good job

No!
Its very good job!

thanks guys

weather got a bit warmer today and almost all snow is gone. great. perfect weather to get some things done again

1) Installed a new storage system for small parts:


2) As mentioned earlier my friend (and car mechanic) andy showed up to help me with the windshield, here you can see him pressing the windshield out


Windshield finally out, have to figure out how i store it best now


and the result of todays work:

As for the moment, i can't do too much things to the car, because i'll have to wait for the engine lifter beeing delivered. so i have to do a lot of small things, buy parts and so on.

today i only made one small thing i was looking for long now, i removed the drip rails from the rain gutter rails:


both sides off:


and how the car looks now:


the whole cabin and rear end is now almost complete for getting the paint of and in the front i only have to get out th engine and tranny. so after today, the ony thing i can do is remove parts from the bottom of the car.
fuel hoses, E-Brake parts, brakelines, Differential and the driveshaft. so i'll have to do some greasy work the next one or two weeks unti'l im ready to get the engine and transmission out.

Plan is to first restore the whole chassis, paint it and get the suspension (who actually just needs a wash and maybe a few parts need new powdercoating. all bushings and parts have been replaced. metal parts have beeen sanded and powdercoated in a gold color which wil fit great to what i've planned to do and after that i'll restore every single part and put it back on the car. hope progress will stay as fast as it is.. i really have so much fun working on the car and i hope this won't be my lastproject like this

... you might wonder..

Well at the moment i have a lot of news, but not too much going on in the garage directly...

1) The guys i rent the garage from actually re-do their electricity so i don't have any light or sound in the garage and regarding the nasty weather at the moment and the fact i can't do too much at the moment anyway is the reason why there aren't too much big updates at the moment. but time will bring some big updates for sure

2) I contacted a lot of different restoring companies regarding a few points: best way to get off old paint, bondo and rust and how go get rust done.. i'd like to plan that now so i can start when the car is ready for that directly
i got answer from two local companies who sandblast and do chassis works that they have too much work and sadly didn't have time for my project at the moment. even if they both where very sorry for that, they helped me with some input.
next big thing was another company that sent me a price list about removing paint in a alcohol-bath very near me.. it's quite expensive (up to 6k for a bigger car) but at the end it seems to be way better than sandblasting and also some kind uf rust prevention and basic coating is included. i'll have to study the documents and details a bit more.. but it seems probably a good idea to do it that way.. but that means i have to save some money first..

3) just got a mail that the engine lifter and engine stands have been shipped out and should arrive here within a few days..
well that's it for today.. as soon as electricity is back in my garage i will continue to remove driveshaft, e-brake and rear differential and then engine and transmission...

4) currently emailing with a lot of guys and companies regarding parts i need and hopefully will be able to collect some nice pieces i need for my build.. details as soon as parts arrive..

that's it for the moment

Hi,

do you mind sharing the name of the company that dip the car in a bath to remove the paint? i may be interested in the future.

what are the parts you are looking for in case that I can help?

_________________
1973 euro 240Z

@ mitx
the company that does the dip bath is well known in switzerland and germany, and they have a great support and process, but it's actually a bit expensive, check here:
http://www.meier-rafz.ch/cms/Fahrzeug_Entlackung.php?navid=7

currently im also in contact with another company that does sandblasting, industrial painting and powdercoating:
http://www.spleiss.ch/frame_inhalt.htm? ... tzwerk.htm

regarding the parts im looking for the rear taillightpanel and parts but i found a company in the USA who cut's Z's appart and can provide me with those parts so that's great

ok, after im still working on the decicion how i best rework the chassis i decided it's time to get some things done again, but sadly i wasn't able to complete anything, but at least i have a few good ideas how to continue and i saw that there was almost no rust on the bottom-end => good news

1) i decided to get rid of those belts who secure the fuel tank:


2) i secured the car with a few sparewheels for some under-car work and marked the position of the driveshaft. but of course extactly that one tool that was needed to remove the bolts was missing in my collction so i have to get a 12mm flat spanner. ok.


3) so i decided to get the fuel filler-pipe and the venturi hoses out, but as soon as i had the venturi hose out a guy from my neighberhood appeared and wanted to chat a bit about cars and look what im doing so i ended up talking about an hour and got nothing done.. but was a fun evening anyway and im looking forward to getting the driveshaft out at the weekend

Actually the sun was out the whole day and temperature is rising again, so perfect to work a little on the car again. sadly the neighbor is still working on his electricity so i had no electricity the most of the time. but that didn't stop me from working at the car

1) Got a load of heavy packages yesterday and they included the engine stand, balancer and engine lifter. great


2) but i decided to get some work done on the car before i sped a lot of time with this puzzle:

after i still wanted to get the driveshaft out i felt that work would be easier when i get the stabilizer/rollbars out first:


sadly the gold powdercoating is peeling of allready so i have to redo this..

Then i decided to complete the fuel-filler-pipe and tank-venturi-hoses removal


after i started to get som pain in my back i decided to move work away from under the car and started to assamble the engine-stand and that's how it looked when done. pretty nice and good quality for a cheap ebay item


sadly the engine-lifter missed some screws that where lost during transportation, no big problem but i ended up leaving the garage in a big mess for today


i hopefully will be able to complete the engine lifter son and then get that damn driveshaft out
have a nice weekend guys

That's a nice engine stand, I have what I thought was a "nice" one but its legs aren't removable like yours, so it takes up a lot of space! That's clever. I've seen most of the engine hoists set up like that but very few stands.

