My project 300zx (so far)

[KeedyT]

Hi everybody I'm Travis and I have a car problem

So I picked up a '91 back in March in my lifelong goal of checking off the list of cars I couldn't afford when they were new. In hindsight I was too impatient and drove 5 hours back home in a car that was to put it kind, somewhat mis-represented by the seller in our week of phone, text, pictures. It ran smoothly enough to cruise happily along at 80+ on the highway, paint looked good from 20' (ok maybe 30), had an interesting 2-tone tan and black interior..... and was less $ than I had in my pocket from a very successful flip of a 92 Miata I'd just finished.





By the time I got her home in my garage....
A disturbing jar and shake in the front end in corners turned out to be a lower control arm who's inner mounting point was no longer a hole but a "C". The A/C didn't blow cold air, the passenger window wouldn't go down. The tires (while having tread) were likely older than my children. That 2 tone interior had it's 2nd tone sloughing off in many places, there were 2 !@$^&*%!! passenger seats installed (both in black leather but not remotely matching). The radio didn't work...... I've chosen to forget some of this list - I have a very tolerant wife that drove back home in this new treasure of mine

Having the issues I do, I'm in love, she NEEDS me!

After a short amount of time I decide the tan interior with it's many colors (have all the Tans aged into so many hues of pinks and browns?) smells & general blechy-ness had to go. So I drug this home:



It had a complete and reasonably ok charcoal interior (after hours... and hours... and some more hours... of scouring) for the grand total of $200.



I quickly determined that no amount of cleaning (even straight bleach) was going to make the carpet out of the parts car acceptable (any more so than the equally disgusting tan version I ripped out of mine). So I ordered new carpets entirely.



Confessions of a serial plasti-dipper (don't judge me!)



I've been playing with Plasti-dip for a couple of years now, I've used it on my daily driver (and other's) and been able to put it right back to stock in a couple of hours. In the case of my previous project and this one I did a certain amount of body work/sanding/prepping and used dip as the new "paint" as I'm comfortable with it and like the interesting finish (not to mention I refuse, nor can really afford to send my toys off for someone else to work on). One of these days I'll probably move on up to "real" paint but....

I'd painted all my door jambs black while I had the interior stripped and then did the dip about half way through the interior project as a "breaK"

Here's where I am today:













I still have a long road ahead to make it what I really want. I need to change the timing belt (<160k but who knows when it was done and I fear it's a ticking time bomb), trace down a miss at idle (vacuum, spark, injector?) replace the DS center bearing...... that's just for starters I'm sure. But compared to the last one I think I'll be keeping this a little while, it speaks to me.

[rgregoryb]

Welcome to the club. From now own your life is not your own, the Z will take control of your very being. They know when you have a little cash on hand and will demand it from you immediately.

My recent thoughts have been " I now have 10k in a 6k car." "I can't keep spending money on this thing, I need to get it running perfectly and sell it"

But alas, you drive it and all those thoughts go away, for a while, anyway.

[DCaff300ZX]

Welcome, nice to see you are bringing her back to her better days condition.
As mentioned your Z may well take over your life, well, your bank account anyway. I wish I didn't know I've spent WAAAAYY too much money on my Z's, I can't bear to ever go over the receipts for some sort of total spent and know that awesome number...which BTW still will have about 4-5 grand added by the time my body work and exterior upgrades get done.
They are damn near a disease, just like an addiction- they are never done, and you ALWAYS want it a little better...enjoy!

[nissanfreak12]

Car looks good! Keep it up!

Look for a one piece driveshaft vs changing out the center bearing. You will be much happier.

Also what color is that plasti dip? I love that color

[KeedyT]

Thanks y'all. I won't even bother to deny you are all right about the bank account draining and only ROI being the joy of the car :-)

Nissanfreak - I custom mixed 75% Nebula Blue and 25% Hyper Black Graphite pearls - I expected it to be a much darker blue but I'm really happy with it, no 2 pictures of it comes out the same depending on light, time of day, etc. I'd best describe it as smokey blue.

[nissanfreak12]

I may have to steal this color from you. Its pretty close to the sapphire blue nissan had on the Z. Just love the color. I bet it looks better in person than in pics. Keep up the good work on the car.

[KeedyT]

Be my guest :-) It shimmers in the sunlight, looks deep like purple at sunset, every one I do gets a little nicer, but I'll be surprised if I make it a year before it's a different color just for giggles. I'm itching to try the new products they've come out with for a glossier top coat.

[DCaff300ZX]

I do like that color...so, you mixed the paint and applied with a gun and not a can?

[KeedyT]

I do like that color...so, you mixed the paint and applied with a gun and not a can?

Check out http://www.dipyourcar.com The sell it by the gallon and formulated for spray. I have their HVLP sprayer (self contained unit with a blower and a gun) but you could use others. I put on 2 gallons of black as a base coat (about 4 coats) then mixed pearls (additives) into 2 more gallons of clear topcoat for another 3 or 4 coats.

My Miata project (2 of the 3 applications I played with):





My previous daily driver (stripes with this stuff are much tricker than normal paint I've learned the hard way):

[DCaff300ZX]

Interesting...you've done good work from what the pics show, especially the last one.
MAY just have to play around with that stuff a little...so would you think that a primer gun would have a large enough orifice to spray the plastidip? Can you thin the plastidip to suit a tip/gun config?

[KeedyT]

...so would you think that a primer gun would have a large enough orifice to spray the plastidip? Can you thin the plastidip to suit a tip/gun config?

the gun I'm using has a 1.5mm tip, I know many on the forums have used differing equipment and techniques including thinning but I'm not nearly well versed enough to tell you what WILL or WONT work there :-) . At $160 for their sprayer and similar $ for the same sort of unit in a number of other places I've not bothered to investigate to be honest (and I don't have a compressor big enough to run paint so...)