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With the rear quarters clamped in position, then next thing we had to do was fit the rare spares door skins. Rare Spares has a sticker on ALL their panels stating that: "This is panel is only a vague approximation of an OEM panel and shitloads of work will be required to make it fit correctly." Paul clamped them onto the rebuilt door frames to check fitment and... well... there were issues. The door handle recess was 'low' in one skin in relation to the body line. The door handle recess in both skins was 'sucked in' when a ruler was run across the body line. The handle holes were in the wrong spot. The upper body line was not sharp enough or not there at all... Paul spent 3 days rectifying these issues - we worked out it would have been quicker to make new ones from scratch! But eventually they were fitted to the frames (after I removed the e-coating): Before the skins were fitted I Epoxied the insides of them and applied a coat of KBS Rust Seal to (hopefully) keep them rust free forever. We are aiming for a 5mm panel gap and it appears we will succeed in obtaining that measurement.

Once these manufacturing 'defects' had been identified, we started on rectifying them. The vent hole and side repeaters were filled, the filled smooth. The RH panel aalso had the fuel filler 'bucket'(?) fitted. This was removed from the original quarter panel, media blasted, repaired and welded into position:   While the Z was in storage in 2022, I was informed via socials of a company in Atlanta USA called 'Resurrected Classics' that were having other 'difficult to obtain' panels made in China. Items they were having made were - amongst others - early vented Z hatch's, tail light panel and reproduction tail lights.. This was a HUGE bonus as this Zeds hatch was pretty bad - rust, bog and lots of damage. The rear valance was also toast and I'd consigned myself to remaking it, but with a suitable one-piece tail light panel now available, it was going to be much easier and cheaper. So I ordered them during this time, and fitted them up together with the rear quarter panels. These panels also needed work to make them nice, but it was a great start.  

In May a friend of mine mentioned that global freight prices were slowly coming down, so I decided to take a look again at the KFV rear quarters. KFV had changed freight company's and to my great delight the cost had come down to $1200AUD! Still expensive, but at least it was palatable... I spoke to the owner and he agreed to the purchase and continuing the project, so he sent me some more $ and I went and ordered the rear quarter panels. They duly arrived in June and I sat them on the bodyshell. They were good but they were going to need work to make them 100% right. The two glaring issues is the US spec side repeater hole would have to be filled and the quarter vent hole also filled as the early Zeds had the vents in the hatch. Some main bodyline was far to sharp. The pressing around the tail lights was not consistent and to wide. The step joint to the tail light panel was in the wrong spot. Fixable but also annoying...

Time for an update! Back in March '22, #211 it went into storage because we'd gone as far as we could with the chassis repairs. This was because of the rear 1/4 panels... Yasee I deemed the originals beyond economical repair, as due to the previous 'repairs' to them, I had to more or less butcher them to remove them from the bodyshell. We toyed with the idea of making them from scratch (we have the capability), but when I estimated the hours require to fabricate them, it would not be cost effective. However I'd heard a rumor that KF Vintage in Columbia - who make the green panels - were nearly done prototyping FULL 240Z rear quarter panels. Joy! And so we waited. And waited... And finally at the end of '22 they became available to purchase! I placed an order and got the freight quote... I nearly fell off my chair: Nearly $7000AUD just for the air freight! This was outrageous and the owner of the Z agreed. I contacted the owner of KFVintage & he agreed to look at other freight options and failed. Apparently getting freight out of Columbia is an issue due all the corruption (this is a story all on it's own). I had to do something so in January I retrieved the Z out of storage so I could reassess the situation: We looked at other options... Somehow repairing the originals. Looking again at making our own. But neither of these options appealed to us, so the shell was pushed around the shop for a few months while I did other jobs on the project (more on these later).

I don't know how true this is, but was told by a tire guy that you can get hard/old tires heat cycled & they become nice & soft again.  Can anyone confirm this?