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Sirpent "Z"


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Greetings from the ship of the Dammed (My garage in the Western Burbs)

 

OK, Im not dead, been lurking in the background and am happy to report that the lump of metal in my garage has now had all visible bolt, drilled, mounting holes in the engine bay mig welded, the entire bulkhead skirts etc smoothed over, and battery tray removed (In excellent condition, may sell as no rust and Im transplanting the battery to the rear of the car) and now ready for soda blasting which is booked in for next Tuesday.

 

I will be taking pics, its actually happening in the garage with a mobile service I came across.

 

All going well, I should have it primed, sealed, and ready to be back on all 4's within weeks.

 

Cheers

 

John

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi All

 

I was getting the feeling, actually still have it, that ppl on this site thought or are thinking I might be full of it as my last post didn't even get a comment, so the proof is in the pudding and here are a couple of pics of around 50 I took of the soda / sand blasted Zed, hope this regains some confidence out there that I'm not just here wasting band width.

 

Cheers

 

John

post-1356-144023534277_thumb.jpg

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Pic #5

 

Worst of the rust, actually about all there was apart from a couple of pin hole sized ones, this is on the rear end of the passenger side rail.

post-1356-144023534317_thumb.jpg

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Pic #5

 

Worst of the rust, actually about all there was apart from a couple of pin hole sized ones, this is on the rear end of the passenger side rail.

See, smoking even gives cars cancer.

Looking good, does the soda blasting leave a layer on the car? It almost looks like it is primed in some of the photos.

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Hey Guys,

 

Thanks for the positive comments, feels good to get a reaction, its lonely at times working on a project by yourself and comments good bad or indifferent all have a positive effect by either re-enforcing what you are doing or making you re-examine the path you take before it's too late.

 

looking good. Were you happy with the soda blasting being done on site? Was there much mess when he finshed the job ?

By the way the rust in my rail were far greater than that just ask Dr Z.   

 

It was a combination of garnite and soda, basically the entire undercarriage, engine bay, inner area tail lamp panel inner skirts and tubs were done with garnite, then the 1/4's and roof where done with soda, the effect of the garnite leaves a surprisingly matt but minimal pitting effect, if you look at the left hand inner skirt you will notice what look like brown spots, this is where I used a scotchbrite wheel on a hand grinder to take off some material the blasting missed and they are actually very polished sections now but for some reason the reflection of the flash made them look brown. Through out the pics you will notice small dark specs, these are material residual the blasting missed however come off pretty easily with a bit of spot treatment with the scotch pad.

 

All I will be doing is cleaning up these areas then I will use a surface cleaner like prepsol to desolve any soda film left, after that I will re-seal all the panel seams with urethane beads and then apply something I came across that I even suprised myself with "Plasti-Dip"

 

Plasti Dip is the material you can buy in small quantities thats used to dip the handles of hand tools into to create a grip surface, great thing about it is it loves going straight onto bare metal, can be purchased in 10 litre cans and is sprayable, I intend sealing all the floor pan, inner skirts and tubs with it and the retailer reckons it will never chip, totally water proof the surface and soundproof the structure.

 

With the soda blasted panels, you will see that the left hand rear 1/4 is a lot more reflective, the guy who did the blasting recommended I go over it with sandpaper before applying anything on it and using a prep wash also, I ran the "Scotch brite" pad over it also and the surface is incredibly smooth and reflective, the swirl marks are minute and a result of the rotary action of the machine. The rest of the car still has a soda film over it and I will leave it as is until Im ready to prep the panels for refinishing as it offers a degree of moisture resistance.

 

As far as the mess, I ended up spending 2 days sweeping vacking and shoveling over 175 kg's of material that went through the blaster, if you attempt this try to do it outside.

 

PPL will probably notice that the rear of the inside hatch area is still in the cars original duco green color, I decided to stop the blasting at the centre floor bulkhead juncture as the paint here is in great original condition and Im just going to prep it with a thinners and scotch brite wash then finish the area off with the rest of the interior panels in a black enamel.

 

Is the battery area as good as it looks? or has it been repaired before? can't quite tell from that angle. looking real good there..

   

 

 

The battery area is as you see it, there are some small drill holes from drilling out the spot welds and some very minor rust pitting in the metal that I have to weld up, I saved the tray which is intact and in perfect condition, but as I said before the bay is going to be wireless, and the battery stored in the rear of the car out of site along with all the electrical components and fuse box then I will run looms through the sill panels up the insides of the hinge pillars and through the air galleries of the upper skirt re-enforcements to the the headlams and various connection points on the motor via the openings where the radiator plastic feed ducts were. Im not going to be using the side aircon dust any longer as Im installing a factory aircon set up I came across on here from one of the members.

 

Hopefully I will have the 50 odd pics up on a web page I will post the link to in this thread, I took pics of every rust prone area on the car so as when its done the insurance company can appreciate its condition prior to restoration and also in case I ever go to sell it, which I doubt will happen while Im around.

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Hi All,

 

Have created a file of Flicker, and have loaded the first set of photo's showing the engine bay, will progresively upload pics during the process from start to end showing all progress until the car is turn key, the same will go with the other area specific files I upload in the next day or so.

 

Enjoy, and all comments good or bad welcome.

