer and painted everything including inside the engine compartment. The roof had some rust holes that turned out to be worst case scenario . In fact the worst rust found on the car was the roof including its substructure. I thought I could do a skin job , but there wasn’t much to weld too. My only option was to put on a whole different roof . The job was daunting and I tried to get a friend who ran a body shop to help me . Meanwhile the car pushed to side while I looked for another roof and I took on other projects.

I did brace the car and cut the roof off . I separated it from the factory location at the rear quarter but decided my approach for the from would be to go for the middle of the A pillars . I realized after searching for a long time that I was on my own to come up with a method . Couldn’t find any documentation for anyone else doing something this evasive . Lots of stuff regarding chopping roofs - which is basically what I’m doing .

Yup, and those pillars are a bit more complex than they look from the outside. I've cut apart a few Z's and the lower center section isn't as strong as one would hope - I'm sure you're careful in it's support with the roof skeleton removed. I'll be interested in how you reconnect the center sheet metal in the pillars.

There are an awful lot of people who painted over that Yellow...

A young friend of mine like me back in the 80s cut the roof out of "hand me down from daddy" '75. It started folding up when he drove it. Had some angle iron welded on the bottom to firm it up. Got stuck on a speed bump at the local cruising mall. I'll never forget that, funny to me but he wasn't laughing.😬

Beautiful Z that was the fastest car I'd ever driven. Kind of a copper brown exterior with light brown interior. Then I drove another friends dad's Regal turbo. Holly guacamole! Life changing car.

4 hours ago, siteunseen said:

Had some angle iron welded on the bottom to firm it up. Got stuck on a speed bump at the local cruising mall.

Hahahahahahaha!!!!! ☺️ That's awesome!

Fortunately the frame rails -front and back- and inner and outer rockers are completely solid . When I built the rotisserie I added extra support up front by attaching to the sway bar points .

Cutting the roof has advantages as far as storage . Makes for a thin profile on its side .

It was hard to find a roof that someone was willing to part with or wasn’t already rusted . Being in the Midwest didn’t help . Finally made a connection with a guy in CA and his 70 had gotten totaled in a front end wreck . It was a PITA but we managed the logistics and he was willing to help ship it out . And it was the right color - lol .

Whether it was the best approach or not , I decided to slug/sleeve the A pillars . I felt a sizable sleeve -3” would give plenty of weld points and help keep things aligned . I had kept lots of A pillars material from where I cut these roofs up . The complex part is that the pillars taper ever so slightly . Also tough is making square cuts to match one roof to the other roof pillars . Another obstacle was I realized the drivers A pillar on my replacement roof was bent back -likely from the accident the car was in . It was a hard hit- shoving the LS2 back into the firewall . Windshield was still in the car he said .

Getting the height right on the A pillars was going to be the big challenge . In the first pic of this thread you’ll see I built a support out of angle iron for the roof to sit on . I used my Z to measure from the seat bolt hole to roof line . This support also helped to have something to set the roof on while I made adjustments. Thank god these roofs are light.

Well here is a look of the innards of a A pillar on a Z. The way it was designed made plugging it a challenge to say the least . I had plenty of A pillar material laying around so I made some plugs to slide down inside the A pillar . I think they were less than 3” . I wanted to be able to plug weld and butt weld from all sides . I peeled back the skin on the inside of the pillar . That allowed access to weld all the way around the plug .

On the back side of the roof I made a plate to help join/bridge the new roof to the rear quarter . Of course the ideal scenario was to have as small of a gap as possible . I thought I nailed it the first time - but I made the error of relying on measurements . I welded it partially and got the fit too tight and couldn’t fit a windshield . I had to undo welds and clean things up . I should have attempted to install the windshield and then welded . In the end I ended with a .250” gap which was acceptable to me . It sucked having to grind out mistakes - but I was determined .

At the rear I had the quarter windows to help me line things up . Since they have 4 screws and they share with the roof and quarter - I just had to make them line up . The problem was the roof was a bit sprung and I couldn’t pull it in place without some heavy equipment. My friend of the bodyshop told me he had these big turnbuckles I could try . They were the ticket .