Dadson Racing: 2010 Revival

[FuzzyDropbear]

Wow, great work mate, it's sort of a shame to put it in harms way on the track, but then again, that's what they were designed for! 

Love the new suspension 

[Zedman240®]

Very thorough indeed! You'll want to wrap it up in cotton wool when you re all done. Excellent work!

[Snoop G]

the body work on this is full on.
And really a job well done for doing it right.

[Whittie]

Thanks all or the very nice comments, it means a lot!

I am sure that the very first couple of trips to the track will be VERY... interesting, experiences. On my part, I am going to line up 3 friends to come and do some professional photos shoots before the car travels it's first 10 k's. I want to be able to capture the perfection of all the work the moment it will look best, when it is very first finished. After the photo shoots then it's fair game and rocks will surely take their toll on the panel and paint. However, with the finish on the car and the rust work that's been done I've been assured of 15+ years of trouble free motoring and then the rest.

Well, time for another update:
10 December 2011
Well, I went to see Will again today, I even decided it would be a good idea to do the 47k return trip on my push bike in 30 degree weather, and I have no photos because there has been no progress. It’s been 3 weeks since the last visit and Will has been busy with other projects and tells me he needed a break from such a long and drawn out car. I think this has been his longest rebuild to date and he’s a bit sick of working on it. None the less, I’ve been promised the next 3 weeks exclusively so I’m sure there will be some good progress next visit.

Unfortunately, Will has found quite a few flaws with the fiberglass parts on the car. He showed me some spider looking cracks in the gel coat and he says that usually when you see this, rather than just coating it, it means that the part needs more work or to be re-done. I didn’t pay much for the parts and Will tells me that these sorts of issues are why you can’t charge a lot for parts. If the parts had come in ‘Ready to be painted’ condition then they would command a premium price and would be true ‘paint and go’ material. Not to worry, Will will be sanding back the gel ever so carefully (It’s see-through in some parts!!) and then going over it with bog to fill and fix all the imperfections.

Will’s mate over the road, who is a fiberglass specialist, will also be having a look at the panels and devise a method of how to ‘roll’ fiberglass guards. I have a feeling it means cutting out a section of the panel and re-moulding a piece that the wheels will fit under.

[Whittie]

8 January 2012
Well, we’re now into the New Year and the project is coming up to a year late on my ideal finish date. However, soo much more work has been required that the original goal for finish was never going to be achievable without an army of people and a bottomless pocket. Believe it or not, despite the build to date, my pocket is not bottomless!
It’s been a month since the last update on the diary so here is a recap of a few visits: A little bitter-sweet really, the car is approaching being finished and yet at every turn more rubbish previous repair work is found. Read on to discover the next chapter:

24 December 2011
I went to see Will today, he’s been working hard and will be over Christmas so the least I could do was drop in a carton to help it through it. No photos, I left the camera at home, but WOW do I need to get some photos ASAP for you guys!

The fiberglass man and Will had a look at the panels and the decision has been made that it would be far too difficult and expensive to do what I wanted with them and it would be easier and cheaper to just use steel guards. I really didn’t want to use steel guards on the car, but having talked to Will at some length, it’s going to make the whole process much cheaper. I dropped the panels off a week or two before this visit, in their ‘virgin’ heap-of-a-condition because I hadn’t stripped them as I was never planning to use them. Will has got them back to bare metal and tells me they weigh at least half of what they did with all the bog/tar/rubbish on them. At the end of the day, it’s not ideal for weight loss but a much better solution overall. I like efficiency and this is it playing in full. Pics next visit!

On an even less exiting note, on this visit it turns out that the reason the fiberglass guards didn’t fit on the passenger side is because of the accident it had way back when by a previous owner. About 6 years ago Will replaced all of the front chassis rails due to a near roll-over in the sand I had caused them to crack as they had rusted through. These repaired parts of the car were straight but the dodgy repairs from when the car was hit in the front meant that the entire passenger side of the engine bay was bent. The rails are straight, but the reinforcing bar at the top is bent and therefore the panels don’t fit…. Yay?

So much for a good body, Will now has to spend a couple of weeks cutting up the front end, pulling it straight and welding it back together.

29 December 2011
The Christmas rush is over, I finished moving house for the second time in 8 months and I managed to fit in a visit to go see Will! The guards are coming along well, but like the rest of the car, they were in TERRIBLE condition and it’s taken a fair whack of time to get them going. Here is a pick of the drivers side:



Looking AMAZING!!!

