inline6

Looks great! That silver looks more original to me than most. Do you know the paint brand that was used? And would you be able to get the code for that manfacturer's 901 silver?

Almost a month since my last post - lots more hours on weekends and some weeknights as well have been spent. My body work videos aren't very exciting. I just can't seem to get the motivation to set up a tri-pod and show work being done. Video editing will be a necessity in the near future. For now, I have these raw videos I uploaded. Before spraying: https://youtu.be/CGWh34rB_uE After primer has been applied: https://youtu.be/qJSDRZAOv-U It is astonishing how not flat the panels were before I switched over to a very straight and rigid sanding block. A huge number of hours later, I have sanded the entire car again, applied and sanded more body filler (premium, light weight), and applied seam sealer in most external body seams, and started in underneath seams as well.

I am restoring a 240z I purchased on Bringatrailer.com. Here is the auction I won. And I have been pretty active with updating a build thead here on this site. Lots of pics and detail showing the work involved. Regarding the plan for undercoat, I spent a lot of time looking for options and think I can do a decent job of replicating the original undercoat texture. Most truck bed coatings have too rough of a texture. Most undercoats have tar in them, which the original coating does not have. Most paints are too thin. I found a truck bed liner (Raptor Liner) that looks close, and I plan to experiment with replicating the settings and application technique used by the Gunman in this video. If you jump to 21:55, you can see a couple quick close ups of the finished texture. Still a bit course, but close. I also got a Raptor liner kit that came with a variable nozzle gun. This allows you to alter the spray and texture achieved, so I will experiment with that as well. I have also seen that some people buy a $10 harbor freight hvlp gun and drill it out to 2mm - this can produce an even finer finish. Depending on how my experiments go, I may buy that and experiment with it as well. I think I am getting close to the time to spray the undercoat. I want to put the last of the primer coats on the body so I don't have to tape up/cover the bottom of the car. I don't want to get primer over spray on the undercoat. However, I do want to get paint over spray on the undercoat - hopefully just like the factory! I will need to work with the painter to get that close, hopefully. Basically, it looks like that involves painting most of the wheel wells, front and rear. And, hitting the floor pretty good along the outer sides... and blending toward the center. I will attempt to replicate the over spray on the spare tire well too. Part of me wants to paint the bottom of the car like the Franklin Mint 240z, but I will try to be more faithful to the original look. Garrett

My 6/71 and 12/70 both have the same black "undercoat" which was liberally covered in overspray. The coating is quite tough. It is not tar based at all, but more like a truck bed liner material, believe it or not. The texture is not as rough as typical truck bed liners. The thickness is something like 1mm as a best guess. On impact areas of my car, I have been using 80 grit on a DA to feather edge, sanding to bare metal while feather edging. There is no primer on the bottom of the car. Just this stuff. Least amount of overspray is in the tunnel. All four wheel wells appear to be intentionally sprayed with color. Car is silver - hear are some pics: In some areas such as the back of the spare tire well, they really loaded it on causing runs... No primer underneath this stuff, at least on the bottom of the car. Front wheel wells may have primer under the "undercoat":

View Advert Need 240z Windshield - without blue tint I am looking for as high a quality and as nice a condition windshield as I can get my hands on for the car I am restoring. I am not interested in the new ones from Motorsport or the new one's on eBay - the ones with the blue strip of tint along the top border. Also, I am not interested in settling yet for one that has high miles and lots of "sand pitting". Anyone holding onto a really nice spare that when you really think about it, you aren't going to end up using after all? Willing to pay top dollar for the right one. Garrett Advertiser inline6 Date 06/20/2020 Price $500.00 Category Parts Wanted Year 1971 Model 240z

Thanks for that info! Now, I need to decide between going with stacking what I've got (and ending up at .150" thick), or maybe buying some regular Damplifier (.040" thick instead of .080" thick) and then covering that with the OEM stuff for the floor panels... That would put me around .110" thick.

Tonight I cut a matching piece for under the passenger side seat. And I experimented with stacking the OEM bitumen on top of a piece of scrap of the second skin material. I think this will work nicely for the tunnel and maybe the floor as well. First, I like that the aluminum foil gets completely covered, and that the OEM piece really looks like the original mat. Second, the thickness of the two stacked is "close" to my original mat that was on the tunnel. The original pieces vary in thickness a bit, but around .130" is close. The stacked pieces are right at about .150". Original scrap from the tunnel: Also, the OEM sheets are pretty large, so for the bigger pieces, I will be able to cover up some of the joints between sided by side pieces of the Second Skin Damplifier Pro. And one would have to assume that the damping will be even more with stacked pieces, but I don't care so much about that part. I don't have any pieces of scrap from the floors, so I don't know the original thickness there. Anyone know?

