240Z: Hood tension rods in and weld repair attempt

The repeating theme of this build is definitely “two steps forward, one step back”. Whenever i start to work on something, i realize there is much more work required than expected. Remember that nasty weld on the LH Door upper front in the previous post? I thought it just needs a bit of an attack with an angle grinder and some rust protectino primer. Well – once i started grinding, i realized it was a pretty cheap repair from the past, and once some of the covering layers were ground down completely, rust appeared underneath. So it seems like it was just a simple “patch-up” work rather then a proper repair. It’s just a small area and i expect it to be no big deal for the bodyshop to fix, but yeah, another small little area with an hour or two of paid labour required. Even if it’s only a small area, which most people wouldn’t be able to see, it would hurt my heart to just leave it like that. Also it would be just a matter of years before rust bubbles appear in that area. so better fix it now!

I kept up my motivation and decided to install the hood tension rods instead (yeah, i thought i’ll sand them only before they go to the paintshop). Before:

And after:

It honestly took me a minute to figure out how this al goes in, but then it was a fairly easy install, even with the hood and hinges already installed:

Now i can work with the hood open safely again and do not need any supporting bars or anything and don’t have to fear it falling on my head. Obviously, the hood allignment from the bodyshop is completely off now with the tension rods installed. thats why i do this – so it can be aligned and corrected PRIOR to painting.