Me:
Adam, born 1983, interests include movies, cars, computers and video games.

 

Personal Information:

Married to my beautiful wife Pauline in 2013, our first child Sebastian was born in 2014 and our second child Alessia was born in 2018.

 

Current Job Employment:

Working as a Retail Team Leader (RTL) for Repco Auto Parts, currently stationed at the Roxburgh Park store since 2016.

 

300ZX Experience:

Z32 enthusiast and novice mechanic since 2006.

Model:
12/89 Japanese Domestic Model (series I) None turbo 2+2 Automatic. chassis #GZ32-003944

Build Description:
Complete 2000 model retrofit and OEM+ restoration

Mileage:
Purchased with 97,220km and when I began this build project, the car had reached 190,483km

Body Colour:
OEM Metallic Silver (Paint Code: #673). resprayed in 2012 in same Metallic Silver.

 

Bodykit:
Complete OEM 2000 model body styling retrofit.

 

Engine Type:

OEM 3.0 Litre V6 2960 cc (Code: VG30DE) original engine.

 

Transmission Type:
Purchased with 4 Speed Automatic (Code #re4r01a). Replaced in 2007 and then replaced again in 2017

 

Interior Colour:

Purchased with original Grey Tweed (Code #G), retrofitted with OEM Blue Velour (series II) interior 2012.

Arrival modifications:
NOS Sticker on interior rear view mirror, otherwise bone stock fresh import from Japan.

Bad parts on arrival:
Cracked front bumper bar, plenty of minor scratches and marks on OEM body paint work, badly rusted battery tray, damaged drivers seat side bolster, missing OEM scissor jack and tool kit, no OEM stereo installed and the dashboard had the common lifted demister vent damage

Date of purchase:
September 2006

 

Build Project Start Date:

January 2012 to November 2021

Build Budget:
For Parts the budget was unlimited from 2007-2012 (estimated spend was around $60k-$70k)

 

For paint/bodywork the budget was strictly $5k no more.

 

Between 2012 to 2021 the budget for the build had diminished to almost nothing, with only essential repairs and general maintenance allowed to be spent on the car.

 

 

 

My 300ZX’s Story:

The 300zx was been a car that I fell in love with back in 1997 after playing the original Gran Turismo video game on my PlayStation gaming console as a young 14 year old, with the car’s stunning futuristic aerodynamic body styling being the biggest factor of why I love the 1990 Nissan 300ZX Z32 model.

 

 

In 2006 after several years of looking, I finally found an affordable 1989 Nissan 300ZX Z32 to buy in a none turbo 2+2 automatic configuration which had recently been imported into Australia that same year from Japan. I purchased the car for $7550, and it was the biggest day in my life up to that point and I remember having the biggest smile on my face the whole trip home as I was thrilled to finally own my very own Nissan 300ZX.

 

 

Over the next 5 years of ownership, I learned a great deal about the ins and outs regarding the Nissan 300ZX and the community that supports it. I attended many community events including tech days and several victorian based car cruises to places like the Great Ocean Road and the Goldfields to name a few. Over those 5 years I  have also had the pleasure of meeting a great many amazing and passionate Z32 owners who like me love this car for what it is, a great and unquie japanese sports car. I am glad to have meet them and they will always be life friends to me.

 

 

When I purchased my nissan 300ZX, I quickly developed a desire to not just restore my 300zx over time but I also wanted to upgrade it to that of the latest 300ZX model Nissan had ever produced, that being the 2000 Version R 300ZX model sold only in Japan, and are an uncommon sight to see here in Australia and still to this day. 

 

 

 

To complish my goal I spent 10's of thousands of dollars sourcing and collecting brand new, rare and optional OEM 300ZX Z32 parts from the United States and Japan over the span of 4 years in an attempt to create the world’s first fully optional Nissan 300ZX that could have ever existed.

 

 

In 2012 I had to begin the build phase of the project ahead of sechdule as my partner and I were in the process of organising our wedding day and honeymoon events that following year and so in order for me to help out with paying for some parts of the wedding, I stopped my part sourcing efforts and began the complex task of planning out the dismantling and reassembling phase of the project.

 

It took me 12 months of hard work to strip down my car and then reassemble it using all of the new and used parts that I had been sourcing over the last 4 years to make it as close to a 2000 special edition model as I could. I was extremely proud of the amazing work my Dad and I had accomplished with the build and I brought the car to its first official outing on the 2012 GOR cruise and the response from the community was very positive and lots of intrigue.

