My RB26 260Z Project

[EF Ian]

Update Time

Onto the floors now

Before

Removed

The floors were for a 240Z but provided a base to start with, they came with rails for a 240Z so of course they were no use, Some ones of the correct size were folded up instead.

 

[svensktoppen]

Flip, basically making a new car from scratch

Some job!

 

[EF Ian]

Flip, basically making a new car from scratch

Its certainly costing as much as a new car.




I was always thinking that the front end wouldn't need work, after all, I thought I'd already tackled that. I thought wrong though. Previous work needs to come off and be done much better. Rails have surface rust inside but clean up ok just need to repair the mess on the outsides of them.

Thats all for now, more soon.

 

[nobby]

Big undertaking and its great to see the care and attention to detail in order to keep cars like this on the road.

look forward to more updates on one of the nicest cars Datsun/Nissan developed

 

[Mr.Mint]

Fantastic to see this being done right!

Great work.

 

[EF Ian]

Mini update, will be more later this week.

Strengthening the join with the new rail.

Making more room for my downpipe.

 

[JT079]

Omg flip, this is like making a new car I would imaging your kid (future) will be loving this Datsun!!!

 

[Todd]

The work in this is incredible.

Fair play to you. I would not like to be covering that bill!

The car will be amazing

 

[stevieturbo]

I think it was mentioned before here ?

What SR Autobodies are doing in terms of jacking points, by welding a suitable plate then fitting the little rubber/plastic jacking blocks so you can jack the car up without actually having to do metal to metal contact with the jacking points.

I presume these guys would do something similar, just to protect those areas for the future ?

 

[EF Ian]

Omg flip, this is like making a new car I would imaging your kid (future) will be loving this Datsun!!!

If I have a kid, its possible.

The work in this is incredible.

Fair play to you. I would not like to be covering that bill!

The car will be amazing

So much more to go as well, at every step more than I thought.

You certainly don't want to be paying the bill, I know I don't, its pretty painful just down to the sheer amount of hours needed.

After spending so much I hope it ends up amazing, I'm certainly doing the best I can.

What SR Autobodies are doing in terms of jacking points, by welding a suitable plate then fitting the little rubber/plastic jacking blocks so you can jack the car up without actually having to do metal to metal contact with the jacking points.

I presume these guys would do something similar, just to protect those areas for the future ?

This is in the plans.

 

[EF Ian]

So the rails were worse than we had expected or hoped. Lots of work happening on the front end, the problem was when it was last done before the swap isn't that it wasn't done well but rather we thought the car was much better than it was so I didn't go so deep. This time its going all the way.

Internal Strengthening

Cleaned up and coated

This panel isn't looking great, going to replace the whole thing.

 

[Mark_C]

I'm doing the same to my R33 re the jack points. 2mm steel and bmw jack block rivnutted on.

At this point would you not have been better off importing a shell from the US or Japan?

 

[acsmyth]

Amazing level of work and I’m sure an eye watering bill but will all be worth it to know that the car is completely solid.
Will massively help resale value as well if you ever consider it lol

 

[Artoir]

Amazing level of work and I’m sure an eye watering bill but will all be worth it to know that the car is completely solid.
Will massively help resale value as well if you ever consider it lol

Id say any notions of resale or profit/loss went out the window 300 welds ago

Serious commitment, fair play.

 

[acsmyth]

@Artoir you're probably right lol!

 

[stevieturbo]

Although it has to be said...whether some of the previous repairs are liked or not...clearly someone has spent a lot of time before keeping it on the road given the amount of repairs.

 

[EF Ian]

At this point would you not have been better off importing a shell from the US or Japan?

Not now, but at the start, had I known.

Plus its my baby, I want to see it fixed, cured of cancer you could say.



Would be US and then RHD converted, which is costly enough, and would still require some restoration work, eve then newest ones are 42 + years old. These are rare in Japan and costly.

Amazing level of work and I’m sure an eye watering bill but will all be worth it to know that the car is completely solid.
Will massively help resale value as well if you ever consider it lol

Yes, yes and yes, but resale Not a chance, this is mine for life.

With the photos of the restoration would help, previously restored cars don't mean much otherwise unless you have proof it was done well. This car was technically restored already.

I’m sure an eye watering bill

I sometimes think just what I could have bought with the money I've spent on the S30 from the start, and also the FD3S I could have bought with the cost of the restoration alone. (Actually thats not true, not with their current values, not sure how I'll ever have one now)

I never regret it though and even with £100k to spend on a car it would be hard to find something as special as this will be when done and with the satisfaction of having done it myself.

Although it has to be said...whether some of the previous repairs are liked or not...clearly someone has spent a lot of time before keeping it on the road given the amount of repairs.

The owner prior to the guy I bought it off had it restored, but he got ripped off by the first shop, took it somewhere else to get finished. Ran out of money and had to sell it once complete.

 

[EF Ian]

355 Hours into this already.

Onto the other side:

Glad I went this far, if I'd left those plates on it would have rotted out over time

Rails are a lot better on this side though.

Not what I wanted to see, but at least we caught it.

 

[acsmyth]

Father in law just sold his fully restored Jenson Interceptor to the owner of a well know games company in England.

The documentation of all the work, photos and videos essentially sold it.

Even if you never sell the car it’ll be great to have all this history to look back on in years to come!

 

[svensktoppen]

Documentation is everything. Whenever something comes up for sale as "fully restored" without documentation, you just know it will be rotten, patchy, or made of Isopon... Or all of the above

Obviously nobody makes any money out of a deep restoration like this (well, other than the chaps carrying out the work ).

But that's not the point here so keep at it, whatever makes you happy in these crazy times

 

[EF Ian]

Thought I should update here.



Pass side is mostly finished:

Rail is left long because I'm having it joined up with the rear sub frame

Drivers side is well underway.

Will repair the front better this time, that would have rotted through after a while.

Thats it for now, work should begin again about Mid Jan if not earlier.

 

[stevieturbo]

This popped up on FB

 

[RevT]

I just spent about 3-4 hours reading this full thread again over the past couple of days. Insane.

I can’t wait to see it finished again.

 

[EF Ian]

I can’t wait to see it finished again.

Still a long road unfortunately.



Thought I should update, even though no work has been done since May my updates are still well behind.





Passenger side floor

A LOT of new metal to go in here.

Front frame rails are complete

No way the scuttle panel are was going to be left unchecked.

Rails have been extended to join up with rear frame for extra stiffness.

 

[EF Ian]

Front end still needs repairs and some modifications to be finished.

Rear is going to take a lot of work also: