Orange Juiced

[OpelWagenGT]

I'm not trying to turn your build thread into a discussion about seals, so lets see some pics of your car!

[KELMO]

I'm not tryin to hi jack it either..........but, the 720 seals didn't take too long to getand they are in the 75-85 dollar range(Ithink).

 

Kelly,

the 1/4 glass seals I used some door welts (seal that attaches to the body that were scrap at the dealership I work at. I'm lookin for the seal for the vent glass on the door.

[dozenhundred]

I was talking about the door vent windows when I said quarter windows. The sites I have looked at call the door vents quarter windows too. Check out these sites:

Scotts Old Auto Rubber

American Autos

Spectrum Rubber and Panels

Rare Spares

Like I said they ain't cheap but available (at least they show up on line, have to call to find out for sure I suppose)

Kelly

[M.Creer]

Nice coupe. More pics & more low please.

[M.Creer]

Updates?

[dozenhundred]

Yeah I know I havn't posted here lately and I will soon. I have done a couple things.

 

More low huh? I will be doing a 280ZX strut swap, still accumulating parts. I plan on going a little lower, but the fronts already rub a bit. I am hoping the rumored decrease in track width will help.

[M.Creer]

Go lower and pull the fenders ever so slightly.

[RATDAT3]

Hey Kelly, thanks again for the dash bezel. Wish mine looked as good as yours! Hopefully you didnt buy the seals from thailand--and if you did, dont install them--they dont hold up in our weather here. I already did and they dry up, crack, and leak. I bought mine from some co. called girra77 I think. Took almost 3 months to get here and then there was no recourse through ebay past 60 days..........spend a little more and buy from Australia.

Todd

[greengoon]

Resurrecting this thread but I just found it. This car looks great! I love the 1200s. And I thought I was keeping track of all the Utah guys. I was wrong. :( Any updates? There are a few vintage tin get togethers being planned for this year in Salt Lake. I'd love to see you show up.

[dozenhundred]

So it's been almost two years since my last update. Sorry, being a middle aged full time college student is challenging with the time constraints. Unfortunatly winters here don't give me conditions to work in. I didn't have a garage for most of that time. Now I do but it has no power. Summers are too busy to do much with my school project. I have been team captian for the BYU Streamliner. Here's a pic:

 

 

For short it is an electric land speed record car. You can see more here:

BYUStreamliner

 

I have found a few snippits of time to tinker, but with a college budget, work has been simple stuff.

 

I ordered a new dash pad from nissan and installed a new fleabay inside rear view mirror since it had a z car mirror in it when purchased. Then I went to work on the rest of the dash. Bought a dashmat off RockAuto to protect the new dash. Also repainted the glove box door. It isn't great but will have to do since it looks like new ones are NLA.

 

I converted the wiper switch to a light up version like the headlight switch and moved the headlight switch to the left sice below the wiper switch. One of the things that bugged me about the dash controls is that the lighter does not match the switches. That was one reason I moved the headlight switch. Then I saw that z cars had a light up lighter, so I found one on ebay with the socket part and went to work making it fit. Here's a couple shots of the old and new side by side.

 

 

As you can see they are a bit different, with the new one mounting a bit different and intended for a thinner dash area for mounting. So I put some lines on the socket where I would have to cut to make it fit.

 

 

That got it mounted and I wired it up to the dash light circuit. For the knob, I had to whittle down the plastic some, but I was able to put the rubber outer part of one of the light up switch knobs over the plastic of the new lighter so it has the same shape as the switches. A little white paint and it matches pretty well.

 

 

I installed a new factory tach I had found on fleabay which completes the left part of the dash.

 

 

Next post will be about the stereo install.

[dozenhundred]

The dash was really butchered in this car to put a DIN size head unit in. Fact is with the shape of the dash opening and the indention made for the factory bezel, it is hard to mount a DIN unit cleanly in these 1200's. That and when you cut the dash metal for it, it becomes hard to securely mount the unit so it doesn't shake. I found an old radio delete plate and went to work making a bezel.

 

 

I filled the dent in the lower edge and repainted it. I used some "chrome" model paint on the edge to try and match the faded chrome on the dash. I glued this bezel to the dash. Then I had to make up a bracket to mount the stereo behind the bezel. I fashioned it like a mount in our Jeep Cherokee.

 

 

It screws to the front of the dash metal support and attaches in the rear to the factory radio support. Here it is all finished up.

 

 

The only thing left for the dash is to change out the heater controls with the new Vintage Air heat/AC in the future. Too poor right now.

