1974 Datsun 260Z Restoration

[95_civic_gsr]

This is a project my cousin is undertaking. I thought there would be some on this forum interested in an old school Datsun / Nissan restoration. Its an Ebay car for which we traveled 1800 miles round trip to Arizona to pick up.

This is how it looked when we first saw it.

A bit dusty but in decent condition.

All the hinges seem to be in good condition. No significant rust.

Wow the interior is a mess. Is that a dead rat?

And I thought the interior was a mess.

Back at home, quickly washed and ready for inspection

[Nachtmensch]

good luck

what are the plans?

[95_civic_gsr]

In order to move the car around easier. He decided to get the motor running before working on the body and paint. This makes it much easier to load onto the trailer to go to the paint booth.


Trying these after market K&N filters. The carbs spew out gas. Its not starting today.

Faded paint job. Its close to the original color, but its not factory paint.

New air filter set up, wiring changes, and fingers crossed. It starts up.

Exhaust to be installed.

[95_civic_gsr]

Originally Posted by Nachtmensch

good luck
what are the plans?

Thanks!

Its going to be restored to a period correct, modified street car. All upgrades and modifications will be from the 70s.

[95_civic_gsr]

After spending time working on the motor to get it running, the interior is the next thing to be worked on. The interior was the next choice mainly because its hard to work on things without seats and because there was a funky odor that I think was left over from the 70s. Yeah, it smelled that bad. Bleach took care of the odor, but there was much to be done to the upholstery.


This interior looks like they dredged it up from the bottom of a muddy lake. I think there was a family of cats living in there at one point. I'm not sure anything was salvaged in bringing the inside back to life.







A little Armor All and:




New seat covers, new dash cover, new center console, new steering wheel, shift knob, ...


A view from the passenger side.

A better picture of the new seats, with comfort venting.

I wish more cars made today had gauges like the cars did in the past.

Woodgrain steering wheel and speedometer tachometer gauges.

[95_civic_gsr]

Body work is my cousin's profession, so to make his life easier he moved his project car to work, where his tools are. All this work was done by my cousin after shop hours and on weekends.


The hatch won't latch correctly, and this whole piece is messed up pretty bad from a previous owner who didn't know what they were doing. Fortunately there was a donor car parked just outside under a tree.



The hatch still didn't latch properly and it was discovered the original was bent just enough to be a pain to fix. So this hatch also came from the donor car.


Now the real fun begins. After prepping the roof, bondo was applied for imperfections. This all has to be sanded off. He just didn't want to mis any dents. That is his daily driver Civic HX just outside.


First stages of sanding complete, needs more sanding and primer.


The headliner needed to go.


The roof in primer and guide coat.


Driver's side rear quarter. Dents fixed and layers of old paint ground off.


Driver's rear quarter in primer. He did this car in small sections so he could get a little bit finished each night and primed. Leaving bondo and bare metal exposed is not a good idea. The metal rusts and the bondo soaks up moisture messing up future paint. You can see the different colors used on this car on the door here.


He skipped the doors for now because the latches are the old school versions which are a pain to line up. Now starting on the front fenders.


After all the old layers of paint have been removed and dents fixed, the bondo process begins on the fenders.


Headlight bezels from another car because the originals were all bent up beyond repair. The person who fixed them before was too lazy to remove the bezel and decided to use the old method of drilling and pulling the dents out. So the old ones were scrapped in favor of these from the donor car.


The hood was in decent shape, but all the layers of old paint would make it difficult to paint over without problems down the road. So the hood was ground down to bare metal.


Not much left so time to start on those pesky doors.


Grind, bondo, sand, prime, sand, sand, sand. Repeat. The chrome was taped off here to prevent over spray from sticking.


The front primed and ready to go.


Just an overview shot of what all has been done.


One last quarter. This one looked pretty good underneath the paint.


Ahh, finished with bondo. Ready to complete the sanding phase.


Forgot the hatch. The holes were too big for the rear louver mounts, and there were holes for emblems this car doesn't have. So those were all welded up.

[95_civic_gsr]

This is the stock original paint for this 260Z. I'll post up the name of the color later when I ask my cousin what it is.


Trimming out the inside of the door.


I don't know why you need to see the other door but here it is.


Inside the hatch area. This area looked much more impressive in person.


Here the rocker panels show off this color better than any of the other pictures.


The underside of the hood and the engine bay were painted to match the factory look. The engine bay was almost as dramatic a change as the interior of this car. Unfortunately I don't think he has any pictures that show off this transformation.


Once the paint on the inside had dried, wet sanding of the body started.


Wet sanding with 500 grit sand paper in the paint booth serves multiple purposes. First it was dark outside and the lights in the booth were perfect to see if all the scratches were removed. Second the humidity it creates cuts down on the dust in the paint booth which makes for a better paint job. And of course it removes all the scratches from the coarser grits of sand paper to give the paint a very nice finish.

[95_civic_gsr]

Its not finished. But here it is, at home, fresh out of the paint booth.

Here is the finished paint job. Most of the trim still needs to be cleaned up before its installed.


The bumpers aren't installed, but this is as close to the fished product you are going to see today. The chin spoiler has been drilled, but it needs to have some additional modifications before it can be installed.



The duck-tail spoiler was an option in the US and Japan. The rear light panel has also been blacked out. Here you can see the shock absorbers for the impact resistant bumpers. Predecessor to the five mile an hour bumpers of today.

The mirrors were also an option for this year. There are also flat black rear louvers to be installed. The wheels are being repaired at a machine shop and should be back in a couple of weeks. Tokico Illumina coil-overs are next on the agenda as well. (Anyone looking for a brand new set of KYB shocks for a Z?)

Updated pictures will be posted as time permits.

[Juanit0]

Nice!!
Good Work so far!

[Whiteboy]

damn, great work man

[SoSideways]

Looks good.

I still like the 240z better than the rest, but damn, that is a sweet restoration.

I need to do something like that to the wifey's S13 coupe... rust everywhere... argh...

[Dark2JZ]

fawkin nice! Good luck with everything. It's looking awesome already.

[warlord0070]

Looking good mang.

[s13]

He Wins for doing a lot of work in a small amount of time, thus being the furthest along build thread so far on the Nissan section and he hasn't even gotten to the 2nd page

[SoSideways]

Jesse=Ian you need to look for the member silveR's build thread.

He built a sick as fuck S12 race car from the top. It had like 40 pages or something crazy like that.