280z1975

Thanks for the notes of worry to my well being, but I am fine. After i got done with all the other things i needed to get done to the car it was 9pm and I was already working on the car from noon, so didn't want to approach the problem all tired and pissed off. As far as safety, I always use jack stands when working under the car and ALWAYS shake the $^!# out of the car just to be sure it doesn't move. I tried to release the hood from underneath just 10 minutes ago and it won't budge. The hood cable is not broken. It is slightly depressed, but still has an inch of pull. I can here it move. So does anyone have any new advice? I am all outta ideas. If I can't get it to work this in the next hour I will go to my mechanics and put in on the lift for better access. I have thought about getting to the hood attachment bolts at the hinges, but that is going to be a pain in the arse.

:classic: I guess it's time to move to Aussie land. :squareeye Other places to consider are South Africa, New Zealand, Japan and England ... Of course then there is the whole hand brake location problem and relearning to drive on the other side of the road, which I can say is a bit scary the first time you try it! After 10 years of seeing on coming traffic on the left hand side of the road when you start driving on that side it's a bit un-nerving.

I didn't think my tank would be that bad, but when I went to clean mine out and re-seal it I had literatly a handful of rust in that bad boy! This is on a garage kept Texas car! Now I know why my car was running rough at idle, it wasn't getting enough pressure because of rust in the fuel lines.

I will try that right now, if it doesn't work I will let everyone know. :dead:

I have been putting together my car and it is scheduled to go the the mechanics tomorrow. I was adjusting the hood and when I finally thought I got everything alightned right I went ahead and pushed it shut. Well now it wont' open up!!!!! When I push down on the hood it doesn't go down at all or move so it can release so I can reach the hood release latch. What the hell can I do. I am am about ready to start taking a damn hammer to this thing! :tapemouth :tapemouth :tapemouth :tapemouth :tapemouth :tapemouth : Please help!

Go to any body repair place (even the good ones) and they all use bondo (or similar plasitc fillers). I had a REALLY bad set of waves in my roof. I had a choice of cutting off the old one and having a new one welded on, or body filler. I choose body filler and it cost me about 15 bucks in bondo (just under 2 quarts) and a lot of time, but the roof looks WAY better and was way cheaper ... will anyone ever know, probably not ... I did the prep the right way and it's covered up and sealed with 4 coats of epoxy primer. It should last a long long time. If you do the solder route I would suggest and still want to avoid the body filler for the smaller spots is to get a Paintless-Dent-Removal guy to come out and smooth out the bad spots, the good ones can do a really nice job. But they are $$$, usually 40-50 bucks a dent :stupid:

The other post have it right, your personal taste is your own and what YOU want and like is what matters ... I personally like the reverse stripe as it gives you something different.

I ended up sanding down the clear coat (I put it on wrong :stupid:) So I had the pro painter come out and lay down two quick base coats and a boat load of clear (just under 3 quarts) As promised, some photos of the results: Some more to come once everything is put back on the car and the clear is sanded smooth and buffed.

I will be wetsanding it tonight, so pics to come soon enough. The clearcoat is still needing some time to dry fully before I can get to it. The clear coat didn't go on as smooth as I would have liked. so I am going to have to spend some nice time wetsanding it smooth. I just couldn't get the paint gun to spray it just right. That is why I am not a pro and wanted someone with experince to do it. But then agian EVERYTHING done on the restoration of the car so far has been myself (with the exception of mechanical work on the clutch and fuel injectors). Some pics of the car during the painting, more of the complete job to come. PS: Has anyone else noticed that putting on a new paint color is like takeing off a hot girls painties ... you just can't wait to see what's going to be there The photos: 02 - The rig I made for painting the larger loose parts 03 - The car with it's primer coats. 4 coats of Epoxy to REALLY protect it 04 - My best friend Tyler, 11 hours of work for some Pizza, Beer, cola and a handshake 05 - The car before all the painting with it masked off. The roof has some BAD waves in it that I hade to use about one and half cans of body filler after pushing up the low spots and banging down the high spots.

OK, I am not usualy someone to just post what the hell I have done, but it's 1:30 in the morning and I just spend 12 hours painting my Z. I was supposed to have the car painted today in my garage by a pro painter from the body shop my best friend works at, but he was busy with shop stuff and said he couldn't get it done today or tomorrow. (this is the second weekend in a row he has done this to me ) So, since the car needs to come together soon so I can finally move from my current house and to that of me and my fiance I said "What the hell" and decided to paint it myself. Now I am not a new-bie in the paintig relm, but I am not far from it. I just took my time and had some nice help from my best friend and it turned out not that bad. In fact I am damn impressed with myself. The car just needs the clearcoat wetsanded and then it will look stupid nice, not a #1 show car or trailor queen, but great to me. Ok, it's late and I need to get some sleep. Wait, it's daylight savings and since it's almost 2am (which will be come 3am) I REALLY need to get to sleep :lick: I will have more photos to post later tomorrow or monday and much more once i put the hood, hatch, doors, airdam, spoiler and other parts on and then polish them all.

My hood hinges are painted on my 75' 280z. I can't reacall 100% but I do belive they were painted on the 240's (someone please back me up on this if I am right, or feel free to shoot me down if I am wrong :surprised ). Check Wicks Humbles book or wait for someone with a bit more experitise to chime in. If you are going for orginality you need to paint them with them still attached to the car. I can't wait, two hours till my car get's painted! Sweet!!!!

