EScanlon

While I think that if you wash the floor and it's still damp (not wet and puddly) you won't have paint mist to worry about unless you actually spill some paint. Just make sure the plastic sheeting is held down well and can't be fluttered onto your paint via your paint gun air stream or even casual kicking of it. If you do use the plastic, be very careful about any water that may drip onto it...it can be kicked up and onto the car very easily. I think Mat M, or the IanMonster had a problem with plastic sheeting blowing onto fresh paint. E

Are you sure the white part goes to the speedo? IIRC it's the gray metal sleeve that goes to the speedo and the white that goes to the tranny. 2¢ E

David; This is very interesting. You might post a picture of the finished item,as I'm sure there are others who may want to do the same. There might be some that would be interested in seeing if you would provide the same for them. E

NO!!! Lacquer thinner will CUT and LIFT your primer, sealer, and red cap if you used it. Check at the store where you will be buying (or did buy) your paint. Ask for it by name, and all you need is the small quart can. Some people have used Mineral Spirits and while some have said no problem, others have reported crazing and fish-eye. For the few bucks, it's cheap insurance. Remember, you've done too much GOOD work for you to risk it over a few dollars. Remember, 80% of body-work (if not more) is intended to be INVISIBLE after the paint is applied. One thing about a tack rag I didn't mention earlier, it is usually a resin impregnated cheesecloth. This resin is used to both capture and remove any dust / dirt / lint bits that may creep onto the car, and also to neutralize static charges you may have imparted in wiping down with W&G, and other actions. (Some people recommend using a ground strap attached to the car and to earth ground to eliminate static charges.) All of these are items you need to evaluate for yourself, but do be careful not to smear the resin onto the car's surface. A LIGHT touch is all that's needed with a tack rag. E

My 2¢ I would definitely wait until you have all the body parts to be painted to paint ALL of the exterior in one shoot. You can get away with shooting door jambs, hatch and engine bays, but once you start "patching" fenders, doors, etc. you are asking for ever so subtle differences in the finish. While the reducer itself is not necessarily the main reason for paint variation, it CAN be. The humidity, temperature, even the barometric pressure can affect how the paint flows from one day to another. Toss in that you would more than likely be painting the fenders on sawhorses and now you have position that can affect the look of the finish. While this is minimized with basic color paints (i.e no Pearl, Metallic, or other appearance modifiers) it is nonetheless something that should definitely be considered. Metallics and Pearls are the most sensitive to this phenomenon. As far as how much paint, that depends on your skill in painting and how many "coats" you'll be painting. Typically, you're talking a "mist" coat, followed by two or more "double-wet" coats for your basic color. Some people will add a last one with extra reducer to reduce the amount of "orange peel" effect. Again, it depends on your skill. Clear, if painted on the same day may in fact reduce the amount of color you can or should paint. Clear is even MORE sensitive to excessive paint and it is extremely easy to RUN/SAG it. This is even more exacerbated by the fact that you cannot readily "see" it. If you are talking a COMPLETE color change (i.e. door jambs, hatch, engine, interior) then at LEAST a gallon. It might also behoove you to buy the gallon as it might be cheaper than buying 3 quarts and then you don't have to batch mix all three quarts together to ensure color consistency. Washing the car is ok....as long as you thoroughly and completely dry it. Use copious amounts of water as opposed to soap. Use a wet cotton rag to wipe down all surfaces to remove any powder or dust that may still cling. Once you're finished washing, use the wet rag to wipe off any water, squeeze it dry whenever it gets wet and do it again. Use it just like if it were a chamois. Then go back over the whole car with an air blower and blow into all those little nooks and crannies that can trap water. If you find trapped water, use the blower and blow it out onto your rag. Use the rag to trap those runaway drops, don't let them evaporate on the car via the air stream. Your last step before beginning to paint, is a final application and removal of Wax and Grease Remover. This will ensure that there are no human or other oils on the surface of the car. This is wiped on, and wiped off dry...again, don't let it evaporate. A tack rag shouldn't be needed, as you will have cleaned the dust off the car, but you will definitely want to squeegee the floor of the booth, or at least wet it down (not puddles) to keep any dust and dirt off. HTH E

Since your car is Yellow...do you live in Beaverton? If it were Gold, then you could live in Vancouver....further up north (Tacoma) you'd have to go with Orange. J/K, welcome to the club. Enrique

Mais OUI!!! If you're planning on racing, that is definitely an eye-catching paint theme. I'd like to see shots of the complete vehicle, roof, hatch, hood and 3/4 views. Ou absolutement NON! If you're planning on driving it on the street...well, it may be a bit....flamboyant? But maybe if you have your hair dyed in the "Flock of Seagulls" style but using orange and yellow....well then it would be okay. Deux Francs E