Oh, that’s right, I forgot to mention that using the steel guards means that I can now have the vents that I originally wanted, they couldn’t be moulded in to the fiberglass, but you can weld them in to steel. I didn’t get the weight out that I wanted by using fiberglass, but aero efficiency is back on the agenda for this build. Yeah baby!

The passenger side has also had some work but isn’t finished yet:



And the inside of the passenger side guard before venting and rust replacement but after Will has ground all the tar off:



2 January 2012
The second day of the New Year and parts are going back to Will to be installed on the car! This is a pretty momentous occasion; the car is going back together! I had nothing more to show than the wheels and suspension loaded up in the car waiting for delivery to Will:



He’ll be using the stuff to work out how much the guards need to be adjusted to get it all to fit. It could be an interesting discovery, another to add to the list at least. Keep posted.

7 January 2012
I popped in today to see Will and to keep him motivated with some of the cold hard stuff. Progress is going well and the front end is finally straight and fits together!

Dad took the last photos and so this was my first trip to see the steel guards: Wow was I impressed or what! I was greeted by this site on walking in to the shop:



It looks AMAZING in the flesh. The other side of the car is not looking as good tho, here is the passenger front guard: Rust


More bogged up rust from previous repairs:



More rust:



VENTS!



Some of the rubbish cut from the guards alone:



Will spent a lot more time over the last week straightening the front passenger side of the car. He tells me that the rails were straight (he did rebuild the front rails 6 years ago, so that’s to be expected) but forward of the suspension towers the entire front end had concertinaed on top of itself and was pushed downwards. Will measured it all up, got cutting and welding and now it’s straight again. Not an ideal situation, but I’m super happy to know that at least the car is now perfectly straight, free from Bog, super light-weight and rust free! Here are a couple snaps I managed to take of the remnants of his hard work on the front end:

Behind the headlight bucket:







It’s all now dead straight, check out the gaps:



Considering that 2 weeks ago the panels wouldn’t even fit and allow the bonnet to close, that’s one hell of an achievement right there.

The passenger guard is not rust free yet, but here are a few pics of the rubbish that came out of the driver’s side panel, including remnants of SUPER dodgy previous repairs that were just begging for rust to set in:











The headlight bucket is not bolted in place and I snapped this pic before Will could position it where it will end up, but check out the gap on the guard, how amazingly straight!



The next job is to finish the rust in the guards, mount the suspension to determine how much work needs doing and ‘pump’ the guards to tuck the wheels.

That was it for this last visit, however I got home today (day after these last pics) and I have a missed call from Will from this afternoon, so I’ll be getting back to him in the morning but hopefully it’s good news for a change and not more completely f’d body/chassis notifications!

Oh, the interior is in primer and now Will is just working on rusted guards and then paint!

[chartoo]

What are the vents your welded in under the gaurds on the back end of the engine bay? Price?

[Whittie]

The vents on the guards, according to the sticker on them are: holden hk ht hg gts. I got them from rare spares for about $50-$70 each or so. Not too expensive, but more than I thought they would be when I originally bought them.

Here is what they look like done, should look ripper on a zed!

[luvemfast]

Phew.......
Just reading it is a marathon, so can't imagine how you feel about it.
At least it feels you're getting somewhere.

[260DET]

They are the same vents used in my 260Z build years ago and suit the S30 very nicely I think. One thing with them, the openings are quite narrow, if it is not too late you may want to open them out. From memory mine were done using a cutting wheel on an angle grinder.

Bathurst this year, Nationals at PI in 2013?

[Whittie]

the openings are quite narrow, if it is not too late you may want to open them out. From memory mine were done using a cutting wheel on an angle grinder.

They are quite small aren't they, I would like to do that very much. I was told it would be too hard, but now I know how to do it I'll make sure they get done!

Nationals at PI again sounds like a winner. I did the last one there actually (2007??), see if I can't make it 2 from 2!! More "Longest Distance Traveled" awards always look nice Doubtful for bathurst (easter?) far too soon and far too much left to do still.

[260DET]

 From memory after cutting the gaps wider a grinding wheel was used to smooth the ends, using the edge of the grinding wheel. Be careful of course, the edge could catch and bite you.

PI in 2013 sounds good.

