Project 240

[S13_love]

Here's another update...a rather small one, but nonetheless...it's progress made.

Finally got all of the patch panels on the rocker panels welded...just gotta do some body filler work to the ones on the driver side sometime this week.



^ It'll eventually look better than that lol

In this pic here, there were two holes right below the tailight but above the frame...it was an easy patch up job...but when i went to weld the areas inside the trunk, i completely butchered that so......this is the only pic i'll bother to take.



And, well, I thought i was done with all the welding....but i was mistaken, i totally forgot about this area next to the door hinges on the passenger side...



...

Definitely getting there...im really trying to get this done by mid august at the very latest, but above all, before the semester starts....

[S13_love]

ok...

I wont get anymore pics up until about friday but i'll just tell ya whats goin on at the moment.

The area behind the door hinges on the passenger side turned out to be worse than it looked...the same can be expected for the driver side.

The rocker panel repairs should be completely done by tomorrow.

Not only that but a new discovery was found on one side of the frame rails...rust! The side of the frame rail on the driver side has rust on it...really bad rust (not even sure how i missed that btw). I knew that the frame rails were non-repairable because of just the areas where it was crushed (< will get pics to show) but because of the rust on the frame rail...i will eventually have to consider a frame rail swap within 2-3 years from now...thats how long i'll give it at most before i expect it to be completely rotted away...i'll try to put some por-15 on it to help give it some time.

I also started to see a pattern here with all this damage and stuff. A lot of the areas where the rust was...well, they were caused due to the fact that the seam sealer (if any) rotted away...allowing water to get in between the metal (ex. the door hinge areas, the trunk area, etc.)

Despite all this...I am shooting for to get this painted by August 15th and completely put back together by the following week.

[PyR0NiAk]

ok...i will eventually have to consider a frame rail swap

How would you do this?

[S13_love]

How would you do this?

Eat ramen noodles and rice for the next 5 years of my life and pay the a**-pounding cost to get this done.

Well, in really simple terms you take the old frame off and put in a new one on lol. Jk, there's a process to go about this...but i dont know anything about it... with that said, this is something that i have to go through the shop with... im gonna have to get an estimate, give them my car, and let them do the rest of the work...i'll probably have to pay the full shop costs too on this one .

I've seen frame rail swaps done here at the shop i work at...it's possible, but it's very time consuming.

Edit: I dunno, i think involves stripping out the interior to get to the floor, drill or cuts holes in it to get to any welds and cut those out etc., remove shell from frame......at this point the shell will be on the car lift thing and the frame with the wheels and engine still on it will be on the ground, etc.

^ i think it goes something like that
Modified by S13_love at 9:35 AM 8/1/2009

[S13_love]

Ugh, where to begin....

Apparently...when the patch panels on the driver side rocker panel were welded, i sprayed some spot-weld primer stuff on it to protect it, just so the metal wasn't exposed. I also didn't know that body filler doesn't stick to that stuff soooooo fml. I kinda have to redo that side now.

As for the passenger side door hinge area, here's just a little something we found after we cut a piece of metal out...just gotta clean that area up and all that fun stuff.



The areas right behind the fenders on the rocker panels (on both sides were badly dented). So far, we only got the driver side pulled.



And this morning...i decided just to spray some trim paint on these little metal pieces that were from the front bumper. I'll do the ones on the rear bumper later on.



And...the frame. Here's the rust thats slowly killing it.



Here's the part of the frame that's definently beyond repair lol.



^ It's like that on the passenge side as well, but not as bad. Im still trying to figure out on how the hell that happened.

[rob912]

someone didnt know the correct jacking points my frame rail looks exactly like that on the passenher side not to big of a problem

[S13_love]

Meh, that's what I figured anyways. I just never seen a frame rail bent like that before...

[duffman1278]

Meh, that's what I figured anyways. I just never seen a frame rail bent like that before...

I have lol...my car from a jack.

I am such a noob haha!

[speedeast]

damn good job! i love pictures!!!

