Rear Slam Panel Rust Repair.

So I started on my rear hatch slam panel repair tonight, thought I'd document what I'm doing since I wasn't 100% sure before I started where I needed to unpick this piece.

To begin with you'll need to remove the rear tail lights and garnish pieces, should be relatively straight forward to do.

Next you'll need to remove the rear hatch rubber seal.

Under the seal you'll see some dimples which are the spot welds from factory.

The spot weld cutter I use requires a pilot hole drilled first, so I did that on each of the dimples, then switched to the spot weld cutter. Some spot weld cutters are designed to not require a pilot hole be drilled so it will depend on the type you buy.

You can see I punched through on a couple of occasions, I wouldn't worry too much about this, underneath my slam panel is actually quite a bit of rust which I wasn't really expecting to find but there you go!

Keep going along, you can just see the spot weld cutter I'm using...

There is quite a few 'hidden' spot welds near the corners of this panel, best way to find them is actually try lifting the piece. You'll find that the places it won't move after using a chisel and hammer to try and separate them are likely spots where you need to remove the spot welds.

A couple of other 'hidden' ones are on the edges right near the 1/4 panel join.

Right side

Left side after nipping it with the grinder.

Using a cutting disc on a grinder I nibbled these spots.

The next spot to find, is under the slam panel where the license plate goes. You can see a couple of brackets (3 in total) which are holding it down.

This photo shows the spot weld marks, you'll need to un-drill those also. This shot shows all 3.

Unfortunately I wasn't able to remove my slam panel yet because my spot weld cutter broke and now I need a new 1, still a couple of spot welds to remove.

Underneath is quite rusty I'm afraid so it will be interesting to see how I'll fabricate that lower section.

The good news, it appears although my rear hatch was bent and slam panel to some extent, the rest of the rear panel looks untouched, meaning it must have been quite a low impact at the rear and didn't disturb anything further.

The lower beaver panel though is quite gone...(but that's another thread).

Good stuff Gav. You'll be right to sort it out. Could be alot worse

Thanks mate, yeah I want to document this so others can give it a go also. I'm starting here because I have the rare spares slam panel and this is a good way to dip my toes in the water before tackling the floors and other areas like the rear 1/4's.

The firewall has a bit of rust also which is a little tricky but the good thing about the slam panel is that it's relatively hidden from view once repaired. Although I'm going to try and make the repair as seamless as possible.

Photos are always helpful with these things also.

So I bought another spot weld cutter kit.

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/120678177633

http://r.ebay.com/7K8dun

I bought another kit a while back which cost around $40-$60 but I think this is much better value for money, comes with it's own case. It has different types of spot weld cutter. I quite like the drill bit piece as I've used these before and found them better than the ones that require a pre-drilled pilot hole.

It also has spare tips in case they break (which is what happened to my last 1). Even comes with it's own little case.

Postage was free and quick (within a couple of days).

So there is quite a few difficult to spot, spot welds on each corner.

Hopefully these photos will help you see where to look.

After removing the old slam panel (which had some bog in it cover 1 or 2 spot welds for some unknown reason). I added it to my trophy room of rusted s30z parts...

Some rust in the bottom left hand corner where the tail light goes (passenger side).

Driver side has a small pin-hole also.

Just placing the rare spares slam panel down there to see how it will look.

Question, since this area has quite a bit of rust and is now missing, has anyone got photos of what the area is supposed to look like that they can share? I'm going to have to figure out a way to fabricate this area.

Going to look out for 1 of these also...

Ill grab my phone and post some now. To show you.

Nat0

Yeah if you could send them through that would be helpful.

Good work for having a go at it Gav, wouldn't have thought it would be that rusty underneath! Who makes that rear beaver panel?

I certainly wasn't expecting this much rust to be honest with you, but the lower beaver panel is also looking a little sad so I'm now thinking about actually unpicking the whole thing. Since I'm worried that behind the beaver panel will be more nasty surprises hiding for me.

That rear beaver panel is Nissan NOS I believe.

I'm not 100% sure if this is the part no.?

http://www.viczcar.com/forum/index.php/topic,11095.msg111754.html#msg111754

240Z Genuine Nissan "ASSY-PANEL REAR" - 79100-E4650

But I think the only way to find 1 is find a dealer or Nissan parts person who has 1 in storage for many years.

I found this thread from a member on here.

http://forums.hybridz.org/topic/117744-the-midnight-warrior-71-datsun-240z-australia/

Shows the rear slam area being repaired, I think Scoota did the work on this car?

After doing a little research found the following:

http://www.zparts.com/zptech/articles/panel_removal/pages/rpan_remove_faq.html

http://japanesenostalgiccar.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=11769&start=340

This repair on my 2+2 scares me a little at the moment. My rear hatch slam panel has almost been bogged flat. So either its hiding a lot of nasties or somone thought it would look better flat.

It's hiding a lot of nasties... make no mistake. Actually mine was ok on the top part, but as you can see underneath it's rotted out, you can have a look under your slam panel in the rear of the car where the lights go and feel underneath if it's all crumbling apart you'll know what you expect when you remove it.

Looking good Gav. Its amazing how much rust accumulates under there.

I have just posted some photos in my build thread of my slam panel repair. I managed to only replace the sections that were under the slam panel. The passengers side was the worst with most of the section missing.

Thanks for that, link to that post is here:

http://www.viczcar.com/forum/index.php/topic,16091.msg170984.html#msg170984

I got some butchers paper from Bunnings yesterday so I can trace out a template and then cut the pieces I need. Since there was literally nothing left of mine it's a bit harder to know exactly what contour or shape it follows. These photos help.

Don't bother with the hole-saw / broach type bit Gav. Once you've removed the panel you'll have to grind down all the little lugs that are left behind - that's a PITA!

Use the drill bit type, as the only clean-up required after the panel is removed, is to buff over it with a sanding disc.

 

Oh BTW make sure you use a good quality cutting fluid to keep the drill bit cool, otherwise you'll blunt the bit.

Any recommendation on good spot weld cutters? The last kit I ordered was pretty useless it went blunt very quickly.

What kind of cutting fluid do you recommend and who sells it? Bunnings?

I'm working on unpicking the rear beaver panel on my S30z.

Just wondering if you guys think these are factory welds?

They certainly don't look like regular spot welds, so it got me wondering if they were original or not? I imagine they will be a little more difficult to unpick. They also looked a bit messy for 'factory' but I guess anything is possible? Certainly doesn't look like the rear beaver panel has ever been unpicked before so I assume they are?