I am again reminded how how inefficient I am at doing high quality bodywork. I am now on my third "last" application of high build primer. I am obviously repeating this process too much. I don't know how many coats I have put on the body now. If I had to guess, I am at like... a coat of epoxy primer, a layer of body filler, (then a round of sanding), another coat of epoxy primer, more body filler, (another round of sanding), two full coats of high solids primer, (more sanding), spot primer in low areas along with another 2 full coats of primer on the body (5 coats in areas), (yet another round of sanding), and now, two more full coats of primer with certain low spots getting a total of 4 more coats. I have run out of my gallon of HS primer. A gallon without hardener costs $360. So... this is a very expensive way to build up low spots. Take my own advice. Apply as skim coat of bondo to the whole panel and then sand it down one time. Apply several coats of high build primer, and then guide coat and sand that to perfection. This will save you massive amounts of time and money. And again, I will certainly experiment with spray filler with the next time I do a full respray on an old project car. With all that said, I have learned a couple of things that might be helpful to others. First, I can now say from an experienced standpoint, don't use commercially available sanding blocks as they come straight out of the box. I have bought several, and most of them have needed to have their sanding surfaces "trued". Take a look at this Durablock, for example: Hard to see from those angles... but here it is on a long level: Durablocks are "pretty firm", but they are also easily bent with standard sanding pressure. So, you can imagine how flat your panel would not get when using this. With light pressure, it sand with more pressure at each end. Hard pressure will allow it to conform a bit to the panel's existing surface. Softer foams are even more problematic. They can be useful in various contours, but they should not be used on large flat areas, not if you are trying for perfection. For those areas, use rigid sanding blocks. A block of wood that has been sanded flat is a great choice! Switching gears a little bit, (I find it best to rest my shoulders, elbows, and hands after 17 hours of sanding time over two days of the weekend), it is about time to put the new sound deadening mat in. I have choices! Not sure how I will proceed just yet. I don't think I have yet shared the pics showing my template creation. When I bought the car, the tar mat was gone from the floor surfaces and almost half of the tunnel. I spent many hours marking off lines (based on paint lines and existing tar mat pieces). As the tar mats are applied from the factory before primer and paint, some of the pattern was easily determined by looking at where there was over spray and where there was not. Other than those two things, I stared at pics online to determine the shape in areas I could not decipher. The templates are made from masking paper and masking tape. Regarding sound deadening, I originally planned to put the OEM stuff that I was able to source, but it is only about .060" thick. The original bits I have (mostly from the tunnel) are more like .130" thick. So, I could try to double up (I have four sheets like the OEM one pictured, which should lay down flat and be usable after sitting in the sun for a bit. However, being that we are now 50 years later than the original build date, there is some stuff on the market now like Damplifier Pro. It is a butyl rubber product (no asphalt - and not bitumen) with a thick piece of aluminum foil on the top. It would be far better for sound dampening and for heat insulation. I used my template and cut one piece for under the driver seat. It is not glued in place yet however. I will think on how to proceed some more.

I found a bit more rust that needed to be taken care of. These "reinforcement" plates above the compression rod box are not sealed well from the factory. Water coming down the inner wheel well goes in between the plate in the inner fender and sits. This is the driver side. I cut away the rotten portion. In the first pic, the rectangular section in the middle that has a different sheen is a sectioned replacement. I just didn't show the work involved with that. The inner fender panel had a couple of tiny perforations from rust, so I replaced this small area. I then used a small hand held belt sander to clear away the surface rust from the remainder of the repair area and fabricated a new panel. Extra effort to clean all the sheet metal very well makes welding much easier and the outcome better. I *think* this is the last of the metal work! Holes drilled in replacement are the factory spot weld locations. Sanding of the high build primer is ongoing. Here are a couple of pics showing guide coat. I am just using black spray enamel. I'd say it is going well, but unfortunately, I will need to apply some more high build primer. I will get some pics up soon that show how the sanding is going. Maybe some video as well of sanding guide coat.

