Mike_F

Another couple of channels I have been watching are Silvester Customs https://www.youtube.com/c/SYLVESTERSCUSTOMS and Wray Schelin's pro shaper https://www.youtube.com/c/proshaper These guys do next level body work. Both are dead against sandblasting, which is interesting. Wray talks about the micro-pitting and warpage, as does Silvesters. I wonder if there are rogue sandblasters in the US that smash the cars with ball bearing sized pellets of sand or something, because the C.A.R results look pretty solid in the photos and he seems to sandblast.

Hey mate, check this vid out - he's attempting to get the undercoating off his US 280z using a variety of techniques. Its entertaining...

Chapter 14: The Double Entendre One of my favourite youtube channels is "Home built by Jeff". Its entertaining, informative, Mrs Jeff is hilarious, and it shows that us backyard guys can do these things pretty well as a hobby. I also love the quote "if its worth doing well, its worth doing twice!". Which brings me to that rusty drip rail thing in the engine bay. I originally tried making it out of a single piece, and I was sooo close. Literally a couple of mm ... but I couldn't get it to sit right. It kept fighting me. It wouldn't sit flat. I hammered, dolly'd, rolled, twisted, yelled and screamed at it - but all to no avail. So I started it again, but used a different technique - I built it out of a couple of pieces and welded them together. So much quicker and looks just as good. While I'm a little disappointed in myself that I couldn't quite nail it from a single piece, I also had to move on... I welded it in, cleaned it up and then nuked that area with Rust Encapsulator. Next Chapter - I'm taking the car back to the future ... way back, to the Fred Flinstone days!

I can't believe how hard he hit the tree, but it looks like he broke his ankle 10 m beforehand. I hope he heals up quickly!

I didn't end up going down - been smashed at work recently and not riding enough to do a solo 4 hour. Did you go for a spin?

I haven't ridden the Cotter Pines trails yet. I am half tempted to head down to Canberra for the Rocky Trail on the 19th of Feb (probably a solo 4 hour), so I might check out Cotter the following day ... if I can still walk...

Anyone else impressed at how clean the garage is? #Respect!

Nice! I'm still in two minds as whether to do the great looking but impractical fender mirrors, or to use the door mirrors that the car actually came with... What were the determining factors for going with the door mirrors for you?

How much did you need to strip off behind it?

You won't know what to do with yourself. You might have to drive the car on the beach a few times, reverse a boat into the water etc ... otherwise you'll be lost! ;-)

Is that a spare by any chance?

There's nothing worse than a crusty rear end! Do you already have a rear valance?

I like the look of those bumpers! I have noticed that mine have 2 vertical things on the front of them (are they called "overrides"??). Does anyone know which years had those vs which didn't?

The weekend just gone involved a bunch of riding, with about 3.5 hours on Saturday and about 2.5 hours on Sunday (mostly volunteering with a school mountain biking clinic). But, there was some Datto action too! Firstly, I seam-sealed in the engine bay (where I had primed) and in the cowl area. I used a "gun" style applicator which came out soooo much neater than the stuff from a tin. Then, while the front was drying I thought I would tackle the back RHS panel, with a goal to weld on the new KV Panel. So, I enthusiastically drilled out the necessary spot welds, and used the angle grinder to cut off the damaged panel (leaving about an inch spare to "play with"). When I test fitted the panel, it looked an absolute treat! I measured from the hatch edge down to the bumper indent at different distances from the bottom edge and compared it with the distances I was getting on the other side, which resulted in the above alignment. It looks perfect! Even the bottom, where the rear valance lines up with the new green goodness, looks perfect! However, rusty demons of dirt have clearly been transforming more of my inner paneling; some of it as a biproduct of an accident at some point, but others because of, well, Datsun. This latter rust, on the inside wheel arch, is going to require me to "raise the Kimono" in order to ascertain how much crustiness is lurking behind that curvy Japanese facade. But rather than cut the outer panel away to see what is behind it, I am instead going to wire-wheel around the inner part of the guard and see if this crustiness comes through. If it goes higher, then I might need a tabco order because creating a replacement panel by hand (no english wheel or bead roller) is beyond me. I think. But, to get the wire wheel in there I need to remove the rear suspension stuff again, which requires wriggling under the car, which I would prefer to do when my wife is around to hear me scream. So, I decided to do some more research and move back to the front. So - remember that point about hating things being half done? Well, yeah, I keep starting things. So, one of the things I half finished (see what I did there? glass half full!!!) was the engine bay. The reason I half did it was due to, well, rust ... on the LHS where the guard bolts on. So, I cut the piece out and fabricated a new part, which was quite difficult, but I'm mostly there! I love those completely arbitrary curves, that serve no purpose other than to make creating repair panels harder. This was very cheesy with lots of holes in that "water channel that leads nowehere" It curves down, and curves in. All for a part of the car that no-one sees! Which is a shame. Almost there! I need a little more fettling until it fits perfectly. Next is to trim it back to size, weld a self-captive nut in the appropriate place, drill some holes for spot welds, apply some weld-through primer and weld it back on. I haven't worked out how I'm going to weld that channel yet, but worse come to worse I'll cut out an access gap so that I can get in there with the welder and a die grinder to cleaner it up, then weld the access flap back on. We'll see. Cheers for now! Mike

Hi Agno, Sorry to hear about your mum. That's terrible that someone chose not to smoke but died from it anyway. I agree with your sentiment on the above comment - I think so many people cling to words from that 0.01% who seem impervious to the negative impacts of smoking, without actually considering the facts/statistics without bias. And thanks for the feedback on the journal so far! I am hoping to have a solid weekend on it, although a bunch of work seems to be at loggerheads next week so I'll probably have to spend some time this week getting ahead of that. Cheers, Mike