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Dolly | Paint
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INTRODUCTION
& PHOTOS
BY
PAUL HENLEY
I bought my 240Z in September 1998. It had been stored in a garage for the last
18 years of its life. The pictures shown are of the car on the trailer taken on
the day I brought it home. The car was a non-runner but despite its pitiful appearance,
it was an ideal candidate for a restoration. Apart from the outer panels and some
very minor outer rust, the shell was pretty much rust free. The floors, inner
wings (fenders) inner rear wheel arches and most of the back panel were in excellent
condition. For a British 240z, this was something of a rare find. The car was
totally original and unmodified, it even still had the 3 of the 4 original Z hubcaps
attached.
Although
I have never attempted a car restoration (in fact very little car maintenance)
I decided I would attempt a full nut & bolt, bare metal concourse restoration.
The first two things I decided to ignore were cost and time, for I believe that
if I was to worry about either, then I would probably start to cut corners and
not accomplish what I hoped to achieve.
After
taking advice from an experienced car restorer, I decided to totally strip the
car and place the bare shell into a rotisserie rig, that would enable me to rotate
the car 360 degrees and therefore give me access to examine and strip to bare
metal, every square inch of the body. I managed to borrow such a rig, that had
been used to hold other cars for restoration and then modified it to accept the
Z body. The result was excellent, and probably has been the best decision that
I have made during whole restoration.
The
rig has been such a success that Eric Neyerlin of ZPARTS.COM and I have collaborated
to publish photo documentation of the rotisserie stand design I used in the hopes
that it may be help to other Z car restorers in designing or building their own
stands.
CAUTIONARY
DISCLAIMER
Before anyone embarks upon building and using rotisserie stands for a car restoration
project, I must stress my concern for safety. While I personally recommend this
tool, there are obvious safety points to be taken into consideration when building
and using home built tools such as illustrated in this web display of my project.
However
you construct and use a car rotisserie stand setup and/or body dollies, working
underneath a suspended car body is not without risk, and should be avoided at
all times. The idea of this rig it to give you safe access to the body, without
having to be beneath it while working.
Children
particularly should not have access to a suspended car shell or be allowed to
play near suspended body for obvious reasons.
This
rig was designed to take only the light weight of a totally stripped S30 Z car
shell, stripped of every single item, nut, bolt etc. Attempting to mount a Z car
shell with attached suspension components or any other added weight could endanger
owner, workers, friends and family.
Care
should always be taken while using or rotating such a rig. Because of height that
shell must be suspended at to allow full rotation, setup with shell mounted will
inheirently be top heavy and therefore, susceptible to tipping over during rotational
movement. Rotate slowly and with great caution.
Neither
I nor the owner of ZPARTS.COM take any responsibility for any damage to either
persons or property as a result of building or using a rig built using information
supplied on this site.
Now
that this is understood, I can not recommend this rig enough. It is a brilliant,
time and labour saver, giving the owner unprecedented ease of access and assistance
in the restoration of their car.
I
have now stripped and treated the underneath of my Z and then moved the shell
to a wooden trolley (built from timber) and tranfered it to a body shop for repainting.
When the shell is painted and returned, I will then place it back in the rotisserie
to aid the fitting of break pipes, clamps, rubbers etc.
Incidently the rig
went to the body shop with the car, so that when all the pre-painting prep work
is complete, the car can be refitted, and rotated to aid the painting of the underneath
of the car.
Most of all Eric, Thanks for doing this, It really will make
me happy to not only display this on your site, but also share my experiances
with other Z lovers
Paul Henley
Featured Project
Paul Henley's 240Z Restoration Project in England 