Have Carl Beck look at it for you (if he doesn't mind!), he'd be your best source for information as to what to expect. Marketwise--East coast prices may well support what you're asking for. West coast? You may be a bit high, but then again that depends on how clean and rust-free it is. Being that it is in Florida....that may be questionable, but again I haven't a good reference for what you might have or not. Good luck. E

Ramses: Sorry, didn't have the 73 dash at all. I purchased the HCP from e-Bay (the lighted one) and fitted it to my 72 dash from a parts car. The 71 dash for my car is currently in storage awaiting $ to be properly restored. As far as being able to remove the radio without removing the HCP, it also depends on whether the lower portion of the HCP has been cut away by the IPO. If it has, and it's only the clamping of the radio's faceplate and backing plate that are holding the radio to the HCP, then you might be able to get the radio out without removing the HCP. If on the other hand, the HCP still has the lower band of plastic chrome, you might break it trying to get the radio out. There's only a small amount of space back there, and the side brackets to hold the radio preclude much wiggling room. FWIW E

A properly installed windshield with OEM weatherstripping on a blemish and repair free windshield frame should have no problems with it being installed without silicone or other sealant below the rubber or in the glass channel in the rubber. The application of silicone or other caulking can actually be quite messy and result in LOTS of complications, compared to the relatively unknown quantity of protection you might receive from it. Think of the streamers of silicone going every which way, on the glass, the FRESH paint, the interior vinyl, and then imagine trying to clean them off, either before or after they harden....then add up the HOURS it would take. Don't worry about leaks, they'll no doubt guarantee their installation. Let them do it the way they know how. 2¢ E

Bryan, you may have inverted the part references. According to the microfiche (Club CD) the 3 part (2 P/N) outer weatherstrip was in use to at least July 76. IIRC it was explained to me that the two side pieces couldn't be had or sourced but the center piece could be, and that using the center piece extended to fit both sides was not a problem. Your explanation is excellent otherwise, good diagram too. E

If the situation were reversed, what would your friend do? Sometimes the best part of a memory is how you feel when you relive it, and not when you reflect by memory. E

The bold highlights the important points here. John's point is dead on...Want to find out the hard way? Go ahead and tack and see if you don't end up with fish-eye's , crazing, the lint that the tack rag had picked up before sticking to your fresh sealer...Get the picture? But Bruce's point earlier is also right on the money, Spot On as our Aussie friends would say. "Find out from the paint jobber" is more than "Should I use sealer?", it's more along the lines of "Do you have the technical sheets on these products?". While it may seem pedantic, or even "snobbish", what you're trying to find out is process times, methods, and most importantly....compatibility. The majority of products you are working with have certain windows of time within which you can do certain processes, and outside of those windows (and depending whether before or after the window elapses) whether you can do the process at all. As an explanation, most primer/sealers I've worked with recently are of the NON-Sanding variety. That is, you don't NEED to sand it before you apply the next coat of paint. However, there is a distinct time window of opportunity. You can't do it before the window opens, and if you wait till the window closes, now you MUST sand in order to get the next coat of paint to adhere properly. There are certain Do's and Don't Do's within that time period. No sanding can also mean no tack-rag, or don't cover or lay anything on the surface or even handle at all. While some sealers are very forgiving, others are very touchy....to find out what you have, you read the tech sheet. Good points John and Bruce! E

I think it depends on what your definitions for "occasional" and "leisure" are, then combine the two and see what's left. Your occasional may be their semi-frequent level of use, and if you have time for leisure at work, is it work? E

Excellent point! Too often inexperienced painters forget that the BASE paint's color is Primer/Sealer color.....then followed by the COLOR paint of your favorite hue and effect; and then the CLEAR paint. The Base paint's color will definitely affect how THICK the next coat has to be before it evens out in color. As John pointed out, yellow paint is very much translucent to a degree and it will pick up the differences in the base it is applied onto. Paint red oxide primer and see how many coats of paint you have to apply before it LOOKS yellow. So use White Sealer over your primer and you'll not need to get more paint, just make sure the sealer you use is white. Good point John! E

The starter relay is ON the starter. Check the electrical portion of the ignition switch/steering lock. E

