shamus11

Hey guys, I've got a set of front bumper indicators/lenses/rubber seals. left & right side indicators/lenses/rubbers/chrome surrounds. C pillar petrol flap unbroken and other side round trim. Everything is in good condition. I got them off a car at metalyard just before they crushed it. I only wanted the tailights/facia/chrome surrounds but grabbed those as well. I'm looking at whether a panel could be made to house the 240k tailights on a 240z that can be fitted without making irreversible modifications. Haven't got very far yet. The K tailights are right up there for me. If you can't find anything locally/cheaply and you wanted to cover the cost of postage plus maybe $10, I could send them up. They'd all fit in something smaller than a shoe box.

Hi, I'll be painting in 2-pac for the first time on my 240. I've painted a couple of cars in the past but am by no means an expert. Using acrylic I liked to use lots of coats of primer/filler and lots of heavy rubbing between coats to get that nice smooth flat finnish, often rubbing right thru the coat I'd just applied to eventually fill any slight lows in the panel. I've been told the 2-pac will be much dearer but is this the primer or is it mainly the color that is dear? I don't want to skimp on the amount of coats I do but I tend to use so much paint when I'm using acrylic. What are the techniques you guys use to go from body filler to color? How many coats, what products?

I'm half way thru stripping mine, some parts of it have at least 10 layers of paint/primer that I can count! Every color under the sun... twice! I'd love to know what my car has seen in it's day. I reckon at one stage it was in a painters shed and must have been used as the thing to set the spray patern on the paint gun with. So far better than expected underneath it all. Problem is I'm using about 5-6 applications of paint stripper on the thick places to get it down to metal.

Yes I agree about dipping, I've seen a datsun 1600 after dipping and as amazingly clean as it was the thought of having no protection on the inside of every rail, pillar and other unseen areas makes me shudder. Anyone know if there's something you can dip them in after the acid that will dry and protect from rust like a paint will?

Don't you hate it when searching for answers one something you were 99% sure of leaves you more unsure! I've sprayed my stripped back panels with an etch primer. I'm going to do the whole car like this first before I bring out the filler. I'll probably heavilly scuff the panel with 80 grit before applying the filler but won't take it right back to bare steel again. I like the security of a rust preventative coating directly on steel. I've been told 2-pac primers are also porus.

Is your car a metallic color? I've painted with acrylic metalic paint (silver) and found it will oxidise if it is not clear coated where the non metalics don't have to be clear coated.

If it were me I'd remove the bodymould, use a stripdisk on a hand drill or anglegrinder to take it back to bare shiny steel, treat the rust with a kill-rust style product. Etch prime with a spray pack and it will be sealed until you get around to repairing it. Easily done in an afternoon. Should be good and sealed till you can repair it propperly.

A very interesting thread as I'm looking at running bolt on flares on mine. The guy I bought the car off stressed his concerns that I restore it properly and original but with the amount of boged over rust I have removed I don't hink he's opinion counts for much. My wory is whether dramaticly increasing the track, especially on the front, coupled with wider tyres would make it a heavy thing to steer. I'm probably going to repair the gaurds, get it registered and then try the most offset wheels/tyres I can borrow with a set of spacers I have. If the steering aint too bad. Buy some wheels/flares and cut the gaurds and drill holes for round headed alan-key bolts.

PS I also use a little bit of soap in the bucket when wet rubbing.

I won't claim to give expert advice but from my first experience with painting a car I can tell you what NOT to do. I painted in acrylic and wet rubbed the top coat with 1000grit. It was too coarse and left swirl scratches in the finnish that I couldn't get out. Is the orange peel in the color or the clear? If you have orange peel in the color it won't buff out. If you sand it with anything too fine it will only knock the top off it and make it look like rubbed orange peel (worse). I'd bite the bullet, flat rub it out with at least 800 and try another coat on that section. That said, it's not gunna hurt anything to try and buff it out first.If it comes up OK then you're in front.

The main reason I'm looking at sand blasting is time. I want to bare metal the entire bottom of the shell so I know what I'm dealing with, and I want a good clean new finnish underneath. At the rate I'm going thru strip disks I'm thinking I could buy a small sandblaster and have a reusable tool at the end of it all. I already have a good size air compressor.

Hi VaGuS510, I'm at a similar stage to you and there's some great advice on this thread. I've been using paint stripper on all of my flat panels lately and it works well but is messy stuff. My 2c is to consider that where the paintstipper drips and then sits, the paint is compromised. I'm taking most things back to bare steel but if you only want to create a good foundation to paint over, how do you tell how deep the paint stripper has reacted? If I wasn't going back to bare steel I'd sand it by hand. Another tip, paint stripper and a wire brush works extremely well in seams, gutters and other tight spots. Straight back to bare steel. This thread has swayed me back to getting hold of a do-it-yourself sandblaster and some glass bead to experiment with.

Hi there, I was speaking to someone I'd believe had fair credibility on the matter and he told me that sandblasting steel that is under stress such as a bike frame or steel monocoque car shell can have the effect of "work hardening" the steel making it brittle and pron to cracking. He suggested that in race car preparation it is not a common practic for this reason. What is peoples thoughts on this? I've had plans to sandblast the underside of my 240 but have decided to buy some paint stripper this morning and give that a go as a first option.

I'm from Shepparton, Victoria. I've bought a disassembled car, an unfinnished project so I don't have the luxury of knowing how its all going to go back together but the fella I got it off wrecked three cars for the parts and has spent a lot of money on reconditioning and rechroming so I've got a lot of spares and will hopefully have most of the bits I need.

Thanks Mr Camouflage for the concise information, I must have been looking at US cars and 260's, once you mentioned that I realised that the main one I looked at, A friend's, was a 260 2 seater (what an ametuer!) Mine is a 73, must be an early one. very glad to hear I won't need side indicators!

Hi there folks, Sorry if this is an obvious question but I've recently bought a 240z to restore and noticed the one I bought doesn't have side indicators in the rear quarters or the front gaurds. (Australian car by the way) At first I thought they'd been welded up and bogged over but closer inspection of the back of the panels shows untouched original paint in the matching color to the rest of the body. I've been a fan of 240's for a long time but can't ever recall whether they all had the rectangular side indicators or not. Every one I look at now that I've noticed has had the indicators. If someone knows the explanation for this I'd be very interested to know as I've no intention of cutting holes to put them in if I don't have to have them. Thanks!!!