Finally time to epoxy prime the engine bay. I had a handful of holes that had to be filled. They were extra holes that were drilled in the bay for the A/C that was added to the car in 1971. After filling and grinding, I spot sanded some areas that had a touch of surface rust forming since I sandblasted the bay a long time ago. I taped up all of the plastic coatings on the wire clips. I will be painting them body color as was done by the factory, but no sense building up a layer of epoxy primer on them now. Very minor pitting in the battery tray. I elected not to remove and sand blast between the tray and the inner fender as it think it will last another 50 years after my work here is complete. ? Sand blasting effort was put into reaching all areas, even inside the front lower box section: Glasurit epoxy primer applied: I will be touching up just a couple of areas with bondo and then spraying with high build primer as is on the rest of the car. Before and After Videos:

Thanks for info and the link! It's not really critical that the belts be reproduction - to look like originals. I mean, I'd be willing to spend about $300 total to get them like new if I could - not $750. I checked out that link. I didn't see anything called "roadster". Are you referring to the standard 3 point type non-retractable in the "passenger car replacement" section?

I got the seat belts out and took some pics. These things are in rough shape. I'd like to get them restored. I came across another ClassicZcar forum thread in which a member had his 1972 belts (with retractors) rebuilt by a company called Snake Oyl, but it was like $750. ? I'm wondering about alternatives. For example, I might be able to send off the chrome parts to be replated... buy some seat belt webbing , or buy some late model seat belts from a salvage yard and reuse the webbing, refinish the black painted parts myself, etc. Pretty sure that an industrial type sewing machine would be needed. It took me a while, but I figured out how to get the buckle apart. Shoulder straps are missing plastic end caps (first pic). Lot 0506 - 6/1971: Luggage straps are in need of refreshing also (second and third pics):

For the work today, I transitioned to the bottom of the car again. I spent a good bit of time cleaning the floor and tunnel with Purple Power. The inside of the tunnel where the back of the transmission sits was coated with grease and dirt which had petrified. Fine steel wool, brass brushes, a scraper and rags were employed. Interestingly, you can see how the car had a very large amount of over spray from the factory on the bottom. Impact areas have required attention. I have been using hammer and dolly, and other tools to straighten the metal. In some places, I have had to use the stud welder (in heat shrinking mode) to shrink the metal. This removes "oil canning" areas that have stretched and been worked. Another observation of note: the factory undercoating, which is hard as a brick by the way, was applied on the bare uni-body. You can see where I sanded through it in the impact areas, and there is no primer underneath. So, the floor was sprayed first, then the car was primed with red primer, then grey primer. Apparently, they somehow protected the coating on the floor from the primer over spray, as there is none of that visible on the floor. But when the car was painted silver, the bottom of the car was fully exposed. The over spray when practically everywhere. Additionally, the inside of the front and rear fender wells were intentionally painted with silver. Cleaning up nicely. Any areas where impacts distorted the sheet metal are being straightened: Third pic above and first below are of a spot that took a pretty sharp impact. Lots of work has been done here to straighten and shrink the metal. Third pic shows well the over spray and texture: Still have a bit of work to do to fix that floor that was welded a bit out of alignment at the factory (first pic - top left corner). Second pic shows an impact that needs to be straighted (right side of pic). Third pic, I wonder why they used a brush and put black paint there? Any chipped areas a being sanded down - feather edged in prep for a touch of primer and the new coat of "bed liner": Note the amount of silver paint (second pic). Starting to feather driver side floor front. A couple of dings need tapping out (third pic). And looking here, it is obvious that the bottom of the rocker has holes from the factory which let water in as you drive. I will be sealing most of these up. with sealer. First pic is the front, driver side, second pic is the rear, driver side. The small round holes in the rear are from me drilling out the spot welds when I did the sheet metal repairs. I have been researching undercoats and truck bed coatings from time to time for months. I would like to find something that looks like the factory coating on the bottom of the car. I have watched a lot of Youtube videos and have a game plan. I plan to use Raptor liner. I will buy a $20 HVLP gun from Harbor Freight, and drill the hole in the cap to 2.0 mm (increase from 1.4 mm) and then experiment with thinner and pressure to try to get a finish which looks like the factory stuff in the pics.

Nice. Thanks for sharing.

