JimmyZ

Pictures post some pictures! I'm sure the seats are nice. My dad has had a few Saabs but I can't remember what the seats looked like.

Curious. When you filled it where did the fluid go? Did it leak from the back side of the MC or was it a rotted line? It might just be a leaky caliper or rotted line. Did both resivoirs go empty?

I do some machining and was thinking the same thing. Looks like you've already DONE it though. It wouldn't be that hard, especially with CNC. Check out http://www.alumilite.com/ for another possibility. You could cast your own part and have it plated. My trim pieces have begun to disintegrate so making one is looking better. I'm almost to the point where I think it would be nice to make some molds for injection molding new tail lenses. (Not just for my benefeit)

It's a beautiful car but I guess he's never heard of simple green. The pass frame rail looks kind of stained. The amount of oil on the undercarriage makes it look like he just cleaned the top side of the engine for the shots. It also looks like the undercarriage was just sprayed over with black or improperly prepped or the salt has begun to eat away. My friends father passed away leaving him a 5 yr old F-150 from Kentucky. Everything underneath looked like it had been sprayed with sulphuric acid! I grabbed a brake line and it crumbled in my hand and the oil pan had just sprung a few leaks from rust pocking. I hope this Z hasn't seen such corrosive influences and was properly stabled for the winters. The interior is nice even if it has been carpeted. At least if you had to haul your girl around she wouldn't mind getting in this one.

Yeah, seized Master Cyl. It would be near impossible to seize a master vac with all of the plastic to metal contact inside it. Even if it were exposed to saltwater it might not move freely but at least it would move. One other possibility is that your clevis pin fell out and you are simply hitting something with the fork and not actuating the brakes at all. Look under dash and jostle pedal to verify. I had a spare Master Cyl that was seized so bad I had to soak it in mineral spirits for a few days. Of course it had to be rebuilt after that since the MS ruins seals. A light whack on the plunger and the pistons sprung themselves free. Prior to the soak a medium whack wouldn't even budge the piston assy inwards. The spare I kept for JIC the rebuilt original ever dies or for spare parts not for use as a primary. 2c Jim

FWIW I made a page for those new to this. It's based on the few projects I've done, knowlege gleaned from body shop friends and my mistakes. It might help. http://warbuddies.homestead.com/RestoHelp.html 2c

Oh yeah, Get some fine tweezers for picking the bugs out if painting outside. Paint in the morning if painting outside (less dust) See about getting some accelerator for your clear do reduce the dust free time too. You can sand base if anything really whacky happens but you have to reshoot the entire panel or car because you'll have paint dust at the fringe of where you stop spraying. Omni is PPG's cheap line of old technology paint. If money is an issue use it be be aware that the base doesn't hide well and might take six coats to hide. You might squeak by on a quart of PPG's DBC base which would run $60-$90 avg. (DBC usually covers/hides in two coats) Omni base in a gallon runs $80-$150. (Just a rough estimate.) Omni primers aren't the best but if money is an issue... The Omni sprayable polyester (sprayable glazing putty) is pretty good stuff if you have large areas with small waves to fill. Is your compressors CFM rating enough to feed your gun? You can't wait for the compressor to catch up or you will have paint dust in areas where you split. (Roof and hood halves for instance) Once you start spraying you've got to stay on it,

Geez! Sorry to hear that. You can paint BC/CC at home. There is a lot of danger if spraying in a homemade booth though. Even with halfway decent ventilation there are sometimes fires. If you get debris in the clear you can sand and buff. This is not ideal though. Def wouldn't go with Macco after the work you've done. There will be someone out there who can do your car. Somewhere someone's always hurting for business. The problem is WHY they are hurting for it though.

Copy Norm Simper's 2.9L/bored dual SU motor. (A cheaply built 12.9sec 1/4 mi. machine) I'd have to put it in another Z though. It's a nostalgic experience driving stock. Jim

I think I figured it out. I'm so used to the 240 dash. The interior vid was shot in a 260Z right? The 260 dash is different. As always VicZcar/toecutter+video editing = sweet vids

BTW I think having the hood on the car for painting with the underside masked and painted would be acceptable. Fender and door "trees" can accept said items in the vertical position. 2.5c Jim Despite foam, backtaping etc you will still get a line when you mask. Such lines drive me nuts but to each his own.

