madkaw

Brandon, I wish you could have here to give some pointers or just tell us that we are screwing up! My friend a difficult time with the clear. First mistake was not using the fish eye reducer. Secondly, we had some kind of reaction or some spray gun disorder. We are using a hvlp -don't know the brand name. Not sure on the pressure, but I would assume according to instructions. Probably waited an hour between the sealer and base-also according to instructions. Base went on pretty smooth, just the urethanes we had the issues with. I think at first he had the wrong tip on the gun-too big. Needless to say I will have a lot of wet sanding and polishing to do. Any hints on doing this? How do you avoid swirl marks from the polish? What grit do you use for final sand before polish? Wool pad? I love the color and with all the blacked out trim it should be great. These pics the sun wasn't out, so the color is much brighter and lighter then the pics show.

We almost had her done today until the spray gun starting throwing fits with the clear. It was a day of high anxiety because of the unknowns and the high costs of failure. I had never used a sealer before and it was a white tinted sealer to boot. Then there is always the issue of dirt and bugs and spider webbing and runs and ect... Well the sealer went on weird , but settled out smoothly later. We had a few small runs in the sealer that really didn't show up until we painted the base coat. The base went on well with some weird spider webbing, but we were able to smooth that out too. We(my painter and best friend) were pretty happy by this point because besides the few small issues, this was going pretty good with hardly any dirt at all in the paint. Then the clear was sputtering and causing bad orange peeling, so my friend gave up for the day. There was a bad run that also needed work, so he said enough until he figured out the issue. Now we will have to wet sand the clear and start over, but I am still very very pleased with how this is turning out-especially the body work-this will be nice!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! By the way, the red pics are before clear

Well my buddy and I spent about 7 hours wet sanding and finishing any minor bodywork that we missed. We are about 4 or 5 hours away from painting-besides the day it will take to clean the garage before painting begins. It is truly amazing the amount of work that is involved in a complete paint job like this. The guys that complain about the cost of a QUALITY paint job, just try it once yourself. My buddy and I were talking about the cost of labor and materials for a paint job of this caliber and we figured 8k+ It will be nerve racking until that final coat of clear goes on, I might have a stress attack before this is all over:nervous:

That's funny you said that wingzro, because a train is exactly what I am waiting for:classic: In my case-- I am driving the train today! Are you on the way out to Indy?

It is 0425 August 6 and I am the only one on CZCC-it seems so lonely:) I've never logged on when no one else was showing on the list, where has eveyone gone? Is all the Z'ers sleeping. I guess I will play on CZCC all by myself, but that doesn't sound like much fun does it. I guess I'll come back later when someones here.

Well I posted those pics of the jam work being done-atleast we thought. After taking a second close look the painter(my best friend) and I decided that there were some discrepencies. Since we are just painting in a garage the lighting isn't the best and that cost us. We had found some areas that just didn't get covered well enough. I hated to complain about a "free" paint job, especially to a great friend, but he knew that he kind of blew it. So he basically shot everything over again, what a difference! If the outside turns out as good as the jam work, we will both be estatic. This weekend is slated for the final work. We promised ourselves that we would take our time and triple check everything, and clean everything 20 times and get this right the first time. At 150$ a quart, you can't waste this red stuff.

600$ was probably just for color, then you have clear, primer , sealer, wipe clothes, reducers, fish eye reducers, sandpaper, buffing pads, rubbing compounds,...........................................................And people wonder why paint work is so expensive.

Carl(clubvet), aren't you up in Fishers? I'll be up there this week-end for my son's swim meet. Arne, my first Z was Porsche guards red, which i loved and this Mazda color is similiar- and way expensive-ouch! My buddy(and painter) plans on putting a ton of clear on this thing, I hope I can "step" into this paint job it will be so deep. E-ticket-that sounds like a great color for this car-good luck!

