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Project Update: Black 280Z Restoration

Filed under: 280Z,Featured Cars and Projects
by Forbes @ 12:13 pm on August 29, 2009

This car needed some serious love and boy is it getting it!!  Many people would have written this car off due to the extensive repair it needed but Z Car Garage and William’s Autobody have been given the job of saving it.  You can see from the photos that every area of this car needed some form of repair.

The frame rails on both sides needed rust repair but the passenger side needed to have the entire frame rail replaced.  The problem with this is that only the frame rails are available from the aftermarket.  ALL the other metal work must be hand formed.

This is most noticeable in the battery box/firewall repairs.  Many many hours of work have been spent getting these parts to look and fit just right, and it is nowhere near finished.  Another tough area of the repairs are the joints between the roof section and the A-pillar and rear quarter panel.  I’m sure many of you have seen rust bubbles that start here after an accident repair of restoration, this will NOT be happening here.  All of the welds were redone to ensure proper alignment and strength.

Other places that received some love were the lower and upper radiator support, the quarter panel just under the rear quarter windows, and the door jams and rocker panels on both sides.  All of these areas had rust holes that needed varying states of work.  The rocker panel just below the battery box had it the worst.  It has now been filled in and will continue to be reworked until it is perfect.

Finally you will see that there is major pitting on the top of the windshield frame.  This too will need to be cut out and replaced with new sheet metal and then blended into the original roof.  Again, this will not be easy.

We do all of this to keep the Zs on the road and in the hands of the people who love them.  This will be one of the most extensive rebuilds that we have done, and we won’t rest until it is done right.  I will update again as more progress is made.

Long Live the Restored Z

All the photos after the ‘read more’.

…[read more]