After talking with my body shop friend who has been painting for 27 years he had some disagreement with your statements. Everyone is entitled to their opinion and has to accept any limitations they may have:) (all in jest) If you are using metal stands for your panels then they are grounded to the wet floor. (Static=nil) Truth is some booths don't have ideal flow which can put trash in the paint when using every square inch. Yes, it is a major PITA to paint the car in pieces and you have to watch your movement to avoid bumping anything. Painting the car while disassembled give the best possible coverage. To illustrae my point, a friend of mine bought a new Dodge Magnum and made a horrid discovery months later. It seems that the door jambs were sprayed with the doors on and there was rust coming through the areas of exposed primer where the spray didn't reach. His Mustang project however was a dark metallic and was sprayed with the doors off. I insisted on completey disassembling the car, stripping and working from there since I was doing Q/P replacement. Hanging the doors etc afterwards was a PITA but the whole car looks sweet! You'd have to get some fancy scientific equipment to see any deviations in the metallic flake orientation.(Attached photos) Your statement might ring true for the enamel my Z was painted with 17 years ago. It was a metallic flip flop so there was lots of clear with the color. It took eight coats to cover and just about drove the paint man nuts but it looked great. You CAN paint all of the parts at once and get a color match. You won't get color match if you paint one panel today then another tomorrow etc etc. Base sprays on so dry and if you spray a metallic right orientation doesn't enter in as a factor. My friend mentioned above sprays in alternating patterns between coats and sprays from a "distance" on the last coat to get the flakes to lay down uniformly. (This is just my observation from the booth window) He screws up a bit every now and then on the clear but will often get a nice finish with neglible to no peel. (Occasionally he gets a run or some peel) As far as telling the bodyman how to do his job you shouldn't. You should give standards for the job and not just accept his reasons for trying to dodge work. If he is unable to see reasonable things reasonably then move on. When painting my own car using my friends booth he suggested that I cut in the jambs, etc then assemble and paint the car whole. After telling him what my standards were he acknowleged that it was the better path but involved too much labor for him if he was to charge. (I did all of the work so what the hell) He just couldn't see laboring over a "lowly Datsun" since he's the T bucket/American musclecar type. My thinking is that these are cars which we truly love therefore they deserve the best that we can afford them. Flaws in paint from cutting corners take away from the experience of pride in your ride. 2c Jim

Carl wrote an excellent post which should answer most of your questions regarding quality/expectations and cost. It also outlined how to do business with the body shop. http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1281&highlight=carl+beck+paint+shop If you want the best possible job I'd see about having everything sprayed off the car. The paint guy will try to talk you out of this but this is the best way to get the jambs covered well. Of course this method requires a large booth since everything needs to be sprayed at the same time for color match. I've only done a few cars and have talked with and helped my body shop friend a few times. Here's a link I made summarizing what I've learned. It might help too. http://warbuddies.homestead.com/RestoHelp.html Jim

Hey, I just noticed and it might just be the lighting but is the RHD dash glovebox the same as ours? In the last 20 seconds of footage the dash looked a little mishapen or maybe it was just a towel. Curious

A friend of mine that owns a welding supply house sometimes gets trades in or even purchases used school equipment. This is a good place to look for a deal if you can find a shop that does this sort of thing. I got a ThermalArc 180 Amp 220V MIG machine that makes sweet welds with great control of the action due to the quality wire feed. Carl is right, the 220V machines by Miller or Lincoln are nice. Buying any quality name brand welder guarantees that you will be able to readily find parts. The crap you get at Harbor Freight is just that... crap. You can get by with it but it's certainly not ideal. A gas rig is VERY nice to have but I perceive you want to fix some holes in your Z. Obviously you want/can only afford the MIG right now. I waited about a year each before my dream machines materialized one at a time. Got great deals on the TIG, MIG, Plasma cutter and gas set. Sometimes it pays to wait. Once you get started collecting metalworking equipment it's hard to stop. Jim