 

 

After 2012, my new and improved daily driver was driven as much as possible, almost everyday. The car collected over 100,000 kms after 10 years of driving and though the car was basically finished, I still managed to find more and more rare and optional parts as the years past by and depending on finances new additions to the car we installed but the car remained as is for last 11 years or so.

 

My 300ZX’s Big Accident 2021:

 

My 300ZX's Big Crash 2021 (Part 1) #shorts #300zx

 

My 300ZX's Big Crash 2021 (Part 1) #shorts #300zx

 

Rebuild Project Start Date:

November 2021 - ongoing

 

Rebuild Budget:

Insurance payout was $8k after the accident, but the budget has since blown out to an additional $2k with more finances required to complete the rebuild.

 

Rebuild Project Plans:

Obliviously the main goal of the rebuild is to get the car back to a drivable state and repair the damage, so the car will look like it did before the accident occured. I also feel this is a golden opportunity for me to continue finishing off my original build project that I never really finished back in late 2012.

Will be interesting to follow along and see all your option parts!

4 hours ago, Peage said:

Will be interesting to follow along and see all your option parts!

Thanks mate, im in the process of converting my original thread picture base build journel into video format so progress might be slow at first but hopefully ill get a rythm going and be able to post on a regular basis.

Rebuilding my Nissan 300ZX (Part 1) 2022

 

 

 

Rebuilding my Nissan 300ZX (Part 2) 2022

 

Rebuilding my Nissan 300ZX (Part 3) 2022

 

Rebuilding my Nissan 300ZX (Part 4) 2022

 

Rebuilding my Nissan 300ZX (Part 5) 2022

 

 

Rebuilding my Nissan 300ZX (Part 6)

 

 

Rebuilding my Nissan 300ZX (Part 7)

 

 

PROGRESS REPORT JANUARY 2024

Ok everyone, after 2ish years of working on this rebuild project, I have found that producing video content around my rebuild project's developments has become alot more difficult and time consuming to make then I anticpated and though I really wanted to push purely video content on this rebuild project thread, I have started to feel recently that not posting anything for more then 6 months now, is denying eveyone in this community the chance to enjoy the fruits of my labour and have something interesting to look and read about regarding not just my rebuild project but 300zx information in general. 

So as of now I will be changing things up a little bit and trying to make monthly progress reports to keep everyone up to date with whats happening with my car and the rebuild project in general.

As it is early into 2024 I will be starting these progress report blogs from January onwards and hopefully later in the future, when I get a handle on making video content I can then put my entire build project and rebuild project  into video format like I am planning but for now I have plenty of information and photos to share for the month of January.

To begin with it has been roughly 6ish months at the start of January of barely any developments going on with the rebuild. Though I have been ordering parts here and there, I havent really been actively progressing the project myself much more then I would have liked as I have been waiting for my Dad to finish off the paniting process of the rebuild as he has been able to dedicate alot more of his time and skills to progressing that side of the project for me all while I am still working a full time job and living 40 minutes away from my Dad's place.

However with a new year now upon me, I was determined to get this car project moving again and I made myself a bold new years goal 'to have the car back on the road by the end of June 2024". I was confident that with the painting process now 'almost' complete, all I had to do was reassemble the car back together again and enjoy Zedding from here on out.

So the first thing I wanted to do was begin test fitting several parts and setups of parts to see how they all go together on the car, I also wanted to begin grouping and storing all related parts together so when I go to reassemble those parts back onto the car, I will have everything needed for those parts to be installed including fasteners, clips you name it and while I was figuring this out, I realised I needed to break down everything into more managable groups of parts so I dont go off into tangents trying to figure out what goes with what.

Thats when I began a process of photo archieving parts per each section found on the Nissan Parts Fiche which has helped me lock down a more efficient flow process for organising all of my parts and storing them together, but more on that later.

PAINTING PROCESS JANUARY UPDATE

With the painting process probably the biggest process of rebuilding my car back together again it has been a slow process to complete to say the least. But after 6 months or so, my Dad has finally reached a point where the paint work is 'mostly' finished with all required panels primed, basecoated and cleared. All that is left to do now is wet sanding and polishing to a high gloss finish.

The first set of photos sent by my Dad to me, were of his initial attempts of wet sanding the bonnet with 2000 grit sand paper. 

