The Project Dixie thread!

richiep

Club Member
Fantastic Richie! Thanks as always for the great photos. I'm not converting to RHD but I have a lot of work in this area to do so they're great study aids for me.

Where did you get your chassis rail(s) from? I've just took delivery of various bits from klassicfab.com/kfvintagejdm.com and they look good - I guess I'll have to see if they actually fit well though. They don't do chassis rails though and I've come to the conclusion that I may need to replace 1 or both.

The chassis rail was from APS/Andy Plant, as per all the other mustard yellow repair panels I've used. It is a nicely made piece and fits well overall - just needs some tweaking where it hugs the floor and will join with the underfloor support. That will happen when the car is spun over on the rotisserie though.

The one panel that looks like it is going to give me problems is the triangular gusset piece that goes under the chassis rail behind the tension rod "pocket". Having offered that up, it looks wrong where it features a flange that matches that of the chassis rail and floor/bulkhead curvature. That could be a pain and involve some refabrication to get a workable solution. Again, that will wait until the car is upside down, and thus easier to work all that out.
 

johnymd

Club Member
Great work Richie. I'm at the first sage of restoring my series 1 and trying to chose between dipping the shell or media blasting. what is your view on dipping now and who did you use?
 

richiep

Club Member
I used Enviro-Strip in Tamworth. Its a difficult decision re: dipping vs blasting. I would avoid any pure dipping only services like SPL etc. that use harsher acids to remove the paint. Enviro-Strip use the 400 degree pyrolysis oven-baked approach, and then milder chemical baths to wash, rust remove/neutralize, and coat. Overall I'm happy with how that process worked on the exposed surfaces and more open structures within the shell (you can see above that the inside of the chassis rail I removed was nicely phosphate coated and devoid of rust. HOWEVER, the downside on baking a Z is that so much melted crap collects inside certain areas of the unibody. Look at my past pics showing what was built up inside the doglegs, , rear arches, underfloor rails, etc. This, IMO, is a significant future rust risk if those areas don't get opened up during bodywork and cleaned out like I did.

If I were to do another Z to this degree, I'd seriously look into soda blasting for external shell, with focused harsher media for rust spots. Bake and dip for removable panels though would still be an option.

None of the processes will, IMO, adequately address the surface rust that exists within pretty much all the spot welded seams. The last stage of bodywork after paint, before reassembly, should be to drench every cavity and inner structure with Dinitrol 3125 and ML wax products - you want every gap in all major spot welded seams to be dripping Dinitrol for a fortnight afterwards!
 

johnymd

Club Member
Thank for the reply. The shell is currently on 2 dollies, waiting to go for soda blasting/ grit blasting. It’s just that they are taking ages to pick it up so just sent a quote request from envio strip. I like that it’s phosphate coated everywhere from dipping and that rust is removed from all cavities by dipping. I’ll see what the quote comes back as.
 

johnymd

Club Member
Just had a quote back from enviros trip and that’s probably tipped the balance. Their total price is £2658 to strip and prime including collection and delivery. This does include 2 extra front wings. From what I remember this is a discounted price with the cost of shell strip coming to around £1000 plus vat. So I will probably go with soda/shot blasting and epoxy prime costing £1500 total including collection and delivery. The £1000 saving can go towards metalwork repairs.
 

Mr.G

Club Member
Great work Ritchie, in awe of your attention to detail and care in the restoration.

Dipping/Blasting there will always be pros and cons so it seems. I like the fact that SPL does Electrophoretic Coating (E-Coating) this gets to the parts that other dipping methods don't but as you say they use harsher acids then others as part of their process. Not sure the others offer E-Coating.
 

richiep

Club Member
Just had a quote back from enviros trip and that’s probably tipped the balance. Their total price is £2658 to strip and prime including collection and delivery. This does include 2 extra front wings. From what I remember this is a discounted price with the cost of shell strip coming to around £1000 plus vat. So I will probably go with soda/shot blasting and epoxy prime costing £1500 total including collection and delivery. The £1000 saving can go towards metalwork repairs.

Did you discuss cash price with them? I paid 1800 all in...
 

richiep

Club Member
Great work Ritchie, in awe of your attention to detail and care in the restoration.

Dipping/Blasting there will always be pros and cons so it seems. I like the fact that SPL does Electrophoretic Coating (E-Coating) this gets to the parts that other dipping methods don't but as you say they use harsher acids then others as part of their process. Not sure the others offer E-Coating.
SPL have a bad rap for careless handling. They also stopped offering the e-coat - although they may have resumed that? There are way too many horror stories about acid residue leaking out for years and causing rust where SPL are concerned.

The Enviro-strip approach includes a phosphating stage to provide the rust protection, and then I paid for the Novol weld-thru bodywork primer for added protection (the red stuff). The downside of the last paint stage is that it is only good as a proper protection for 6 months and obviously its been a lot longer than that now and some parts of the car are still in that primer and haven't been 2k epoxied yet, as I've yet to get to them. On certain edges and surfaces, faint evidence of surface rust is beginning to creep through. Thus, I'm going to be stripping a lot of the remaining Novol areas back to bare metal as I deal with them and re-phosphating before epoxy with Rustbuster Phos-kleen B. It's not a major issue though - I just feel certain local spots might benefit from being taken back rather than just scuffed and hit with the epoxy.
 

