1972 240Z restomod

[grannyknot]

Since so much of the restoration of a restomod 240z pertains to stock cars I thought I would document all of the normal stuff in this thread and all of the modifications here,

The car has rust in all the usual places but a lot less than the last Z I did so I'm hoping things will go a little easier this time. Still playing around with the idea of taking the car down to the chemical strippers and having it dipped, that would save many weeks of scraping, grinding, media blasting, breathing in rust and thinners. Very temping, I have heard all those horror stories of dipped cars still dripping acids and solvents after the paint job is done and wrecking the paint but that makes no sense to me.

The car goes through multiple tanks of acid, neutralizer, degreasers and rinses,  then all the metal work and welding takes place and is bone dry before the paint happens. Has anyone actually come across a documented case of a dipped car wrecking the paint job?

Chris

[Patcon]

My 2 cents

If chemical stripping was so risky or had such a high failure rate would anyone still chemical strip a car. There are lots of high end restorers who chemical strip cars. I think like many things, if you follow the proper steps and don't cut corners the end results are good...

[sweatybetty]

maybe try posting that question here. very helpful people

http://www.autobody101.com/forums/

[grannyknot]

Sweaty, that's good site, I could spend a lot of time there.

I got my quote back from Technostrip just south of me, $1650.00 That is just for the shell of the car with no doors, hood or hatch. I'm good with that. The quote I got from them about four years ago for the 1970 Z was about $3600 but that was for the whole car.

I'll have to get some kind of water soluble rust inhibitor so I can keep the shell rust free until all the welding is finished. Then set up a temporary spray booth to coat it with epoxy primer.

Got a few things done last weekend, the front grill was kind of banged up so dismantled it  and straightened things out a bit. The 4 uprights that the grills fit into are made out of the softest aluminum I have ever dealt with, very easy to wreck quickly.

I wish I had taken some before pics of the console, it was very faded and scuffed and after 2 coats of SEM Landau Black it looks new again, never used the SEM before but really pleased with the results. The shifter boot is the leather one I bought on ebay from England. It is well made but the leather is thicker than the stuff Nissan used so is very difficult to get the clips over it that hold it to the console.

[Patcon]

I use Eastwood's "After blast" to prevent flash rust while waiting for primer

[Namerow]

That's a very nice job you did with the grille.  I restored and painted mine last summer.  It was a finicky job to get right -- and I started with pieces that were in a lot better shape than the 'wrinkled' stuff that you were dealing with.  Did you assemble-and-paint, or did you paint-and-assemble?

[psdenno]

Regarding the clips that hold the shifter boot to the console, I had a similar experience with a thicker than original boot.  I used spring type paper clips instead of the Nissan boot clips.  The spring clips come in various sizes and are the type that hold 20 or more pages together.  They have the levers that open the clip and then fold back over the clip.

Dennis

[grannyknot]

8 hours ago, Namerow said:

That's a very nice job you did with the grille.  I restored and painted mine last summer.  It was a finicky job to get right -- and I started with pieces that were in a lot better shape than the 'wrinkled' stuff that you were dealing with.  Did you assemble-and-paint, or did you paint-and-assemble?

Primed everything dis-assembled, reassembled and then final paint, it's a rickety contraption before the the 4 nuts are tightened.

7 hours ago, psdenno said:

Regarding the clips that hold the shifter boot to the console, I had a similar experience with a thicker than original boot.  I used spring type paper clips instead of the Nissan boot clips.  The spring clips come in various sizes and are the type that hold 20 or more pages together.  They have the levers that open the clip and then fold back over the clip.

Dennis

Clever, that would have saved some bruised thumbs.

[grannyknot]

What is with all these double post that are happening lately?

 

[HuD 91gt]

19 hours ago, psdenno said:

Regarding the clips that hold the shifter boot to the console, I had a similar experience with a thicker than original boot.  I used spring type paper clips instead of the Nissan boot clips.  The spring clips come in various sizes and are the type that hold 20 or more pages together.  They have the levers that open the clip and then fold back over the clip.

Dennis

That is exactly what I used on my automatic console when I adapted a 5 speed boot.  Works great!

[grannyknot]

Tackled the heater box the other day, the reek of mouse pee was overwhelming and you can see what it did to the metal. Re-purposed and old cooler that was large enough to fit the heater box into and got out the Muriatic acid.

It can be a a bit nasty to work with but it sure gets the job done. Once clean of rust and rinsed I scrubbed everything with a lye based soap, rinse, dry, prime and paint. The smell of pee is gone.

[Namerow]

Chris:

While you've got all these parts out on the bench, perhaps you can try a little experiment to verify something that I found with my own Z's blower motor/fan:  With the fan mounted in the blower casing, try running it first with 12V power connected with the 'normal' polarity, and then with reverse polarity. I found a significant increase in the volume of output airflow with the fan running in 'reverse' (and, no, I can't explain why).

 

p.s. The muriatic acid dip did a great job of stripping the parts of rust and loose paint.  Wish I'd thought of that when I did my heater.  I'll try to upload my templates for the foam gaskets this weekend.  At the very least, you're going to need to re-skin the air inlet control flap (both sides) so that it doesn't 'clang' when you move from 'vent' to 'heat'.  The original treatment on the flap was vinyl-skinned foam.  To a lesser extent, the same applies to the little side flaps that control airflow out of the floor-level vents.

Pleased to hear the 'eau du rodent' has been looked after.