[Karateboy88]

The areas right behind the fenders on the rocker panels (on both sides were badly dented). So far, we only got the driver side pulled.

I like that idea of pulling dents out. What wire is that? Looks like copper coated steel.

Depending on how it looks behind the rust, you can just weld a new piece of metal in its spot. 2 sheets of 12-14 gauge should be enough. But yes- take out the carpet.

I hope you don't butcher these welds either lol

[Pbmattc]

Good job though dude its awesome from what it looked like before. My 240 has not as much rust as yours but your doing a amazing job. When i first saw all the rust on my 240sx i got really discouraged about fixing it up but now that i have seen yours i cant wait.

[rubicscube420]

holy crap!! Amazing man. How much did all this cost you??

[kgriffin]

really nice work man i need to get started on my rust

[S13_love]

holy crap!! Amazing man. How much did all this cost you??

Thanks!

Ummm...Im still not finished with it, so i don't know the cost yet and i wont know until a couple weeks from now.

Although I have a pretty good feeling that i spent at least $150 just on primer. As for body filler, since there really is no way to keep track how much i use, I don't have the slightest clue. Not only that, but i don't know the cost of the paint that im gonna go with either, which kinda has me worried.

Oh, almost forgot, there will also be another update this friday btw

[S13_love]

^ uhh, I meant saturday hehe

Ok, now im getting pretty close to finishing these repairs finally.



The patch panel behind the rear wheel on the driver side has been sanded down, took care of all the high and low spots and reprimed...then blocked that down too.







This area i had a little bit more trouble with...but anyways, i had also sanded this down and reprimed...now i just have to sand it down once more and it should be good.



Took both fenders off, so im pretty much driving around with half of the car missing. I'll be taking off the doors either tonight or tomorrow and then on monday, im going to get the quarter glass and the hatch glass removed.



This area behind the door hinge is the only patch panel that needs to be welded in...it won't be too difficult. Other than that, the rocker panel on the passenger panel still needs to be pulled but that won't take very long either.

Hopefully I'll get this painted by next saturday.

Then have it put back together, buffed and polished by the following week.

[S13_love]

Here's the rust gremlin that was found





I also took off the door not too long ago, gonna take off the driver side one later on today...jeep style ftw

[hbpignosePA]

theres a significant amount of rust on that car.

seems to be quality work goin on here...

body work scares me.. i just have one of our family friends do mine.

that frame doesnt look terrible (the rust that is)

i had a piece of my rear rail replaced and you can never tell...

[S13_love]

Almost done.

Basically, majority of the car is stripped down...doors, fenders, bumpers, the deck lid, and all of the windows except the windshield are removed.



The blue-ish door jambs ( ) finally sanded and scuffed.



Sanded the rock chips out of the mirrors, then primed it.



The patch panel finally welded in.



Grinded down the welds, then it was primered.



The area of the rocker panels which needed to be dent pulled.





On the passenger side. Both areas were primed and sanded of course.



The jamb for the deck lid had paint chipping off everywhere...had to feather all the paint back.



Ok, on a side note, im almost convinced that majority of the rust on this car was due to the fact that the seam sealer had rotted away, therefore allowing water to get in between the metal. For example, I had to clean this area up.



Another pic...



Practically half of my car is leaning up against the wall lol



All of this you see here had to be wet sanded.



Got caught up with a bunch of other things that i found, so i wasn't able to wetsand this until 12:30 last night.



I didn't get done until about 2:30, got home at 2:45, couldn't get to sleep until about 4 , then woke up at 6 to go to work...fml.

Anyways, here's what i got today after work...the car had been cleaned up and masked. It's now ready to paint, and this will be done tomorrow morning.





I can't wait!!!

Well, more updates will be posted....right now, im goin to bed, in the past 3 days i have only gotten 10 hours of sleep.

[Karateboy88]

The welds are looking better

How does it look behind the patch panel for the door hinge? What kind of primer are you using?

[duffman1278]

Man how I hate you!! lol but you've motivated me so I'm painting my car now too =] GL!!

