wheee!

Okay. What kind of witchcraft is this?? How the heck do I remove the u joints from the prop shaft?

I got rear ended last Thursday... inattentive driver hit my stopped vehicle at about 70kmh. Damages will be over $10000 for sure. Luckily I only have a sore back, nothing broken. It sucks to be in accidents.

I too have a problem with labels. I called my thread a restoration when clearly it is not... but what did I know back then!? There are truly very few real restorations being done due to the cost and detail it takes. Most are modded to some degree or another. Obviously, HybridZ is an example of the place to go for extreme customization. But a sleeper car that looks factory but is tastefully modded can be called a resto-mod I assume. Where is the line? Any single non factory option part is now a Mod? Maybe... I hope your resto-mod goes according to your desires and gives you the car YOU want in the end. Good Luck!

Then I'm not sure where this is going if you intend to restore the car. Without a good secure work space with tools and a rotisserie, you will be very limited with what you can "restore" on the ground and with the car in as as sad a shape as it is. My advice would be to first research and plan what it is you want to do. Then start assembling what you will need to accomplish that goal. Buying fender mirrors for a car that is mile away from ready for the road is a bit premature. Assess your mechanical situation and determine if the power plant will need a refresh or replacement. Determine if the frame (and yes, all the hidden areas) are salvageable enough because they WILL have rust. Make sure the bones are good first. See if you need floor pans and frame rails for example etc. Then plan for a place to do the work. Without that, this project will never succeed and will only ever be a patch job. Once you have all of the basics in place, start amassing your hoard of parts that you will need. Keep a budget and stick to it. Revise it monthly if needed but make sure you can afford to do what needs to be done. Too many of these cars get started as restorations and end up a disassembled pile of rust in a small shed somewhere.... Most of all, check in here all the time for tricks and tips to keep you going! We all want to see your car properly restored and on the road!

I am interested to know your level of commitment to this project... Is this a quick touch-up and drive it situation, or are you going to seriously restore or mod the car? A lot of our feedback will be irrelevant if you are not planning a serious restoration etc. Not judging, just establishing a baseline. No point in going into long winded details if you are planning on bolting back together a rusty, un-restored car. You want to drive it until it dies, then that's okay too! Some people do that as well, and restore it later on after they've driven it a bit. I started out like that, thinking I could drive it a while as is, then quickly discovered the only route for me was a complete refresh.

Just for you Chas

Give me hour an two... watching the Olympics at the moment!

(Madly digging out old David Byrne albums...) watch out, you might get what you’re after...! I love this forum, warts and all. Filter through the chaff and there is a ton of wheat in these threads.

Wait a second... that’s the 73’s parking spot!

Not for us Canadians...

Thought that house burnt down?

Probably Keiths IPA.... but I like your subtle humour cap'n!

Probably sold by now if it is...

After a lot of soul searching and hand wringing I came to a conclusion.... I won’t be plating any hardware. My car has so many mods on it already that came with stainless fittings, I will probably end up with most of my hardware in stainless. Almost everything else is getting powder coated. The stand up blast cabinet I have is doing a great job so far. Powder coating is beautiful and durable too. It also does a great job on springs. Remains flexible.

Death by a thousand restorations... worked on the battery bracket tonight. It was previously powder coated so it took a long time to strip and prep. It looks great but that was 3 hours of work tonight!

drool... I love these cars. My family is from England and I had an uncle with one. Beautiful! He left the XKE in England but brought his 64 MK II back to play with. It is currently 60% restored and sitting in a garage since he passed away. Maybe one day I will finish it for him.

I think I’ll leave the hubs mounted for the bearing install. I have a bearing and race seating kit with an impact adapter. Should work fine.

Been working on getting the stubs ready for new bearings. Ordered the bearings last week. These look pretty nice! New studs to go in too.

Wow. Nice. I wish I could find NOS door cards. Darn 75-76 unicorn panels.

That sucks! Glad you're okay!

Nice work Jeff! Did you support the lower rad support while jacking the nacelles up? I would be concerned you may have changed the geometry of the lower rad support.

Looks about right.... my floor pans required extensive mods too. You at least avoided the "bump" for the catalytic converter in the floor. http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/topic/50908-1976-280z-restoration-project/?do=findComment&comment=489753

My bad! Your thread is a great resource too! So many good resto threads, I reference them all on a regular basis or sometimes just to give me motivation to get things done!

Shhhhh.... keep him focused on making affordable dashes! I can wait for a glovebox longer than a dash...!

...blush... all of my tricks I stole from the masters before me on this forum....