Sunbaked '76 Cali 280z

Robotsan

Club Member
Began taking apart the rear lights today in order to paint the rear trim panel & change the indicator lenses to amber.

Found a previous owner had screwed speakers into the rear light covers - joy! So they're junk now..

PXL_20230115_171710650.NIGHT.jpg

Also found a variety of nut shells and even the beginnings of a bee or wasp nest!

PXL_20230115_174700499.jpg

Everything went well until I saw the chrome light bezels were held to the grey panel by some tiny little rusty screws. True to form, 4 of the 6 came out after being sprayed with quick release penetrant, but 2 of the little buggers stayed in place and ultimately snapped the plastic on the panel. Once all of these parts are restored I'll just glue the chrome pieces back on to the panel.

Going to take the chrome parts to my local vehicle wrappers to see if they can wrap them in chrome vinyl for me, as it seems to be impossible to get plastic re-plated these days so I'm hoping wrapping will be possible!

PXL_20230115_180120465.jpg
 

AliK

Vehicle Dating Officer
Staff member
Club Member
Nice work buddy.

Now please don’t hate me but I feel you’re wasting elbow grease time, as I did early on in my ownership!!!! Let me explain ….

All you need is an old plastic ice creme tub, the cheapest and nastiest lemon juice from concentrate that you can find on the supermarket shelf and a heaped table spoon of salt mixed in.

Degrease your items well and submerge.The key thing is to fully degrease first otherwise the lemon juice acid can’t get in. I just put items like bolts etc into a jar full of thinners and give it a good soak / shake for 2-5 mins.

Then drop your items into the lemon solution and leave overnight (I’ve gone from 6 to even 24hours) and it does ALL the hard work for you + gets into all the nooks and crannies that you can’t. It’s very effective and a lot less aggressive than mechanical abrasives eg wire brushes leaving in most instances a better finish.

This is the stuff I used to great effect


Some before and after pics for your enjoyment

9794094E-03E7-42F1-9890-AAFCAF330E0A.jpeg
D74A296B-6A1C-475D-AD31-3999C33585D0.jpeg

Handbrake mechanism …

F87E2E12-1A95-456E-AD48-8F5F30BDCFBE.jpeg
You can clearly see the bit that wasn’t submerged in the solution and the difference!



B6E1D102-0826-47F3-A895-2285427072B8.jpeg

Make sure you rinse off with water straight away as you get items out of the lemon solution and put the genolite type stuff on straight away - as the moment the metal hits the air, the oxidisation begins all over again. It’s frightening how quickly it dulls if you just leave it on the side!

Finally, I used the solution over and over - it will go black / brown but it’s still effective for 3-4 uses or more. I just poured into an airtight jar - having removed any sediments - and used again another week.

Now a couple of health warnings:


Beware that at first the whole thing smells lovely and lemony - but after an overnight soak and some chemical reactions you get a real chemical smell in the room that it was left in, so best not leave it in the kitchen or wife pleasing areas of the house.


Any zinc plating gets eaten up by the acid so don’t put very lightly rusted items in there.

And if you get a home plating kit as Mr @toopy did to great effect, then you can do it all at home!
 
Last edited:

AliK

Vehicle Dating Officer
Staff member
Club Member
Began taking apart the rear lights today in order to paint the rear trim panel & change the indicator lenses to amber.

Found a previous owner had screwed speakers into the rear light covers - joy! So they're junk now..

View attachment 55582

Also found a variety of nut shells and even the beginnings of a bee or wasp nest!

View attachment 55583

Everything went well until I saw the chrome light bezels were held to the grey panel by some tiny little rusty screws. True to form, 4 of the 6 came out after being sprayed with quick release penetrant, but 2 of the little buggers stayed in place and ultimately snapped the plastic on the panel. Once all of these parts are restored I'll just glue the chrome pieces back on to the panel.

Going to take the chrome parts to my local vehicle wrappers to see if they can wrap them in chrome vinyl for me, as it seems to be impossible to get plastic re-plated these days so I'm hoping wrapping will be possible!

View attachment 55584
Let me know how that warppimg goes as I’ve often considered it on mine! I even bought the stuff but never did it.

