My 240sx Is Finally Going To The Beauty Parlor

[Solar]

Decided to keep the 240 and bring her back to her stock trim form, though keeping the springs, aluminum flywheel, aluminum drive shaft, and electric fans. Went through the trans, engine and interior earlier this year, so now it’s time for paint, keeping the stock black color. Been searching for OEM rubber trim pieces and misc trim pieces for almost a year now, and they’ve been a pain to find, and when you do find them, you pay a premium for them. Got it all tore down over the weekend and got it into the shop today, hopefully in a couple weeks I will post finished pics.

[Solar]

Body shop is getting on it. Solid car, very minor rust issue in the spare tire well, but zero structural rust or rot.

[Loren]

[Solar]

Thanks. I’m pretty excited. First time I’ve had a car completely repainted.

[Tim_M]

Will be quite a transformation...staying black? I'd think a challenging color for body men.

[AScoda]

I bet that daily you will be asked "Do you want to sell that?
So rare to see one of these in such stock condition.

Miata is in the shop now as well. Getting door fixed and painting whole car.
Shop guy also wants to buy my Mustang. Might do.

[Solar]

Will be quite a transformation...staying black? I'd think a challenging color for body men.

Yup, staying black, it does tend to show bad body work work, but I have faith they will do a good job. It’s not going to be perfect, we couldn’t remove the rear window for fear of cracking it, a rear coupe window is a unicorn, and the quarter windows are bonded in, so there will have to be some carful sanding and taping involved. Had to order the bumper extensions from Japan because the old ones crumbled taking them off, and that’s the only place you can find OEM ones. We’re also replacing the both door hinge pins and bushings, and they’re taking their sweet time getting here too.

I bet that daily you will be asked "Do you want to sell that?
So rare to see one of these in such stock condition.

Miata is in the shop now as well. Getting door fixed and painting whole car.
Shop guy also wants to buy my Mustang. Might do.

Drew, I can bring you the hood if you feel like sanding off all the tacky paint that’s embedded with cat hair and weeds from Brooksville Oh yeah, I forgot about your Miata boo boo, nice that you’re having the whole car painted. I just can’t picture you without ol’ Blueish, you have had that car a long time.

[AScoda]

Yeah, I know, right?
Finally got it all running strong. I don't really need two toys though.
It's been a surprisingly good hauler with the large hatch area. Will need to replace that.
Thinking of a used Mazda 5. Car-like enough for wife, but some needed utility.

[Solar]

The Mazda 5 is pretty nice, they’re a lot bigger than they look. Mazda has really upped their game and making them a bit more luxurious in standard trim compared to others.

[Solar]

Received all the NOS OEM window door trim and trunk lid trim, took some time to find, stuff isn’t cheap anymore. Found some second hand side light markers too. The big score was finding a real OEM NOS “240SX” rear emblem, they only made them for the coupe. Also found a new “Nissan” front bumper emblem too.

[Native]

Awesome!

[aw614]

The parts availability on a ton of the popular 90s era Japanese cars is becoming a huge pain in the ass. Not surprised you've had issues finding NOS parts for your 240sx.

[Solar]

The parts availability on a ton of the popular 90s era Japanese cars is becoming a huge pain in the ass. Not surprised you've had issues finding NOS parts for your 240sx.

Even finding used parts is getting tough, I've been dealing with a guy that basically has a 240sx salvage yard and he says all his cars are pretty much picked clean. Though he was able to find all the spare tire tools I needed and even sent me a very rare set of Nissan folding wheel safety caulks that I never even knew existed. Might just hang those on the wall in the man cave

[Tim_M]

The search is part of the fun, no? Just like it was for the muscle car era when they became popular (now most parts are available...thanks to China).

Keep the pics coming - fun watching it come together.

[Solar]

The 240 is coming along pretty well, have a little issue with the used replacement rear bumper cover, turns out someone has already tried to use bondo and sand it, and they did a shit job and its pretty wavy, so we're going to see if they can salvage the original bumper cover that has some pitting and a slight dent. Drew will either be happy or bummed, but all the cat hair, sawdust and weeds have been removed from my previous mighty rattle can paint job failure on the hood and fenders.

Tim, you asked for more pics and I shall do so. Got the "hopefully" last order of OEM parts I needed, found both headlight surround bezels, hood gasket trim, hinge pins and bushings, trunk trim clips, and actual fender liner clips.



One of the main reasons I decided to do this job, is the shop lets me work on my car and help out, not only do I save some $$$ but its nice to see the progress. I replaced the hinge pins and bushings on the drivers door, it was a pain, the lower bushing wasn't budging, but the guys helped me take the door off and they had some specialty tools to make the job easier (old wood 6 x 6 blocks lol). Took about an hour but got it done and the door shuts like butter with the new pins and brass bushings.



The body work overall is looking really good, shut lines look great, the only panel on the whole car that didn't need attention was the fuel door, they're really putting a lot of time into it.









I wasn't able to find the rear "NISSAN" sticker or the "SE" sticker (that I turned into a "SC" sticker for "Super Coupe") but my guy has a graphics guy that nailed the reproduction

[Solar]

Should start seeing paint by the end of next week !!!!

[Solar]

Found out my rear emblem was the wrong color, instead of silver it was charcoal black, the silver ones only came on the black coupe so they’re impossible to find. My only option was to paint the new one silver, got some SEM plastic bumper paint, prepped the surface of the emblem and painted it. It was pretty nerve wracking because those emblems are $50, though after a deep breath, I was able to get 2 coats on it. I think it came out really well. Hopefully when we install it the transfer tape doesn’t rip the new paint off.

[Native]

[Tim_M]

Looks OEM!

[Dave-ROR]

Damn, looking good Brian!