[Whittie]

A few teaser phone pics to let you know I haven't forgotten about you all 

[Whittie]

I'm going to have a mould taken of the front spoiler before I inevitibly bend it on the track considering Will spent a couple of days making it fit the car now that it's straight again. I compared it to another, as-new, spoiler that I borrowed from a friend and they are the same size, so I know the spoiler will fit on other straight cars.

This spoiler is now a full custom job that is not available anywhere else. I can guarantee that it's also going to be FAR cheaper to buy one of these than to buy another and have it customised, trust me...

These fit a zed VERY nicely with the aggressive attitude it gives the car. If you'd like to get yourself a copy of one, I can have them made from the mould. If I get any interest I will find out about a group cost, for now just send me PM's and I'll take it from there.

[garvice]

Looking good.
Spoiler looks good, looks like it will block off some more air to the engine bay which is a good thing.
I have been thinking that a spoiler like that would be great if it extended into the bottom of the chrome bumper so that only air entering the engine bay would be from the top of the bumper, that way it would be much easier to direct the air to where it is needed.

Might need a ms paint picture to explain what I need.

[Whittie]

18 March 2012
Hi folks,

Well, as promised, I have plenty of photos and some more updates from the last 2 months. Bear with me on this one, it might be a little disorganised as I try and remember WHAT exactly went on over the last 2 months, it’s all a bit of a blur for me. Here we go:

27 January 2012
Well rusty, bent and disfigured guards are still the star of this visit. They are coming along nicely but the offshoot to making sure they aren’t filled with bog is that bucketloads of time is required to get them in to good enough shape that they can just be painted without being touched up. Here is how they look now in the raw:



The flare doesn’t look like much in the photos but looks TOUGH on the car





The vents have been shaped to match the curve of the guard, welded in place which buckled the entire guard and then hammered back in to shape again:



You can see here the amount of heat-shrinking that was required to ‘de-bend’ the guards after they were flared. Will is never shy to remind me how thin the steel is on this car which makes it almost impossible to work on. It was designed back in the day to be light for a fast car, but they were only ever designed to be stamped out of a mould and as such any heat from welding in new parts or even using stiffer steel welded in place plays havoc with the shape of the panels and makes it very difficult to work on the panels and maintain the shape of the car. This is not a new discovery by any means for anyone that has read about restorations on a zed before, but it makes the process painfully slow.



Here you can see how the vents have been shaped to the guards:



About a month ago Will finally had the internet connected at his shop and as a result discovered this thread and the celebrity that comes with being featured in so many photos. As such, Will requested I put this photo up on the net for him and mention that any interested ladies can contact me for his phone number



19 February 2012

Well we’re getting to the pointy end of the panel beating part of this rebuild, but it’s dragged on so long that other customers of Will’s have started throwing their weight around and pushing for work to be done on their own cars. As such, things on the zed have sat on the back-burner for a little while. Not to worry, I still have some more photos to show off the finished and primered guards:





15 March 2012
Will has been working hard lately and sent me these phone happy snaps of the front end of the car in primer and ready for paint!









I don’t know about you but I am VERY excited about this project now!

18 March 2012
Well it’s been a month since the last visit but things are moving along with the car. All of the fiberglass panels have been fitted and shaped to the car, the bonnet pins have been installed, all steel panels are in primer ready for paint and the car is ready to go back together! Here are a few sneak peak photos of the car as it stands today:

Bonnet:



Hinge pin cut-out



Fiberglass parts



More fiberglass:



I don’t think I’ve spent a lot of time emphasising the fit of the panels on the car, but here is an example of how the headlight buckets fit:



These have ZERO bog on them. It’s hard to get an absolute perfect fit on such intricate angles, but I must say, for no bog, that’s a pretty damn good fit.
My favourite part of this now has to be the vented guards, here they are installed on the car in all their glory



During the trial fit a couple of days ago Will tells me that the point of it is to man-handle the panels and simulate some of the forces they will encounter during racing. As such, a couple of seams and creases have cracked a little bit and require some more work, but here is a quick snap of the fit of the guards from the engine bay side of the car:



As I mentioned in my last post, Will has spent a lot of time working on the customised front spoiler and so I will be having a mould made up and copies will be available for sale. I haven’t spoken to the fiberglass shop just yet, but Will had a quick few words with them and it looks like $300-400 should be a good indication of what they will cost to make up if you’re interested. More details will follow in the next few weeks, for now here are some close-up photos of the front spoiler ready for primer:









Until next time folks (18,059).