Datsun 280Z Restoration (Mother's Day update!) -Shaved Bumper

[Schema]

Super Mini update:

Haven’t got much done, nowadays when i have the extra time, been trying to get my fat ass to the gym, but making progress.

Fuzzy Pic. Rail welded in, smoothed, then the tack welds you see are little pin holes left over from grinding.

The seam was right on the bend, smoothed and shiny

Not sure what this piece was called, but it was rusted

Made a cardboard paper template and tack welded the pieces for fitting

Ran out of gas, Next week I’ll weld it in, shape it up, and smooth it out.

In other news, less rust on the 240sx!!

[King]

jeez…u got a lot of work to do in a couple weeks before summer starts…

[Schema]

4/21 update:

Had my neighbors come with me to the shop tonight to use the last of the argon before I refill it tomorrow:

I’ve decided to leave the rear of the car alone for a bit as I’m going to scrap the two rear quarter panels and but new replacements, so,on to the front of the car.

Started cutting out all the rust spots. Make cardboard templates, welded in new 18ga metal. Tacked everything in then ran out of gas,but I’ll have it refilled tomorrow morning.

(opposite view from above)

The top of the car was brought to bare metal, painted with etching primer. Quarter was brought down to bare metal, then decided to scrap it, new ones cost $70ish, not worth the fabbing time.

Trial fit

Neighbor Eric at the grinding wheel

Neighbor Greg exposing any potential rust (good so far on the driver side!) he also did all the cutting of the body

Passanger side rust tacked in

Driver side tacked in

Ran out of gas at this point. The following days I’ll grind down the welds and finish them up. The next thing to tackle is the lower rocker panels. During this I’m going to start taking measurements and planning for completely cutting out the frame rails and welding in nice,thick square tubing. I’m going to be pretty cautious about this part, because if I can screw up badly, this is where it can happen. Stay tuned!

[TrueBlue]

Lookin’ good so far. If you have any extra Neighbor Gregs or Neighbor Erics you can spare, let me know

[Schema]

Hey kiddies!

Had the neighbors come over today to help on the Z. Today’s focus was on the passenger floor. Yesterday I finished the corner on the rear of the car,but forgot the camera, so here’s a snapshot. Not much more to complete it.

And here’s what was on today’s menu. The flap of metal hanging down was actually RIVETED over the rust metal, then slapped with undercoating. Tards.

This is about the only picture you’ll ever see of me doing work

Cutting out the floor pan. Lots of rust.

We pushed cardboard paper in to the floorboard and made a template to trace on 16 ga metal.

Roughly shaped to be put in (no not by the hammer this time!)

Trial fitting.

Test fit, few adjustments made

Got the top part and bottom corners tacked in. The bottom center needs to be bowled in to line up correctly, and the metal the will be welding to the right edge needs to be replaced before the floor is completely in. this was about 3-4 hours of work, and we all headed home. More to follow tomorrow night

[JDMSIR]

Looking good. What a piece of shit Before ; )

[woody]

wow, awesome project. cant wait to see it progress further. :tup:

[sweet89s13]

nice always looking towards a good restore! keep us updated!

[chino]

very cool project… love these cars :tup:

[Schema]

5-4-06 update

Got a little more done at the shop. Shaving the rear bumper, repair inside door jam, starting on frame rails.

I WISH I took pictures of what this looked like before I got the new metal in place. There was a 4 inch wide strip of RUST across the entire bumper. It didnt look like it was even worth keeping. The areas around the bumper give you and idea, but yea, it was BAD.

Tacked in to place:

Rear Shot:

Shitty picture, but welds were grinded down and polished smooth. Looks f’in awesome, can’t wait to get to the other areas. The reason I didn’t do it all is because I still may need those bumper mounts if/when it gets on the rotissarie. Once it’s back down, the shock will be recessed and a steel bar will be bolted to them behind the bumper.

Just a snapshot, all the bluish metal was where I worked on, the entire area was one big rust hole. Cut and shaped, still gotta polish it up. Damn, I gotta remember to take before pictures, these don’t do it justice

Now, on to the frame rail, I measured/cut the steel tubing I’ll be using for this, now I had to work on the joint piece to tie them together. I <3 cardboard and painters tape

Finally, at 1am, I decided to go home. All this was about 5 hours of work. The template was laid down, few pieces cut, my ass was TIRED.

This weekend I’ll have both rails made and ready to go. I’ve decided to cut the floorpans, weld these in, then put brand new floors in with 16 ga metal. Gotta get a rotissarie and bead roller, so chances are I’ll prepare as much as possible then wait till I can get both to finish the job.

