SHOTIME

I'd wet sand it. You won't believe how much a truly flat surface will improve the shine. You don't need to clear coat it. Before you start, get one of those paint depth gages and measure it. Most cheap paint jobs are 1 coat thick. You have to be very careful sanding if the paint is thin, because even after you sand, you still need to compound and polish.

DOT 5 is silicone and won't absorb water like regular fluid does. Normal brake fluid should be changed every 2 years or so to prevent rust in the lines due to water.

I think the main problem is lack of entrepeneiurship. With out that you're left with giant corporations, which are essentially pyramid scheems. One person at the top making tens of millions, then your execs making millions, top level management making mid hundred thousands, lower management low hundred thousands, and then down to the majority making $30-50k. In a pyramind like that, only a certain number have the potential to make a decent income. The source of the cause is back in school where we are told if we don't go to college and get a job we're worthless. There was not one mention of working for yourself, yet everybody I know that is financially independant is self employed.

Well...yea...the rich own everything. 95% of that list started their own business. Tom Gallisano started Paychex with $3000, and is now a billionare. If you work for somebody, you're making money for them. The solution is to start your own business. You're aren't a slave to your employer, you choose to work there. For my age I make pretty good money, yet I still work for somebody. I get 50% commission, so I "make" double what shows up on my check. In the spring I'm starting my own business and from what I figure, should be around 6 figures, high 5 for income. So I'm on my way to being "rich". Most people who are rich, deserve to be so. What they do for fun in your mind is the total opposite of what is actuality. Most work 12 or more hours a day, and when they aren't at work, they're thinking about work. I've planned 10 years, since I was 15, on starting my business. I've worked jobs just to see how things were run, my job I have now I got just to make contacts for accounts. If you don't like rich people, move to Cuba. It's not a rich persons fault you aren't rich. Making money is easy, it's finding out how to do it that's hard.

I've finally built up the confidence to paint my own car. A guy at work has a HVLP gun for sale that he said would be good for priming. My question is, what's the difference in a priming gun and a painting gun?

http://www.eastwoodcompany.com/itemdy00.asp?T1=31015&Dep_Key1= that's the flanger you need. The tool that "restored" my car before me just welded pieces of sheetmetal over the rusted parts and put 1in of bondo on top. :stupid: I thought my car looked a little big compaired to other Zs.

I was going to start mine this weekend but I got to thinking that I need both floor pans (and then some) and the crossmember mounts rebuilt. I don't want to cut them out and chance the body distoring while it's in the air like that. There's only 2 months left to work before winter so I may have to wait until spring. What kind of welder did you use? A guy down my street has every welder you can imagine and I was going to use one of those, but for $200 I'll buy my own.

65-70 Mustangs, my next project 60's Ferarris 60's Porsches Custom Hot Rods New 911 S2000 05 Mustang.....I'll wait to see how much Ford bastardizes this car from concept to production before I make it final. New cars don't do much for me.

I've got quite a bit of rust behind my fenders/rockers/quarters, hell its everywhere. For the spots you can't see, like behind the fenders, would it be ok to use fiberglass to fix the panels instead of welding in a patch? (Not the bondo fiberglass, actual fiberglass.) Also, I'm replacing everything with fiberglass. All other panels are bolt on but how would I go about bonding fiberglass quarterpanels to the metal? I guess I'm just trying to get out of spending $500+ for a welder......

Anybody want to give the steps involved? I've got 1/2 in of Bondo at least just on the right side. I haven't touched the left. There's no way these can be saved. I just want the steps to remove the panel, no replace it. After I take it off I have to decide whether to keep the car or not. The front frame rails are rusted and need replacing already. If the back looks like the front I think I'll be searching for a Mustang or Porsche for a resto and giving up on the Z.

I started making a list of suspension pieces I need and need some help with sway bar size. I never drove my car before I started tearing it apart so I have no base line. I plan on doing some weekend racing with the car and this is by no means a daily driver. (75% street, 25% track) I want the ride fairly stiff and handling on the loose side. What's the best swaybar sizes for this set up? I'm also putting on strut bars on the front and rear if that makes any difference.

I remember a site that let you pick the head, bore, head gasket thickness, etc. and told you the ratio. I found this- http://www.geocities.com/row4navy/compression.html It's not what I was talking about but it might help.

Bumpers are coming off. If a car is like a woman it has to have a nice rear end. I can't justify spending $800 or so to get new ones. This is going to be just a weekend car so I'm not concerned with the legality of anything. I have a good lawyer and one of those PBA stickers on all my cars that get you out of all but a DWI. I'd doubt they'd even notice, cops around here are about as sharp as a dull spoon.

