I'm looking at buying a 1981 280ZX and I don't know if I should get it. I can only afford to spend less than 1500 cdn (I live in Canada). The one I'm looking at is a California car with over 140,000 miles on it. The interior is immaculate... and complete minus stereo and speakers. The engine looks and sounds great, without leaks, just needs minor tune up. I'm pretty sure the frame is good on it, my only concern for this car is there is quite a bit of rust on the lower parts. I can get it for 800 bucks. Do you think it's worth getting? I can invest a couple hundred into fixing the body up as well. Please help me out. THX!!!

How pervasive the rust is will determine if it's a good deal for your situation or not. If it's unibody rust, then plan on some fairly substantial money to fix the rust. For example, if the floor pans and "frame rails" are fairly rusted, you'll be looking at the mid-hundreds just to buy the replacement parts. Then, unless you own your own body/frame alignment jig, you'll be paying somebody a large amount to weld those panels in, and paint the whole thing. If it's just a front fender, no big deal. As has been mentioned before, another consideration is your location. Some parts of the world have climates and salt-happy Departments of Transportation that make finding no-rust early Z's impossible without a week-long vacation to Arizona. So owning one in your area might by definition mean starting with rust remediation if you don't buy an already-restored car. But, hey, if that one's from SoCal, maybe the rust is minimal? The picture suggestion is a great place to start, and if it still looks promising, nothing beats a good honest crawl under the car with a screwdriver to poke the rust spots you can see and known trouble spots (where rust hides under what passed for undercoating 20 or more years ago). If you poke it and pieces flake and fall off, or if the screwdriver goes right through the panel, plan on a lot of work and a good bit of cash. Good luck, and let us know how it turns out!
Dave

Well, I went and got some pics of the car, but I got polaroids and for some reason it won't go thru on my scanner. Comes up really dark, anyway, I'm going to get my mechanic to take a look at it and check it thoroughly for rust as well as making sure the mechanics are in order. If there is major frame rust I'm going to have to turn it down (as much as it hurts, cuz I've already been planning what I want to do with it) but if it's all body rust I'm going to take a risk... at least it would be a car that could hold together for a year or two till I get my next one. We'll see... if I get it I'll post pics of what it looks like before I go to restoring it... and then I'll put up after pics too.

I bought a 1981 280ZX 2+2 for a lot more and am restoring it, if the rust can be fixed I would get it. Here is one thing to think about; what color is the interior? if it is blue it's dang near impossible to get interior parts for if the interior is perfect great.

Drive the car in different gears with the rpms steady around 2500rpms, if it surges you'll have problems.

Look for shaking at different speeds as well.

I've done tons of work to mine and have learn tons, let me know if anyone has questions I can help out

If you want to avoid rust, don't get a z hehe. Seriously I have spent months finding a fairly rust free car and it has a few holes in it. The only rust free Z i've owned was a 86 Z31 turbo but they catch fire and aren't as sexy (IMO) as the 240-280 series.

I've just bought an '82 for $1600 Australian and have had to repair a couple of rust spots in the spare wheel well and a small hole in the front guard (drivers floorplan). It's not a difficult job to repair it.

It depends a great deal on where the rust is, and how large the holes are. It also makes a difference if the rust goes right through (like in my case). It's about 2-3 hours work to repair a small hole with fibreglass, plus about 24 hours worth of glass and paint drying time.

For external holes (the floorpan is more than one layer) I just bend the metal back inwards, treat with anti-rust primer, fill with bog (allow to dry), sand, then fibreglass over the top, sand and paint. You might want to use deadener instead of paint.

Make sure you treat it with anti-rust stuff before glassing or it will continue rusting - largely due to the thickness of the metal in the car.

Here is a picture of my ongoing rust repairs (got to sand the glass and paint still).

I think if it's mechanically sound, has a nice interior and the suspension is good (seen some very worn out suspension on 280's lately) and you can afford a few hundred dollars to get the rust sorted properly immediately then go for it. Don't get it and wait 6 months to fix the rust.

What Rust?

13239-z_rust_fix.jpg

Iksteh is right, its just a matter of attacking it before it can get hold. I have lots of little surface rust spots under the bonnet, which olnly require a light sanding, rust converter than paint (anti rust paint). If you let them get hold it would be a lot more difficult. So to tie this rambling back into the original topic, buy one with minimal rust

Alan, Australia

One thing to add, try to get a car with no rust on the exterior, as you will have to get it resprayed if you repair rust, or it will look like bad. If it is under the bonnet or places were it is not visible than you can just spray paint it with an anti rust paint and not worry if the paint is an exact colour match

Alan, Australia