I agree that the B-J auciton might be the best for someone who is selling thier car for profit, but the Z car might not fetch the best price with the crowd there, but then again the crowd does have some money to burn is sounds like. The only thing I hope is the new owner, who was quoted as saying "he had some money to burn", appreciates the Z car. Maybe we should invite him out to a track day with the local Z club and show him what the Z car is really all about. It's time to convert the masses to the Z car way one at a time

I don't want to hyjack this thread, but I have a kinda stupid question about the K & N filters? Why can you use these and not worry about rain or water when you would with a normal air filter? Also, once you wash the K&N does it need to be re-coated with an oil? I was told this is something you would want to do. I got lucky, a spare engine I bought came with a K & N filter. It was an upgrade I wanted, but at the time didn't have the cash for. :laugh:

In his other post of the same subject, but in the correct forum of Interior, he quoted $250 for the work. http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=20974

That really looks great! .... I to am going to be redoing my wheels soon (but I will do it myself). Does anyone else out there really hate how big the horn button is? I personally want to get rid of the stock one and have a billet one made that will be about 1/4 the original depth of stock. I think that will really make the stock wheels look really nice.

I will post something in a week once I install my carpet. Untill then I can say it looks nice in the plastic

Ok, I have done some searching out there and can't find what I am looking for, so the question (and opions) go out to all you Z lovers. I am painting my car this weekend after a lot of body work. I am going with a black, original '638 Black Metallic'. But I was thinking of adding in some white metallic to the paint to give it something extra, but I can't find a photo of what it will look like. Does anyone have an idea, opinion or photo of what this will look like? I am using white as my accent color (the grill and brake area)

Hey I asked that 240z bumper question .... :tapemouth ..... but then again I posted it not so much as a 'how' but as 'Is this something that is not-cool-to-do'. I really think the best way to gain userability is to develop the "Members Articles" section. That way once people ask a question you just post the appropriate article. While direction them to the search fuction is nice and all, you don't always come across relevent information quickly and spend an hour looking for the right information.

I wonder what he is using. The epoxy primer alone is going cost me $150 in cost! I guess if you went with a cheap primer and single stage paint it will end up paying only $300ish in paint material (maybe call up your local auto paint shop and see if they have any gallons of paint that they mixed and weren't picked up that they will be willing to sell cheap. You might find a color you like). People also need to remeber there are 'other costs' that can add up when painting that just isn't the paint. Time being a big one, but other than that there is also masking tape, sandpapper, tack cloths, plastic sheeting, equipment rental (if you can't borrow), etc.... Be sure to post pics once the cars done.

I am painting my Z this weekend, also in Black, but no stripes at the moment (later I will do a hood accent and side stripes, small ones). The cost at a local body shop for JUST the parts to paint the car was going to be $600 (paint, primer, reducer, paper, sandpaper, etc). Then I was throwing 200 to the painter. Now I am going to paint the car in my garage with the painter from the body shop. I went to the paint store and the cost of the material went down just slightly, about $500 total. The quote from Maaco was $570 to paint my car, but I was VERY WORRIED about going there as it's a crap shoot as to the quality of the job they will be doing. Some are good and some are $^!#. So it's all about what you want. BTW, these prices were with NO body work, which i am doing myself. You can see how far the car is stripped down. Also, if you just walk in a body shop or call they are going to quote you $3,000 to 4,000. That is just thier normal way of weeding out people who are looking for a deal. Tell them you are serious and go in person with the car and tell them exactly what you want and what your price range is, if they can match it they will. Remeber, body shops make thier money from insurance not from guys like you, so the process will be SLOW usually. My suggestion, is unless you are restoring the car, just paint it the same color you have it and then work from there on accent colors. It will make things a LOT easier in the end. Hope this helps.

I have this method of hanging my hood and other parts out of the way .... My seats are in my closet ... The rest of the parts are mainly in the garage, but some have found thier way into the shed....

Try here: http://zhome.com/History/ZColorGallary/ yours is probably "305 Light Blue Metallic" paint code 14748. Hope this helps...

I sourced my LED bulbs from this place: http://autolumination.com/otherleds.htm I just got them in yesterday and I will be trying to install them this week. They are almost a perfect fit (a little bigger than stock ones) I am refering to the Ba9s bulbs. There is a little bit of information on this forum about changing out the bulbs, and a more over at hybridz.org. I will post more tips once I have finished the job.

The cheapest I got for Houston, Texas to Buffalo, New York was about 800ish dollars when I was looking to ship mine when I move. Then I looked at Uhaul for the tow dolly (125) and trailor (250). Then I came up with the idea of making my own tow bar attachment (20 bucks in material), using a universal tow bar attachment (55 bucks shipped) and adding some towing lights (35 bucks shipped) and I have a re-useable towing attachment for my z car! I will be doing a write up on how to do this soon. I figure the move alone will pay for it, but then I can also use it when I take my car to the painters and to the mechanic while I am finishing up my work. :cheeky: The only key to this is the car has to roll. I got the idea when I towed my brothers Jeep back from Colorado with my dad's truck.

Yea, but the road trip can be worth the memories .... how does the commercial go ... "A 1970 Datusn 240z - $1000 dollars .... Gas to and trailer and gas from California - $800 dollars .... the memories being made with each mile of the Z - PRICELESS" for all those Z parts in life there is Mastercard :classic: All in all I would have bought that in a heartbeat if I had the room or my wife would have killed me. And I don't want that, she would then own my Z .