After a few hours of work the orange peeled surface of the bonnet was now more smooved out and showing a much higher glossy finish as you can see in the below photos.

Currently the wet sanding process has come to a hault while my Dad works on other projects but its a start at least.

Following that, one weekend I decided to do a test fit of the newly painted 2000 model side skirts to compare the colour match with the respray paint from 2012.

As you can see the colour match is close maybe a little lighter in shade compared to the quarter panel but it will be fine and I will no longer have chipped or bubbling paint marks on the side skirts moving forward.

The side skirts do need additional work with regards to the mounting tabs where 80% of the factory tabs popped off during the removal process. I will tackle this issue at later date.

HORN & EARLY STYLE HORN COVERS (SEC-253) JANUARY UPDATE

So after months of storing my one and only OEM early style horn cover, I decided it was time to start figure out how this part acutally mounts to the front frame rail, as my car never came with these covers installed from the factory. Not only was I curious to see how the cover would look in its oem location on the car but I was wanting to see if there would be any sort of clearance issues with other parts like the 2kspec front bumper bar and the 2kspec intercooler ducts I was also planning to test fit on the day.

Looking through the Nissan FAST Parts Fiche illustration on Section-253, the oem horn covers don't actually include part codes for any of the factory mounting hardware for the covers but I did managed to find in my vast array of oem fasteners, 4 suitable sized M6x1.0 screw's to allow me to mount the cover onto its oem factory mounting location. 

I first fitted the cover using the upper mounting point on the frame rail. With the cover now loosely in place, I realised I was missing an additional lower mounting point for the cover to secure it fully to the frame rail.

So after some digging through old build threads on the 300zxclub forums website, I was able to discover what parts I was missing from this setup and it turns out I had found these parts a few weeks ago, amongest the bolt box my Dad used to put all of the old parts he had taken off of the car back in 2022 when both he and I removed the damaged front bumper bar after the accident happened. Because of this I was now able to know where these 2 random brackets actually mount onto the car which was a lucky break for me.

After installing these 2 additional lower brackets, the OEM setup for the horn cover was now complete and I do like the cover in place even though I suspect that the installation of the 2kspec front bumper bar will probably block the appearance of the cover anyways.

Following the install of the horn cover I then continued with the test fitting of the 2kspec intercooler ducting setup which when fitted in conjuction with the horn cover, did indicate contact between the ducting and horn cover ever so slightly.  However I don't believe this minor contact will cause any massive issues with the fitment of the 2kspec front bumper bar when both items are installed together.

2000 INTERCOOLER DUCTING & CARBON CANISTER VACUMM HOSES (SEC-640) JANUARY UPDATE

Another item I have been sitting on for quiet some time now, is the 2000 model intercooler ducting setup. Believe it or not but all of the series 6 (1998 - 2000) TT & NA models came fitted from the factory with new designed intercooler ducting to go with the new series 6 front bumper bar redesign. The twin models would of course have the ducts mounted directly onto the factory side mounted intercooler assemblies underneath the headlights. 

whereas The NA models would also have these same ducts fitted in the same location but instead of having side mounted intercooler assemblies to mount to, the ducts would have to mount onto a pair of brackets to simulate the mounting points of the factory side mounted intercooler assemblies.

I actually discovered this 2kspec ducting setup randomly while researching on the 300zx.co.uk forums website where I found this photo posted by a uk owner who acutally owns a real 2000 NA model car several years ago, first showcasing me this discovery.

With the ductings existance on my future plans list and with the additional funds used from the accident payout, I was finally able to acquire all of the parts needed for this setup to go ahead during the rebuild, expect for one bracket which i'll get onto later. Again using the Nissan FAST parts fiche illustration and the above photo evidence I able to assemble and test the ducting setup onto my car.

As expected the setup fits perfectly and I am really happy with the new ducting which wont just provide a little bit of air flow directing through the smaller lower mouth openings on either side the 2kspec front bumper bar but also provide coverage for some of parts located where the ducts are mounted. The only issue I have to solve in the future is the fact that the outer bracket for the duct to mount on the other side of the car is apparantely now discontinued from nissan japan and so my current solution is for my Dad and I to fabricate a bracket to replace the discontinued one in the future.

