Imperial Journey

There was spray foam in the rear quarters and around the rear valence panel. Might as well find out what that is all about.

The covers over the tail lights were stuck to the foam. With careful prying I was able to pull them off. Revealing extensive foam inside the cavity. Replacing tail light bulbs would be a nightmare. OK, need to keep digging into this. With trepidation.

With careful use of patience, a variety of cutting and prying tools, and directed language, I was eventually able to remove the rear valence panel. Revealing extensive use of spray foam.

Start digging the foam out. Which is a pain since the foam is firmly stuck in place.

The more I dig the more puzzled I get. There is solid metal under the foam. I still need to do a better job of cleaning the last bits of the foam, but I’m not finding the rust or holes I expected. Well, with the exception of under the wheel arch, which I expected.

By this point I’m not feeling lucky – I’m feeling that I haven’t yet discovered the hackery the foam had to be hiding.

Looking at the rear deck, under the hatch and above the valence panel, I notice what looks like cracks in thick bondo. And is that an outline of aluminum foil? Start prying.

Bondo. Over aluminum foil. On top of spray foam. Surrounding the rust hole. And there is another one on the other side.

I’m not convinced this is the total extent of the issues. Need to remove all of the tail lights and trim and keep digging to find out how far the problem extends. And remove all traces of the foam to see what else it might be hiding.

Moving back to the other end of the car, I decided to jab the battery box. This area is as notorious for rusting out as the floors and frame rails. It looked solid under the undercoat and felt solid to casual probing. Jab it firmly with a screwdriver and it goes right through. This time it wasn’t aluminum foil. The steel has been replaced with what looks like aluminum flashing – cheap, flexible, and easy to form. And quite weak. This is, unfortunately, a structural area. I won’t be able to see how far it goes until I get the engine out and the fender off.

Now they are just taunting me! Dealing with rust is one thing. Digging through deception to find the rust before you can deal with it is another thing.

I’m starting to think I need to strip the whole car down to bare steel, like I did with the Imperial, just to try to find all of the problems.

There are two bits of “good” news, call it a silver lining to the dark Z cloud:

First, since Z cars are popular as well as aggressively rust prone, replacement body panels are available. From multiple sources. This is in direct contrast to the Imperial where aftermarket parts didn’t exist. And the prices are “almost” reasonable!

Not only are replacement parts available, there are also many options for upgrading the car. These include things like frame rails that are heavier, longer, and stronger and do a better job of stiffening the whole car. Reinforcements for weak areas of the Z, like front inner fenders (structural parts on this unibody car) and shock tower braces. You can also go off the deep end with full racing suspension and roll cages.

Second is YouTube. There are plenty of videos of people fixing frame rails, floors, and every other part of the car. I’ve been going through these and have a much better idea of how to replace the frame rails and floor. For example, you are better off replacing the entire floor pan rather than just patching the old one. And replacing the frame rails is fairly straightforward after you watch someone do it.

Yup, I’m about to get in over my head…

These repairs are depressingly common – one YouTuber described replacing frame rails and floor pans as “a rite of passage for Z owners.”

I’m probably looking at $2K-$3K in replacement panels and a few hundred hours of work. Done properly the results should be “better than factory”. Better in that the end result will be stronger than factory and have better corrosion control.

Yes, there are times when I put the self in delusion…

I’ve got a definitive answer on the clowns that made rust “repairs” on the Z – it was deliberate.

I was probing one of the front frame members in an area that wasn’t obviously bad and the screwdriver went all the way through. Twisting the screwdriver peeled back a piece of aluminum foil.

They had simply stuck a piece of aluminum foil over a rust hole and sprayed the whole area with undercoat to cover it up. This wasn’t mere incompetence, this was a clear intent to deceive.

Other areas were strong suggestions, but this is clear proof. This pig was lipsticked to flip.

Looking at the overall hack job of rust repairs covered by a nice paint job, I don’t think it was done by the person I bought the Z from. I don’t think he had the skills or resources to do this. Further, the paint job preceded him – the car was green from the factory and was listed as brown on his old title. This indicates that the hack job was done before he got the car.

Doesn’t change my plans but does annoy me.

Time to really dig into the Z body and find out what is going on. Starting with recollections of hell from the Imperial – removing undercoating.

Dig out the heat gun. The arm I used to hold the heat gun on the Imperial is too low. Look through my junk pile, find appropriate pieces, and weld up a tall heat gun holder. Easy job, only took about half an hour.

Get set up under the 280Z. Point the heat gun at a section of undercoating, let it run for about 30 seconds to a minute, point the gun to a new area, and scrape off the undercoating from the hot area. Repeat. Over and over and over again. The biggest difference is that I’m sitting on a stool under the Z where I was laying on my back under the Imperial. Slow, tedious, mind-numbing, nasty, dirty, and messy.

