mspecr

Checked them door hinges, wow. sausage down a hallway on all four. So borrowing the details from here : http://www.viczcar.com/forum/topic/10316-sagging-door-hinges/ Looks like ill be doing some hinges soon. Passenger side door jam de-tacked from donor. wire wheeled, repaired lower leg etch prime and chassis black the rear. and installed. (before grinding down welds) top half of kicker panel done. So after the kicker was well secured. I reinstalled the front fender to see how it all lines up bolted down. Got the the last bolt that's in the kicker panel and POP, lost my nut.. So had to go fishing for it. I'll just use a nutsert as a replacement then try to weld this guy back in. So going all neanderthal by this time, I took my attention to the battery tray. Previous repair work. wire wheeling the passenger floor pan showed more.... mining continues. " Beer time "

Welcome and good luck with the build !

Nice find, Good luck with the resto !

Mate read all 59 pages, just have to say that is some serious R&D work going on there, Keep up that awesome work ! Cringed at that tooth, def know that feeling :$

hhmmmmm, you know I cant say I have actually checked the hinge pins for slop, will do tomorrow, thanks for the tip.

Opps must of missed that last page ... my bad.

http://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/south-guildford/cars-vans-utes/datsun-260z/1111508047 RS30-010114 1976 $20 K

So i hacked the 3/4 rear, to make the passenger side door fit. using a ruler to follow the edge of the panel, I drew a line down the guard after that it was sliced using a grinder. Start of Tacks Still need to finish grinding smooth the welds, checking before any more has to be done. Currently how it sits. Fender on to see where I'm going. This area where the front of the door Jam sits is what I'm concerned about, not exactly sure how much of a gap i need as I didn't have a seal there to begin with, any help would be great . Mark.

@jeff43 : 6mm is what that gap is on the bottom, this is what I'm aiming for overall. @260DET : Spent a few good days playing with this door placement, with very little success unfortunately. Had a few others come around and give there thoughts but this seamed to be only way, considering it had a rough prior life its just became the character of the car. I did see a few Z during the week measuring there gaps, ball park is 6 - 9mm, I didn't come across any that where smaller. @CroS13 : Cheers Rudi , your DP makes me miss my s15 .

Started at the other side back where it all began, that passenger side rear quarter. finalize the weld on rear support pillar, cleaned up and coated in primer. started tacking the quarter panel back into place, making sure to keep that gap from the rear hatch. taking my dear sweet time on tacking this critical part. ground back after the 1st pass, which the 2nd was to fill anything i missed. coated. After getting the 1/4 window arch and the rear end perfect, I found that the top of the door would clash with the rear quarter, I tried to move the door as far forward as possible but no success, to solve this I will have to cut a slice from the top of the rear quarter down 3/4 of the panel, this should give me that extra clearance. How much clearance between the door the rear quarter panel is everyone having ? least a ball park. Mark.

@ Sirpent , Haha I feel at home when i have a tool in my hand. @ PeterAllen, Cheers for the kind words, I will something about it that keeps drawing my attention everyday, might have a chat to a therapist.... Its quite humbling to have so much support specially from all the z lovers out there.

Cheers for the kind words I am aiming for November - (for my bday) to have the 1st stage done. IF, it all goes well Just had a massive rush of inspiration after watching Charlie's rb260Z video, just love it ! Nice benchmark to aim for. Also if anyone is after Warren from All Z Parts, he's a bit unwell and taking some time off due a knee problem, wishing him a speedy recovery this is just a heads up if anyone is after gear from him and not able to get through. Rails are ordered and are on the way from John @ baddogparts.com got my door jam / lock panels. only a little bit of big, better then having nothing at all. patch for the inner wheel arch, which was off some prebent bracket i found laying around. somewhere I forgot to take pictures, I think i was on a good run and forgot to take a few but the drivers door jam was re-installed. kicker panel top half done. coated as norm. i lost count of how many times I trimmed this dogleg trying to find its sweet spot hammer worked a treat still yet to weld the bottom lip together, I might leave that once the car is flipped, as overhead welding has not been friendly to me in the past . Starting drilling out the spot welds on the passenger door jam panel, half of it was welded together, so its been off before in its past life. Found a bit of rust in the lower area which is expected thou not sure until its completely apart. Mark.

