Patcon

That is a very good idea. I like it, very clever... C

I wouldn't cut any of that out unless it is starting to get pinholes in it from rust. Clean it up so you can see what you've got. Treat the rust and seal it down. Assemble and drive. Most of that looks very minor compared to the early Z cars and many of them still get driven.

I think the hammer and dolly set I am using is a Harbor Freight $30 or Northern tool would also have reasonable tools. You really need the dolly to roll the metal around it and prevent stretching. You can hammer right against the dolly to flatten and hammer "off dolly" to shape. We have about the same weather as you; its like living in Seattle recently... C

Looking forward to it C

Double post

He does beautiful work. I have all the more appreciation for it after having done some of that myself. Charles

How do I add that as a picture and not a link? C

Added this as a reference, am leaning towards this layout 432R is beautiful; but - Classic Zcar Club Photo Gallery

The reality is that a Ford car probably has a Mazda transmission along with a lot of other foreign parts. The platform for the car was probably developed with another auto maker and many products that say "Made in USA" have parts that were produced overseas. There was a study a while back and I believe it was Toyota that had the claim to the most American made car from their domestic plant because they had the highest percentage of parts made in America. Even if you buy from a domestic company it may not be owned by Americans so the money could end up off shore anyway. It is very hard to know because companies don't advertise this sort of information. Like Walter said many products are not even produced in the US any more. Many dirty manufacturing processes have gone over seas because the EPA, OSHA and DEHC have higher compliance costs than China which has a horrible history as an industrial polluter. It is the reality of the today, give it 20 years and it will change again. Nothing is static... Charles

Have you had trouble shaping the floors with a body hammer and dolly? We have the same floors but I didn't find it overly hard... It is kind of loud though. Remember more lighter blows is better than fewer heavier blows. I have never used heat to shape panels like that. C

Did you prime yet? Where are you at with your paint? Pictures? C

Thanks, Jim That picture was exactly what I was looking for. The black is only on one side of the radiator support, correct? I had thought about keeping the wheel wells black because I thought they might look better than "dirty yellow". I don't know? C

I about have the Z ready to paint. The car color will be "Lemon Ice" which is a very bright yellow. I was going to paint the under side of the car black and the wheel wells black. I was also planning on blacking out behind the grill. My question is where do I paint yellow and where do I stop the yellow. Do I paint the whole front clip yellow and just black out the wheel wells and the radiator support? Do I paint the underside of the front rails black instead. What would you paint yellow on the inside? All of it? Some of it? None of it? I plan on using a lot of sound mat so I don't know what makes the most sense. Every thing will be epoxied primed to get started... Thanks, Charles

What was the answer to Beerman's ???'s how much ? how often? If your rear drums are dry and your pads are not very thin. then I would suspect the booster. The master cylinder can be pulled away from the booster. If the end of the master cylinder is corroded it has probably been leaking. The only way other way to check is to open up the booster or take it off the car and see if any brake fluid will drain out the vacuum port. C

$6 not a bad price C

Do you prefer one car over the other? Do you drive them both or just one or almost none at all? As I get older I look at all the Z's I have and feel like I will not have the energy or free cash to keep them all road worthy and put miles on them. I think as time goes on I will reduce my fleet to what I am willing to keep up with. Charles

I was looking trying to find out what well restored cars go for. I am all for the cars going for good money. I have seen very few sell in that price range recently, 5 years ago many car makes were higher but many have since retraced a lot of that.