Carl, I just couldn't decide on a silver that wowed me, so i went back to my original choice and the color of my first love(Z) and that is RED. I drove around with my son to the new car dealers and looked at colors the other day since my painter was telling me-PICK A COLOR DAMITT- and went to the Mazda dealership since I like their colors the best. I looked at the true red on the Miata and it just popped out at me-I love that color. It looks bright when the sun is in and even brighter when the sun is out. Sorry to the purists that I didn't use a Nissan color, but their red is boring. I am also going to try and make the paint pop even more by using a white sealer underneath, so hopefully it will really pop. A couple of pics, but hard to really see the color well. Also keep in mind that I have blacked out all the trim with powder coat Matte black. So there will be no chrome or SS on this car, except for the tail light trim-and I might change that to.

I doubt the autozone caliper is "new", but remanufactured to new specs. The rebuilt kit price is a little high-is that genuine Nissan stuff? I think original brake equipment is good stuff and if resonable I would rebuild. Datsun used some quality materials on their wheel cylinders and Master cylinders-as well as calipers. Then again, the calipers are so simple that I don't think a reman company could rebuild it wrong-so I wouldn't worry about buying a rebuilt. Hope that helps.

Hey, I'm 5 minutes from the airport in Indy. You can come hang out , but bring some work clothes because my Z should be back from the paint shop and my family will be out of town on vacation and I will be overhauling-Z style.

No modding to get the spoiler on, just hours of fitting and heating the fiberglass so it wasn't such a sprung fit. Carl, Good luck to you too, I know how these paint jobs go. I actually went over to the painter today and disassembled the car for him so he can shoot the engine compartment. Damn i can't wait to see it done!

After years(about 15) of owning this car, and fixing everyone elses car, I am finally getting close to getting her painted. It is really more then a paint job since I am resto-modding everything as I go, but you can't do anything until the color is on. I have everything rebuilt(engine, interior, ect..) waiting on the paint so I can put it all back together. Now the tough part is to choose the right color. The color was originally silver and she is going back silver, but which one? That has been the million dollar question here lately. I wish I could see a quality paint job somewhere with the original Datsun silver so i can compare. I think I will go with something newer though, something with a little POP in it. I'll take any suggestions. There was a nice 240 in Nashville Indiana at the Brown County car show that had a late model Saab silver that was very nice. I want to find a silver that isn't very white, but rather some substance to it as being a little darker but with a lot of bling. The newest 350z silvers are too lite in color. I have even considered the Pontiac galaxy silver or the Pontiac Pewter metallic. I am considering putting a larger metal flake in the paint to give it some zing.

Arne, great info as always. I have made my own "clifford" system with one exception, I put a crossover pipe between the the duals. I also used glasspacks. I wish I could play some sound for you, but the car is still in the paint shop.

I swear I have read a thread on this , but can't seem to find it now. I know someone has fitted later year interior plastic panels on an earlier year. We all know how flimsy the first 3or 4 years are, but the 260z the panels got considerably thicker-but will they fit? I can't imagine there could be that much of a difference and I am not interested in originality of the early panels, as much as the durability of the later years. I have 2 complete sets that are excellent, 240 and 260. I would rather paint the 260 panels and use them over my perfect 240 set because I know they will last longer. I need the sell one of the sets, but I want to make sure I can use the 260 set in my 71. I would appreciate any comments.

Well I finally got to see all the pieces together in my daughter's car. I am still missing some fasteners and the SEM paint I got doesn't match the interior tan color like I thought .I got a SEM paint card and picked the Buckskin color, but now I think the color might be Palamino instead. Whenever I get the color right I will probably reshoot all the plastic pieces that show significant wear. I hope my Z turns out this well.

I've done a little of this stuff, but not a lot of vinyl stretching. It is an art, especially when the curves are compound. I plan on covering the plastic panels on my 240, but they proven to be a challenge-the quarter window panels are a bitch. I order stuff from -yourautotrimstore-. I bought a sample book so I could match up colors. I would like to get good enough to do this for some side money. Think of all the 280zx panels that need this done;) Your right about the age of this cars being the confusion factor!