Of course, this isn’t the asphaltic undercoating used on the Imperial, so it is even more difficult to scrape off and makes an even bigger mess. Sigh…

Eventually the undercoating was gone from the drivers side floor patch. Hmm, looks like I was wrong – the patch was secured with self-tapping screws, not pop rivets. No real difference.

Krud. They didn’t use replacement floor panels – just pieces of sheet metal. And they put patches on both the top and bottom of the floor. The clown show that keeps on giving…

Continuing with the heat gun discover that the patches extend from the floor into the firewall. Looks like I’m going to have to replace at least the lower part of the firewall. Also looks like the front of the rocker and sill need to be replaced.

I finally discovered some welding. Some really, really bad welding. The frame rails extend in front of the firewall and support a front suspension mounting point as well as the engine cradle. The new frame rail had been fitted over the old frame rail and “welded” in place. With classic bird poop welds with little penetration and little strength. At least this will be easy to remove…

There are some other areas that look suspicious. The battery box is notorious for damage to the inner fender well and firewall from leaking batteries. These areas look fine at first glance, but have suspicious signs under closer inspection – especially the brace under the battery box. I won’t be able to tell for sure until I get the fender off and take a really close look.

Speaking of which, I won’t know what shape the rocker panels, sill panels, and door frame are in until I strip the paint and bondo off of the rockers. The rocker panels clearly have large amounts of bondo. And it isn’t as well finished as other parts of the car. There should be visible seams at the front of the rocker where the front fender mounts and the rear of the rocker where the dogleg at the back of the door fits. No seams; continuous stretch of bondo. For some reason I’m not expecting a pleasing discovery here..

As for the fender itself, it looks like there was rot in the lower fender behind the wheel. No surprise – almost every car gets rust here. There is a patch panel here – just stuck over the bottom of the fender. The proper approach is to cut out the rust and butt weld in new metal. I won’t even know if I can use the existing patch panels until I get this area stripped down to bare metal.

The rear quarter panels have been worked on. I can see some expanding spray foam, so it looks like the rear wheel arch and rear deck floor will need some work.

It is clear that the car is not what I thought it was. I can’t tell for sure if the previous “restoration” was merely incompetent or if someone put lipstick on a pig to flip it. With these repairs the car looked solid until you got it up on a lift and examined it closely.

I have my suspicions, but it doesn’t really matter. The car is mine now. I believe I have the skills to fix it properly – looks like we are going to find out!

After discovering and documenting needed sheet metal repairs I continued the investigation with mechanical and electrical issues.

A lot of this was known going in, which provided the foundation for my original plans.

Start with a complete brake job. I would do this anyway; no major surprises here. The master cylinder is dry. I won’t even bother filling it – just go directly to replacing everything.

The hydraulic clutch actuator needs to be replaced. Like the brakes the clutch master cylinder is dry. Just replace everything. Won’t know until I can drive it if the clutch needs to be replaced.

All of the suspension rubber is “perished” (to use the British vernacular) and needs to be replaced, along with shocks.

The rubber hoses in the fuel injection system are shot and need to be replaced. The injectors probably need to be cleaned or replaced. There is a good chance the fuel pump needs to be replaced.

There is old gas in the tank – need to find out how much, drain it, and figure out how to get rid of it. And then clean out the varnish and gum from the old gas.

Distributor cap, spark plugs, and spark plug wires need to be replaced.

There is a tear in the drivers seat.

All of these things were already known and planned for. The more detailed inspection turned up a number of new things:

There is some electrical hackery around the battery that needs to be explored. At a minimum new battery cables are needed. There isn’t a battery in the car. I’m going to be cautious when I hook up power. Some things look funny around the battery shelf; this may need some work.

Major hackery around the stereo. Starting point is to rip out everything that had been done with stereo and speakers and start over. Currently a Jensen stereo installed; might be able to save it. On the other hand, the Jensen doesn’t fit properly – it is basically sitting in the slot and the bezel doesn’t match the Z. RetroSound has a bezel designed for the Z that would look better.

The radiator is dry and staining on the fins suggests a radiator leak.

The throttle body is frozen – won’t move at all. Need to take this off and find out what is going on.

Need to find a way to turn the engine over by hand – the fan is too close to the radiator to get a wrench or socket in there. Right now don’t know if the engine is seized. Need to get it turning over and run a compression check.

Transmission needs a new rear main seal and the engine needs a new oil pan gasket.

I’m assuming that the AC doesn’t work. This will be one of the last things to look at!

All in all I have 5 pages of notes on things that need to be worked on. And a guarantee that more will turn up as I dig deeper into the car!

At this point I’m going to declare that the task of finding a new project to work on has been successfully completed!

I was almost a tiny little bit disappointed that the Z body was in such good shape. It looked like this would be a straightforward mechanical restoration. Making this restoration a relatively small job. At least compared to the Imperial.

