sideshowbob

I finally bought a Z. Unfortunately it looks like it's been driven to hell and back. The good parts are the new exhaust, new tires and worked over motor it came with. It hauls $$$. Bad parts: Valve clatter at middle rpm range (especially when cold), rust on the rear pass fender (the fuel filler box) and battery box, a bad differential mount clunking at me and the poisonous smell of oil in the gas. I'm thinking the gas smell might be due to the valve problem or the half disconnected evap system. The clatter will hopefully go away with a lash adjustment and I'll be learning to paint with cans shortly. The rust, though..... Hmmmmm. I've been scraping with a brush but this stuff is tenacious. The areas affected are mostly solid, but a few holes (one quarter sided on the rear panel) have found a way through after scraping to metal . With luck the battery box is salvageable, but it's difficult to scrape under the darn bracket the battery sits on so we'll see. Anyone have a good experience with repairing rust?
And I haven't gotten to the nasty gash on the frame rail... it is apparently solid so far. I'm discovering new things every day here.




I have the mirrors and sidelights, they're in the hatch.

My wife though I was nuts for buying it, now I can't get her out of it. 700$ for a 280Z that runs was fine by me.

sideshowbob

I think I'll go resto-mod, since the block is already from an 81, the distributor from a ZX, ect. The bumpers MUST GO as well. Ugly as sin.

No access to a welder for a few months, so I've patched the holes near the tank filler with epoxy. After removing the interior panels that were covering the area I discovered the main cause is the ridge around the filler panel (welded to the body skin). I treated this for now, but a more serious attack will come later. The neccessity of dropping the tank and accompanying lines forced me into this decision. There's more.... inside of the passenger kick paned, under the carpet is a colony of cancer. ouch.

Aside from all of this, the car sill runs well, after driving it a bit the gas odor dissapeared from the oil (much like the old 240z's oddball evap system, which vents fuel vapor directly into the crankcase). That is after removing the fule injectors, pushing the needle in with a needle and spraying a healthy dose of carb cleaner in them. I'll be primering it up a bit next week when the humidity is lower. The PO sprayed some ugly patches on the paint, as you can probably see in the photo.

I do have the odd probloem of the clutch not engaging until a very short distance of the top and think I might be replacing the clutch much sooner than I'd like on top of everything else.