240z.drago.com.au - Adventures of rebuilding a 1973 Datsun 240Z

The undercoat came out really good. It needed a quick rub down to get some roughness out of it, but was pretty good. I rubbed it back fairly easily and it ended up feeling very smooth. The battery tray came out pretty good too. I bolted the two pieces together (using some seam seal in between the items to reduce the risk of rattles) and marked and drilled the holes in the engine bay for it. Ended up putting in 6 bolts, I’m sure that it is never going to move!

I bolted the little inspection panel that we made up to pass the air con hoses through. Again, seam sealer was used to make sure that no water would leak into the car.

We rolled the car out of the garage onto the drive so that the sun could warm it up and so that the over spray would be carried away with the breeze. Dad mixed a brew of the base coat silver. I used the original Datsun colour, which was Silver 901. Dad did all of the spraying and did a great job.

When he had finished putting the colour on, we were both disappointed with the colour to say the least. We both started to consider weather going with the original colour was a good idea or not. It was very flat and lacked any life at all. We decided to wait and see what it would look like once the clear coats were down.

The clear coat was a 2 part paint. We masked up and mixed a brew of the paint with a special measuring cup that has marks to allow you to easily mix the correct ratios of paint, hardener and thinners. Dad sprayed on the clear coat, and the colour started to come to life. With the first coat down, he waited for it to flash and then put down a second. The shine on it was absolutely fantastic. I commented on the shine and hoped that it would dry that way. And it did. There is no need to sand it back or polish it. The engine bay is finally painted and looking great. Spent a lot of time just looking at it, mesmerized by the shine 😉

We decided to paint the chassis rails and the front of the engine bay black. We think that this will tie the engine bay into the bottom of the car a lot better. Using POR15 will also help protect it from the rust.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 11th, 2006 at 20:46 and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.