Yeah, about that…

The plan of record was to start with the work needed to get the car running and on the road – brakes, hydraulic clutch, and whatever was needed to get the engine running. Enjoy it a bit, find out what it needed, and tackle the suspension and other major work over the winter.

After resting for a day to recover from the road trip I backed the Imperial out from under the Z, grabbed a flashlight, and began a thorough inspection of the bottom of the car. An inspection that requires a lift, since these cars have so little ground clearance.

I had already noted fresh undercoating on the belly of the car. And classified it as a red flag needing more detailed investigation.

Hmm… The drivers side floor has been cut out. A replacement floor panel dropped in place. And pop riveted. Then sprayed with undercoating. Crud. Not good. The passenger floor is in the same condition.

The drivers side frame rail is loose on one side. Closer examination shows that it is a replacement part. Clearly not properly installed.

The passenger side frame rail looks original. And a piece of it about two feet long has been cut out or rusted out.

There are some suspicious areas in the front frame and inner fender wells – will need to get the undercoat off and see what is going on.

The rocker panels look solid on the outside. The bottom edge of the rocker has been folded under. What do you want to bet that it is also a patch panel that has been pop riveted in place in place and bondoed over?

And, looking closely, there is no seam between the rocker panels and the front fenders. Since the front fenders can be removed I’m going to have to find out what is under this bit of bondo…

The floor, frame rails, and sill are major structural components – pop rivets and bondo aren’t going to cut it here!

The rear quarter panels have also received the place a patch panel over it, pop rivet, and smoothed with a bondo treatment. And I can see some spray foam.

The car clearly has significant rust damage, which has been “repaired” with complete and total hackery. Which is a shame because whoever did it finished with a really good paint and pinstripe job.

Change of plans.

I’m going to have to strip the undercoating off the bottom of the car and find out exactly what is underneath it.

I’m going to have to strip the paint and bondo off of the rockers and rear quarter panels to find out exactly how far the damage extends. This hurts because it will force a repaint of the entire car. At least I can now choose the color I want…

The good news is that it looks like they used actual replacement panels in the hack job. I hope to be able to reuse these panels by cutting them to fit and welding in place – the way it should have been done in the first place! If these patch panels can’t be used this job is going to get expensive in a hurry.

I believe I have the skills to do this job and do it right. But it is going to require several hundred hours of work to get to the point I thought I was starting with.

As a bit of a consolation, at least the doors are solid. I carefully examined them inside and out and they are fine.

Continued searching turned up something interesting – a 1978 Datsun 280Z in Kansas. This was near the top of my list. I had a 1976 280Z. Looking for a new car I had a slight preference to a 1977 or 1978 model as these had a 5-speed transmission vs. the 4-speed in 1976.

The pictures were encouraging: The body looked good. The engine compartment was clean with little visible rust on the various components and brackets. The interior looked good, although of course old. The dash was perfect – these are usually badly cracked. Pictures showing the bottom of the car also looked good. Fresh undercoating, but the visible edges of sheet metal didn’t show any rust.

The car had been parked for several years, allegedly for brake problems.

Mechanically the old Z cars are easy to work on and almost bulletproof. Their downfall is body rust. If the body is solid the rest is manageable.

Contacted the seller. He basically confirmed what was in the listing. Said it was in good shape, was taken off the road for “weak brakes”, had been parked for 5-6 years, and he needed his garage back.

Based on the pictures and description this was exactly what I was looking for: a 1978 280Z 5 speed in solid shape. The only way to be sure was to examine it in person and poke the most rust prone areas with a screwdriver.

Discuss it with the CFO. My initial thought was to fly out, check it out, and ship it back. Her answer was road trip and trailer it back. OK, I can be reasonable!

Earlier I mentioned that I had been sent to Fort Leavenworth. The Craigslist listing identified the location as Leavenworth Kansas. Turns out that the owner of the Z was an officer stationed at Fort Leavenworth. Who provided directions to his house. These directions sent me to Fort Leavenworth…

Hop in the F150 and head West. Pick up a Uhaul Car Hauler trailer in Leavenworth. Get a visitor pass at the gate and head on base to check out the car.

If anything it was in better shape than I expected. The body was solid – everywhere I poked with a screwdriver was solid. The paint was in great shape – a reddish brown that is actually quite good looking and just needs a polish and wax. I could probably get buy with just washing it.

The engine bay looked great. No battery, so couldn’t check as much as I wanted to, but everything was there. It all looked factory original; no signs of anyone modifying it. The interior also looked good. The door cards had been removed but were available. There was one tear in the drivers seat. Carpet was all there, but getting tired. Would need cleaning or replacement. The only things that didn’t look factory were the aftermarket radio and the holes cut in the doors for speakers.

Best of all the car had factory air conditioning!

