Many of you will have seen the many updates on Facebook etc, but I thought it's about time I posted up here a proper update on the black Z.

 

Following the knock it had, I put everything back together but made the choice to buy a new shell as it felt like the all round best, and safest option. The welding the old one needed meant the engine would have had to come out etc anyway, Plus the rest of the car underneath was generally a bit poor.  So I bought a low mileage car which many will know as NED the ZED. Note the name Hasn't stayed!!!  The car only has like 54k miles on it.  Rust free etc so felt like a great buy.  Was a little gutted it's a Series 1 car, but I've made it a series 2 by changing the seat belt location and the aircon controls.

 

Anyway, the shell was at dasstech as he had the car from Danny.  So the decision was made to send the old one there as the new shell is being painted black before stuff gets moved over.  In essence, it will be the same car apart from the colour, which was going to be an Audi Colour known as 'Black Panther Crystal Effect'.  As Dasstech could do the mechanicals and the paint/body, it made sense for the one stop shop approach.

 

One of the side skirt were bust, so I got car.mad to repair it as they seemed real rare and very popular.  Anyway, turned out that they were proper original bonex bonneville ones which now makes sense as to never really seeing any others. I also had a stillen type III front lip to go on the car following my "make the car better" thread.

 

Fast forward a couple of years and sadly the car was not done.  Some of the shell was painted, other bits (doors, bumpers, bonnet, boot etc).  The car was taking a stupid amount of time as Dasstech had taken on more than he could cope with really and time management felt an issue.  Anyway, one thing lead to another and Darren closed Dasstech down.  He did try Andy finish the car but it was quite far off when it came back.  The bits painted originally were spot on, the bits painted later seemed to be a complete different colour black.  Seemed like 3 different blacks on the car.  2 were definitely the same colour, but different manufacturers of the paint etc so the colour and mix were just different.  The other looked more of a standard Z black.  Perhaps the right paint but not mixed before painted.  Either way it was a mess.  He did offer to take the car back to do all in one once I got it running etc.

 

Driveway Paint Job

After the car came back, there was a fair bit to do but I could find the motivation to do all the mechanical, electrical and interior when I felt the car was a bit ugly.  So, I decided I would re-paint it on the drive myself.  A few of you know I'm fairly decent at this kind of thing having painted the blue wide arch on the drive.  Anyway, it's came out spot on as I expected/hoped.  You'd never know it wasn't painted in a booth.

 

Since the above, I got the car running, had the interior redone by mondo as that was minging and black from the dusty garage.  Needed reglueing anyway but it now needed new leather too.  Fortunately I had some left from when I originally trimmed the car.  I also sorted all the nests of wiring around the stereo and thing.

 

There were loads of air leaks so found and sorted that lot out.  There is still one where a pipe is kinked but I'll sort that.

 

The car now runs really well but I will have it mapped again at some point.

 

hopefully you all think the car looks well.  Pictures about to follow

Photos of the car now

 

Edited December 28, 20195 yr by bird

Paintwork looks great in the pics to me good job [emoji106] very nice looking Zed.


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Looks great.

Wish i could get mine going again, too many issues with the engine again.

Time to start building a new garage profile then link it to your main profile so everyone can see it.

The new system is much easier to upload pictures on.

Will have a look at some point mate.  

Really loved the original rides section years ago.

Looks great mate!

Thanks Chris

Nice write up Lee, great to see ?.

3 hours ago, phutumsch said:

Nice write up Lee, great to see ?.

Thanks Andy.  Hope all is well mate