[S13_love]

The welds are looking better

How does it look behind the patch panel for the door hinge? What kind of primer are you using?

Uhh actually, i had the guy who's helping me with this weld that one in.

Behind that patch panel...ugh, i cleaned up all the rust but it was pitted so bad that it nearly rotted through. The actually area where the door hinge bolts to is still pretty damn strong.

And I'll have to get back to ya about the primer im using.

Man how I hate you!! lol but you've motivated me so I'm painting my car now too =] GL!!

I'll post pics of todays progress in a few minutes.

[S13_love]

Today, the car has been painted!! Im gonna let you guys know that I did not paint this...the body tech who has helped me throughout this whole thing painted it.

Here are the pics:

After the car was wiped down, it was sprayed with a medium gray sealer.



After that was sprayed, we went in and re-seam sealed a bunch of areas.













The color I chose was expensive...this is what $100 looks like. Anyone wanna guess how much of this stuff I had to mix up?



The color being sprayed on there...the first few coats were appeared yellow, but then the ones after those appeared to be a little bit more orange.



Got these pillars and mirrors painted with black after the color and the pearl were sprayed on there.





Some more pics...







^ the car hasn't been sprayed with clear coat yet in these pics.

...and...


Modified by S13_love at 11:22 PM 8/15/2009

[S13_love]

...the clear coat.





No more turqouise door jambs!







The front bumper turned out a lot better than i thought it would.









Where it is at now. I already got the roof, hood, both pillars, and the passenger side quarter panel buffed.



For tomorrow, I'll try to get more buffing done and have put back together...most of it at least. Then on monday (hopefully) I'll get the windows put back on it and I should have this completed by either tuesday or wednesday.

Edit: I almost forgot... The color I pretty much went with was an Orange-yellow with a orange highlight pearl sprayed on top of it. The cost of the color ended being a little over $700 (29 oz = $100.75), total amount of clear coat used was around $250, and the sealer was about $90.

Modified by S13_love at 11:04 PM 8/15/2009
Modified by S13_love at 11:21 PM 8/15/2009

[duffman1278]

I like it!! Not a huge fan of the color but I still like all the good work you've put into it.

How did you get the trim about where the door is on the car back to black from yellow?! Doesn't look like you masked it.

[S13_love]

I like it!! Not a huge fan of the color but I still like all the good work you've put into it.

How did you get the trim about where the door is on the car back to black from yellow?! Doesn't look like you masked it.

I don't think these pics do that color any justice...it looks a lot better in person.

After the orange-yellow color and the pearl was painted, those pillars actually were masked up for the black to be sprayed on it.

[justinedible4]

man that is beautiful!i hope one day i can do perform this task with a car or at least make enough money to have someone do this.

[killernoodle]

And that, boys and girls, is how a quality paint job is applied.

[S13_love]

Thanks !!

Here is a little bit of what I did today.

Started to re-assemble the car... and got the rear end all put back together. I also got new taillights there btw, these ones have no cracks or damage at all, so they're pratically brand new.



^to whoever said (from a thread i made a while back) that those wheels don't compliment that color well or whatever it was...you are most definently right. This car would look sooooooo much better with different wheels.

As for the front end...I would have put the front bumper on but i avoided it for now. There are fitment issues with the fenders and the right headlight (the one that was hit ), so im gonna try to fix those tomorrow before i put that on.



Not sure why i took this pic of the old driver side door shell...i think im actually just glad that I have some new scrap metal that i could use for other things. . Anyways, i had to take all the stuff from that door and put it on the new one. It ended up being a lot easier than I thought it would, but I have a feeling adjusting the window to where it needs to be will kind of be a pain in the a**.



I think this car will be fully complete by wednesday at the very latest.

[Ghast]

I did not read anything the pictures were too awesome!

One question though.

Are you going to add the black body line?

[S13_love]

I did not read anything the pictures were too awesome!

One question though.

Are you going to add the black body line?

...nice.

In all honesty, Im not gonna add the black body line...im pretty much just gonna leave it as it is.