Z Club of NZ Forum

Left front guard. This is a replica guard, I think made in Taiwan. I got from Dave Turner. Needed a little work as below to fit correctly.

and some more work on the left rear. Thankfully I have a NOS one for the right side!

Amazing skills!

right side boot floor replacement.

Drivers side floor in

Meanwhile in the shed at home, have degreased most of my suspension, sand blasted and painted

that was a fun afternoon...

Absolutely Fantastic. I just love this build. That is absolutely real craftmanship. I started my panel beating apprenticeship in 1971 and we did a little bit of that sort of thing, Cars knew how to rust back then. Still remember making Mini rear qtr panels at Tech and we even made a Morris Minor front door skin. But the art slowly got lost. I remember that we would spend 2 days repairing a door, unpick the skin, repair the frame and skin then refit the door skin. We would then leed up any of the of the last dents.

Then Bog came along and the prices of parts came down, labour costs went up and it all finished. Panel beating was an absolute art form, It has lost some of that now but you still need talent it do real good repairs, reparability and technology have changed the game. When I was in the trade some 10 years ago managing workshops the real problem was the insurance companies dictating to the repairers, I felt then and still do now that the good tradesman deserve a lot more coin for their expertise but we were unable to pay it. This lead to a drop in quality of apprentices, Most of our tradesman where imported from overseas. I still remember doing video interviews with people in the UK.

Over time we saw this fabrication side of things slow down as it was hard to find people to do it, but nowadays we have more and more of it, without the restrictions of the insurance companies there is a general resurgence, Some of the restorers are are now training young people up in this nearly forgotten art form.

My thanks for these posts, they are a good insight to not only how bad a good looking car can be, but also to the fabrication work being carried out. For me as an older former Panel Beater its a pleasure to see. Please keep the posts coming.

It is fantastic to see that level of craftsmanship.
I guess the scary part is comtemplating the cost !
There must be many, many hours involved.

Thank you for the posts, very interesting read, this is a level above restore jobs i have seen so far eg. YouTube.
Keeping the recessed/bulges? (not sure this is the correct term) on the panels is very impressive. Other restos I have seen would keep it flat and simple not recreate these beautys.

Hi Everyone, I've been negligent! its been a very long time since I've posted anything sorry. Work has been going on so I'll post some pictures showing that. just have to figure out how to do it again...... this post is a bit of a test.

Ok that seemed to work, so here's some more.
The front right hand side has had a bit of a knock at some time leaving some wrinkles in the radiator support panel and bonnet hinge mounting area.
So I imported this kit, from England, Auto Panel Solutions.
The blokes name is Andy Plant, email andy@nidd.net I think he is a bit of a one man band, doesn’t have a web page but here’s a link to his facebook where there is more photos of all the panels he makes. He is a good bloke to deal with.

https://www.facebook.com/Auto-Panel-Sol ... e_internal

Yes the shape of the holes in the inner lower radiator mount are round rather than oval but I don't mind.

kfvintagejdm continue to increase their range of replacement parts and now do a radiator support kit too that has oval holes......
https://kfvintagejdm.com/shop/datsun/ra ... pport-kit/

and here's a whole heap of photos from about Jan to May,

Back end pictures of the car and Rowan. A lot of work to align the tail light surrounds correctly.

Pictures from June