Restored the tachometer today. First pic shows cleans len/cover. Note the haze from tiny scratches over 50 years. Background is my dirty Honda Accord. Middle pic is after buffing. Quite the difference. Third pic is half on and half off the lens. You can see the distortion in one of the leaves (just off center left) on the pavement where the edge of the lens is: The hazard switch was missing almost all of the white paint in the imprint. So, I sprayed a bit of white enamel into the spray paint cap and used my finger to load up the switch (after cleaning thoroughly). I use enamel thinner. Lacquer thinner is too aggressive and will attack the plastic if you use more than a whisper. After the white enamel dried, I used a low lint paper towel with just a couple of drops of enamel thinner and wiped the top surface lightly and repeatedly, until the only paint that remained was that in the recesses. You have to go slow. If the paint in the grooves gets thinner on it, it gets tacky and will start to pull out with the wiping action. Also, the tachometer had some of the white paint (inside the back housing) cracking and coming loose, so I removed all that was loose with 320 and re-sprayed white inside to restore the factory appearance. The tachometer after reassembly. Note clear plastic tape put in original locations (It seals some holes and keeps out dust).

Really enjoy seeing you making progress. I was thinking about getting one of these to do the prep work on the hardware before sending it off. Any thoughts on using a tumbler vs. hand prepping with wire wheel? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mG4h-TU92-A I need to start prepping everything so I can send everything to be plated, but only have a 4.5 grinder (on which I can put a wire wheel attachment) - not a buffer on a stand with a wire wheel.

I took apart the the speedometer gauge assembly to freshen it up. While apart, I reset the odometer to all zeros. I took a reference pic showing what was there before setting to zero, though that is likely of no worth. The car as purchased didn't have documentation of mileage. All of the repair bills that came with the car indicate 130,047 miles on it. While apart, I cleaned the gauge face lightly with Windex (had some light oil on it around the needle anchor point), and cleaned the housing with a bit of soap and water. I took the working gauge out of the metal backing, and cleaned inside where the white paint is (for back lighting). The white paint was in good condition so I did not respray. And, I buffed the clear lens/cover with a foam pad and Meguiar's 7 glaze. That stuff is awesome for polishing clear plastic. Use a power buffer and have some patience; you can remove all of the little scratches that were put into the face of the lens/dust cover over time. My buffer has 6 speeds, and I can lock the trigger on. I used setting 1, put the buffer on the work bench, pad side up, and hold it steady with one hand while working the lens across the pad with the other. Reference shot, and after "rolling back the odometer". Since this is a full restoration, and mileage is unknown, I think it makes more sense to set the odometer to zero as the car will begin a new life. Next up is the Tach.

Just paint. I am sandblasting most parts, and putting a quality primer on before painting with an enamel. As far as I can tell, there is not primer from the factory on any of the parts being discussed here: suspension, pedal box, steering column, heater box, motor mounts, transmission mounts, etc.

A few more reference pics, this time of a motor mount and driveshaft: The pedal box and steering column are quite glossy. However, the heater box, and fan, are not - they are semi gloss. And then there is the brushed on paint on various parts of the interior like around the kick panels, the rails that the seats bolt to, around the quarter windows, etc. which is very dull. The suspension is quite possibly a unique level of gloss vs. the others. I will be looking for some reference shots online before I paint the suspension of the car I am restoring. The following pics are of actually the same paint. The pedal box is before adding any flattening agent. The steering shaft and pedals are after adding 10% flattening agent and letting the paint sit for bit. I found that adding agent didn't work instantly. It took a certain amount of time (like 30 min) before effect was very noticeable. And then I made the mix 20% flattening agent and again had to wait. But there was quite the transformation: Same percentage - used on these panels inside front fenders also: It is a nice satin. Good for some areas, no doubt, but not for the mustache bar; I do not think. Hopefully, my experimentation here is all of that I needed to do. I plan on doing the suspension with the 10% after I let it sit for 30 min. I might do 5% wait, spray, then 10%, wait and test to confirm, and spray. Luckily, this stuff doesn't require a catalyst, so it can sit and sit. I also have a bunch of reference pictures from the $300,000+ 240Z that was on Bring a Trailer; I suppose putting a few here wouldn't be a bad thing, right?