Rob Gaskin

Treasurer
Staff member
Site Administrator
You guys are treating Zs like North Sea Oil Rigs. You will only drive and store them in the dry.

Admire your attention to detail - both effort and cost.
 

richiep

Club Member
I don't know Rob - pretty much every time I take my red Z out, Sod's Law kicks in and it gets drenched!

The attention to detail with respect to rust protection is because I don't want to have to come back to it for a long time, or end up playing "whack a mole" with rust outbreaks, as often ends up being the case on cars that have not been prepared or protected properly.
 

candy red

Club Member
Great work Richie your an inspiration to all :bow: sorry not replied to this thread before now haven't been on here for a while looks like your after my welding crown although i didn't realise i had one :EXTRAlol:once again great work hope you and the family are all well :)
 

richiep

Club Member
Progress:
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Outer bulkhead plate welded in.
Pedal box fitting begins:
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Main hanger bracket welded in, although when the car gets tipped over on the rotisserie, I’ll add some more welds on the back side of the bracket to really secure it. The pedal box has two more top attachment points, but the brackets with captive nuts from the LHD setup are not transferable, so time to get fabricating again:
s5dqkHg.jpg

Example above before the corner was welded on the strengthening flange. These will have captive weld nuts added to them.
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And this evening’s achievement - welded in the inner bulkhead reinforcement plate:
aG0zkBi.jpg


Should be done with the RHD conversion by the end of the weekend, metalwork-wise. Then it’ll all be about grinding, skimming/filling and getting it all looking perfect.

Next stage after all that stuff: installing the roll cage mounts (which arrived recently from Safety Devices). Once they are in, time for the rotisserie and all the stuff I couldn’t do or finish off properly with the car the right way up!!
 

Pondo

Club Member
Next stage after all that stuff: installing the roll cage mounts (which arrived recently from Safety Devices). Once they are in, time for the rotisserie and all the stuff I couldn’t do or finish off properly with the car the right way up!!

Did your roll cage not come with mounts Rich? Impressive skills, cars looking great.
 

richiep

Club Member
Did your roll cage not come with mounts Rich? Impressive skills, cars looking great.
No, the cage was S/H. Got it via eBay from Dansport in Chesterfield - was probably in one of their rally cars at one point. So no fitting kit.
 

jonbills

Membership Secretary
Site Administrator
Managed to stick to my schedule: RHD conversion complete!
gdQgoWQ.jpg

even got the footrest welded in (removed from left side and trimmed to fit). Just needs skimming, seam sealing, epoxy primer, and all that sort of fettling now.

Can't put my finger on it, but I reckon there's something missing to make it RHD :)
 

richiep

Club Member
Maybe I should say RHD conversion metalwork complete! ;)

I realised I still have extraneous holes in the bulkhead to weld up, e.g. the small pilot hole for the loom. RE. the loom, I’m following Johnymd’s example as per his silver car - it’s going to be running inside the RH air tube rather than along the inner wing and chassis rail. This will clean up the bay look considerably. Brake lines and necessary wiring will be run along the inside edge of the rail, so from above it looks more minimalist.
 

richiep

Club Member
Another little eBay snag for the parts pile arrived this morning. Only cost 15 quid and is essentially brand new, having never been fitted by the previous owner. Timely, as I can fabricate mounts while still working on the front end of the shell. I’m trying to use existing holes and captive nuts wherever possible for neatness when adding non-standard fittings.
g1fbDr7.jpg
 

richiep

Club Member
Quick update: I’m not going to go through all the faff and hassle I’ve had with the tool cage yet - I’ll deal with that once I’ve got a solution for a fitment problem I’ve got (used roll cage turns out to have mods...). However, RHD swap finished and engine bay getting close to completion:
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Currently I’m doing the last lead loading exercise at the bottom of the rh A-pillar. That’s almost ready for final primer tonight now.

Today was jumping ahead somewhat with an exciting pickup from the Post Office Depot after coughing up 12 quid import duty. What could these three boxes be?...
qUGb8Zi.jpg

Another hint..
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48mm DCOE-pattern ITBs. They are unbranded but are clearly FAJS-made, just powder-coated silver-grey rather than the usual black. Basically Chinese copies of the Jenvey. Taking advantage of the Best Offer option on eBay, I got these for the sum total of 300 quid plus post. In other words, about as much as one original Jenvey would come in at. Quality is perfectly decent; ITBs are not exactly complicated pieces of equipment in their basic form. I just didn’t see the advantage of dumping thousands on a Jenvey kit given I’m not a lazy sod with money to burn (Fourways for example charge 10k I think to do a ITB conversion). These will be mated to a Harada intake. ECU-wise, I’m thinking of going with a UK-made Speeduino setup (Jon will like that!). Ignition will be the common Ford 6-cylinder unit.
 
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