Build thread 444: In rust we trust

[datsun-s30]

Alright, now that I've coated the bottom of the car with an undercoating, I began working on the front suspension by cleaning all the parts down to bare metal, treated them with a rust converter / inhibitor, then primed and painted them.




None of this is all that difficult to do, just time consuming and in some cases, very detail oriented.






Rebuilt and refinished the brakes.




Finally, I tackled the steering rack and placed it in the car.






Got a few things to button up on the front end, then I'll move on to the rear of the car. This should be much more simple than the front was since there's almost no structural rust back there.

Also, I'll post some before and after comparison pictures here soon. They're pretty impressive in my opinion. Thanks everybody for following along and the continued support, later.

[77Datsun280z]

I'm about to buy a 77 280z and seen your thread, wow that is dedication and great work! I will definitely be giving the one I'm looking at a much more thorough inspection than what I did yesterday. Looking forward to more updates.

[Wishful_Thinking]

I just signed up so I can follow this thread. Your attention to detail (and to posting that detail) is inspiring. I'm suddenly wishing I had a project car like this to learn on!

[datsun-s30]

Hey, thanks guys... I'm just trying to be thorough, more of an ocd thing I think. But thank you. And good luck on obtaining and working on your perspective project cars.

Now that I've completed the front suspension and all the structural repairs on the frame rails, I'm moving on to the rear of the car. I've mounted the tires on the front and re-positioned my wooden jack stands to support the front while I worked on the back half.






Then I began removing the rear suspension until I had it all out and accounted for. Some of those components were a pain, let me tell you.




Next up, removing the rust, and treating the parts so they don't rust again (hopefully) then making them pretty. In the case of this differential, I painted the steel and coated the aluminum in a matte clear.






They've all got a good amount of rust too that made me work for it, and I've got more suspension pieces still left to be tackled, but it's coming along.

[AZhitman]

Looking great!

I'm going to be converting this one into a homepage article at some point... Great work!

[GerryO]

Amazing and so inspiring!

Thank you!

[datsun-s30]

Wow, that's awesome AZhitman. Thank you. And you too GerryO, thanks. To be honest, I'm just between jobs right now and trying to stay busy.

Got the half shafts rebuilt recently too.




As well as the mustache bar. Which, once I cleaned it up, had a number on it that I assume is a part number. So I figured I'd try to recreate the number for a bit of originality. Even though it'll probably never be seen under the car.

[datsun-s30]

Still working on rear suspension parts. It's coming along...

[evildky]

Looks great. What are you using to coat the parts, just rattle can black? Or are you using an automotive paint?

[cray-Z]

what brand rust converter / inhibitor, primer and paint are you using for the suspension parts? Awesome work!

[datsun-s30]

Gentlemen, thank you. I appreciate the support.

And to answer your question cray-z, it depends on the part but typically, after it's completely down to the bare metal, I'll spray on a couple coats of VHT rust converter / inhibitor. I know it seems generic, but I swear by the stuff. Next, I'll spray on two or three coats of Rust-Oleum flat grey 2x primer. Then to finish it off, I'll use an Eastwood product, called Underhood Matte Black.

There are occasions where I'll use an epoxy primer first, and even an etching product which leaves a zinc coating on the metal to prevent rust but for the most part, the method I've described is the method I use. It's fairly durable and I like the way it turns out. And unless you purposefully scratch it, you're usually pretty good. Granted it's not going to be nearly as durable as a powder coat or even a two part automotive paint, but I have much a budget that I must stay within, and that's just the way it's gotta be.

Now if I could make a business out of restoring peoples cars for them, making better money and having access to better stuff, hell yeah I'll start using professional products on my car.

[Antihero]

So glad I found this thread, it gives me hope with my 78 280. Same situation, someone did a bunch of rust repair in an absolute hackish manner, plus additional rot. Good to see that with time and effort, progress can be made!

[datsun-s30]

Yeah, it seems fairly common to come across a former hack job repair when restoring a car. I'm sure if someone re-visits my work in 50 years from now, they might consider it hackish as well. Although it's no where near as bad as what I encountered on the first go around.