Man, looking at this thread just makes me cringe that I haven't heard my own system run yet. Soon the car will be painted and then vroom baby. That system looks nice and oughta sound good, I am only using one set of glasspacks, but I installed an X pipe hoping to kill some of the resonance. I might have to get a quieter muffler eventually. That narrow tunnel makes it hard to fit anything in there. I just went with some tips that looked good Some pics of mine-- Can't wait to hear the sound

Well I haven't posted on the ZX side of this site before , so I guess it's time. Man this side of the site is pretty dead-not much love for the s130 I guess. Actually I haven't paid much attention to them either, but I bought my daughter a decent 81zxt, and she loves it. Just today her friends(she's 19) said they thought she was driving a Porsche. She also said she felt COOL in that car. Anyway, the car needs a little of everything, but not a lot of anything. Today was interior day and I decide to tackle the rear vinly covered panels that are tore up on every ZX. I like doing this kind of work, but I am limited to warm weather because it is not indoor work with an attached garage. I will also be covering my 9/71 plastic panels with vinly too, but I am practicing with my daughters car. I atleast got lucky with the color match, and I got lucky with the whole job really. Everything went pretty smoothly and also very messy. It's hard to be neat doing this work. I will post my progress on my daughters car just to keep this side of the site alive;)

Well I just got off the phone with Greg giving him the low down on his car. I spent several hours looking over the car to give him my evaluation of the work that needed to be done. We knew that the car needed major work, but now it looks like it might be too much. greg and I decided to post some more pics to see what you guys think. Would you put the time and money into this car or junk it? When does sentimental value outway costs? I guess the only reason we are having this conversation is because of the very low vin#, which does have some bearing on this issue. Some of the things that need to be replaced: Both frame rails forward of firewall-bent and rusted Passenger inner fender-badly damaged passenger firewall-patch replacement Radiator support Rear hatch panel Both rear quarter panels Both floor boards and frame rails

My friend of 25 years paints out of his garage. He painted the car on the thread "midwest Z shop". He does this part time, but does nice work. He is very good at getting the body work straight, I only wish he had a real paint booth. He is on the east side of indy. He is becoming a Z expert thanks to me;) pushing all these Z cars at him. He likes them though since they are small. I am planning on going with the original silver since I love silver on these cars. I was trying to come up with a unique silver color, but anymore I just want her painted so I can drive her again. I will attach a pic of the last car Steve painted.

My car is a 9/71 and seems to have both the early and later attributes. Non reclining seats, blanked dash hole, dual choke levers, ect... So I am saying that the dates are not set in stone.

happy days, my car is finally heading to the paint shop. I've been waiting forever-it seems-to get to this point. It seems like I have been doing everyone elses car http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25483&highlight=midwest+shop but now it is my turn. I can't wait till it gets back so I can put her back together.

Steve, It looks like you have a lot of work ahead. I had to help make a decision like this for a client the other week. his car however is #379, which gives it a little more value. His car was a little better shape, but still a lot of work. If it had been a little worse, or not #379, or a strong sentimental value, I would have gone with arne's advice and told him to look for another body. If I was asked my opinion on your car based on the pics, I would say take some time and try and find another body before you get too determined with that car. That is some pretty bad corrosion. It depends on how you want to look at it--a challenge to your skills maybe . I travel into Collinsville sometime on the CSX railroad. I'd like to see your car sometime. I'd offer my services, but I think you have the skills and determination already, but do you have desire to do that much work on that car. I wish you all the luck.

Just wondering if anyone has had issues filling out information on the MSA website for their order. I had my order ready and went to check out. When I got to check out and started filling out the billing info, about every 3 rd letter I type,the window pops up an hour glass,and nothing types. I have tried this on at least 2 different occassions from 2 different states with the same results. I called and told the representative at MSA and he says the problem is at my end. He offers to let me use my MC, but I was going to paypal. I am convinced that the problem is with their page, but I can't prove that. Maybe other people are experiencing the same problem and just keep reseting their cursor until the info is filled out-which would take forever. Jay at MSA said that they have taken 50 orders today, so everything is working fine. Someone want to chime in on this??