Don; There's been several threads started and discussed at length on this. Not trying to give you the "Do a search" routine answer, but there is a LOT of material that has been discussed. If what you want a short, nitty gritty, "Earl Scheib" type of answer, i.e. the Cliff's notes version: Taking the paint "down to the metal" is only necessary if the existing paint AND primer is bad OR if you have the time and money to do a paint job like they show you on "American Hot Rod". Don't wet-sand to or around bare metal if you don't absolutely have to. You're asking for more problems on a number of levels. Use a D/A sander with 220 over the complete car to SMOOTH the existing paint and reduce it's thickness. In the process you'll be leaving 220 size scratch marks which are sufficiently coarse enough to apply your fill primer on top of. Filler primer is used to build up the panel to further SMOOTH the body panel via sanding. Fill primer is generally applied OVER etching primer. ETCHING primer should be used wherever you have bare metal. A metal etching solution as a prior step to the etching primer is usually not necessary, but not necessarily a bad idea. However, note that SOME etching primers will NOT work well on top of previously etched metal. The key is to know that it will work with the materials you are using afterwards. PPG sells a wonderful metal etcher, which will work very well with their epoxy primer, or their fill primer, or the various brands of polyester body filler. However, it will cause major problems with lead-free solder's tinning solution (required to make the solder adhere well), or with another brand of epoxy primer. So the bottom line there is to know what you're working with and what you will be putting on top to make sure everything will work together. There are has been a ton of discussion regarding whether you should do body-work on bare metal, or on etch primered metal. I'm referring to plastic body filler. Both sides of the discussion make good points...YOU decide what you want to do. Let worked plastic body filler cure for as long as possible before you primer / seal over it. This means you apply it, you shape it, and you smooth it, then you let it sit either under infra-red lamps to help de-gas it or you wait several hours / days (again, many different schools of thought). This is to ensure that you don't trap any solvents that should have evaporated AND to ensure that shrinkage AFTER you've applied paint is minimal and hopefully unnoticeable. Your final smoothing on bodywork will range between 220 to 280 or 320 sanding paper, which still leaves some "tooth" for the fill primer to bond to. Most bodymen will advise doing a full fill primer coat or two on top of any body work to make sure you have a fully smooth surface without having to rely much on glazing putty. (Red Cap or "Icing" body filler) Your final sanding on the fill primer will be with 400 grit. Again, this still leaves enough tooth for the SEALER to adhere to. Definitely allow glazing putty to cure before you sand it, and let it cure AGAIN afterwards. (See the shrinking problems above.) Use a SEALER on top of all this. This is the final coat over the WHOLE car to ensure compatibility between the base coat of paint and the surfacing compounds already on the car. This also provides a uniform color base to enhance the paint from the first coat out. Generally, most sealers are NON-SANDING..as long as you stay within the time guidelines provided by the manufacturer. Wait too long and you WILL have to sand, don't wait long enough and you'll have problems. READ the sealer material's tech sheet. As pointed out by Bruce, you won't be over-painting to achieve the same color. The money you save by not sealing the whole car is very poor economy when you consider you could run / sag / orange-peel / craze / blush / crack a paint job by uneven paint spray. Again, READ the paint material's tech sheet. 2¢ E

Terry: Good thought, except that in this thread that's not the case. E

Not aware of a center drain tube. But when you say kick panel, are you referring to the black cardboard feel item that is backed with fiberglass insulation that is then attached to the FIREWALL? If so, that is actually the firewall insulator. Kick panels are those on the side that hide the hinge bolts. Now, water coming out from behind the firewall insulator says that you have either rust, cracks, on the bottom of the cowl bucket metal. Or the cowl bucket has separated from the firewall metal. It might be easier to inspect the cowl bucket from outside after you remove the cowl sheet metal. Then using flashlights and inspection mirrors check the forward (towards the engine) edge of the cowl bucket all along the center. Barring doing that, you would have to remove the dash, and other items in order to get all the way to the firewall and the cowl bucket. FWIW Enrique

You can see the hose directly from the floor of the interior. You'll have to lie on your back with your head right up by the firewall, then shine a flashlight up into the CORNER of the firewall, kickpanel and bottom of cowl bucket. You'll see the metal tube and the rubber hose attached to it. This is the same on both sides of the cowl bucket. You'll find it ABOVE the fresh air vent elbow. All you will see will be the 90° bend in the drain tube, that then exits out the kick panel. Have a friend pour some water into the cowl and observe where your leaks are coming from. E