Good luck on your 78 Antihero, I do hope it turns out nice and you're able to return it to the road (or track). It can certainly be done, like you said, with some time and effort (and loads of patience).

And for everyone else waiting on updates on my car, I accepted a job on the East Coast recently (I live in the Midwest) and was supposed to be out of town for a while, but that only lasted a couple weeks before the contract ended abruptly to everyone's surprise. So my financial status is up in the air at the moment and I'm getting to the point where I can't just throw a bunch of labor at my z and hope it gets done. It's requiring money now. So I'll keep you all updated, but as of right now, there might be a short hiatus before I get back to regular posting.

Thanks again for everyone's continued support. Later, Jason.

[TheRock3tBunny]

Anything new on the build? Fine work thus far

[datsun-s30]

Thanks TheRock3tBunny.

And nothing new to report about the car right now, other than it's collecting more dust than I'd like.

But the reason for the lack of updates was due to a lack of employment, which has been resolved. So come this fall / winter, I'll be back at it again.

[hutch0421]

Nice work! My son and I are in the same boat with a 73 240z. You mention that the engine compartment rails are level x3 and within 1/32". Where are you getting the reference dimensions? All I have seen is a single drawing from the FSM which doesn't seem sufficient to locate the rails. Keep up the good work! Thanks.

[datsun-s30]

Happy thanksgiving!

Apologies for the delay hutch0421, I haven't checked this forum in a while.

So I derived my measurments from the image below.



It's a bit wonky in my opinion because it's based off of the center of the suspension and you'll need to do a lot of back tracking on the measurements to figure out what's what. But it's all there. I went as far as redrawing the layout in a CAD program in Imperial Units, but I can't seem to find that file. If I do, I'll share.

[Topless_S13]

This build is impressive! Definitely looking forward to seeing more progress.

[datsun-s30]

Thanks Topless_S13.

As luck would have it, I found my way back to my garage this weekend hoping that the cold drove away all the spiders under my car. I was wrong.

But I did manage to remove some more bits from under the rear of the car.



Which allowed me to remove all the brake and fuel lines.



Then I dropped the fuel tank, removed the rear bumper and began scraping away the rear undercoating. I forgot how much of a pain this was.



So I took a break from scraping and refurbished some hardware that kept the rear differential from chattering



Hope to have some more progress for you guys next week.

[redux]

Awesome build. I'm starting one myself (actually started in 2014 but put in on the back burner)... I was having trouble with the undercoating and glad you pointed out the type of wire wheel you were using. I'm going to give that a try. I'm getting a lot of great info on how things were fabricated, which is huge. Can't thank you enough.

May I ask which floor pan / rail kit you went with?

[MulleMeck]

I'm impressed by your build! Love to see when people rebuild whole floors, beams, thresholds and so on (the metal work). Did some of it on my e30 two years ago, but far from this. Have a 300zx as well that I'm planning to widen, but that is more in the future.

[datsun-s30]

Redux, I bought the Zedd Findings kit. The first page of this thread covers the installation of those pieces. And good luck with your build. Removing the undercoating is easily one of the least fun aspects of the project for sure.

Speaking of which, that's one of the things I've been working on recently on my z. Hard to get motivated to lay awkwardly under a car while scraping chips of filthy dried tar off above your head. I've also been working on more of the rear suspension, which I've gotten to a point where I've decided I've had enough of the wire wheel on smaller parts and am in the process of upgrading my blast cabinet so that it actually works.

I'd post a few pictures documenting my progress but between removing undercoating not being a particularly interesting part of the build and NICOclub.com's website being ludicrously slow, I'm not going to right now. Come on NICOclub.com, get your s*** together. I only have issues with your site and have experienced them for years while using several different internet service providers on several different computers.

[AZhitman]

Hmmm.

Considering we're running on an enterprise-class server through Pair, and pageload times are quicker than 87% of similarly-sized sites, I'd say you might want to look at some browser updates, cache cleaning, and possibly even a faster connection.

With that said, I'm happy to help any way I can - Having done a few S30 restos, I do enjoy your updates.

[harlest]

Any updates??????

[datsun-s30]

This build is continued here...

Datsun-s30.com

Happy Holidays!