 

John

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42220364@N06/sets/72157622151436625/detail/

 

 

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Have loaded a few photo sets now onto flickr as follows

 

Full Body Shots

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42220364@N06/sets/72157622276699688/detail/

 

Engine Bay

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42220364@N06/sets/72157622151436625/detail/

 

Inner Floor

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42220364@N06/sets/72157622152276777/detail/

 

Undercarriage

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42220364@N06/sets/72157622169771549/detail/

 

And the rails which show the only rust repair section I needed to complete to the drivers side rear, and a clean up of the front rails by stitch welding fabricated skid plates to both the drivers side and passanger side rail halves between the jacking plates mid rails to the forwad ends.

 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/42220364@N06/sets/72157622294624836/detail/

 

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Hi all,

 

Well while the body is getting to the final pre-paint stages as far as repairs and dressing up of the main panels, I decided to contact Fraser at ALFA MOTORSPORT FIBREGLASS to discuss the "G" nose for my "Z" and happy to say I have ordered an upper section which will take a few weeks to make up.

 

I've decided to go for a Hybrid more contemporary "G" nose look, so I will be grafting or rather creating a lower section which will be along the lines of the lower part of Porsche-Carrera-GT pictured to create a bumperless one piece nose using Frasers upper section pictured also.

 

Wish me luck, and once again, any and all opinions appreciated and respected.

 

Cheers

 

John

post-1356-144023537856_thumb.jpg

post-1356-144023537863_thumb.jpg

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Sirpent. Looks good. I agree the bottom section of the G-Nose needs to be modified.

Just a pointer to think about. If you place the bottom lip too far forward you will bottom it out every where because there is far more over hang on the Zed compared to the car you have pictured. Mine is set back somewhat to avoud this problem so just keep that in mind. I am presuming the car will be lowered.  ;)

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i think it will look awesome, specially if you integrate the led parker/indicator assembly off a 911 or something

 

or if you're going to get headlight covers for it, run them up the inside upper edge of the buckets aston martin style - and retrofit some projectors. this is what i plan to do once my car is back on the road - so give it 10 years! (there are some led strips linked to on hybridz which would be perfect for it)

 

http://www.seriouswheels.com/pics-2006/2006-Aston-Martin-Rapide-Concept-Headlight-1024x768.jpg

 

how are you going to make up the shape? there some pictures of a zed with an s2k front spoiler on it, which roughly fits, and you could try an mx5 bumper? assuming the porsche is far to wide and pricey and cut up...

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Thanks ZZZ and Zedevan,

 

ZZZ youre right of course, I will be lowing the car, but Im going to keep the nose a reasonable height also, will probably use the speed hump down the road a s a guage.

 

LOL Zedevan,

 

Cant give away all my trade secrets but the pics I post once I start will explain every step, when I say from scratch, I mean from scratch, I wont be using a doner lower half, rather build up a base then work fibreglass over the top, after its all done I will send it back to ALFA as a complete single assy and get Fraser to produce a female mould then have a carbon fibre final made up, never know Fraser may like it enough to start producing them.

 

As for the lamps, Im going to run normal H4's with the parker lamp provisions, and I like the look of either the later model integra parkers which I will use as turn signal / repeaters as the shape is almost perfect.

 

The Aston link you posted looks great, but I dont want to go too far with the fron, still want to keep it retro considering the rest of the car.

 

By the way, our cars must be pretty close in build date and number as mine was the same color originally and the rego (I still have) is IEG-380.

 

Cheers

 

John

 

 

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Do Alfa do a standard G nose? If not where could I get one, how much are they, do they bolt straight on and can I get headlight covers for them. Also, does anyone know what the drag coefficient of normal nose vs G nose is? They ran a G at Le Mans so I assume it must be a bit lower.

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Brab,

 

The pic of the G-nose I posted is the complete 2 piece assy ALFA make, Fraser the owner sent me the pic I posted here.

 

Fraser want $500 for the 2 sections, upper and lower.

 

HL covers are a problem, you can get them with the stainless surrounds from the States, but expect to pay $600.00

 

Its pretty much a bolt on, but every Zed front is slightly different due to wear tear and accidents over the years so you will need to do some work to make it all line up.

 

A U.S. mag back in the 70's did some tests on the G-Nose, there was an increase of 15 Mph top end, a reduction of 5% fuel consumption and the nose apparently, these are figures off the top of my head from memory, but you can find it on the web, just do a search.

 

Cheers

 

John

 

 

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Brab,

 

Di a quick search on the net, this is what Car and Driver magazine back in the early 70's wrote about the nose when it was released in the States as an option.

 

"Datsun, at least in Japan, has some equally impressive parts that it doesn’t widely advertise. Fortunately, car enthusiasts in the homeland can buy a version of the Z-car known as the 240ZG (260ZG for 1974).

 

...

 

From an aerodynamic point of view, the G-nose is a gold mine. It includes all the parts necessary to reshape the Z-car’s front end from the lower edge of the hood forward. The new panels bolt on in about two hours adding 4.8 inches to the overall length of a ‘73 car and 7.3 inches to pre-bumper era ’72 or earlier cars.

 

The G-nose reduces drag because of the extra length - it’s that much closer to a bullet shape - and also due to the fact that the grille opening is much tighter and the headlamp openings are sealed.

 

At 70 mph the gain in fuel economy (is) 1.2 mpg.

 

And there are other side benefits. The top speed on Ontario’s straight is up from 115 mph with the stock 240Z to 120 with the G-nose. And front end lift is less than stock by 95 pounds at 70 mph.

 

Unfortunately, the G-nose doesn’t come cheap. The complete package is available... for $635 with headlamp covers, or $475 without"

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