Sunday, April 3, 2016

Fabrication - Patch panels: Part VI

Well... this update is a bit more gloomier as I have realized how much there is work to be done and how much I need to learn when I'm doing this stuff.

Might have picked an easier first project! I cut the front part of the rocker panel cleanly off as it was long gone... all battered and rusty. After I had pondered the situation for quite a while, I decided that there is no other way to repair the rocker panel than to cut it out all together and make a new one from scratch.

For this I welded additional structure to the door opening to keep the parts in place and got on cutting.

Unfortunately I don't have any good pictures of the cut rocker panel as my cut off wheels ran out and I could not finish the work... ... but I do have pictures of the damaged areas and pictures of the areas that are marked to be cut out.
All parts of the panels that are beneath the black line, are to be cut out and new pieces to be fabricated from sheet metal.
There is no other way to say this, but this car is quite a job s(h)ite!

There is a company, Mill Supply Inc., that sells quite a lot of rust repair parts for the Z, but it's quite unheartening to see the supply... all pieces are for the coupé version and none for the 2+2.
So I will do the pieces from flat metal and see how far that gets me! Not to finish on so dark feelings, here is a screenshot from a National Geographic documentary called Nissan Datsun Z Fairlady Z - History, that caught my eye. The sign hanged in the Datsun factory where they made the Z-cars.
Quite a good documentary and quite a good idiom.

Will keep this in mind when I'm soldiering on with these rust spots and with this project.

I have been thinking a name or some kind of a "punch line" for the car... with the rust problems and amount of work, I think I'm going with:
Fruit of labour or Doryoku no Seika or 努力の成果.
Might need to commission my friends advert company to do something based on that.

"On that bombshell it's time to finish!"
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