In the mean time, stay tuned for dollying up the driver’s rear quarter, a full sheet metal replacement quarter (on order now) and two new 18ga rocker panels

[2TurboZ]

coming along :tup:

[brent_strong]

Quite a labor of love, but it’s looking better all the time!

[TrueBlue]

There’s just something very zen-like about restoring old cars. Just wait until you drive it…

[boardjnky4]

and i thought i put a lot of work into the civic

[stmotorsports]

subscribed

I’m at work right now but definitely have to check this out later- all the work looks impressive so far :tup:

my 1st car was a '72 240Z and I miss it like crazy. I’ll have another one someday

[RedConquestTSi]

I just started reading this thread this morning…it caught my eye. I like the older Z’s like this one. I am definitely subscribing to this one…its coming along very well, it looks. Glad to see somebody showing some love for the old Z’s. There’s an old Z for sale near my house, black, with a whaletail, front chin, and stuff…looks good, but the body/interior have seen many better days. If I had the room, I would buy it…but I just don’t.

Keep up the good work!

[Schema]

5-6-07 update:

Got a teensy bit done tonight, busy day.

Here we are at the driver’s side rear quarter. As mentioned, I have a full passenger side replacement on order from Tabco, and this is the side that was worth keeping ( I can fix this in less time vs what I would have to work to order a new one) This seriously took me all of 15 min to do.

Anywho, I cut out the cancer;

It’s hammer time. Pounded the piece flat and traced on to 18ga sheet metal:

Getting the fitting right. Since there were no lines to go from on the bottom half, I gave it a rouch shaped and trimmed as needed.

Used VERY light hammer taps to get the shape absolutely perfect. Then tack’d in place.

Badda bing badda boom. I’ll come back to this when I have less to do and pretty it up. As mentioned, the goal is to use as little body filler as humanly possible. Here you can clearly see the cancer on the bottom of the wheel arch. Even though it has completely rusted away, the rest of the panel is almost perfect. Since there is no existing metal left, I don’t have any reference to where the lines will end up, so when the passenger side comes in, I’ll make a reverse teplate and fabb up a replacement for this side.

On to the frame rails. Got a few pieces welded together. It’snice to finally play with thicker steel so I can ramp up the voltage and actually make some nice penny welds instead of “tack here, tack there, tack here again” with the sheet metal

Lay’d up

Whoop. Almost done!!! I ran out of gas, again ( anyone else think I need a bigger tank;) ) but the night was over anyway. I may be sol for a while till I get my argon refilled, the earliest I can get it is NEXT Saturday due to my work hours.

[Schema]

Mother’s Day Update!!!

Whip out your razorblade folks, it’s time for a shave

So, originally I was going to put the car on a rotissarie to replace the frame rails. But because I’m cutting the the rails AND floors out now, there was no need to flip it over, so I decided to go ahead and finish up shaving the bumper today.

Damn glad I didn’t use the bumper mounts to hold the weight. Theses things were rusted to shit!

Left side. Pulled the bumper mounts out and tossed 'em. Then made a template. This is where I ended up making a TON more work for myself. Pics below…

Cut out.

Welded in. See those tiger scratches. Yeah. I had to friggin mangle the piece to shape it right because I gave it a rough shape before putting it in. Right after I spent 2 hours doing this I finally discovered why it was such a pita to fit right. At the very bottom of the bumper, it curves inward at about a 35 degree angle, like a reverse lip. I put that lip in the new piece before I welded anything in. Bad idea. It prevented me from bending the metal along the bottom in the other direction. Lesson learned. The right side took about 1/4 of the time to complete, and even came out better.

Right side ready to go. Forgot to take a pic of it cut out, but you get the idea.

Left side done , after grinding, grinding, and more grinding. Blah!

Right side done. Piece of friggin cake

Pure beauty. I Love it! I have a rinky dink hole left that i’ll patch up in 15 min, but after spending 4 hours just on that left side, and under an hour on the right, I was done for the day

[2TurboZ]

Man i love this project but couldnt u have found a cleaner shell to start with for the time and effort you have invested?

[Schema]

Man i love this project but couldnt u have found a cleaner shell to start with for the time and effort you have invested?

Haha, yes and no. This is my third z,and WAS the cleaner shell:lol:

But, I got the car for $200-sumthin. And when I got it, it looked perfect! As with everything, it turned out to be too good to be true, and every bit of rust was either plastered in bondo, or had what looked like metal from a file cabinet RIVETED over the rust. lmfao, there are some serious half asser’s out there.

Either way, I knew what I was getting myself in to, and made sure i had the time, the place, and tools to do so this time around. I’ve said it before, this was actually my “obtainable” dream car. I already had every anticipation of stripping it down this far. :headbang: