The Fuzzy Project

[FuzzyDropbear]

hahaha, geez, haven't seen the channels looking like that in a long time!

 

Wow, massive day today. Don't have a huge amount of photos from the actual 'doing' part of the day, but essentially it was a similar session as last weekend, but we actually planned this one!!  I have a few photos etc on my other camera, but I left the cord to connect to the PC at work (yes, I'm a dipstick! )

 

Dale and Scoota came over to fix the other half of the front end, so we got stuck into it early despite the chilly conditions (one more hooray for heaters in the garage). After a chin wag and checking out some goodies that Scoota had, Dale set to work like a man on a mission, with his goal of taking the sound deadening off the floor. The sound deadening wasn't factory and appears to be more of an underbody sealant, as it was still quite sticky and a PITA to chip off.

 

Scoota attacked the front end, which looked like this:

 

 

Essentially the same process as last weekend, grind the old part off and use as a template to cut the required section from the parts car. Unfortunately the section that was removed from the parts car wasn't in as good nick as the one we removed last weekend, so we had to cut a section of rust out and weld a new patch in (that's IN, not over the top of ). I think that was the only issue we encountered today (apart from a power outage, which just happened to nicely coincide with lunch being ready  ).

 

Scoota also welded the bonnet catch back on the firewall. I think all we need to do is to tidy up a few of the welds with a bit of grinding.

 

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Oh,  and don't try and steal my car... It's protected by a genuine Dick Smith alarm system! 

 

 

[FuzzyDropbear]

Oh, Dale and I did a quick mod to Scoota's Z today as well, while he was down the back of the shed. Unfortunately I don't have a pic of it at the moment, but I think (and am sure that Dale agrees) that black fluffy dice look quite good in a green 260z 

[lightmaster240z]

I lov fuzzy dice I mean Fluffy dice  but it must be cold at Ballarat cause your car has ice over the front

Bruce   

[FuzzyDropbear]

Couldn't be that cold Bruce, we had the heater on 

 

Hey guys, wondering if someone could do me a favour? I'm looking for a photo of the early type lower radiator support panel. When I say 'early type', I mean, a '74 260z or I think a 240z might have the same panel? Like this one:

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I'm asking because, as you can see from the photos, my shell has no tags for the wiring loom and I'm trying to figure out which holes to weld them into (my parts car is a '76 and has the later support panel). I've looked in heaps of project threads, but have only been able to find one decent pic. If someone has one in their thread that I've missed, or has a photo of one, I'd appreciate it very much 

 

Got frustrated with my welding skills (or rather, lack of  ) tonight while trying to weld a spot weld to put a loom tag in. But I think I've discovered my problem and will give it another crack tomorrow night. However, decided to block sand my drivers side guard back. We had originally thought the shell's factory colour was dark green, however, once I block sanded the primer off the panel, I found green paint on top of the red of the rest of the shell.. Don't think it's the same as the factory green, looks blue in some light and green in others . However, it did show up a few low spots, even after what seems like about 20 layers of paint. Wonder what other colours will show up as I take it further back? 

 

[FuzzyDropbear]

Few things have happened on the car, so I think its time for an update.

 

For some reason, there was a magical speed hole in the engine bay which was annoying me, so that was the first thing to be fixed. Not the greatest finish on it, but it's better than what I started with.

 

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Also stripped the radiator support panel and fixed a rust hole in that. I forgot to take a pic of it, but I also smoothed over the spot welds.

 

 

The last week I have been busy stripping the engine bay of it's 14 layers of paint. Fortunately there's no real rust issues under the battery tray or any other part of the engine bay. At the moment I'm figuring out which holes are needed in the engine bay and am marking those which need welding up.

 

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After discussion with a couple of people, I'll also be doing some stitch welding in the engine bay before it gets back into primer. So hopefully that'll be in the next update. 

[peter t]

Keep going man and you will get there. The interior shots of the blue one looks exactly the same as mine was. All faded to different colours.

[FuzzyDropbear]

Wow, it's been ages since my last update. I can't find all my photos cause the missus has borrowed my camera, so these will do. 

 

So I've finished welding up the engine bay, there was a few other random surprises as I stripped it back, so fixed all those along the way. I didn't end up doing any stitch welding as my welding isn't good enough to produce nice looking welds without having to touch them up  I don't think I'll be putting out enough power to really warrant it anyway.

 

Here is how the engine bay ended up looking after scraping all the paint off:

 

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I've also removed the battery tray so I could fix a little bit of rust in it, I was tossing up whether to remove it and mount the battery in the rear (scoota's idea), but I'll think put the tray back in since it's now nice, straight and rust free.