Look to the CFO for final confirmation. Getting the “it’s your decision, you own the consequences” look in response I pulled out the cashiers check, the owner pulled out the title, and we closed the deal.

The now previous owner called a buddy and helped push the Z onto the car trailer. Strap it down and we were ready to go!

The 1,400 mile trip home was uneventful – just the way I like it! The only surprise was that the F150 got 18-19 mpg towing. I was really expecting around 15mpg and wouldn’t have been totally surprised at 10-12 mpg. 18-19 mpg is better than we get pulling our boat, which is half the weight. I guess this shows that drag is a bigger factor than weight and that the Z is more aerodynamic than a boat.

Now to engage in hand to hand combat with the RMV to get it registered and get it up on the lift to find out how optimistic I’ve been!

New England is brutal on older sports cars. They degrade into a mound of rust in what seems like minutes. The odds are greatly against finding anything local that is in good shape. If you are looking for something specific you are in for a long search.

We live in an amazing time. Courtesy of the Internet you can search nationwide using resources like Craigslist, Ebay, Bring a Trailer, Hemmings, and others. You can find things in California, Arizona, and other less rusty regions. I refuse to say “rust free” because there is no such thing in a 50 year old car.

Hmm, here is a listing for a 1973 Jaguar XKE in Vermont. It is an estate sale and is a project car. Apparently it was pulled apart for restoration 20 years ago and now consists of a painted shell and boxes of parts. They were asking $11,500.

I know that I said Jaguar was too expensive to consider. But this is a dream car, one I thought was totally out of reach. There are plenty of red flags, but it is only 120 miles away. Road trip!

The car was basically as described. A 1973 Jaguar XKE 2+2 with V12 and automatic transmission. Both the automatic transmission and 2+2 configuration significantly reduce the market value of the car. The most valuable XKEs are convertible (automatically a 2 seater) with manual transmission.

The body, sills, and engine cradle seemed solid. But the entire floor was badly rusted and would have to be replaced.

The car had indeed been stripped for restoration. For example, the doors were nothing but two pieces of sheetmetal – glass, window regulator, latch, interior door handle, exterior door handle, lock, and door card had been removed. The entire car was like this.

The motor was siezed – you couldn’t turn it over at all. Transmission and rear end were in unknown condition. Windshield, rear window, and door glass were missing.

Looking through the boxes of parts it was apparent that many pieces were missing.

I said I would think about it. As soon as I got home I built a spreadsheet of missing major parts that I could readily identify. Checking prices I quickly came to $15K in parts. This is probably half of what would ultimately be required.

Purchase price, engine rebuild, and missing parts quickly added up to $40K-$50K, about what one of these cars in good running condition would sell for. Plus time for the restoration. I could do this, but the numbers just didn’t math.

A famous observation is that the most expensive car you can buy is a cheap British (or German) luxury car. Clearly the case here.

I contacted the Jaguar owner with regrets and moved on with the search.

Well, I got sent to Fort Leavenworth…

Any post that starts with a line like that requires explanation! You just know that there is a story behind it. So here is the story:

I was perusing Craigslist. That phrase is a warning. It is one of the most dangerous things you can hear, second only to “hold my beer”. I won’t say that nothing good ever comes from it, but it generally means that things are about to get interesting!

Hmm, that doesn’t go back far enough. Lets start at the beginning.

The Imperial is largely done. There are several small projects and the ongoing maintenance of a 60 year old car, but the major work is finished.

Despite all of the complaining here I have enjoyed the Imperial restoration. I’ve learned a lot, developed new skills, and acquired new tools and equipment. Seems a shame not to put those to use. Maybe even good use!

I’ve sunk at least 4,000 hours of my time and uncounted amounts of money (uncounted because I don’t want to even think about it!) into the Imperial. Plenty of sweat and tears, but fortunately very little blood. The Imperial was restored for the long haul and I want to keep enjoying it. But I do want to start another restoration project…

After careful consideration I lag bolted my courage in place and took it to the CFO. She had one question: where are you going to put a second car?

Well, one of the reasons for wanting the lift was that it could also be used to store another car – one on top of the other. Commonly done.

With this roadblock resolved the project was approved. And there was much rejoicing! The next step was to decide what car I wanted to work on.

You may recall that I chose to build a cruiser for the first restoration. This time around I wanted something smaller and sportier. Something fun to drive. Wait – that sounds a lot like a 60/70/80’s sports car!

No, this isn’t a mid-life crisis. First, I’m well past mid-life. Second, I already owned a sports car – a 1976 Datsun 280Z – in the past.

I’m looking for something “reasonably affordable”. That leaves out things like Ferrari, Porsche, and Jaguar. I don’t really care for the classic British sports cars like MG or Triumph. Whats left?

The leading candidates are a Fiat X1/9, an Alfa Romeo Spyder, or another Datsun 240/260/280Z. The search was on!