BTW - in this game NOTHING is junk!! That rear light cover with speakers in will have value to someone. Stick it on eBay if you can be bothered or offer it up here.

I thought my dented and chrome wrapped front bumper was junk and gave it away - but loads of people wanted it. My broken centre console where the choke lever had smashed it and the PO had done a Heath Robinson on it sold on eBay for half decent money. Throw nothing away, someone will want it off you.
 

Robotsan

Club Member
Nice work buddy.

Now please don’t hate me but I feel you’re wasting elbow grease time, as I did early on in my ownership!!!! Let me explain ….

All you need is an old plastic ice creme tub, the cheapest and nastiest lemon juice from concentrate that you can find on the supermarket shelf and a heaped table spoon of salt mixed in.

Degrease your items well and submerge.The key thing is to fully degrease first otherwise the lemon juice acid can’t get in. I just put items like bolts etc into a jar full of thinners and give it a good soak / shake for 2-5 mins.

Then drop your items into the lemon solution and leave overnight (I’ve gone from 6 to even 24hours) and it does ALL the hard work for you + gets into all the nooks and crannies that you can’t. It’s very effective and a lot less aggressive than mechanical abrasives eg wire brushes leaving in most instances a better finish.

This is the stuff I used to great effect


Some before and after pics for your enjoyment

View attachment 55594
View attachment 55595

Handbrake mechanism …

View attachment 55596
You can clearly see the bit that wasn’t submerged in the solution and the difference!



View attachment 55597

Make sure you rinse off with water straight away as you get items out of the lemon solution and put the genolite type stuff on straight away - as the moment the metal hits the air, the oxidisation begins all over again. It’s frightening how quickly it dulls if you just leave it on the side!

Finally, I used the solution over and over - it will go black / brown but it’s still effective for 3-4 uses or more. I just poured into an airtight jar - having removed any sediments - and used again another week.

Now a couple of health warnings:


Beware that at first the whole thing smells lovely and lemony - but after an overnight soak and some chemical reactions you get a real chemical smell in the room that it was left in, so best not leave it in the kitchen or wife pleasing areas of the house.


Any zinc plating gets eaten up by the acid so don’t put very lightly rusted items in there.

And if you get a home plating kit as Mr @toopy did to great effect, then you can do it all at home!

Thanks Ali!

I assume by elbow grease you mean the sanding the seatbelt brackets down? As I have been bathing all the other parts in a citric acid bath to strip the paint & de-rust - I just wasn't sure about dipping the whole seatbelt winder mechanism in there too so I did it manually!

Everything else goes in the bath though. It's Built Hamber's Deox-C - basically Citric acid with a bit extra in there. I realised after I bought it so when it's run out I'll try a more home made version like yours :)

And yeah it's crazy how quick the flash rust appears isn't it. I've just been spraying etch primer on straightaway and that seems to do the job.

I have a similar jar of nuts bolts and screws that I'm going to take to a local plater to get them all zinc plated along with any other bits of hardware I can pull off the car!

Thanks
 

Robotsan

Club Member
Let me know how that warppimg goes as I’ve often considered it on mine! I even bought the stuff but never did it.

BTW - in this game NOTHING is junk!! That rear light cover with speakers in will have value to someone. Stick it on eBay if you can be bothered or offer it up here.

I thought my dented and chrome wrapped front bumper was junk and gave it away - but loads of people wanted it. My broken centre console where the choke lever had smashed it and the PO had done a Heath Robinson on it sold on eBay for half decent money. Throw nothing away, someone will want it off you.

Will do. I'm not that confident about it because one place said it wouldn't be possible based on the photo, but these guys said being the part down and they'll have a look at it.

Haha ok, thanks for the advice re: junk. Maybe I'm sitting on a gold mine then! 😂
 

AliK

Vehicle Dating Officer
Staff member
Club Member
Sorry I missed your acid bath antics! I hear that voice again - read the thread Luke!

Etch primer is great stuff BTW!
 

Robotsan

Club Member
Continuing the pointless refurbishment of non-important items..

The seatbelt receivers were very rusty, so quick dip in the acid bath, bit of etch primer and then satin black. Here's a before and after in one pic..

PXL_20230117_210535578~2.jpg

The luggage strap buckles we're all rusted and the straps manky and mouldy...