I was working on getting my diff. out this weekend so I kept looking at the back of the car. I thought to myself it would look a lot better if the bumper was left off and the mounts patched up. Does anybody have any pics of this and/or the front bumper removed?

What drives older car prices is the seller. These cars are no longer made, so the ones that have them control the market. If everybody that had a restored Z wouldn't sell it for less than $25k, then they dont sell for less than $25k. The problem is there is enough people willing to part with their cars for less, thus driving down value. Why pay $25k for yours, when joe blow is selling his for $15k? If somebody wants a certain car bad, they will pay for it. I've wanted a Boss 302 for years and am shooting myself for not buying one 4 years ago for $15k. Now they're hitting $34k. By the time I buy one, I expect to pay $45k. The moral is, hold on to your cars. With the way the classic car market is, these may be with $30k or more in a short period of time.

If it sounds to good to be true.............. I have literally tried every type of wax there is. In terms of gloss and longevity, Collinite is the best. It's a little hard to take off but it's worth it. (www.dccarcare.com) Of course waxing is useless unless the paint in clean. So before you wax, you should use clay and then follow with a polish. Also when waxing, use a damp sponge. It will put on a thinner coat. Thickness doesn't matter because you're filling up microscopic blemishes. A can of wax should last 80+ waxings. I go by this- wash- at least once a week wax- once a month clay, polish- every 4 months buff- once a year The oldest car I have, aside from my 240 which in in 1000 pieces, is a 97 that looks brand new. Regardless of brand of wax, unless you prep/maintain your vehicle, nothing will look good.

Victoria British has hardened seats/guides. They're cheap themselves, but its putting them in that's expensive. Because everything has to be taken apart, you might as well rebuild the head.

You have to replace/refinish your rockers also. Each cam puts a wear pattern in the contact patch and running just a different cam can really screw everything up. If you're one of the "while everythings already apart" type, you might want to replace your valve seals depending on how long they've been in there. The fine tuning can be confusing if you've never done it before and you can really screw the whole engine up if everything isn't precise. I'm not taking a chance on this and after I put everything together, I'm sending it out to be adjusted.

You can have the whole thing done with a high speed buffer in 10 min if you know what you're doing. I start with 600 grit then 1200 and finally 2000. You have to use at least 2 more polishes of increasingly finer grit after you've compounded to get everything 100% smooth. I usually buff a car 5 times and don't leave any swirl/buffer marks. I can't imagine getting out wet sanding by hand. If course, I do this for a living, if this is your first time you can really screw your paint up.

I copied this from my rebuild spreadsheet- Gasket set $79.95 Piston Ring Set, Std $39.95 Main Bearing, Std $49.95 Rod Bearing, Std $39.95 Oil seal, timing cover $4.95 Oil seal, rear main $8.95 These are just parts. Since I made a list of the parts, I've decided to add new rod and main bolts but haven't entered them yet so I dont have a price for those. Add this to the price of tanking/machining and assembly if you can't do it yourself. All shops charge different for machining but I expect to pay about $1000 total for the short block.

I'm getting a Griffin aluminum radiator with electric fans along with a Ford Racing oil cooler that has a fan mounted on it. It all depends what you're doing to it. I'm going to race mine a little which is the reason for the oil cooler, but for daily driving just an aluminum should cool things down enough. I've used Red Line watter wetter before in my daily drivers and didn't notice much difference, but I was also using the stock gauge instead of a more precise one.

What a tool. In a car that old you can easily find more things wrong that have to be fixed when doing a repair. He even states he knows nothing about cars. I work at a dealership and we have morons come in like that ll the time. They know nothing, yet they know nothing is wrong with their car.....:stupid: That's also a far stretch saying the car is worth $7k with the visible rust.

I'd air hammer that SOB. Otherwise, do as stated.

Spend the money upfront and buy one in decent shape. They should go for around $5-7k for one that doesn't need a resto. But it all depends on what you want out of it. If it's going to be heavily modded, don't buy "the best", most likely you'll replace parts that don't need replacing. I got a little hosed on mine and paid $2500 and I'm doing a full resto. I should have bought one in worse shape because I'm replacing everything anyway. Anyway, I'm glad to see someone think of a Z as a small sports car instead of a Civic.

zcarcreations.com had a set of front/rear tube suspension a few months ago and now they're gone? I had some spare $ laying around and was going to buy them, only to find them not listed on the site. Anybody know what happened or where I can get a set?