Work continues on the dash. I restored the center gauges a long time ago, but show only in a one pic a bit of what I did. Basically, the black "block out" pieces lose their coating of black paint over time (it cracks and falls into the gauge), and the lenses get dull with micro scratches on the outside surface. So, I take the phillips head screws off to remove the face. The face comes off and has the bezels or "block out" pieces attached. I break the melted plastic from the plastic posts that holds the bezels on (it is often crumbling off anyway). Then I glass bead the bezels and repaint (white on inside and semi flat black on the outside). I polish the lenses with suitable paint polish and a buffer. Then I put the bezels and lenses back in the front piece and re-melt the plastic posts (using a propane torch heated 3/32" drill bit, which displaces melted plastic from the solid post up and over the edge around the circumference of the holes in the bezel - see pics) to secure the bezels and lenses nice and tight. I top off remelted plastic with some suitable glue blobs for extra measure. And then re-assemble the front portion of the gauge to the dusted off gauge assemblies, and they are done. Next up will be the speedo and the tach.

My car is going to look very similar to yours when it is done! I am planning on going with the Konig rewind wheels, as I can't find any Panasports any more. I wonder if they closed down the business? My C8's on my track car are lovely.

Your car looks super nice! Is that an actual BRE front spoiler, or a different brand? I love the silver on my track car, but it is the silver used for 1987 Toyota's - (Supra). I am trying to go authentic restoration (within reason) with this car, thus the extra effort to at least get the look of the paint right (both color and metallic appearance).

Another metal replacement project tackled yesterday - replacing the metal that had been cut for speakers by a previous owner. This is the luggage riser area: Though pictured is a die grinder with a cutting wheel attachment, most of the cutting was done with a 4.5 inch DeWalt hand grinder with a cutting wheel. That cuts way faster... I picked up that knowledge from watching various Youtube channels. It seems to be the way to go, but it can be harder to control the cuts for sure. For more precision, I switch to the die grinder when needed. Pretty much have been using the die grinder and cut off wheels for decades! But, I am not sure about the extent of harm to the lungs from using these cut off wheels (they slowly turn to dust as you use them). Definitely eliminate the possibility - wear a particle mask! Leaning in through the door and twisting to do all the work related (cutting, filing, fitting and tack welding), made my lower back sore, so I am giving that a rest from continuing with the remaining work on these for a bit. I have started on the dash. I pulled the Vintage Dashes reproduction out of the box and mounted it on the cleaned metal frame. I power washed the frame, dried it, and then touched up areas that were spray painted black from the factory, such as the areas that can be seen when looking at the defrost vents. As body work starts to come to an end, I will have to organize the work to be done elsewhere. There are many different aspects of work to schedule and do, so some dedicated time spent on planning (writing out) seems very prudent at this point. Suspension, transmission, differential, the rest of the engine build, interior, electrical... lots of things to consider.

Is your car silver too? What brand of paint did you use? Glasurit (what I have used for undercoats) doesn't seem to have a paint mix code for 1971 Datsun silver.

It is really past time for an update... 35 pics of body work follow - a lot of work to resize and upload and format ?. As always, clicking on the images gives you a large version. Passenger side door (upside down - front door gap to fender is the vertical gap) - cleaned of primer, and touch up weld to fill gap (center pic): Fiberglass headlamp housings had not been primed yet - they were just sanded down. You can see the original primers that were used, first red, then dark grey. Following shows after guide coat and sanding of the two coats of high build primer. I broke through in lots of places. The panels were not nearly as straight as they needed to be. I switched to a higher quality, fine body filler for the areas that needed it, like the passenger door: Again, and I can't stress enough, if you want to spend less time and less aggravation on body work, spread your filler across large expanses of the panel (even the whole panel) instead of a little bit here and a little bit there like I always think I can get away with. Left rear quarter panel, one of the straightest panels on the car, needed some filler in places at this "late" stage of the game. Imperfections of literally a thousandth of an inch can be seen when looking at a glossy panel. Using proper sanding technique is also very important to achieving a panel without waves. 3+ more coats of high build primer applied over the weekend. Places that I knew were not 100% right got an extra 1-2 coats, for a max of 5 in certain areas. I am hopeful that guide coat and sanding process will get me where I need to be, but I suspect that the car will still require another round of primer and sanding after this one is worked down. Body lines are kept really sharp at this point in the game. They can be softened and made consistent later. The body line above the rear fender appears to be a bit light to me, indicating the area is a touch low. We'll see how things take shape (or don't) as the next round of guide coat and sanding progresses in this area. Damaged rear edge of rear quarter panel looks much better now: Door gaps (to fender, to quarter, to rocker, etc.) and alignments of all panels have to be done before you get to this high build primer stage. You can't be yanking and tweaking metal now. I am letting the primer dry for a week so shrinkage can occur. I may leave it for two weeks, and then do the guide coat and sanding process. Plenty of other work that can be done in the meantime.