dspillman

Ready to get busy blocking…

Talk about Japanese land mines!! Inside rear wheel wells…..Rookie z plug welder back in 1969….. I’ll have to remove this original feature for safety sake. Thick dealer installed under coating hid these gotchas……

Gavin, I would think the hood bumpers may narrow down the date more so then the inspection clips, I remember January build vin 1222 had the tiny shot glass hood stops/bumpers and the plastic clips. I realize the hood stops could be swapped out for the later stops, as my vin 841 was at some point. I maybe wrong concerning the hood "bumpers", other markets may have differed in the use of these.

Gav240z… Appears to have the plastic clips, and bolt through rubber hood stops.. putting it in January-ish time span

Looking at the rear glass appears to be replaced……is dated January 71. I owned hls30-1222 years ago, plastic clips, and vented hats.

Early fenders inspection lid tabs are slightly different with metal versus plastic clips. I’m sure most know of this, but I simply had not noticed that and other differences in “early 69-72”? Fenders, nos fenders will have to be made right, but definitely another 3-4 steps to take for each fender to be right….”look” right.

Progress finally being made on 51, up on rotisserie with new rails, floors, front clip, rear valance, dog legs, sections roof, and roof rail replaced, repaired. 3 weeks in with a couple of retired body men, that are definitely up to the task!!

Looks like I’ve found a nice doner peice for the left side inner fender extension? Where both bumper and headlight buckets attach. Will continue to for now avoiding the entire front clip replacement

Before abandoning the original metal work, I’m heating/dolly the metal to try and get back to original shape, first run through, smoothed out virtually all of the “marks” in the inner fender….. fortunately, I have access to a nice “tip of inner fender, “? The section that is adjacent to headlight “scoop”.

Looking at this chart, that may or may not be applicable, it would seem a properly butt welded/ground smooth joint retains 65-75% of its original strength??

I’m definitely open to all opinions about slicing the hat off, and re attaching….. pictures are of a parts car, with the severed tower head.

I’m looking at all the welds to try and duplicate the original appearance and alignment of the entire structure.

Quick update for hls30-00051 Having been back and forth with what to replace front radiator core support with… late/early.. spot weld imitating factory look, etc…… I’m fortunate to have the 4th option of just replacing front clip from another early car that was supposed to be a race car back in 2006/7….. too beautiful of rails and front clip, never hit or modified. Transfer front clip, swap out the tops of strut towers. Compared vin 51 to vin 3400 something I can’t really see any difference in rails etc……, Doing a practice run today , Cutting out one “top” should be a clean experience….

Having not removed this section from a car before, was somewhat cautious, assuming there was a center support of sorts. I was surprised the strength of this 3 sided "box".... Regular bits for this, I have several different brands of spot weld bits ordered....

Removed this reinforcement panel today,off a parts car to determine how difficult to replace on hls30-00051 It shouldn’t have taken 2 hours, but it did…… not for certain of the interior attachment points….. and they were non……. Bits don’t stay sharp long with this endeavor…..

Thinking of drilling out spot welds, or cut outside the tower lip?

Practice run…..

drill out and replace the whole tower? buncha spot welds, that would be a pain to get all to look right...

If 3496 didn’t have these blame camber plates, I could put the whole front clip on…

It would be possible,but the “tow bracket holes” would bother me….Oct 69 car with obvious Oct 71 peices, but in all likelihood will have many other items/details not 100% dated correct….I maybe over thinking this……. Correct seatbelts, tail lights, seat covers can be easily “fixed” with correct over time…. That front crossmember isn’t as easily swapped out in the future. But that all being said…..I’d bet less then 5% of z guys in the “states” would know what purpose those two holes were used for from 10/71-10/72

I do have an aborted early 4/70 race car with really nice front cradle I may have to sacrifice… N-3200 should work well on the 71 Fairlady 240z…. Hoping it doesn’t really need..

Pulled out my spare parts that I thought were perfect to realize both nos parts are incorrect for this “70” car. Has clips for 432 air/box, and mounting holes for tow hook for the HH cars……. May have to sacrifice another front end of another early car …. Or maybe just swap I don’t think I can save the front drivers side next to headlight bucket…… Would these later peices cause deductions in a judged event?