Restoring a 1970z

[recondite]

About 2 months ago my dad bought me a 1970 240z from one of his employees. The owner had it for atleast 20 years and he said the guy before him also just had it sitting So we go to pick it up and bring it back to our house. We quickly take all the extra parts out of the interior and pop the hood. We replace the battery and spark plugs and get the fuel coming from a jerry can (we wern't sure how rusted the gas tank was). A little bit of noise and brrrum the engine starts and is purring like a kitten. The spedometer reads 26249. I don't know how to tell if its 120 or just 20 but the spark wires and etc where stock.

Two months go by and i have it taken down to its unibody + axles. In the front the rust is REALLY bad. It also apears that the car got into a slight front collision. The rear and interior (minus the floor pans) seam to be in pretty good condition. Miraculously the dash is in perfect condition. No cracks no nothing. The only thing is that it doesn't have a tach. Now the extear body had ALOT of bondo. Now all this was done 20+ years ago as the guy we got it from didn't really do anything to it. My theory is that the car got into an small accident and the first owner half repaired it.

Firstly, what should I do about the rust? My dad can weld and we have all the equipment to do it. But what about parts that are severly rusted (like the front rails!) is there anywhere or anybody who sells original spec parts that we can just spot weld in?

Also where is the best place to purchase authentic interiors. Although the car was originaly Green/Tan I want to redo it in blue/black. The dash is in perfect shape but the seats need to be reapulhstered

Anyways im typing to much. If any of you have any suggestions on the best way to go about an authentic restoration of this car it would help alot

P.S I have three mini-CDs of pictures (from a sony mavica digicam) that i could post up but they are all like 2 meg jpgs and i don't feel like making them smaller.

[2ManyZs]

If you search through the web-links here you should be able to find probably 90% of the repair panels you may need. Motorsport Auto, Zedd Findings and many others have floor pans, frame rails, rocker panels, quarter panel repair panels, lower front fender repair panels. About the only thing you may have trouble with is under the battery tray on the inner fender, this may need to be fabricated if it is rusted through. Not an easy job, but with patience it can be done quite well if welded properly.

Be sure to check inside the rear wheel wells, the rocker panels, the bottoms of the front fenders, under the battery tray, behind the seats on the floor pans, and the bottoms of the front strut towers above the frame rails.

If you use the search function you should be able to find many threads and posts dealing with rust issues.

Good luck on your project, it sounds like you may have a car that needs to be fixed and brought back to life.

[ZSource]

Try Charlie Osborne at Zedd Findings in Kingston, Ontario. His e-mail address is zeddfind@kos.net. He has frame rail and floor pan replacement kits as well as a wide selection of new and used Datsun Z parts.

[Z-point]

And this is his webpage

http://web.ctsolutions.com/zeddfind/