You can get a rotary phase converter to run them but this is not ideal and you might have to get a really expensive RP converter to handle running them. (RP's go for $300 and up) When running genuine three phase to your house costs $1000 per foot the reason the three phase equip is so cheap becomes apparent. The $1000/ft quote comes from my family's farm expansion. We had to switch our equipment on in stages or we would black out the town! In the end you will be much better off getting a $500-$800 machine. The wire feed mechanism and circuit board are higher quality resulting in high quality welds. You can get a used 110V MIG for $100-$200 and get by but your welds will be crappy and getting parts for the cheap Italian machines is often a bitch. (Daytona MIG & look-alikes) Here's a link I made for such things. http://warbuddies.homestead.com/RestoHelp.html Hope this helps, Jim

Awesome Vid! The 60km highway parade gets the blood pumping. The stop motion at the end was awesome too. BUT You have the steering wheel on the wrong side! (JK I know that you down under blokes do things different) Bummer that in the first scene those freak'n bastards got in the way of your Z parade. May they be afflicted by 1000 flat tires and slide under a gas truck for breaking up your video! Jim

The question is are they braided or smooth. I'd be willing to bet that the hoses listed are smooth. (Even though they are from Nissan) Just an intuitive guess that they are smooth. 2c Jim

Here's a link to PPG's global. It looks like it is decent stuff after all. If I'm reading this right it looks like global and deltron are related which is cool. http://www.ppg.com/aus-refinish/collisionrepair/cr_page1.htm#topofpage

Each manufacturer has different bases from which they mix. Within each maufacturers differing paint lines there are different bases too. The cheaper lines have less base colors to choose from which is why color match isn't as good. (16 colors base vs 40+ colors let's see which works better) I called my local PPG jobber today. They indicated that they couldn't mix it in the Deltron line but that the color showed up in their Global color system. They would have to order the bases since they don't carry them but said a gallon would run $350 USD. They also informed me that it was a multi toned color whatever that means. In a pinch you could have a small amount made up in global, spray it on a test part and have it scanned then remixed in a different line such as deltron. (Not that deltron is all that but it is pretty decent) If you have tried your local PPG supplier and come up empty I could get the base color mix #'s for you from my PPG. You would have to be very specific about letting your PPG guy know that these came from the US. The bases may be different between your country and mine. The good thing is that PPG is so big that there;s a good chance the bases are the same. You have checked with your PPG jobber right?

I'll call the jobber tomorrow and see what they have but going in person and looking through the books may be what it takes. C110 and laurel were not available in the states but the girl behind the counter is very resourceful. Keep you posted

I'll give it a swing. Even though they didn't send your car to the states it might be possible that they could get the data for me. I did find mention of code 163 in another country so this is promising. (google search) The paint jobber is 40 miles away and will be on my route in another day. (Tuesday in the USA) I went with AX6, the same red as was used on the 350Z. It is an awesome red but I'm sure you want the authentic red on your car. Jim

My buddy with a body shop had a bunch of old books lying around and chucked 'em. Bummer, I should have thought to save the stuff we need. Perhaps there is a body shop in Oz (or Auz? which has a bunch of old color books collecting dust. What kind of paint are U using? If it's PPG or Dupont I could drop by my local jobber and see if they will give me the mix codes. Jim

Sweet ride! Seriously diseazed, you need to do calendar work. If not for Z's then perhaps for Snap On or something. Congrats on the '70. Jim

I'd think distributor bushings first. Take the cap off and see how much play there is in the shaft. I had a distributor which behaved the same way. When I took the cap off I was amazed to find that the rotor was turning so sloppily it machined the inside of the distributor cap! As mentioned above check the plug wires. Make sure that they are not laying on anything metal and that they are in their plastic stand-off clips. Fuel problems sometimes sound like ignition problems. As mentioned above a dirty tank/clogged fuel filter can sound like a miss. Happened to me years ago. Hope this helps Jim Sometimes fuel issues sound like ignition