AIR GUIDE & FRONT LOWER ENGINE SPLASH GUARDS (SEC-747) JANUARY UPDATE

Early on in my part acquisition efforts for the rebuild, Z1 motorsports released their new all alluminum front and rear engine undershrouds to allow 300zx owners to replace their original plastic factory undershrouds with a more modern alloy varient. As you all know, I had already replaced both my original undershrouds or engine splash guards back in 2012 with brand new units and within 10 years of everyday use, the plastic guards have already started to deteriorate especially the rear guard which had collected a small amount of power steering fluid from a minor power steering leak I have had for a few years now. 

So when I saw this product on Z1 motorsports website, I jumped on the opportunity to purchase a set of these new undershrouds and upgrade my original setup with a new all alloy one.

https://www.z1motorsports.com/z1-products/z1-motorsports/z1-300zx-z32-aluminum-undershroud-p-27826.html

I ended going with the full front and rear undershroud kit in a anodized black finish and today I will be comparing the new Z1 guards with my original ones in an effort to see what differences there are between the oem and Z1 guards but to also figure what what factory parts from the oem guards can fit onto the new Z1 guards like the lower foam support on the 2kspec front bumper bar.

After setting up all of the splash guards together, I was able to see clearly and compare the differences between the oem guards and the Z1 alloy varients. I was very pleased with the look of the new guards which look more modern and stylish with additional vents for better air flow and all of the mounting holes line up with the oem guards so I see no issues with fitting these new gaurds to my car.

However the foam support panel I mention above can not fit onto these new guards as the raised mounting points for the support is not included on the front guard and there is no way to make the support fit which is a bummer. Also the anodized finish seems to collect fingers and stains really easily for some reason but that is the extent of the negatives ive found so far.

Ultimately I can't wait to install these undershrouds to my car and I expect them to last the life of the car compared to the oem guards.
 

RADIATOR, TRANS COOLER, COOLANT OVERFLOW & AUXILIARY FAN (SEC-214) JANUARY UPDATE

The one thing that is really keeping my car at the moment from moving under its own power is the fact that I have removed the radiator from the engine bay. This was done so that the radiator core support could be repaired and repainted and as of the end of this month, the core support is now fully repaired and painted thanks to my Dad and I could in theory put the radiator back into the car at any time that I wanted but the fact is I sold my PWR radiator in the middle of 2023 as I had been wanting to ditch the expensive all alloy radiator in favor of a factory style raidator for a long time now due to several reason, including that the PWR radiator was missing several of the mounting holes for the oem fan shroud and that the PWR radiator also came fitted with a smaller sized diameter hose outlet for the overflow bottle just to name a few.

Luckily for me I had actually purchased a brand new replacement radiator back in 2010 from CZP which was a Koyo aftermarket replacement radiator which has been sitting in storage since then as I had decided to go with the PWR alloy radiator instead of the koyo and I was planning to sell the koyo radiator at some point, luckily i hadnt and now I will be using this radiator as my main replacement for the rebuild.

The funny thing is it turns out this is not infact a 300ZX Z32 specific replacement radiator and is actually listed as a 1989-1994 Nissan Maxima J30 radiator part number A1242. 

Even though its not listed as a 300zx radiator, everything looks be to in the same place as the oem 300zx radiator from my photo archieves would suggest and so I test fitted a couple of cooling related parts for the radiator including the upper and lower Z1 silicone radiator hoses and the replacement oem fan shroud just see to see if everything would fit correctly which thankfully for me it did.

Now what I found during the mockup test fit of everything was that the koyo radiator was missing the side mounting holes for the oem 300zx fan shroud and that the upper radiator tank was missing the oem air bleeding screw found on the 300zx radiator along with a basic drain cock design compared to that of the 300zx setup.

Even with these issues mention, I should be able to make new holes for the mounting points for the fan shroud, I should also be able to swap over the drain cocks from one radiator to another and the air bleeding screw is more of a convenience option for a bleeding a radiator then a nessecity.

However I would like to compare my original oem radiator with the koyo unit side by side just to see a complete comparions before continuing with the radiator install back into the car.

PARTS ACQUIRED DURING THE MONTH OF JANUARY

So this month I actually recieved a couple of rare emblems or badges mainly for the new nose panel setup Im going with for the rebuild. I was not expecting to find either of these badges avaliable to purchase but i just happen to be in the right place at the right time i guess.