_________________
-Cam
1988 Mazda RX7
1980 Toyota Celica
a bunch of cool other cars I'm not allowed to list

thanks guys

well let's stat with the uninterresting things first

i finally bought some screws and nuts today and almost completed the assambly of my engine-hoist/lifter/crane/whatever you call it
only need to tighten some screws but need a bigger spanner...


new the cool news: I finally managed after about an hour of pain to get that damn driveshaft out - how lucky i am now


next was the handbrake/e-brake/Safety-brake/Emergency-brake/parking-brake/what-ever-you-call-it-brake linkage


and finally the complete assamly including the handbrake-lever out:


then i cleaned out my garage a bit but i felt like this wasn't worth a photo

It might be, considering how rarely that happens at my garage.

_________________
-Cam
1988 Mazda RX7
1980 Toyota Celica
a bunch of cool other cars I'm not allowed to list

ah not too much progress at the moment - i know. im teaching some apprentices at the moment so i have a lot of other stuff to do now but anyway, the project still continues and is on my mind daily

sometimes you just have to make some desicions even if you might be wrong. and that's what i did! i decided to wether sandblast the car nor give it a bath. because both versions are really complicated, expensive and both have bad aspects in the result and i can't do it on my own, so a friend of mine (expert in restoring cars) recommanded to get the paint of with some 3M CSD-Disks. and that's what i will do at least particular now.. and then i'll see how it turns out. the 3M CSD Disks are specially designed to remove paint, rust etc but not scratch the surface of intact metal. we'll see how it works


i bought one disk for testing-purpose today and hopefully my friends return from their vacation soon so then can help me get the eingine, transmission and suspension out so the car is ready for some more work

Saturday = Car's day
So i did what most of you do - spend a few hours in the garage

Completed the assamly of my Engine hoist:


Next step was to contiune with the e-brake assambly so i started unplugging the e-brake lines:


and then the hooks and braket that holds the whole system:


and finally - bracket and e-brake lines out:


as the stabilizer/rollbars are out now i decided to get the jackstands under those rails so i'll be able to remove the rear subframe easier in future:


now of course i had to try my new tool - the 3M CSD-Disk. worked pretty fine, but needs a whole lot of time to get the whole car done with this, but it's so much fun seeing the paint coming of.
Here you can see the different layers of bondo, Primer and paint used on the taillight-panel:


the whole process produces quite a lot dust, so i decided to not continue without having a mask protecting my lounges


that's it for today - more to come soon

Well i have some news, some sad ones and some really great ones

1) Let's start off with the reason why there wern't many updates in the last two weeks or so:

- My friend who usually helps me with the things i don't understand was out on vacation for two weeks now
- I was off for snowboarding a few days
- I really had to figure out first how to continue with the project, as i had now idea and don't wanted to start off with things that might be wrong at the end..
- Some dude crashed into my daily driver and i had (And still have) to handle that so i get the money from his insurrance company and get my car fixed again...
And before you ask - this was NOT my RHD JDM EK9, it's just a low-powered daily civic


2) But now the good news:
- my friend is back and hopefully we'll be able to pull out the engine and transmission soon
- I just called a industrial-coating and painting company near me (recommanded by many friends) and decided that he'll be the guy who paints my car.
That guy will come here next monday and check the car so we can do a plan what's the best procedure to remove paint and how to contiune. as soon as i know
I can proceed with the body paint removal and probably rust repair. this well be great.

that's it for the moment. have to check for spareparts for my daily now :/

Well, i decided it's time to get some stuff done again and after about an hour of work i finally got those "wrong" taillights at least particulary out.

1) old housings out:


2) Genuine mounting holes drilled back into place (i still need to get the placement for thw inner two holes..)


3) a random shot of the actual state of the project:

Just a short picture of today's work. took me about 1,5 hours, but turned out quite well i think. my skills with the CSD disks are getting better

Just a short update without pictures:
The paint-guy just was here and i asked him a lot of questions how to proceed with removing paint and thing how the whole painting process will work.

i think it's a bit too complicated to explain the whole process, but you'll see. i've written down everything so i don't forget

the good things are:
- i can do pretty a lot things by myself. like adding the primer, etc..
- i can tear down the car even more at the moment. means get out suspension and footworks..

the "bad" things:
- i definitly need a rotisserie, well i think i need to have one built
- the whole process is definitly much more complicated then i thought, but at least i can do most of the things alone at home - great

i'd like to thank bruno schweizer from Schweizer Auto design, who was very helpful and even told me to get me the needed stuff (like coats, etc..)
And show me how to use it. I will definitly bring the car to this guy to get it painted at the end.

but will be a long journey until then... but now i know how to do this and im ready to go

You spend 1.5 hours with that 3m disk cleaning off paint, and how much of the disk is left over?

_________________
Japanseklassiekers!

1970 C30 Laurel
1972 240Z
1973 610 Wagon
1977 260Z
1995 Micra
1999 200SX

you can see the blue disk on the bottom of the picture.. still a bit left, but need a new one soon. think it lasts longer if you don't hit any sharp edges all the time - like i did