Removing my mirror

[Weasel73240Z]

I appreciate all of your advice, except maybe the Earl Scheib comment, . I've painted a few cars in my day, and none of them looked like Earl Scheib or Maaco jobs. BTW, I went home, got a 13 MM socket, 12" extension and swivel, and had the mirror off in about 2 minutes, thanks BRE.

I get what you guys are saying, that it would be best to remove all of the glass. But I'm not looking to build a show car, just a really nice weekend driver, life is too short to spend 5 years restoring a car, IMO. I have nothing but respect for you guys that do spend years meticulously rebuilding your cars from the ground up. When I bought the car, I told myself getting the car on the road would take about 6 months of work, and thats about what its gonna be. I'm looking to be on the road in 4 weeks, and I'm not willing to wait. Once this car is running, and I have my "Z fix", I'll find another (already have my eye on a local 72) and that one will be a slower restore.

Its easy for you guys who actually have a Z to drive, to tell those of use who don't that we should take our time. And honestly, I know its good advice, but I can't wait any longer, and it won't be an Earli Scheib paintjob, thats for sure.

I masked everything off in advance of all sanding, removed as much chrome as possible, and sanded very, very carefully. I'll then remove all of the masking tape that was on during sanding, wash the whole body with wax and grease remover, and re-tape for painting. It'll probably take me a whole weekend to prep and tape the car for paint, but thats a lot less time and money than taking out all of the glass, and replacing all of the rubber and weatherstripping that will get damaged. Sure, theres a chance of the paint "creeping" at the edges, but with adequate prep, I can avoid that.

I understand that its a compromise to not remove the glass, but its a compromise I'm willing to accept to drive this car in the spring. I'll post pics when the car is painted, and we'll all decide whether I made the right call or not.

There no making up for a crappy tape job, which zbane shows in those pictures. But if you do a proper tape job, that won't happen in my experience.

[Weasel73240Z]

After much internal debate, the quarter glass and windshield came out today. I realized that it wasn't much more work, and this might be a bad place to "value engineer" the work. That little birdy in my head kept telling me I should probably remove the glass, and you guys confirmed it for me. It just took me a day or two to realize it. I left the hatch glass in place, because it, and the weatherstripping are pristine, thats the one piece of glass that I'll tape off. Thanks as usual for the input.

[EScanlon]

Paul;

My apologies for the harshness of my previous comment. I hope you can forgive it, and consider that having painted more than a couple dozen vehicles in my time (as a hobbyist), I've discovered that those little extra bits of "work" actually ended up being time savers and headache eliminators.

E

[Weasel73240Z]

No offense taken, I assumed it was just ribbing in good fun, and I took it that way. I appreciate everyones honest opinion. I know that I came back with a long-winded response, but I write for a living, so I tend to be long-winded, .

And now that I spent the morning removing the glass, I know it was the right thing to do. Thanks as always for the help.

[sakijo]

If you're not going to pull the glass out, a trick I learned a long time ago may help. Carefully lift up the rubber and put some string under it. This will keep the rubber off the metal and get the paint where it belongs. Make sure to clean well or you'll get dust and who-knows-what else all over your nice new paint.

[Weasel73240Z]

Thanks for the tip sakijo, sounds like a good one.

One of the best things about finally smartening up, and removing the glass, was being able to confirm the condition of all the jambs and windshield channels before paint. Fortunately, everything looked perfect under the original weatherstrippings.

I'm actually having the car painted at a local voc/tech school by one of my buddies kids. I was gonna do it myself, but there's just too much dust in my garage to do a proper job (especially with the 1 stage paint I'm using). Plus the paint is pretty scary stuff. I'm not sure what isocyanide is, but its in the paint, and I don't want it anywhere near my house. :sick: So I have to finish all the bodywork, prime the car, paint the jambs, put the engine and tranny back in, tape as much as I can, and trailer it over to the school the 1st week of April to get squirted.

I'm taking next week off of work to get all of that done in time. The car should be painted and mostly put back together by the 3rd week of April. Hopefully driving around May 1st. I'll post some more pics soon, its really coming together nicely.