When I was researching parts for my car that were "correct", I ran into various vehicles with the rivet and the stick-on vinyl rubber side protectors in the boneyard. The rivet on system is very hard on the vehicle and it does cause a lot of rust. It is also hard to find replacements with both the aluminum channel and the vinyl insert in colors. The Stick-On is still available. I would presume they are both period and dealer item correct since some of these cars had been there for many years, and the items were obviously ON the car when they arrived at the boneyard. However, with exposure to the sun, some of them undoubtedly faded and shrank before I saw them, and now I'm relying on memory, so you may have to adjust your monitor's resolution and color balance to see what I recall. Here are some of the styles I found but with their current (as of today) sources so you can be sure that you're getting the right item. Extra Wide Moulding- This was seen both with a chrome edge along both sides of the center vinyl and the extra wide black rubber reminiscent of later Subaru trim moldings: http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/ItemBrowse/c-10101/s-10101/p-100000153620/mediaCode-ZX/appId-100000153620/Pr-p_CATENTRY_ID:100000153620 http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/Product/Pr-p_Product.CATENTRY_ID:2008788/c-10101/Nty-1/p-2008788/Ntx-mode+matchallpartial/N-10101/tf-Browse/s-10101/Ntk-AllTextSearchGroup?Ntt=wheel+well+chrome If you're really worried about getting dinged on a new paint job, here's a more modern item which will allow you to either place one big wide strip or a multitude of individual ones at the critical points: http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/Product/tf-Browse/s-10101/Pr-p_Product.CATENTRY_ID:2008789/p-2008789/N-111+10201+600001802/c-10101 You can't go wrong putting these on your car as I and others can vouch for their having been used back "in the day". This cracked me up, as I recall when the Mexican in me got ahold of the mouse and used BIN to buy a set of these for the Z: http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/Product/Pr-p_Product.CATENTRY_ID:2008743/c-10101/Nty-1/p-2008743/Ntx-mode+matchallpartial/N-10101/tf-Browse/s-10101/Ntk-AllTextSearchGroup?Ntt=wheel+well+chrome I had thought they were something else, there wasn't a picture attached to the auction, and when they arrived, I could just hear all the wise arse cracks people would make about them. But that Alsace crack got me thinking....what if we were to anodize them "Gold" to match the end metal and the hubcaps? Any similarity to past, current, or future Mexicans, actual or practising, is not intended to be a crack on their car or character or lack thereof. In spanish: ¡Ay Güey! ¡No seas pendejo! Now what kind of nasty crack is that all about? Maybe he was commenting to Mr. K about the correctness of his vehicle's modifications? If not in originality but in retrospective necessity! After all, surely even Mr. K will agree that from the factory the Z needed some of the modifications he performed. The other guy was obviously so impressed with the comments he couldn't even crack a smile! Sorry....guess I just got tired of the "sarcastic" cracks.... ¡Ay Güey! E

Steve: That is EXCELLENT! That style of hose may even be better than what I came up with! Yours might also be useable in case the OEM Cowl Drain Hose has dried up and needs replacing. That's another problem that can happen and then my method would not work (you have to have the original drain to connect to). The hose I used would require being heated carefully in order to be made to fit. With the hose you got from Ace, you might be able to connect it directly to the metal cowl tube and then just make the bends. Any debris that would catch in the corrugated sides could be washed away with a healthy dose of water as in my system. GOOD JOB! :love: E

And don't worry about the negative feed back. You can post a reply to his negative post that says: "Buyer adamantly refuses to cooperate with refund process! Wants item for free!" That's exactly 80 characters including the quote marks. This will be plain and clear to other buyers, you tried to work with the buyer to resolve the issue, he refused to cooperate, you're not willing to just give the item away. Most people upon reading your response would add (in their mind)... "Here's your sign!" 2¢ E

Ditto David! This is Mr. Detroit (he's not smart enough to be a Dr.) plans almost as if they had been broadcast. It's an ages old scam, "I never got it!" therefore "I should get my money back!" Gary's first paragraph is very important here. If you shipped it with INSURANCE, then DHL is REQUIRED to obtain a signature. Check the little print, "Left at Door" does not apply if it has been insured. If on the other hand you are considering the basic insurance on the shipment as "Insurance" then you did NOT insure it. Insurance on the package is separate from the insurance they offer on their shipment, again check the little print. Keep copies of all the e-mails and PRINT them out. You will need these when the buyer goes to his credit card company and refuses the charges on the basis of "fraud". Paypal (if that is what you used, and more than likely is due to it's ease of use) will simply deduct the amount from your balance FIRST, then try to work something out. You need ample documentation of what you and DHL have offered to the buyer to resolve and prove his claim in order to refund him his money. That he refuses to do so, can be considered damning but not necessarily admission of guilt. However, the credit card company may not refund him his money on the basis of not cooperating...again, read the little print. The biggest problem you have is that Paypal will first take the money from YOU, and then see about resolution. Unfortunately, since they require a checking account linked to the merchant's account they'll withdraw it out of there if you zero your Paypal balance. If on the other hand, he sent a check or money order...tell him that without signing the DHL form...no refund, and even after he signs the form, it's based on what DHL will pay out. You might also hint at DHL looking into fraudulent activities of this sort and prosecuting them. FWIW Enrique

Tabco Body Panels. E