Odd findings about your Zed.

[Robstar]

So I'm sure everyone understands what I mean by the title of the thread, but if not, then I'll explain a little.

 

Post all the 'odd' "what the?" moments you've had when you got your zed and wondered why something was there when it shouldn't be or why it something was oddly like it is.

 

For me, I'd have to say mine is the paint-job. Recently I've been stripping the paint off the car, and quite frankly, it's like chipping thick bark off of a tree. It has like 15 layers of ... something? five layers of primer and I think there is a layer of aluminium in there and then a plaster? and paint over the top.. Honestly, when I purchashed the car, I knew it had some weird aspects, but I was in for a shock to find that 30% of the car is covered in this stuff lol. (Btw, hey Paul! The car is making some good progress and when it's finished, I'd love to take it's original owner out for a spin!)

 

 

[stevo_gj]

PO had painted the 260 red, and stuck a whole bunch of badges that said 'flamingo' on it. It doesn't suit the car at all and is kind of embarrassing to explain to people.

 

They even put a chrome circle with a picture of a bird on the back hatch.

 

Its frustrating because I can't pull them off without destroying the paint in that area, and to respray is expensive and time consuming.

[sco_aus]

My rear left wheel has +5deg toe in and the rear right has -1 deg toe out (i thiink thats how you write it).  So my car crab walks atm.  Thank god for Arizona zed car and their adjustable control arms. 

Also, my car had up to 7mm thick of bog in some spots and even found one spot where an original piece of metal was being held in spot by bog.  I hate my PO, what a dousche.

[Dingo Dave]

I havent even started with my car and im getting worried.

the pasanger guard got damaged when the wheel came off when i took it for a test drive. found rust sections poorly welded up and bogged and rust under the bog due to the bad welding.

the apron had 7mm thick putty on it because they bent it out of shape and didnt bother fixing it.

they bogged around the filler cap. big mistake because fuel gets in and makes it peal from the panel and so rust. seems who ever filler the car up thought you had to do a smack down on the car with the nozle before getting it in the filler. (seen that on lots of older cars in the shop. iether people being carless at the bouser or dont know how to fill the car up. and filler big no no around there).

apart from that there isnt much more filler that i have found. they tryed to die the seats and dash and where the old radio was they broke the dash trying to make the new one fit so they cut a piece of 5mm checker plate and screwed it in.

back yard mechanics i dont know lol.

[sco_aus]

Dude, cut your losses and get another one

[Zedman240®]

Hey Sco, with the crab crawling, my previous 260 suffered from that and it was an easy fix. I replaced the 2 "L" shaped brackets that come down from the chassis to the rear arm bushing mounts (behind the diff). I stood the original bent one up against the straight one I found and the old one was bent about 4-5mm (like a banana). replaced them both with straight ones and problem solved! That's what happens when someone reverses into a gutter or something...

[Dingo Dave]

I have had worse. I got a car one time that they used 5cm square pieces of metal and welded them together to form the bottom half of a panel from the rear wheel back. thats alot of pieces. The car looked good after we fixed it.

[Toecutter]

PO had painted the 260 red, and stuck a whole bunch of badges that said 'flamingo' on it. It doesn't suit the car at all and is kind of embarrassing to explain to people.

 

They even put a chrome circle with a picture of a bird on the back hatch.

 

Thats a crack up. Shame you can't get it off.

 

Sulio

[sco_aus]

Hey Sco, with the crab crawling, my previous 260 suffered from that and it was an easy fix. I replaced the 2 "L" shaped brackets that come down from the chassis to the rear arm bushing mounts (behind the diff). I stood the original bent one up against the straight one I found and the old one was bent about 4-5mm (like a banana). replaced them both with straight ones and problem solved! That's what happens when someone reverses into a gutter or something...

oh ok, that would make sense, i think ill do that and also get the adjustable control arms, but not for a while, that has saved me some money in the mean time if thats what is causing it, thanks heaps.

[Robstar]

PO had painted the 260 red, and stuck a whole bunch of badges that said 'flamingo' on it. It doesn't suit the car at all and is kind of embarrassing to explain to people.

 

They even put a chrome circle with a picture of a bird on the back hatch.

 

Its frustrating because I can't pull them off without destroying the paint in that area, and to respray is expensive and time consuming.

Hahaha?! Damn I would want to see that one day, I swear I won't laugh!

[stevo_gj]

Hahaha?! Damn I would want to see that one day, I swear I won't laugh!

 

Thats a crack up. Shame you can't get it off.

 

Sulio

 

Haha screw you guys, I've been told to hold off on the painting it until I can do it at the same time as I do the engine.

