Flared Z at junkyard...

[Zvoiture]

Delivered a '79 to the crusher today and had to walk down and peruse all the Z's they had. Only one or two 240's, maybe 5 each 75-76 and 77-78 and about 6 ZX's.....ANYWAY...

They have this shell of a Z there that has flared fenders. Not just flared wheel openings, but full widening of the front and rear body, like a GT car. Like a 944 Porsche kinda. The front fenders are about 2" wider than the door area and there are vents at the rear of the fenders....The rear fenders just flare staright out and wrap around the back. Everything is fibreglas. There is no hood, and the headlight buckets are converted to square lights (YUUUUUUCK!) with a sort of wide rubber gasket aroud the lights. It has some damage to the rear quarter. It has 75-76 style bumpers and the plaque says it had an l28 engine, so I am assuming it is a 280.

I was in a hurry and only really started getting curious as I drove home.

When somebody does something like this, do you remove the metal (original) fender material underneath? I'm thinking weight here. I looked in the wheelwells and the shrouds were in and in the rear quarter where the fibreglas was broken, I didn't see anything under there. Is this a kit that you could buy, or does somebody lay something like this up in their garage? It was very rigid and tight. If it matters, it was white with several colours of blue stripes runing the length of the side.

steve77

[2ManyZs]

Sounds like the California Z kit that Jim Cook racing used to sell. You can still find it in the autobodyparts web site. It's a pretty decent looking kit except for the square headlight , they just don't seem to fit on an early Z. Probably most people just bonded the rear fender flares over top of the existing quarters to save time and money with body modifications.

[carguyinok]

I have seen the same body kit. But I saw this one at A junkyard in Las Vegas. Hmmm this may tell us something about this kit.

[2ManyZs]

Don't know what it costs now, but years ago it was one of the only body kits available and it definately wasn't cheap when JCR sold it.

Take a look and see if this isn't the same one. www.showcars-bodyparts.com/240z.html

Look near the bottom of the page for The California Z.

[Zvoiture]

YEah, that's prety much it...somebody has my JCR cattledog right now, so I haven't been able to look it up. It is in the back in the colour section on styling kits...

I don't remember the vents at the leading edges of the rear fenders, but there were alot of weeds and crap...

So...to do this properly, one should remove the front fenders and replace them with the CA Z ones?

But what about the rears? do you just cut off the covered body steel?

I realize this is an extremely subjective question, but how hard would these be to remove from the current car at the J/Y? Could they be ground off? or cut off with an emery wheel or something?

I've really been thinking about this fairly seriously the past 24 hours! IF they could be installed on a 240 and end up with approximately the same weight car of pehaps less...... I was thinking lose the buckets altogether and bury the headlights in a grille somewhat like the grille on my car now.

Just thinking out loud...

steve77

[2ManyZs]

Pretty sure the front fenders are a simple bolt on. The rears would be bonded on or screwed on with sheet metal screws more than likely. It would be best to leave most of the rear stock quarter in place since it is structural, not sure if they would have radiused and rewelded the fender lips or not. Depends on how good of a job they did when they installed it.

Might be able to remove them fairly easily unless they are bonded on, that would make it much more difficult than if they were just screwed or riveted on and then molded into the existing quarter with bondo or fiberglass. They had a wire mesh screen in the rear quarter vents if I remember the original kit correctly, and I think there may have been screen in the front fender vents in front of the doors.

Sounds like it might be at least worth taking a second look at the car just to see how it was done and if you could take them off easily. Fiberglass is easier to "play" with than steel, at least you can cover small mistakes easier.

[Zvoiture]

Yes, it had the wire mesh vent fabric.

Mebee I go to junk yard tomorrow 2-many-son!

steve77

[carguyinok]

Thats the kit I saw in the boneyard in vegas. You are 100% on with the square headlights. They look nasty.

The kit looked like it COULD have been nice. But this one looked like they glued in on and took the car in for A $99.95 paint job.:disappoin DAMN Z KILLERS!!!!!!!!!!:dead: