1976 280Z Restoration Project

[wheee!]

It’s growing on me...

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So continuing the mirror adaptation, I decided to JBWeld the washers and nuts to the reinforcement plates. This way I can just slide the plate in place and tighten down the bolts. 
 

 

 

Then I fibreglas reinforced behind the old mounting holes and fibreglassed over the top as well. On top of that was the fine filler and sanded smooth. 
 

This matches nicely to the other side. 

Optical illusion if you think the holes are spaced different. Just camera angle and hole size. 

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Finally have the rear hatch panel smoothed out through the complex radius along the length. Yeesh.

[ramsesosirus]

You said you "purchased the rights" to that flag under your hood?  How does that work??  

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An image company owns the original artwork of the rising sun on a stained linen background. I purchased the individual rights to print it for my particular application. Anyone can purchase the rights to use the image based on their individual needs. Cost is based on use and distribution etc. As this was for a vehicle wrap, hidden 98% of the time and not used for commercial profit etc it was relatively cheap.
As a photographer (a previous lifetime ago), I have no issue paying for someone’s artwork.
*I do not claim to own the image rights of the rising sun graphic, just the specific application of it on the stained linen background. I do not have copyright or any restriction stopping someone from buying the same image and using it the same way. I would just hope that people would respect the individualism I have created in my car.

[ramsesosirus]

6 minutes ago, wheee! said:

An image company owns the original artwork of the rising sun on a stained linen background. I purchased the individual rights to print it for my particular application. Anyone can purchase the rights to use the image based on their individual needs. Cost is based on use and distribution etc. As this was for a vehicle wrap, hidden 98% of the time and not used for commercial profit etc it was relatively cheap.
As a photographer (a previous lifetime ago), I have no issue paying for someone’s artwork.
*I do not claim to own the image rights of the rising sun graphic, just the specific application of it on the stained linen background. I do not have copyright or any restriction stopping someone from buying the same image and using it the same way. I would just hope that people would respect the individualism I have created in my car.

Ok, I've always wondered about licensing etc.  I make art too and can appreciate that you did the right thing, I'm sure you could have just found an image and printed it.  Good job though, and I can appreciate those individual touches.  I always assumed it was super expensive, which is why people steal images and use them illegally, but it sounds like it depends on the situation and application.

[wheee!]

It was under $100....

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Oh look! Progress....
The door panel was badly damaged and the fine amount of finessing it back to flat is a slow process. The quarter panel weld joins are fairly straight forward.

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Move along, nothing to see here...

 

Hours and hours of sanding off all the filler I put on.... the door is finally flat through the main part. Just the top edge and the handle area to finish out. 
The gap at the fender and door kept me awake so I carefully filled the edge with short strand fibreglas. Surprisingly tuff as I tested it’s strength and couldn’t snap it off by hand. I guess we’ll see how it holds up! 

[wheee!]

Well, those of you looking for interesting updates are going to be disappointed. I have been working on the passenger door for a couple weeks. It is finally straight and true. Well at least the middle and top sections! The bottom edge is next. This truly is a glacial process...

 

 

 

[wheee!]

As most have you may have noticed, I tend to post a lot. Not just the “wins” but the warts as well. After weeks of body work it’s fair to say that I am paying the price for being so poor at metalwork and repairs. People like [mention]disepyon [/mention] and [mention]ConVerTT [/mention] make it look so easy and perfect! Oh well. Home built not bought is the mantra so here are a few examples.







Due to the sheer quantity of welds and repairs to the heavily “fixed” body of this car, there is going to be a fair amount of body filler in places. No pretending to have perfect sheet metal here. I’m okay with this as the rust is gone, the welds are good and the body work will hide these imperfections. Purists may judge me and reduce the value of my car, but as it will never be for sale, who cares? It will look great in the end and I will be happy.
Welcome to my journey, mind the potholes!

[Patcon]

I really believe these cars are much harder to make perfect without substantial filler than many cars of a similar era. The metal is much thinner than American cars of the era. So on an heavy thick bodied muscle car you can get the metal close and then use a body file to remove some of the unevenness. This make the metal thinner in some spots but reduces the need for filler. Add to that, the fact that the original stampings were not perfect. Which means blocking an original door flat is going to require some filler since the original door was never blocked. It was stamped, primed and painted.

Modern fillers work really well and if they are applied in layers they tolerate movement pretty well. You have done good prep work, so it should hold up for a long time. I suspect like on many of the panels on my car, there appears to be a lot of filler but in reality it is a very thin layer spread over a wide area.

Keep up the good work! i wish I was making this kind of progress!