I just bought a 1973 240Z all stock except for a 5speed.

I plan on striping it down to the metal inside and out, but leaving the mechanical alone (except for a tune up) for now.

Any advice about how to look for a good body shop for this kind of work?

Sincerly,

AggieZ

Congrats on the new Z!

Carl Beck wote an excellent post regarding this sort of thing. Do a search for it. Wait a minute... Here it is.

http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1281&highlight=carl+beck+body+shop

Go ahead and try some searching this has been discussed quite a bit.

Cheers

Jim

Ambitious project! I've been restoring my '71 since 1979! As for your (very expensive) plan to farm out the paint and body work to a good shop, I suggest you contact Doug Bakke at Awesome Z north of Houston. He enters cars in the Houston Autorama each year and is not that far from College Station, if that is where you are located. His phone # is (281)219-0015 and he is a Z Club of Houston Member.

An enormous amount of help from others is almost a necessity for an endeavor like this, so belonging to a good club is another advantage for getting advice and parts discounts. I understand there is a good sports car club in Aggieland (forget name) or you could join the Z Club of Houston at http://www.zclubofhouston.com. Ideally, you should buy a POS parts car of around the same vintage, if only as a guide to reassembly. One more thing:

bag and carefully mark all small parts removed from car (you'll thank me later).

Thanks both for the great advice. Unfortunately I dont have the space for a 'POS' car. Somehow I'll figure out how all the pieces fit back together.

Small update:

After giving it a bit of a tune up today, it started coming back to me. Oh, did I mention the sound, smell and vibration of the car gave me a little bit of a 'warm fuzzy' in the back of my mind? woot