Hi Guys,

I have just started on the convertible again. I've added a couple of before and after shots of one of the rusty sills you can see some of the box section chassis she's had attached. I'm about to pay $1200 + GST to get all the rust I've cut out welded up, I'll be doing the major sanding work and priming of the car. A friends workshop will do the colour finishing coats for free but he doesn't want to know about the rust work.

Do you think $1200 is reasonable? there is about 3 days of work for a panelbeater to do.

I have the V8 and supra 5 speed ready to go in, a 300zx r230 lsd, brakes, suspension and cradle. Although at the moment I only have a R31 front crossmember, suspension, brakes, rack and pinion steering for the front end and at 5 turns lock to lock I'm not to keen on using it but I suppose i have accepted it. It's costing me $3k to get a engineer to put all of this in plus a little extra chassis strengething before approving it for rego.

Any info on the costings would be appreciated.

what sort of strengthening are you doing? would love to see some pics of teh diff in

I'd like to strengthen the point where the chassis rails meet the firewall inside the engine bay. All the strengthening so far has been from the firewall back (see pics).

When all the engineering work has been finished I'll post photos of the diff, etc.

What do you think of the costs I mentioned?

Not sure about your specifics, but is you are talking about three eight hour days, your time estimate is accurate, he is not using premade parts, and does excellent work, that comes out to $1200/24 hours.

or $50 and hour-I reckon that sounds pretty good-for this side of the pond!

Will

Thanks Will, I was pretty happy with both prices as there's 10 places in total to be welded up and as you mentioned, the making up of all the parts.

Let's face it if I tried to get the rust done any cheaper it would probably be a shithouse job and rust again in 2 years.

I'm undecided about getting Lambo doors or Suicide doors for her at the moment. I'm leaning towards Lambo doors as they look easier to install.

What do you all think?

P.s it's also having a v8 style strut brace added and steel tubing going from the bottom of the A pillar to mid way up what's left of the B pillar on both sides. That's about it for strengthening.

Drew

it will certainly be an interesting car when it is finished! good on you for being original!

i never liked suicide doors, but i would imagine they would be easier to install woudn't they?

The hinges would have to be moved to a place where hinges weren't designed to be... so dunno. I think scissor doors would be better anyway, if you have to have one...

Scissor doors are easier to fit as you don't have to relocate the door locking mechanism but they cost twice as much.

I kinda figured it would be a shame not to modify the doors as most other things on the car are or will be changed eventually and it's not really that big an exercise to fit the scissors.

I pulled the engine out on the weekend, its up for sale if anyone is interested. I will put it on ebay soonish if no one wants it.

Specs are

L24 5 speed electronic ignition extractors all other accesories

was running webber two barrel car but has twin su manifold as well.

Head gasket was replaced 8000kms ago

pulled 195kmh but ran out of road had 200 in it,

clutch is on the way out but still drives with out slipping.

I put up a picture of the speedo while I had both back wheels in the air and floored it, it wound off the clock but I missed the shot. I guess it was doing somewhere near 270km. I couldn't do it again as a retread had started to delaminate. .

The other is a centrifugal blower I have sitting around, it will get put on after I stroke the v8 to a 390cu in. I'm hoping someone in Australia starts selling kits to convert you car to run on hydrogen before this happens.

got any good pics of the roof up? would be interesting to see how you got that to work..

it sure looks good with the roof down.. the C110 shape lends well to a vert!

Funny you should ask that as I try to advoid shots with the roof up as I have a really $^!# roof. I can't find one photo of the roof up out of about 300 shots

I'll make the effort to get one for you though. The roof was made really cheaply and is on the list of things to replace but is about the 3rd last.

Give me a couple of days to put it back together and I'll post it on this thread but no one is allowed to tell me how crap it looks.

yeah.. i could imagine it would be a little complex to build.. especially given the size of the cabin ( i have a saab convertible, and it amazes me how something that big folds up with all the ribs etc.)

Photo's as promised.

As you can see it's a very simple cheap roof, a far cry from your Saab. At least I can use it for a template to get a nice one made up. The whole thing is just clipped on around the sides, a few screws and clips along the boot line and 2 screws per side of the support beams.

The roof when down was either left behind for the day or just thrown into the back seat, if I had friends in the back it could be rolled up and sat on the rear parcel shelf.

A powered roof for her is the thing of dreams.

I've checked out the Saab ones and can only wish