Forgot a had a can of Rustoleum Racing Green Metallic so I tried it out on the car to see what it looks like. Not bad, color is cool with a lot of metal flake and lays down well. Could use a clear coat to make the shine more even. Curious to see how it will come out on a larger flat surface like the hood.
No flash
With flash
Originally I was going to change the color and have been looking at different liveries. I told myself I'd never do BRE since its been over done but saw this with the green and thought it was pretty cool. Haven't made a final decision but its a front runner which is why I tested out the green.
That color choice looks great. Very similar (in those photos) to the 95-96 blue green that a lot of 240SX's wore.
Driver's door is a mess. It has a few dozen dents, a rot hole, plus it was hit by a Mustang during our first race. I filled in the bad spots and gave it a quick block sand to level it out some. As much as I'd like to straighten the whole thing I'm calling it done and will hose it down with paint.
Roof took some effort too. We had to cut holes in it to weld the top of the cage and it warped pretty bad when welding the patched back in. Covering up the patches made me happy so thats as good as its going to get.
Spraying metallic paint from a can on a large surface is a pain in the ass. I knew this was a bad idea to start with but thought it would look cool in the sun on the track. To complicate it further I cleared coated it too. Clear was tough to get an even coat too. After a few passed outside the over spray would dull the surrounding area or with the wind I could only make heavy narrow passes. Only the last 1' square sections I sprayed were shinny so I ended up wet sanding everything that was green and cleared.
Yes, I wet sanded and buffed part of the lemons car. Yes, I'm an idiot.
After picking at the body work after an hour at a time during the week I was finally ready to spray some white. I used Rustoleum Topside Marine paint thinned with 15-20% Xylene. There was a learning curve to spraying it. Too thick it would sputter out of the gun and too thin it would run and not cover well. It also takes a while to dry and you have to wait 24 hours between coats. Letting parts sit in the sun does speed up the drying time but its still a slow process. I have some runs to sand out before the next coat and a spot where the masking paper blew into the paint after a big gust of wind but so far so good. Even tossed on a new wheel to see how it would look.
I realize the pictures probably make it look better than it is, but that is one good looking car! Excellent choice on colors and scheme.
Fresh paint looks good on everything. Are you worried about looking too classy now?
Thanks guys, from 20 feet it looks awesome and cheaty but up close you can see it's a painted up turd. Hopefully the Lemons judges don't give me a hard time. Before when it was smashed up people were already saying it looked better then half the cars there.
slight setback on the paint. When I removed the tape the white peeled off too in a few spots. I had wetsanded and buffed the green but when i taped it off for the white i never went back and scuffed the surface near the tape so the paint had something to hold onto. Also the tape left a weird imprint in the green on one side and will need to be touched up. Even after 2 days it must have been too soft for tape. Oh well, everything could have used another coat of white anyway. I already started scuffing things for the next coat.
Fenders are coming long. Passenger had a rot hole filled and instead of dealing with the 2 previous patches and filler on the bottom i sanded off any cracked filler then covered the area with undercoating. That should help hide some of the ugliness. Drivers side was more work.
I started prepping the other red fender I took off the 240z but the bottom was rotted pretty far up and there were 3 spots of filler that were cracked. One spot was 1/4" thick and had some brazing done. Decided not to mess with it and go back to the green fender. Green was one was rotted at the bottom but I had enough metal left to work with. Main problem with this one is it had been tapped twice while racing. I hammer out the dents the best I could and applied a bunch of filler. My team mate Harkins is going to weld in the patch this week so hopefully next weekend I'll have it ready for paint.
I did try a fiberglass fender I had kicking around but it didn't line up well and the hood couldn't close because the fender needed to be trimmed down.
Also I do have a front air dam but it needs work where it bolts onto the fender. Also I'm not sure how long it will last in a race or loading it on and off the trailer.
Finally got around to sanding down the paint lines and getting another coat of white on the car. Harkins patched the fender so that was painted too. From 20' the white does a good job of hiding all the small dents, scratch marks, and body work. Rear tail light panels got a coat of plastic dip to cover the flaking chrome and fill in some crack. I forgot the part between the panels shows so that will need to get painted black too. Hopefully by this weekend I can have the rest of the green finished up.
Besides the whole paint project I created the only thing we were suppose to do before the next race was replace the rear wheel bearings. While we are in there we are going to replace the axle ujoints and upgrade to rear disc. The Porterfield shoes have worn well and lasted us 3 races but we have to keep adjusting the parking brake as they wear to maintain a consistent pedal feel.
Only had a couple minutes last night so I masked off a fender and headlight bucket and rattle canned on some green. I 'd like to do the stripes down the fenders with "Dastun" in between but I'm not sure how wide they should be or the angle. I'm also limited on time but I can always add them later. I just need to get all the parts back on the car this weekend because I won't have any free time between then and the race.
PseudoSport wrote:
I 'd like to do the stripes down the fenders with "Dastun" in between but I'm not sure how wide they should be or the angle.
According to Peter Brock, the angle of the stripes is the same as the windshield.
In reply to jimbob_racing:
Thanks, I can work with that. I also read the stripes should be 6" wide with 1 1/8" spacing between them. Datsun logo is 2" tall and the space between the top and bottom stripes is 3".
Looking good! Love the color choice
I messed up installing one of the rear inner seals so I while I'm waiting for another to show up I bolted in the rear disc brake setup. Brackets are from zcardepot.com for $70 and use 84-88 Nissan Maxima calipers which have a 38mm piston. Rotors and pads are for a 1984-1985 300zx. I lucked out on the pads since someone was selling an unused set of Hawk Blues on ebay but only listed the part number and not the car so I got them for $20. I have $205 into the swap compared to new shoes for $160. Still waiting for the hoses which should be here today.
Car numbers are hard (lemons joke but tech made us redo ours once) but my wife has a vinyl cutter and she was nice enough to make another set. Still need to adjust the passenger fender so the hood will close and not hit anything.
That is a damn fine looking race car.
Still haven't finished any of the important mechanical stuff but I did add stripes!
Damn fine car sir, damn fine indeed!
It's getting there. It's going to look great zipping around the track!
Awesome!! That Z is looking great!
JoeTR6
HalfDork
7/29/16 5:03 p.m.
Excellent work. Those stripes really make that look nice.
This is by far the best looking Z-Car ive ever seen. It definitely is too nice for lemons.
Im really digging the whole thing. The upgrade to rear disc is going to be a big difference...hope to hear more soon!