 

The Acura seats that were in the car were killing my back so I installed some seats out of a Honda CRX. The bracketry was a challenge and required some welding, but I like the finished product. Blue seats in an orange car are a bit weird, but until I can afford to recover them it will have to do.

 

 

I wanted a passenger side mirror, and also didn't like the painted black factory mirror on the car. I really don't get into the fender mirrors so wanted something like stock. I considered bullet mirrors but they were out of my price range. I found a Chrome left mirror on fleabay, but when I recieved it it wasn't that great, but will have to do. Found a new chrome left side mirror and put it on. Check out how the drivers side mirror was mounted in a horrible spot.

 

 

Moving the drivers side mirror left some ugly holes, but those will get filled later on.

 

 

Better!

 

 

Right side

 

 

Thats all for now. I need to do some carpet on the floor. Would love to have a factory floor console with clock. I am working on a new carpeted trunk floor panel, and fixing up the cracked side panels. I need to mount the rear speakers somewhere. I also have a sub and amp needing a home. I'll post more when I have some of that done.

[dozenhundred]

Couple more things I forgot. I replaced the manual choke carb with a new factory carb. This thing was brand new and identified poorly on fleabay so I got it cheap. The Utah winter is no place for a manual choke.

 

 

As mentioned I have been accumulating parts for a strut swap.

 

 

Still need all the 210 parts, inserts, new springs (came with 250# springs) and top mounts. Still deciding on swapping to 4 pot calipers, 5 lugs blah blah blah

 

And just for giggles I put the car on the race scales at the school shop. These things are light!

 

[ggzilla]

Nice work.

 

Is that a NOS Nissan carburetor, or one of the new made-in-china clones (16010-H1602)?

How's it run?

[dozenhundred]

Really can't say for sure on the carb. I bought it two years ago now. Was only listed by the hitachi number so unless you had the stock carb number it was hard to know what it was for. I won it for about 50 bucks, didn't have a buy it now option. Runs great. Nice to have the electric choke here in winter.

[KELMO]

Wait, your h/l switch and wiper switch light up? looks like I got something else to fix :blink:, lookin good man

 

Kelly1

[dozenhundred]

So it's been a year and a half since I updated this project post and sorry to say that I have not done much to the car.  The weather is pretty nice so I thought I would start looking at the rear bumper and see about getting it straightened and re-chromed.  Before I do any work to the bumper I thought I would look at the rear panel since I knew it was pushed out and hitting the bumper in one spot and the trunk lid was also pushed out to line up with the latch.  I already had seen that this car was hit in the rear from inside the trunk.  So I started digging at the corner where the panel seam should be visible below the tail light.  Here is what I found:

 

 

 

The bumper was hitting to the left top of the license plate.  That hole between the plate and bumper mount is a place a magnet would not stick to the body, as the bondo is at least a half inch thick there.  The welded nut for the lower bumper bracket bolt is obviously ripped out.  I was a bit ticked off at that point and quit.  I tried to order a new rear panel online since many dealer sites showed prices for one, but they are NLA.  So I put a part request on car-part.com but no luck there either.

 

Today I decided to clear off more bondo to see just how bad it was under there.  I found a place where the filler is 3/4" thick.  UGH 

 

 

All cleared off on the drivers side looks like this:

 

As you can see the person who did the work actually did use a puller in a couple spots, but just covered over several largish holes with only bondo.  I'm pretty disgusted about it now.

 

If anyone has a parts car that would be willing to cut the rear section out and sell it to me please let me know.  Otherwise I will have to put it on the rack and pull and hammer until it gets much closer.  I'd really rather put a different panel in.

 

On a happier note I did clean and repaint the grille and grill badge.  The paint is a good match color wise, but since it is a brush on it isn't really smooth.  Much better than it was though.

 

[KELMO]

I like the red on the emblem.  I used testers model paint on mine.

[dozenhundred]

Yup, I used Testors too.  A local hobby shop has quite a selection, the red and blue are metallic and the white is just white.  I was hoping that it would come out more even but oh well.  I did the rear emblem as well.  I see there is a new rear one on ebay at the moment for $295.00?  That is insane!

[mattyhacks71]

All cleared off on the drivers side looks like this:

 

 

Seems as though you need to find somewhere that sells Bondo in bulk

[greengoon]

It's really irritating when the previous owner is a sculptor instead of a metal man. :confused:

[Eagle_Adam]

ouch, thats really pushed in.... Love the coupe tho