I would love to help but I struggle to find enough time to keep my business running and my family happy. That's why it takes me 6 years or longer to do a restoration. I think if you find a good welder it will be easier. Also flapper disks sometimes work better to knock down high welds than hard discs. They are a little harder to aim though. Also if I need to knock down a lot of really tall welds I use a die grinder with a 3" wheel on it. Just work it back and forth. When you get most of it off it will be rough looking just use a hard disc or a flapper wheel to smooth it out. Glad to help it makes all of my personal frustration worth while... C

FWIW One thing to remember is that here in the deep south as opposed to the south west or the high country is cars will rust even if they are in the barn. If the paint has already been compromised then the humidity in the air is enough to cause the car to look like that. The bigger problem is the mold in the interior and the rusting inide the body cavities than the surface rust on the outside of the car. Charles

It could be the prep is an issue. They don't like rusty metal. I have a 2" 90d air grinder that I run down both side of the metal quickly to expose clean metal. I don't ever wiper my work down, that me be a character flaw. I don't really know what is the best product to wipe it down with and then huff as I burn it and I also have had no issues as long as the metal is shiny. That weld looks a lot better than the others and the metal had some heat in it to discolor like that. Did you start at the bottom and work up? It looks hotter at the top. They still look a little "ropey" I like to see my welds lay down a little smoother on the sides. Some times it my wire speed sometimes its my heat. I know that if the welder you are using has no gas option you are going to be frustrated. I couldn't believe how much easier it is to weld with a better and larger machine. C

You are in an expensive part of the country for this kind of work. Shop rates here in SC are $50 an hour or so. I don't know about there. The parts are $700 or so at least and the I would think a good shop could do it in 40 hours or so. To be safe I would figure $3k. That is a WILD guess. The car would need to be very special to me for that. I have a 56 VW that my dad bought new in Germany, now that he is gone it is at the top of my collection and I will spare no expense to get it right. Does this car mean enough to you to justify that kind of expense? 1978 280z and 2002 5.3 engine 1975 Nissan 280Z both of these could be candidates and I did a 10 second search on craiglist in Phoenix. All of the rubber will be bad on the cars from the heat, but the metal will be good. All the metal on your car is bad but the rubber is probably not. For less than $2000 (car + shipping) you could have either of those cars shipped to your door. That's a lot less than you can fix your car for. You have to decide how attached to your current car you are... Also you could by a car from the south west and get the body and interior right before you start moving parts over. Charles

I noticed that several of the cars had items that were not correct. They all look pretty clean, but from what I have seen most clean Z's don't trade in these price ranges. The 280zx even more so...

What is the duty cycle for the welder you are using at the current setting? If I was trying to figure that out I would try more heat, unless I started to blow holes in it. I had a century 100 and it made welds like that. It had like a 3% duty cycle so by the time you got going you needed to wait for it to cool. If you didn't wait you got welds like that. My buddy caulled them "drunk monkey" welds. I bought a Hobart 210 last year for my xmas present. Night and day. I have always used shield gas. You could get a small bottle fairly cheap. When I weld in patches like this I don't try to make a bead. I make a weld that take 2 seconds or so maybe a 1/4" in diameter to 1/2" long. I have to adjust my speed to make sure I get a "bacon sizzling" sort of sound. I then spot weld every 8-10" apart. Cool things as I go. Then go back by the first spot weld and make another weld right by it. When its all done I grind it down if I have any big holes I MIG them up. If they are just pinholes, after I prime I smear some tiger hair fiberglass over the seam and smooth it down sand it off. It makes the seam water tight. I have the paintucation CD's and that's the way he demonstrates. My problem has benn that on some areas of my car the factory metal is so thin I blow holes in it even at my lowest settings. C

Those rails are pretty bad. The area at the sway bar probably won't take much of a patch because for it to have a rusted a hole the metal had to get very thin so all the metal that is left is also very thin. So when you go to weld in your patch you will get lots of burn through and the patch will only be a string as the metal its welded to. You really need complete front rails and bad dog rails under the floors. C

I was surfing around on Hemmings and came across these. Some are interesting some are really ambitious to say the least 1972 Datsun 240Z Coupe offered for auction | Hemmings Motor News 1971 Datsun 240Z for sale | Hemmings Motor News 1973 Datsun 240Z for sale | Hemmings Motor News 1971 Datsun 240Z for sale | Hemmings Motor News good luck on this one, I'm not sure the same in a 240z would be worth this? 1980 Datsun 280ZX for sale | Hemmings Motor News