 

It doesn't ruin the car, but I wish there was an easy way to get that shit off.

 

 

[Zeddophile]

Its frustrating because I can't pull them off without destroying the paint in that area, and to respray is expensive and time consuming.

 

Steve, there is a thing you can buy to put on a drill which will remove stickers without harming the paint at all.  I call it a caramel wheel, because it smells like caramel, and basically it is a rubber disc about 2.5 inch in diameter which is designed for exactly this purpose (removing pinstriping etc).  I have used one on a number of cars with suspect paint, and other than sometimes a bit of unfaded paint being uncovered under the sticker, the paint itself is undamaged.  I'll try and find one on the net so that you can see what I mean.

[Zeddophile]

Here we go, buy one now! (ebay is a marvelous thing sometimes!)

 

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/PINSTRIPE-REMOVAL-WHEEL-GREAT-LITTLE-TOOL-MUST-HAVE_W0QQitemZ220282537755QQihZ012QQcategoryZ43997QQtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItemQQ_trksidZp1742.m153.l1262

 

And a picture for those too lazy to go to ebay and look!

 

 

I also saw another type made by 3m which was white in colour, but the ones i used were exactly as in the picture above, and I can vouch they work well.  Ultimately if you go to a GOOD paint supply shop (maybe ask a well recommended panelbeater who they use), and ask for a pinstripe removal wheel, they should be able to help you out.

[Brabham]

PO stuck lots of 8 ball stickers and a picture of a panther? on my zed hahahaha. That was funny with all the squares welded to form a panel they must have been keen hahaha

[stevo_gj]

Thanks Zeddophile, thats very cool! Is that the sort of thing I can use on the big black stripe that my car sports on each side? I think its a sticker of some sort.

 

However, the 'Flamingo' and bird on my car are actually plastic/metal badges that the PO used some incredibly strong glue to stick in place.

 

When I shut my boot lid too hard a few months ago the 'A' on my nissan badge (yep my car says NISSAN 280Z  ) popped off along with a few mms of the red paint underneath it leaving a white colour that I assumed to be primer. I'm thinking that I'll have to sand it down and respray the area where the badges are all stuck on.

[Zeddophile]

Thanks Zeddophile, thats very cool! Is that the sort of thing I can use on the big black stripe that my car sports on each side? I think its a sticker of some sort.

 

If its a sticker, that wheel will turn it to dust in a matter of seconds.  If the sticker is really hard and baked on it may tend to leave smeary bits of sticker or gluey residue though, which you can get off with a bit of rubbing with wax and grease remover (Prepsol), and a bit more time on the caramel wheel.  The effort is worth it in the end though, even if you end up having to cut and polish the whole car so the unfaded paint from underneath the sticker isn't noticeable.

 

As far as the metal badges go, can you see any of the glue at all?  If they've used sikaflex or araldyte you are in a bit of trouble to get it off...

If its silicone based, you could try to carefully cut between the badge and the paint, which then gives you better access to the 'glue' itself, to try removing it.  Petrol tends to argue with silicone, but I don't know how quickly it would work, and I'm also not sure on what effect it would have on acrylic paint if your car is painted in acrylic (strong possibility). 

 

Wax and grease remover definitely softens any sticker glues (the kind used on the back of factory Range Rover bonnet decals for example), and makes even the hardest glue soft enough to get off - just make sure you wipe a decent quantity onto the glue, and give it a minute or two to work depending on the glue.  Incidentally my preferred method is to CAREFULLY use a razor blade in a trailing fashion (as in the sharp edge is angled AWAY from the direction of scraping), this gives you a big goobery ball of glue which you wipe off the razor blade and continue.  If you don't wipe the blade the glue gets smeared everywhere, and it doesn't scrape as well.  If carefull enough, you can do this without cutting or scratching the paint at all.

 

If your Nissan280z badge was glued on with the same stuff, experiment - try soaking the glue on it with wax and grease remover, waiting 5 minutes or so and see if its going soft (unlikely if its silicon based, although I must admit I haven't tried it on silicone)

[stevo_gj]

 

If your Nissan280z badge was glued on with the same stuff, experiment - try soaking the glue on it with wax and grease remover, waiting 5 minutes or so and see if its going soft (unlikely if its silicon based, although I must admit I haven't tried it on silicone)

 

Cheers mate, appreciate the advice. I'll have a crack at it soon.

 

[Mr Camouflage]

Mineral turps softens up silicon and shouldn't affect acrylic paint.

[Hunter]

This is not my car, but the box in the back certainly was an odd finding. 

