Last time I took the time to write something on here, I had bought a 260z 2+2, and was waiting for it to arrive. In the meantime, it was finally delivered, and also partially disassembled.
But first, the delivery:
The car was scheduled to be picked up on the morning of September 22nd by a Spanish transporter and be taken to my place in the evening on the same day. After a while of no news, I got a message that the transporter was stuck on the border because he had do do a Covid test to enter France. They could have foressen that and take the test early, but ok.
They rescheduled the pick-up to the 23rd, 9:30AM, no news after that. I finally got a message from the seller at 12, telling me they just left with the car. Slightly late, but hey, at least I won’t have to get off work early. No news on progress, but I figured they should arrive around 7-8PM (6 hour drive by car).
At around 9PM, I got a message that they would arrive at 11:50PM, oh god, what happened? Anyway, I rested a bit, trying not to fall asleep. At 11:30, another message, they were stopped by customs, and are now on their way. they should arrive at 1AM. Around 12:50, I get a shared GPS location. 40 minutes away...
They finally arrived at 1:30AM and started unloading. I looked for the papers in the car, no papers. The transporter started looking in the van, his colleague put on the ramps to get the car off the trailer. I get into the car, they push me down, until the car stops with a loud scary noise. The Z had landed on it’s belly.
They detached the trailer for more clearance, the car got down,and the guy finally found the papers. The customs had taken them out of the car to check them and gave them to the guy.
Anyway, I had the car, I had the papers, time to go to bed. That’s when the guy asked for the remaining pay, I assumed I’d pay online, but no, cash, and now. They were friendly and apologetic about all the mishaps, so I drove to the bank with them in the middle of the night, gave them the money, and got a 50€ discount for the trouble. Yay?
I went to bed at 2:30 and got up 3 hours later to go to work.
That weekend, i had it running a bit, changed the fuel in the tank, had it running a bit more, checked the ignition system, got an electric shock (that’ll need sorting). The engin idles smoothly, but stumbles when reving it. That will need some work, but first, the rust is more important.
Since then, I put it on a lift and started removing everything that was in the way for rust repairs. For a quick list of what’s to be done: a lot.
Subframe out
The left frame rail
The right frame rail
The left rocker panel
The left quarter panel
The right quarter panel
The left sway bar mounting point
The right engine mounting point
The floor boards looked pretty solid, but at some point, somebody put a thick layer of fiberglass on it, which was suspicious.
I got rid of it. This took a lot of time, effort, and swearing
Pro tip: to separate fiberglas from sheet metal, wedge a flat crowbar in there and hit it with a hammer. Also: wear long sleeves, gloves, and eye protection.
The floors need work, but it wasn’t too bad after all
I also stripped most of the interior to avoid burning the car down during rust repairs