PXL_20230110_172911707.jpg

But after some very fiddly masking and careful painting and a good scrub, good as new!

PXL_20230117_211443441.jpg
PXL_20230117_211447276.jpg

This connector / earth thing in the boot was a bit rusty and surface rust had started around it..

PXL_20230115_162420956.jpg

So all sanded back and a coat of etch primer on to halt it for now. Connector sanded back and bolts de-rusted and painted silver, and the little cover back on ..

PXL_20230117_212442970.jpg
PXL_20230117_212537564.jpg

What pointless tiny item should I fix next 😂
 

Robotsan

Club Member
Have now started the process of sorting out the rear lights - need to get amber lenses on, and planning to paint the rear panels and get the chrome bezels wrapped in chrome too.

Local wrap place says it'll be tricky and the surface will need to be glossy (like car bodywork I guess).. so I'm going to have to remove all the existing chrome coating - then I was thinking I could primer it all, then give it a few coats of gloss primer?

He says the wrap will pull on the surface very strongly so needs to be well adhered.

PXL_20230118_102217534.jpg

In the meantime, I've cleaned up one of my light assemblies and have tried and failed to get the lower red lense off. The glue or whatever it is, is rock hard - can't even get through it with a Stanley knife.

So it's into the oven! Which incredibly has been achieved with permission from my girlfriend.

15 min at 100°c .. let's see if it works..


PXL_20230120_190337886.jpg
 

Mark N

Club Member
I used a butyl rubber strip which you roll to the desired size, lay in the channel then place in the oven before mating the parts together.

Similar to this:
 

Robotsan

Club Member
I used a butyl rubber strip which you roll to the desired size, lay in the channel then place in the oven before mating the parts together.

Similar to this:

Thanks Mark that looks perfect. I can use it for adding the replacement door waterproofing plastic sheet too.
 

Robotsan

Club Member
More oven baking fun today.

Can't believe how much mud was built up around the light clusters. I've done a good bit of weight saving with this job..

PXL_20230121_174417780.jpg

PXL_20230121_174640189.jpg

Lights are in really good condition though - barely look used once all the mud was washed off. Maybe it preserved them.

PXL_20230121_180309164.jpg
PXL_20230121_180319456.jpg

This one had obviously been done before though, as it was held in by some really nasty yellow adhesive which stretched like mozzarella and got everywhere:

PXL_20230121_183217833.jpg

Got it cleaned up fairly well though, hopefully enough for that butyl stuff to stick the amber lens back in with some heat:

PXL_20230121_190013404.jpg

I might even give the lenses a bit of a polish before it all goes back in the car.
 

Robotsan

Club Member
Productive couple of hours on the car after work.

Firstly the butyl sealant arrived in the post, so I was able to put the amber indicator lenses into the newly cleaned up rear light assemblies..

PXL_20230125_180706418.jpg

Very satisfying.

PXL_20230125_182252331.jpg

So now I just need to get the chrome bezels re-plated or painted, and the grey panels painted, and these can go back in the car.

The other thing I did was get all the nasty old glue off the front halves of the wheel wells. Used some goo remover stuff which really helped, and then a drill with a polishing pad on and a scotch pad to remove the really stubborn stuff.

Before & after..

PXL_20230125_174223444.jpg

PXL_20230125_190048693.jpg


There's loads of little tufts of fluff from the old shagpile interior left stuck to the interior, so I have to pluck it like a chicken to get them all off before I can scrape the glue off 😂
 

Geoff-R

Club Member
You've done a great job on the lights, they look brilliant. Was the butyl tape strong enough to hold the lenses in okay? I sealed mine in with a clear sealant.
 

Robotsan

Club Member
You've done a great job on the lights, they look brilliant. Was the butyl tape strong enough to hold the lenses in okay? I sealed mine in with a clear sealant.

Cheers Geoff! They seem pretty well held in place. I warmed it up with a heat gun before pressing them in, and then used it again to try and press then a bit further in. I like the idea of being able to remove them again if need be.
 

Robotsan

Club Member
This might be a stupid question, but do people use adhesive to attach the new rear light gaskets to the car? Or to the lights for that matter? Or are they just held in place by the pressure of the bolts?
 
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