Living my dream ! Awesome work there Charles, definitely can see the love placed into your Z.

Been a lasy week, which sadly i didn't get around to doing anything too productive. Got in contact with John from baddogparts.com and started talking about getting some body rails and the other odd pieces he sell, sooner or later I'll be up for them. Sourced down a passenger side door jam panel to suit the early 3 bolt from Martin - Tune Right. Should be getting that tomorrow sometime. And lastly got in touch with Warren from All Z Parts, for some random items that are not needed now but seeing whats available later on, mainly interior bits / seals. Other then thats it. http://i172.photobucket.com/albums/w3/mspecr/1974%20Datsun%20260z%20build/misc%20items/th_Snapchat-8621533430725056939_zpsymr0ugir.mp4 Mark.

http://buyee.jp/item/yahoo/auction/w128292589 14 days left - $95,700.00

Started on the drivers rocker. So far so good. This was the only real damage, I was rather pleased to only find this. Front section looking happy. Temp fit of untrimmed panels. Dogleg Panel : TABCO - 16750R Rocker Panel : TABCO - 16740R So while wire wheeling away, I ended up here and really hit some solid bog. easy 12mm plus of bondo was hiding. Out came the stripper disk on the grinder, Here it pays to wear a full mask. The arch was buried in varies degrees of bog, oddly enough there wasn't really much panel damage beside a few dents. Wiped it down and gave it a quick lick of primer to save the metal. Top of the door latch/jam panel however been shunted in a fair bit, so guess I'll be looking for both L+R locking panels. Other then that I really made a mess in the garage... :S Mark.

Thanks for the kind words everyone . @ gav240z : actually the only prior experience was when I started on the 2+2 in regards to body work, this being one massive learning curve. I'm no pro thou there is more then ample info out there from people who have walked this path before. Pays to do some homework . I'm more mechanical minded if anything, being in touch with kind people from the wazregister has helped me considerably.

Hope everyone had a Happy Easter ! Regrettably I bit the bullet, and hacked my 2+2. for this pillar and the nose clip. De-tack. the outer skin of the pillar, wire wheeled the underside and etch primed, The remaining section was used to rebuild the lower section, outside where the door closes. Once the lower section was in position it was cleaned up and etch primed. Doing it in two sections allowed me to gain access and treat the new welds from the inside, once the top skin is on your unable to get into here without some creative access holes. top skin installed. Start of cleaning the welds. Worth mentioning, the 77 - later series is made of thicker metal, this top skin was definitely that, so to offset this thickness I move it ever so slightly towards the window, this kept the painted ( exposed edge ) that is visible straight with the existing roof curve, I'm hoping that this small indent made will be absorbed by the window seal. Any suggestions / comments would be greatly appreciated before this is part is finalized. Front Nose cut. I almost shed a tear for doing this, but I done it. The nose off my 2+2 is was nipped off and now tacked on temporarily. Drivers 1/4 window frame. Rough hack to see inside, oddly enough it wasn't as bad. Inside was near perfect with only that lower panel blowing out, easy repair using the remaining gutter section off the front pillar I took off before. " If only rust was valuable to someone.... " Mark.

loving the pest control in ep 2. can somewhat relate.

At this stage its looking that way, I do have a 2+2 that i was working on before I obtained this girl, it also had its own share of brown gold. As much i don't like the idea, the overall picture I would rather have one running then two "lifeless" ones, also it hurts as I spent already a fair bit on time on the 2+2. Parts that I can get my paws onto I will take, thou there are going to be areas which simply have to go with the flow. Good question i was told it was in storage thou chunks keep falling off this one as I keep working at it haha, I should clean up the garage and lift my game, I'll admit my floor is nowhere as clean as yours ... thou there is a massive tarp down for this reason. Haha Ahri sends her regards. Thanks for the kind words ! The idea of experiencing it when its alive and back on the road is what keeps me going, still a long road ahead but it will be worth it. Being a restomod I know its not going to be a fav among true concord restorers thou this is for me really . I read both builds love the detail in them and where there going, definitely something to look up too, keep up the great work. P/S : borrowing the bolt in battery tray idea Mark.