OPTIONAL GOLD / RED Z BADGE

First up is the extremely rare and very hard to find optional Gold/Red Z badge for the front nose panel of the car, which i didnt even now existed until only a couple of years ago thanks to a blog post from a good friend of mine in the US name John and his project website. Like myself John has a desire to acquire as many rare and optional parts as he can and document his discoveries on his website. He was actually able to acquire one of these rare badges brand new from nissan and compare the differences between all of the Z badges released for the 300ZX in Japan.

For more information: https://z32enjoytheride.wordpress.com/2014/11/25/post-29-jdm-nose-panel-and-emblems

Anyways so while searching through yahoo auctions, I found a listing for a person selling a bright yellow nose panel with one of these rare badges on it and so as gift from my wife for christmas, I bid on the item and won the auction, but I was still unsure at the time if the badge was a true gold / red badge and I would have to wait until it arrive to know for sure.

Thankfully after several weeks of waiting when it finally did arrived and I pulled the panel out of the box I was pleasently surprised to find out that the badge was 100% a real gold/red Z badge and I was over the moon to say the least. Now all i had to do was figure out how to remove it from the nose panel it was mounted to without breaking it, more on that later.

STILLEN SMZ BADGE

Following the purchase of the rare gold/red badge from Japan, I also brought a set of reproduction "SMZ" stillen badges, which I found on ebay in the US of all places. 

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/266571724026?itmmeta=01HRJV62BW1N8C0ZTZGECKA42R&hash=item3e10e9b4fa:g:kZAAAOSwR2Nix1L3

These badges were part of the body kit setup for the Stillen 25th anniversary SMZ models in the US domestic market but not found on the australian market models. The badges were placed in two locations one being found on the lower right hand corner of the front nose panel with the other located underneath the left hand tail light.

Now im sure your thinking to yourself why would I want to add this badge to my car and the reason I am getting these is for the sole purpose of restoring my original SMZ nose panel back to its original factory SMZ setup which would include this badge being mounting on the lower right hand corner of the nose panel. I know my car is not a true SMZ model but if I was to have purchase this panel off of a real SMZ 300ZX back in the day when they were sold new, I would have expected this badge to have came included on the nose panel and I want to reproduce that option as best I can. I will not be installing the rear badge just the front one.

All in all a very exciting set of parts I was able to purchase this month and I am very eager to see how these 2 badges along with the new smz louvered nose panel are going to change and enhance the aggressive look of my new front end one day.

Thanks for the updates Adam and great work mate.

17 hours ago, Gaz 300 said:

Thanks for the updates Adam and great work mate.

My pleasure gaz, I will try and post a February progress report by the end of the week with even more exciting developments and information from my progress on the rebuild project, so stay tuned..

Enjoying seeing the progress and the sweet parts!

4 hours ago, Peage said:

Enjoying seeing the progress and the sweet parts!

Your welcome Peage, but there is plenty more where those parts came from trust me. I have made it my mission with this car to find as many of the 300zx's rarest and optional parts as I can over the past 15+ years or so and I can't wait to show everyone what I've not just collected but actually installed onto my car.

 

It's what drives my passion for this car and if that passion and excitement can inspire other z owners then it was all worth the journey of discovery in my eyes.

Thanks for taking the time to write up an amazingly detailed blog Adam - all credit to you.

PROGRESS REPORT FEBRUARY 2024

February was a huge month for the rebuild project and I was able to get a ton of work done when compared to that from January. First I was able to get further along with progress on a couple of sections that I have already touch on from last month, bringing those sections closer to completion. I also made big improvements with my part cataloguing process's for each section and I also made some very interesting and exciting discoveries on a couple of parts which I hope you guys might like to see.
 

2000 MODEL NA INTERCOOLER DUCTING UPDATES (PART 2)

Continuing on from last months update on the successful test fitting of the 2000 model intercooler ducting setup, I still had one major issue to address to allow me to install both sets of the intercooler ducting pieces onto either side of the front of the car. The problem I had was that according to my contact in Japan, Nissan have offically discontinued the outer most L shaped bracket (Part code 14486U) and though I was lucky to have been able to buy the very last unit of these brackets brand new from Nissan Japan in 2022, sourcing a second unit was now going to be near impossible feat to do, unless I could find another bracket on the second hand market in Japan through websites like yahoo auctions.

After several weeks of searching the used market in Japan, I found no one selling one of these bracket used and so the only option I felt I had left to do, was for me to somehow fabricate a new replacement bracket from scratch. Obliviously the first person I went to to ask for help was of course my Dad, who after showing him the bracket and detailing out to him my plans he said to me "yup, no problems" and so off to work he went to fabricate this bracket for me and the rebuild project.

