Fairlady's New Shoes

DONE. Well kinda, still need some center caps and I will need to either clear the wheels or ceramic coat them to protect them... but they are on the car! 

What are they? 

Well these are a vintage Shelby Viper wheel... the style is most well known as American Racing Equipment (ARE) Libre Wheels and very popular in late 1960s and early 1970s and were run on Alpha Romeos, Datsun 510s and of course Datsun/Nissan Z race cars (240, 260, 280). 

Why am I so excited? 

I got these wheels from a couple that was parting out a 1973 Datsun 240z up in Grand Rapids, MI. I got them for a steal cause they were in fairly bad shape. Well, good enough shape that in my first year I threw a set of Falken Azenis tires on them and used them for racing... they held air, but didn't look 100%. 

Original Look

Sanding and sanding 

So over winter I moved the Azenis tires to my Shelby Cal 500 wheels... which meant it was time to restore these wheels... and man it was a project! I want to thank everyone who gave some advice, encouragement, or helped along the way. 

To Pilo over at Pilo's Body Shop for sandblasting them for me, to Jason at Luxe AutoSpa in Niles as an expert at finishing wheels for the tips and pointers on materials to buy and grits to use, my Hot Wheels customizing friend Diego for tips of polishing them, and Braxton over at Discount Tire for the deal on tires and understanding why I wanted to mount and balance them myself. 

This whole project was a labor of love... it also took team work, as I might have quit on them several times, and I think the color I planned to paint them (satin black) would have been a mistake. So what all did it take? 

First step was I clean them up. I did a light hand sanding on them, used a palm sander and realized these were going to need a little to clean up. So I had them sandblaster, in retrospect I should of only sand blasted the backs... but hey you live and learn. 

Second step was sanding... I originally started with 320 grit... and realized I had to start back at 150 grit... I used some grinding wheels to start. Then by hand at 150, 180, 220, 320, 400, 600, 800, 1000, 1500, and finished with 2000 grit... sounds like a lot of steps and it was. The first few grits I was doing about 20-30 minutes per wheel... and it got less and less and ultimately yhe 2000 grit was maybe 2-3 minutes per wheels just cleaning them up and getting them ready for polish. 

In the middle of that, at about the 400 grit mark (about 50% of sanding complete) I painted the backs of the wheels flat black. I did this on previous wheels, they look sharper longer like that and clean up from brake dust and track rubber sling easier. 

Picking Colors... Silver or Gray?

I then sanded the lips of the wheels to 2000 grit. Once I felt it was ready for polish and buffing, I taped off the lips, and painted the center of the front of the wheels. After much deliberating and advice, I settled on rattle cans from Rustoleum of a color called "Black Stainless Steel"... which is really more of a metallic dark gray and really made a nice contract with my body color and flat black bumpers. 

Then I pealed the tape and buffed the lips of the wheels... they looked great, and at that point I estimated I spent about 2.5 hours on each wheel. It was time to shop for rubber, get valve stems, and mount/balance them. I wanted to do this myself, mostly cause I didn't want the wheels scratched up on install (I ended up scratching them myself anyways...). 

Well there is the finished product... 14x5.5 Shelby Viper vintage wheels for Me and My Z. It was a labor of love, and there has been a cool sense of pride as a drive around town on my Fairladys new shoes. 

 

Bumpers, Fender Mirrors and Painting

Well, not a planned update for this year... as I wrote before my passenger side fender got all banged up in the garage over the winter. Originally I was just going to leave it, didn't want to waste fun summer driving time and potentially miss any races. Well with work, family and travel schedules... a 3-4 week window appeared and I decided to let Pilo over at Pilo's Body Shop have a crack at her. 

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie...

If you don't know the story.. google it. If you know me well, thats how I live my life... while I am doing something, might as well do it right and get some other items done as well. So a quick fender paint turned into... 

Sandblasted my Shelby Libre vintage wheels (still working on refinishing them)
New rear bumper (Skillard)
Got a new Xenon front air damn from a car club member (thats Kurt!)
Fender Mirrors (Z Car Depot)
Also painted rear deck lid, so of course also got a new deck lid cover (Skillard)

Since I didn't find a new front air damn until we had nearly finished... I splurged and ordered the Skillard.com front Type 1 Air Splitter... it was originally to help off set the sagging front spoiler (from going off at the track two years ago) and gave me an excuse to splurge. I still haven't mounted that as it is fairly extensive... 

Anyhow... the paint match on the fender, deck lid and front spoiler is awesome. Not perfect, it never is on spot repair (I skipped on blending since I want to fully rep
aint the car someday), but man its so good I bet hardly anyone will be able to tell. The best part is that Pilo let me work on the car a little, I learned some painting tips and helped with the front spoiler. 

I made some good decisions on parts, and some bad ones, let's break it down. 

Fender Mirrors - I got the grey plastic ones, they were on clearance (still are if you want a set) and I figured for the savings I can paint them black quick. However, the black ones are also now on sale, and I spent more in paint, sand paper, and time than I saved. I mean it was fun sanding, and I went above and beyond and since I had to paint, I sanded off the flashing lines (plastic mold lines) so I feel like they look more high end... but I know they are cheap, and I shoulda of just bought black ones. 

Rear Bumper - they sell it in raw aluminum, or black powder coat. I am glad I went cheaper here, cause it was easy to paint, and we ended up custom cutting a notch in the bumper near my tow hook. That would of ruined the finish on the powder coat. The real mistake here though was not buying a bumper in the first place, and trying to jury rig an old bumper that was in terrible shape to the car... that was last year and now my rear fenders look like swiss cheese. Fix that another day... the new bumper looks nice and I need to adjust them a bit but looking good. 

Okay so what is next? Well I have some autocross events, a track night at Gingerman Raceway and lots of other projects around the house and garage to get done. I need to find time to finish the rims, no real priority on that, but man I can't wait to see how she looks on vintage rims to complete the look. 

August 6th Cars and Coffee, August 11th Gingerman, then September and October autocross events... maybe sneak in a Z car show and a track day with the Corvette club... who knows. Glad to have my baby back! 

Here comes 2022

Well the 2022 season started... I got the suspension installed in the car and done barely a week before the first race. It was a labor of love... and a longer blog will be coming on what all it took to get it all installed and the work we did, but for now I wanted to note all the work that was done to the car and how she is riding. 

Z Car Depot: www.zcardepot.com
Adjustable Lower Control Arms - 800-890
Bump steering spacers - 650-259
Stainless Steel Brake Lines - 800-193

The Z Store - Motorsport Auto (MSA)
Front Street camber kit from MSA - 23-4188 
Rear Camber Adjustment Kit - 23-4171
Koni Yellow Adjustable struts - 23-1032/33
Eibach progressive springs - 23-4042
Steering Rack Bushings - 23-4151 
Steering Shaft Coupler -  23-4160

Apex Engineering - Quick Steering Knuckles - S30 280z

Techno Toy Tuning - Custom Control Arm Bolts - S30

Also new inner and outer tie rods, new lower ball joints, and tons of new bushings and new rear bearings, mostly from Z Car Depot. I did 90% of the work myself with other students at Ivy Tech Community College. I am two classes away (I think) from earning my technical certificate. 

Lot's of special thank you's to people for the help. Special thanks for all the members from the South Bend Region SCCA (SBR) who help with leads on parts, experts to help, and general encouragement. I have struck up a great new shop relationship with Direct Performance Solutions and hoping to find some time at Pilo's Body Shop to get my fender repaired... see my previous post on that poor fender. 

Want to see my baby on the track? Check the SBR Facebook page for events, hopefully I will be at most of those (fingers crossed).