 

Once I had all the crud off, I set about building some form of spray booth as it was easier to encase the Z rather than cover everything else in the shed. I was originally going to use one of those portable carports, but I wanted something wider so I just ended up building one:

 

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After waiting for what seems like forever, we finally had a decent weekend where it wasn't raining, so I was able to whack down some etch primer. First go at spray painting and it hasn't turned out too bad so far.

 

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It's great to finally have some visible progress, hopefully this week I'll have enough time to finish off a couple of spots that I missed so I can finally spray it black.

 

I was originally aiming to paint it the same orange as the Ford XR5 Turbo, which I think is similar, or the same, as Rev painted his orange Z, but there's another orange the blokes at the paint shop showed me which looks great. Either way, it's going to be orange with a black engine bay. I'm just deciding whether to paint the front airdam and rear spoiler orange or black.

 

and more thanks to Scoota and Dalee for the help and advice on painting / suspension / body work etc. so far. 

[MaygZ]

Your doing some good work there Fuzzy.  Looking good and some good progress.

[luvemfast]

Looking great.

 

[FuzzyDropbear]

Thanks guys, I'm taking a month off over summer (pending boss' approval), so I'm aiming to have the whole shell in primer and hopefully colour by end of Autumn. It's time I got off my butt and finished this thing, this thing has been going on long enough already!

 

I've also picked up a few parts etc. since the last update and found out that at least the front struts are the original wet-legs. I'm just deciding whether to go with the adjustable coilover kit, or just put some lowered springs on it for now.

[luvemfast]

Just get her on the road.

You can always upgrade to coilovers in the future 

[FuzzyDropbear]

Well, I finally got the battery tray back in. I managed to butcher the welding job to get it back in, which I'm not really happy about but it's solid and should come up ok. I'd have a better photo but only have access to my cruddy camera phone at the moment cause the missus borrowed my camera and who knows where the charger ended up (for the second time)  lol.

 

 

I also had a couple of areas in the engine bay which needed to be stripped back as I hadn't preped them properly  and the etch had reacted to something, so that's all tidied up now.

 

I've also stripped back the drivers side front guard which had a bit of bog in there, so I have some panel beating to do and I have to repair the welding done by someone previous. There's no real rust issues on the outside, but I'm stripping the inside tomorrow and shall see what that brings. I'm aiming to have most (if not all) of the body in primer by the end of Feb. But that depends on what we find along the way 

 

I've also hit a wall on trying to get the front Poly spoiler from AllZparts as I can't seem to get a hold of them, so I might have to decide on a different spoiler.

[madz]

Nice to see progress, good work bud

[FuzzyDropbear]

Thanks Jane, getting there slowly, wanting panels as straight as I can get them is slowing me down a bit, but it's looking good 

 

Have done a bit more work, but I have a quick question for the bodywork guys. I've stripped back my drivers door to find a decent dent in it as per pictures below. I've come up with a couple of ways to approach it but thought I'd ask people who know their stuff. Am I best to:

 

1) Grab the grinder and run it down the middle of the dent and then bend the two sides back into shape and weld it back up.

or;

2) try heating the dent and pulling it out with dent puller (I've worked this with a couple of smaller dents and have had some good results)

or;

3) just close eyes and bog that sucker

 

I'm aiming towards the first option as it's a decent dent (hard to show depth in the picture) and I'm trying to keep filler to a minimum.

 

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Cheers,

 

Rob

[Scoota G]

Doors are cheap, i even threw one out!

[FuzzyDropbear]

That's true. I should have checked the forum earlier as I gave it a crack anyway, hasn't come out too bad, it'll only need a slight smear of bog to get it sitting pretty.

 

Oh and ignore my message I sent earlier today, since the BBQ has been moved to tomorrow night I can still go if you guys wanna catch a lift? Or are you boys taking the Z's down?

[zzzzed]

I would pull the dent out the best you can with a deny puller then use some heat stinking after if needed. I you cut it and weld it it will warp and need to be either dent pulled or shrunk or both any way.

[FuzzyDropbear]

Ahh, thanks for the reply Mick, I hadn't considered that the re-welding was going to warp the panel again, my bad, I will keep it in mind for the next one I find. Hopefully if I take it slow it won't warp too bad. We'll pencil this one in as another lesson  lol

[zzzzed]

Yeh  go very slow and you will be ok. If this is the way you are more comfortable with the go with it