I wont go into full details on the process involved that my Dad went through to make this bracket up for me, as I did film alot of the work he did of the making of this bracket and I think the footage would be better suited for showcasing in a future youtube video at some point down the line. 

But needles to say after about an hour of hard work, this is the result of my Dad's amazing efforts to reproduce this special bracket for me and I was over the moon as you could imagine.

A quick test fit was also done just to double check that the new bracket would mount onto the car exactly like the oem bracket did and the result was pretty much spot on.

All in all, I was very happy with the new bracket but it wasn't 100% finish just yet, as I still need to clean up the unit, do some de-rusting and I of course I need to paint the bracket in a glossy black chassis paint to match the oem bracket look as much as possible.
 

CARBON CANISTER RESTORATION (PART 1)

During the testfit mockup of the intercooler ducting setup, I couldn't help but notice several times how digustingly dirty my OEM carbon cansiter was and I just couldnt stop the feeling that I needed to do something about it and so once I had finished work on the intercooler ducts, I began the process of removing the carbon canister off of my car which will be the first time I will be attempting this removal procedure.

Turns out that removing the carbon canister off of the frame rail is actually quite easy to do all things considered. I first had to disconnect all of the factory rubber vacumm hoses attached to the canister via 3 hose ports on the top of the canister and one larger hose port at the bottom of the canister.

Following the removal of all of the vacumm hoses, I then loosen the mounting brackets holding clamping for the canister which then allowed me to slide the canister out and away from the body of the car.

All that was left to do now was to remove the carbon canisters mounting bracket itself off of the frame rail.

With the canister now removed, I had all of the access I would ever need to thoroughly clean and prepare the frame rail before the reassembly process could begin and I was so glad to have overcome my fear of removing the carbon canister off of my car.

Oh and I also made sure to cap off all of the hardlines that the carbon canister's vacumm hoses were connected to on the car. I didnt want any kind of debris or insects making their way into the pipes while the car sits outside for the next few months or so.

[img][/img]

Once I got everything home, I then began the restoration process for the carbon canister and all of the related hardware that was attached to the canister before it was removed.

BEFORE

AFTER

The carbon canister came out looking almost brand new again but some of the rubber vacumm hoses where damaged during the removal process and I'll have to look into replacing them at some point, maybe even upgrade them. The mounting bracket is going to take alot more effort to restore it back to new again. The badly damaged containmated painted surface along with paint chipping and rust forming in some areas will require me to have to strip the bracket down to bare metal and remove all of the rust before it can be repainted again.

OEM AIR GUIDE PANEL RESTORATION & INSTALLATION DISCOVERY

Another part that needed some restoration work done on it was the oem air guide panel which sits between the reo bar and air fitler housing and as you could imagine after 10+ years the plastic panel was looking quite dirty and dull looking. 

My thorougher cleaning and coating process really did bring this part back to almost brand new condition again, which I really do enjoy seeing old parts being restored instead of them just being replacing if possible.

The next hurdle I needed to figure out now was how this panel correctly mounts back onto the car? You see its been almost 7+ years since I've had this panel fitted to the car in its original factory location and all I could remember of its mounting location was that it roughly mounts between the front reo bar and the air filter housing assembly.

In order for me to figure this out I basically had to lay the reo bar, air guide panel and air filter housing out on the ground and line up the mounting points until I ended up with this.

Even though it was a simple problem to figure out in the end, the funny thing is I was actually really excited to solve this myself and it really did help boost my motivation to continue pushing through with this rebuild, so ill take all the little victories I can when they come along.

FRAME RAIL LOWER MOUNTING BRACKET RESTORATION

Next we have a pair of lower mounting brackets for the front frame rails which I featured in the horn cover update blog from last months progress report. 

After giving the brackets a good clean up, I noticed a few little issues that need addressing. There was some silver paint overspray present on the brackets as well as a little bit of paint chipping and possibly some surface rust present on the exposed metal parts.

To bring these brackets back up to newish condition again, I first strip all of the old factory paint off of the bracket and then soaked the brackets in evaporust to removal all of the hidden surface rust I found that had formed under the factory black paint coating, leaving me with a pair of bare metal brackets ready for a coat of gloss black chassis paint.