[fbrown]

Discussions about the Z are welcome. In Carol's case the value of the car after it's restored is irreverent. She never intends to sell the car. While the Ebay car would be a much cleaner car to start with, she only wants her car, not another one. I tried to convince her to sell the car 20 years ago with no luck. The car has great sentimental value to her, having owned it since it was new. It was her only car from 1982 to 1997. She was then forced to replace the 280ZX as her daily driver because it because unreliable after hydro locking. Fortunately it locked while cranking, but never ran the same after being repaired. She has said for years, if she ever won the lottery she would get her 280ZX restored. Of all the cars she has owned, the 280ZX is her favorite. Unfortunately the last several years of sitting under a cover have not been kind to the car. Five years ago it didn't look like it would be hard to restore, now it needs a lot. I'm not real sure if the cover actually helps.

After seeing my Lemans nearly complete, she wants her car restored to show room new or better. She wants the same quality paint job as I did on the LeMans. BTW the last paint job on the 280ZX was a basic Maaco enamel paint job.

So now I get to restore her car before I start on my next project, my 68 Eldorado will have to wait a while longer. Her car shouldn't take too long, maybe 6 months to a year. Her car looks to be an interesting project.

My budget looks like around 4-5K for the body work, paint and interior. It looks like a mixture of NOS and reproduction weather stripping will run around $1200 for the whole car, not the 2K I originally guessed. What I don't know is how much I will spend on the power train. She needs either a new long block or a complete rebuilding of the current engine. The transmission will almost certainly need rebuilding (original and never rebuilt). After sitting for 15 years, I don't even know if the engine will turn over. I don't know much about Nissan engines, but I guess I'm about to learn. Budget for engine and trans, guessing 3K.

Of course the budget is subject to change after I take the car apart. The current budget is based on the 200+ pictures I took of the car a couple of weeks ago.

I agree that another car would be cheaper to restore, but Carol would never accept that. For instance if a tree fell on her car and destroyed it, she would not want to replace it with another 280ZX.