The Janitor

I'm not going to lie, those floors are done for in terms of ever looking good again. I would suggest replacing them entirely, but you could probably spend a weekend pounding those craters out with a good heavy lead shot mallet to get them close to spec. Either way, get your car's dimensions checked out to make sure you don't have bigger fish to fry.

Either way you are going to have to paint over the repair, and because of that, I would recommend welding them shut. Bondo over gaps in bodywork is a huge no-no, say hello to problems in a few years regardless of how well you did the "repair". Try to avoid using a dremel tool for cutting down welds, they will skip no matter how much of an iron grip you have, use a 90 degree die grinder with an 80 grit sanding pad installed. Another alternative is to use a cut off wheel to dress the welds, but doing that will leave gouges in the metal regardless of how lightly you press. Simply tape thick cardboard around the area you are going to weld on, once you have a large enough border to catch large bits of spatter, use whatever you can find to cover the rest of your car. If it's possible to reach in, try to have someone hold a thick piece of scrap copper behind the holes in order to make pooling the weld easier, it will also help prevent warpage.

We bought Zedd Findings floors for our restoration, but they are a bit of a dissapointment. I was certainly not expecting to have drop in floors delivered, but I was also not expecting to have to redo most of the floor panel to make it fit. I'll let the pictures do the talking. Keep in mind, that was with the hump in the middle aligned 100% with the chassis, the bends that are supposed to lead up to the rocker are wrong. Keep an eye on the first and last pictures, the spacing between the first bend and the oval shaped drop in the pan had to be virtually removed in order for the pan to fit, I also had to relocate the pocket. In order to redo the bends, I had to flatten that side of the floor pan entirely up until the 90 degree flange. I don't know whether we got a bad set, or if all of them are equally as incorrect, but expect some work for $400 with ZF.

I've tried contacting Nissan a couple of times, but it seems like you really need to know someone who knows somebody who knows "that guy" to even get an honest answer. With the lack of any real car culture and an even greater lack of Datsun enthusiasts in my neck of the woods, that makes getting any sort of official information next to impossible. I've heard that a local Nissan dealership owner is into Datsuns, and he often has the scoop on info out of corporate, might be a place to check soon.

Interesting, I'll have to do some hunting with the locals then. I know where I can get NOS fenders from, but I'd like to have a source for hoods too. Obviously the holy grail would be complete floor panels, there have to be some hiding somewhere, they came in crates. I fully realise how impractical it must seem to expect a car company to restore production of parts, but my attention lies with the simple existence of such moulds and/or the willingness of Nissan to let them go, and who might have already approached them. I've already had to dissect a parts car to get some vital panels for my current restoration, now I just have to find a straight, rust free passenger's side front clip. I don't find it hard to believe that Nissan would still have them somewhere, other car companies keep the more popular models indexed. An odd but relevant example is the 1980's Jetta and Golf models from Volkswagen, you can still aquire the entire driver's or passenger's side of either, new (quarter panel to a-pillar.

If there's anything I've learned from restoring Z's, it's that Nissan doesn't seem to support it. Parts that the community needs for Nissan's most famous cars are simply not there. I haven't been able to ignore the fact that American companies have sold the original molds and rights to manufacturers of new parts, and I've been wondering where that same level of action is with the Japanese companies, specifically Nissan. I'd like to think that Nissan has the moulds stored away somewhere, it's just a matter of knowing what they intend to do with them, sell them, start using them, etc. The experience I've had with aftermarket panels is rather rough to say the least, and it'd be nice to have the same level of support as the original Austin Mini's have. I guess the conversation point for this thread is whether or not anyone has any information as to whether someone has attempted to contact Nissan, or if Nissan themselves have considered re-running parts. I'm sure I'm not the only one who would love to see new panels being made that fit as they should O.O.B, and I'm sure the question has run through many enthusiast's heads already.