I'm David and I am now the owner of the S31 Fairlady Z project which was advertised on Trademe recently:
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Browse/Listing ... =979689256
I joined the forum a number of years ago as I have been interested in the S30 chassis for a long time now, and while other opportunities to own a classic Z have come and gone, I decided this time around that I wouldn't miss out.
I figure that when you have an opportunity to chase a dream, then why not go for it.
As I had secured the car, I finally made the trip from Wellington to Auckland with my best friend Richard over the weekend to collect the car and some other parts which I also purchased off Kingsley.
First pic of me and my new Z
Arriving to pick up the vehicle, I was greeted with the rear end of another Z for repair purposes. I guess this is what happens when you buy sight unseen.
The car from the TM pics looks relatively clean with straight panels and some visible rust. In conversation with Kingsley about rust noted usual problem areas, but the actual rust issue is more than I had expected, but not entirely unexpected either. Hey, Kingsley called it true in the auction: 'If what you see in the photos isn't you then don't waste my time'.
Anyway after getting the car on the trailer and negotiating some other parts he had for sale, we made our way back down to Wellington.
Went through lots of fuel, took a while to travel down, but was a good journey nonetheless as we got back safely and without issue.
On the journey back
So what are my plans you may ask?
Well, I am on the tail end of an 8 year resto-mod of a 1990 Celica GT-Four A. This project has been the focus of my car modification endeavours with a lot of my learning and ideas being developed and taking shape with this vehicle. A lot has been learnt over the years with respect to projects and cars, and with a fair appreciation of schedules and expectations. I’ve started my planning and budget, and isn’t looking pretty from a financial perspective haha.
Initially I plan to store the Z for around 6 months as I will be finishing up some other projects and finalising the GT-Four project.
Then the hard yards will start with the Z in the shell/rust repairs before moving to engine selection, installation and start.
As the Z is well documented in terms of modifications and repair, I’ll be purchasing mostly off the shelf parts, as I don’t want to waste time ‘re-inventing’ solutions or spending excessive time doing DIY modifications. My GT-Four project has taken a lot longer as I have tried to find ‘better’ solutions or parts which have fitted my budget / income so this time around, I’m not going to bother being overly cheap about modifying a car.
Also, this project will be well planned with many parts/components considered up front, prior to purchase. Once the plan is locked in, then I won’t be deviating unless absolutely necessary.
So where to next? Get the car in to storage and take a stock take of parts which came with the car. Then possibly look for various replacement panels once the shell evaluation has been done and continue to plan and save until I’m ready to start. I may do shell / rust repairs in parallel with the GT-Four as we know that this is time consuming. I will mostly outsource this work as I don’t have a heap of time to spend on learning how to do the metal work, though I am happy welding angle grinders, wielding my tig torch and creating things, so I may tackle some of the shell repair.
Finally, I’m not a purist and this car will be a resto-mod. I’m not in to bodgy repairs or solutions, so I won’t do bad bad things, but also won’t do a restoration project.
I give fair warning as I know this can always be a touchy subject.
If you have any questions or want to know some info, let me know. Happy to answer any and all questions. I don’t expect this project to be wrapped in secrets and mystery.
Hard work is ahead and I’ll be asking questions along the way as well, and most likely the first questions will be - where can I find xxx panel to repair my shell... haha
Cheers, Dave
