Rust holes

[Jimbo Jones]

Hi folks.

I rolled my 260 coupe into the shed for the start of a long rebuild. My aim is to have a daily driver, and seeing as I live on a 5km dirt road, I'm not looking for restoration perfection.

 

I encountered my first stumbling block within about 1/2 an hour. While tooling around with some dodgy patches of bog, I pried out several fist sized lumps that were concealing two 4 inch holes in the body - one behind the rear guard, one just in front.

 

I'm keen to get the car back up and running fairly cheaply, but I'm not happy about just rebogging and repainting.

 

I'd like to hear any suggestions you may have in the realms of plastic/fibreglass patches, metal inserts, metal bog etc etc.

 

Cheers,

Jimbo Jones

[warrenz]

Hi

 

If you are OK at MIG welding and handy with an angle grinder then you can get replacement rust repair panels for that dogleg piece behing the door.

 

If the other major hole is on the inside of the wheel arch behind that dogleg then you will have to cut it out and fabricate a replacement piece or get the inner wheel arch piece from a wreck

 

But if the holes are that big then when you cut off the outer section I am pretty sure the rust where you cannot see will be worse. Rust starts on the inside so by the time you see it then its a bigger problem.

 

You could try AllZparts in Sydney for the repair sections or if you want it done for you try Rob at ZWorx here in Melb.

 

Cheers

Warren

[gav240z]

Hi Jimbo, for me there is no other alternative than to get out the mig welder and replace rust with good old sheet metal. If your not good with a welder well I guess you can always learn, my opinion is you can't make it much worse than bog or rust and you can always fix your errors if you make a mistake.

 

The roof is what I'd be more concerned about though, a sunroof is not easy to remove and replace with metal. Since the roof is so thin they tend to warn under the heat of a welder.

 

Best of luck with your project.

[ChiprZ]

for someone who has never used a mig welder in their life but interested to learn can anyone recommend somewhere to learn?

I have kept an eye on short courses which seem like a safe bet, but if anyone has any better ideas that would be great

[PZG302]

for someone who has never used a mig welder in their life but interested to learn can anyone recommend somewhere to learn?

I have kept an eye on short courses which seem like a safe bet' date=' but if anyone has any better ideas that would be great[/quote']

 

Your local TAFE college should have a short course in welding available. Up here in Brisbane there are a couple of colleges that do 4-8 week short courses in welding and also paint and panel work

[sco_aus]

All the guys i know that weld started by buying a welder and getting scrap metal and practicing. They are all awsome welders now. Of course they did courses later.

[gav240z]

I did a short welding course at my local tafe. Swinburne Tafe in Hawthorn to be precise.

 

It was definately an interesting experience and you certainly learn alot about safety. For this reason alone I wouldn't buy a welder especially an OXY or Arc welder until I had done a course like this.

 

In most cases when it comes to cars, you would want a MIG welder. Unfortunately I didn't get as much time on the MIG as I did on the OXY or ARC however it was fun all the same.

 

I never got around to fixing my old 240z and I was a bit nervous about performing any welding work on the car, since it was so original and so straight. Looking back I regret not giving it a go. Infact I'm thinking of doing most of the body work on my current Z when the time comes.

 

Good luck and try and have fun!