Been hacking at it again. I started mounting it to a rotisserie using the previous mounts that where already attached to the car. (which I'll be honest didn't take much of a look at them) Once started to take the weight it wasn't sounding to great, with couple of pops and crackles coming from the front mounts. Turns out I didn't have much of a drivers rail with only a few hidden tacks and bog holding it in place. This is going to be a nose job for later. Drivers side front pillar. looks innocent... dig. keep digging. more digging. and brown gold. drill Was actually happy to see that it was only the top skin that was gone and a small section on the rain gutter, other then that I didn't seam it was necessary to brace the front as there was 3 other main panels that made the pillar. same thing wire wheel, POR-15, while was here I tried as much to get into the other cavities with POR. " I like grinders. " Mark.

Winner ! thou sadly I don't have any to give away mine seen better days.

So ended up going with option B from the last post. - Just need to find a early donor, thou while i'm waiting to source that I started on other areas that needed some attention. note even a " new " panel has started surface rust between joins. (available if anyone wants it) many drills later and a few cuts. cowl is off. no treasure just brown gold, leaving this panel off for a while til after it goes for a media blast. this plate helps stiffens where your pedal box hangs off. attacked with a drill you get this. this area was paper thin, even mores so after hitting it with a wire wheel. this was the reason why I was curious. cut cut cut and start of patches. That's it for the moment, still lots to go through, thou I will leave with this "know your datsun" question ; Who can guess what/where this is. ?

Just had a read, great work dude keep it up ! I'm going to borrow your idea for the battery tray area soon

Been busy... Removed the rocker panel, not much to damage internally besides the little support panel on the right corner, the inner panels where wire brushed down, cleaned , POR-15, then coated with chassis black etch primed internals and chassis black of new panel. cut this out little patch made Tacked in the rocker panel for temp fitment, since you can move this panel a fair amount naturally it has to align with the door. To finalize this I have to wait till the rear quarter panel is on as the door has to line up with that. That's the methodology atm ..? eyeballed it looks ok ? placing the front fender on with the original bolt marks turned out great, loads of adjustment available for the fender. Hacking out the rear light surround took a long time specially around boot floor as this was all brazed in, I'll admit this was done quite well but I was not having fun, and I thought drilling out spot welds was bad... by the looks of the boot area the entire pan has been brazed in. Removed the top layer to find only surface rust in the rear hatch area. could of been worse i guess. A good wire brush n POR-15 will save this. corner gone and prepped. new corner tack welded in. After a few hours of measuring / tacking / measuring / grinding / belting it with a hammer. / measuring I have a replacement corner, This piece is actually from the new rear quarter panel, reason to this extra work was the replacement panel goes under the roof and is part of the door arch / main roof support. Since mine actually looked reasonable I had no intentions of attacking the roof nor play around with that upper area, this way i could play with main support beams down low and not touch that roof join, added to that I can full weld the support beam and treat it later on. Checking the lock arrangement stumped me.. So as far as i gathered I have the early 240 / 260 type lock ( 3 bolts ), where the replacement panel I have is the for the later 260 maybe 280 style ( 2 bolt ) ?.. the inner profile of this door jam also is different. So do I either : A : Remove the 3 bolt locking mech from the original early panel and graft it onto the new (later) panel, cut / chop / trim the sealing edge to suit the original profile as the inner dogleg area is lot different. ( outside is the same profile where the door edge sits ) B : Find a early donor and swap out that inner door jam area, 3 bolt and all. C: Refab / repair the original rusted one and then graft it onto the new replacement panel. aww its 1.30 am ... have too sleep on this for a few days, other then that its taking shape. till next time, stay true stay Datsun.