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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.

A bit has been happening in the background but I've slack on posting so this one is a big one. It was time for suspension to be done, and after removing the struts from the car I found 3 out of 4 shocks were leaking - I guess that's what happens when you have a project span the better part of a decade. I wanted to do the wheel bearings at this point as well for peace of mind so I figured why not go the whole hog and do the coilover installation instead of replacing shocks, so it was one and done and I wouldn't have to touch the suspension / brakes again. After a fair bit of research I landed on MCA coilovers. They're Australian based (in Brisbane like I am) with a good reputation and local support. I went with the 'Pro Sport' option for a good mix of street performance without being too harsh. I removed the front and rear struts from the car and stripped them down. I had an absolute nightware with one side rear spindle pin on the LCA - I broke a few homemade spindle pin pullers before biting the bullet and resorting to the hacksaw blade method to cut the pin. After receiving the order from MCA, I took them to a local fabricator in Ipswich (OTB Performance & Fabrication) and they cut and welded the coilovers to the struts. I was pretty happy with the welding and the finish (they were TIG welded) and after some paint on the bare metal surfaces I fitted the fronts to the car. I then went about doing the rears including cleaning and painting the LCA's and installing new wheel studs and wheel bearings in the rear hubs. And finally installed the caliper adapter to be able to fit up the 280zx rear disc brake conversion. I rebuilt the calipers and I'm just waiting on new rotors to arrive to fit these up. Also picked up some Z32 300ZX calipers for the front - they're a big upgrade from the stock front calipers. Photo for comparison: Waiting for the caliper adaptors to turn up from the US to fit these up and will also need to modify some rotors so that they will all fit up properly (increasing the centrebore and redrilling for the 260Z mounting pattern on the hubs). I have a 1" MC ready to go on for the brake upgrade as well. Looking forward to fitting these up and getting it back on the ground! Got some new wheels that I think will really set the car off. 15x8" mini lites. 0 offset on the front and -8 on the rear so will be interesting fitment wise. Finally, something that I've been eyeing off ever since I started looking at Zed's is the 'JDM' style exhaust. I picked one up from Z Story recently and have mocked it up on the car, but still need to make an adaptor piece between the headers and the exhaust system for it to be complete.