The Z – 1976 Datsun 280Z
Here is how the car looks as of 2020
The above picture was taken April of 2019 after a mild side-swipe. For years I’ve been fighting rust in the driver door/fender; where as the passanger was perfect – Karma I guess. After a year of mourning, I decided to refresh of the car in 2020 as we all had some extra time (The Covid Build!)… I previously found both a replacement door and fender, but decided to try and repair what I had. I also wanted to experiment with Lacquer paint. I had used it on a motorcycle project and found it to be labor intensive, but good for DIY folks (safe to spray and easy to fix issue).
The above images were phase 1… Glass, lights, trim removed. Doors and fenders were removed, for patch metal to be added and the panels beat. The driver fender, bottom of the drv door and lower front qtr panel were patched with new metal. I also add a rear bumper – I had rolled the rear pan in a prior paint but just covered the holes as I knew; one day I would want bumpers.
Once the body work was done, the car went through many, many primer stages. I always start with a high build poly – Feather Fill, and then move to standard primers. In this case I used two gallons of poly – sanded two 120 (good mechanical adhesion) then two gallons of lacquer primer – sanded to 320. I know may folks do not like the lacquer primers… But the top coat was going to be lacquer – and lacquer sticks to lacquer really well chemically.
Color was added in two sittings… I first put down four coats – over the course of a 10 hr day. I would spray, and then let dry 1-2 hr. Put another coat on and so on. I then let the paint sit for another 2 weeks before I wet sanded to 800 and finally laid down another 4 coats.
Another week or more went by as the lacquer – which dries by evaporation, cured enough that I felt comfortable assembling as well as cutting and buffing the paint. It was still soft, and if I pressed to hard with my paper – I left deep scratches. The above pictures were cut with: (2000 grit very light pressure, 2500 grit, and finally 3000 grit – then machine polished with Sonax Cut-Max compound; working up several lighter and lighter cut compounds until a wax. Still at this point I could see a lot of surface scratching in the correct light, but the paint was still soft and I was afraid to buff harder… I can see now why modern spray and go urethanes are so desirable for production shops. I would guess that even with an oven to bake – the curing process would of been several days.
The Road 