wheee!

Well, Christmas was good to me, as usual.... My daughter and son-in-law bought me a nice classic 240Z t-shirt and Datsun BRE shop clock! My wife picked me up three nice Datsun/Z shirts and of all things, a Datsun 240Z tie! What can I say, they know my weaknesses! On top of that, my ECU cover showed up from eBay. It is in such perfect condition it has to be NOS. There is no way it was ever installed in a car before... It's blemish free and clean as new! My 370Z club calendar showed up as well. It has a picture of my 370Z for the month of June! Awesome presents! I am so lucky!

Et Joyeux Noel a toute le monde! Thank you to all the forum members I have come to know as friends and trusted advisors. Looking forward to continuing this conversation for a long time to come.

Thanks for the input Chas! Let me take this time to wish everyone reading this thread a very Merry Christmas! My family celebrates Christmas Eve (German tradition, wife's side), so today I am surrounded by family. God bless each and every one of you fellow Z enthusiasts.

yup. I will get a better pic of mine soon.

All I need is the lower cross member support. The top and sides are fine and I can weld it in. Mine is too bent to leave as is and it is missing the valance support. Should the lower section be the same?

Glutton for punishment...

Yeah, I will be pulling that metal back out as much as I can... that is reason I am going down to bare metal on this car....

Please elaborate! I am not concerned about the horn mounts and I can fab new rad support tabs. It is the crossmember that is dented badly on mine...

Hey Mark, I would be interested in the front rad support complete. Mine is dented and missing the nose/valance support... interested?

Speaking of less build, I came across a section of the rear drivers quarter that was filled almost 3/4" high over a weld seam....! yeesh Gotta try and fix that too..

Correction to my last.. Metal! Just a lot of fibreglas filler on the edges. Doglegs are good too!

Hmmmm. Drivers side is pretty gnarly too... Another surprise...! I didn't pay too much attention to the rockers but now I know why... Fibreglas! Guess I'll order the rockers. The hack welding job at the nose was pretty bad too.

Some more toys showed up in time for Christmas. Hood badge for SassZ an some green LEDs to go with the pwd module in the dash. All I need now is the metric white face labels and the gauge mods will be ready!

60 Gallon, 18 CFM, triple head 5hp compressor. I know it's small for blasting, but it's what I have. It never drops below 100psi, but I will have to go slow and let it catch up. I also have a 3 foot long, pellet filled desiccant tube attached for dry air. I have lot's of fluorescent overhead lighting, a pull down trouble light over the car and a large LED spotlight too. I have several media nozzles for the blaster. I have a screen over the media barrel and will filter all recycled media I don't mind blasting, I like the cause and effect and instant results. Not looking forward to the mess though... There will be a 6mil tent around the car to stop media from going all over the shop, but I will be careful with the cleanup and blowing out the cars cavities when I'm done. I think I'm going to start with the crushed glass fine media. it is slow, but does a very clean job.

No pictures today but i scraped a lot more of the drivers front inner fender. Found a few more welded patches hiding under the undercoating along with more rust.... ugh. It is going to take a lot of sandblasting to prep these parts for repair. Ordered a full face mask and hood for the portable blaster so I can tent the car once I am done the scraping. Still a few weeks of that to go I'm sure....

My plan is por15, primer, paint, dynamat, fibremat, then carpet.

Mine are HID projector lamp housing with focused beams. No issues with light scatter here...

I always tell my wife I have better judgment than her. After all, I picked her, she picked me....

I'm going with hid headlights and will be building a custom relay harness for them. No need to overload the switch!

I remember you posting that. Good advice.

Smart decision. Hurt the heart, save the wallet...

, he loves grinding... It is an art form to him. I too like the idea of no seams. Butt welding is not difficult I suppose but the possibility of pinholes concerns me. Especially if you are spot welding in a ring over and over versus a straight seam.

What if you overlap, plug weld and hold in place with clecos, then do a seam weld on the bottom an grind smooth? No lip, overlap on the inside to make it simple and then either seam weld the inside or seam seal after plug welding...?

The Metal Prep is supposed to sit wet for 30 minutes then washed off.

I have seen the dreaded "acid creep" on a car a couple years after restoration. It was sad because the repair was going to be more difficult than the original rust damage! I am blasting with fine grit glass. No sand. It stays cooler and cuts better. It will be messy I know but it should clean up the bad spots well enough. I have the metal prep spray here too, should be the same as the Eastwood stuff.