[Dingo Dave]

hmm very odd finding. i know a guy who got a 2 year old falcon. when he was updating the sound system he puller the back seat up and found like 100 condom rapers. no used ones forfunatly.

[RBZ 260]

Haha screw you guys, I've been told to hold off on the painting it until I can do it at the same time as I do the engine.

 

It doesn't ruin the car, but I wish there was an easy way to get that shit off.

 

 

 

with help of zedophiles method above you can also try this

 

1. leave it on the sun to get warm/hot. use thin fishing line. slide it between the badge and the double sided tape. and than sea saw it around. also helps to use warm to bareble hot water mixed with detergent. be patient.

 

2 use metho, white spirits, some sort of strong degreaser to remove the rest of the glue crap from the paint but above petrol and other solvent work good too. again use white rag and if u see red paint showing on the rag use something less destructive to the paint. if there is  clear coat on the paint metho and white spirits wont do any damage. if solid colour and its faded it may show more red on the rag than normal.

 

 

3. depending how long the badges have been on the car the colour under them may be bit brighter. so just fine polish the rest of the tailgate / bonnet to match the colour.

 

never use anything metalic to remove the badge (blades are very bad unless u know what u doing). u can use old credit cards or even better laminated library cards (only good use i found for one of these    ) just patiently remove bit by bit till its all gone.

 

 

i did see those badges when u bought the car tell you what i wouldnt care about paint but those badges would be comming off. 

 

if contact cemented on then you screwed.

 

hope it helps.do at your own risk. LOL dont blame me after. 

 

 

[ZD44TT]

my fuel cap lid is that dark egg plant ZG colour and so is the surrounding area near the fuel entry hose.

 

then the rest of the car is silver - i know cause i've taken the car back to bare metal.

[RBZ 260]

on the topic side

 

The PO tried rebuilding the engine. the head was loose only had two bolt holding it down when i removed it it had 1cm of corrosion inside the borres and top of the piston.

 

the engine was totaly siezed didnt want to move a mm. didnt care was dumped straigh to the scrapers.

 

other than that 50kg of body filler.rear bar was deleted and to hide the holes just use bog and lot of it.

 

the pop sunroof had few tubes of silicone emptied on it to stop the leaks. and still leaked.

 

had enough of hair in the carpet and seats (Long hair, female or some bon jovi wanna be) that will put Chewbaka to shame.

 

other than than 1001 dodgy ways to "rebuild" interior.

 

 

best of all prior to the 260z i bought a honda prelude from the damaged car auctions. stolen and recoverd. massive writing on the car "caution suringes"

lot of kfc rubbish and soft drink bottles inside the car.

 

got it cheap when i got it home only suringes i found was brand new ones no needles and few bottles of insulin (assuming owner or the crook needed it)

 

after all that under the seat was a very small fluro green g-sting.

 

also found info of the previous owner (female) and had a universety parking permit which was still valid at the time

 

on the end i figured the car was owned by one of the hot students (now lecturer) from the uni I went too.

 

the g-string was taken by some of the guys i knew still at uni at the time when i told them whos car i bought and apperently was pined to the measage board.

 

 

 

 

 

[stevo_gj]

 

 

i did see those badges when u bought the car tell you what i wouldnt care about paint but those badges would be comming off. 

 

if contact cemented on then you screwed.

 

hope it helps.do at your own risk. LOL dont blame me after. 

 

 

 

I was looking for something to do this afternoon so I set to removing the 'flamingo' badge from the front of my car. Came off easily enough using fishing line because it had been stuck on with some form of double sided tape. The stripe that sits above the flamingo had some sort of really tough glue or cement that left little while flecks as I dug into it with the line. After breaking the fishing line 20 times I gave up trying to get this off.

 

Turns out there were 2 paint chips underneath the flamingo badge, that I'm going to have to do some 'touch ups' on. I went to bunnings and bought a tin of rustproof red paint which I'll dab on these little holes.

 

Thanks for putting me onto the fishing line idea, that made it a lot easier.

[Zeddophile]

Came off easily enough using fishing line because it had been stuck on with some form of double sided tape. The stripe that sits above the flamingo had some sort of really tough glue or cement that left little while flecks as I dug into it with the line. After breaking the fishing line 20 times I gave up trying to get this off.

 

Sounds like white sikaflex.....  Were the little pieces that came off a bit rubbery, or rock hard.  If rubbery, its probably sikaflex, if not is probably some kind of contact cement.  If its sikaflex its probably worth trying to get some kind of solvent to run under it and soften it up, if contact coment I dunno.....  At least the flamingo is gone though!  Double sided tape residue is easily removed with prepwash, as I mentioned earlier.

 

Good luck with the stripe!