240Z: NOS Fenders delivery & Test fit

Recently, I was very lucky and had the rare opportunity to buy something large, original Nissan and a big wooden crate arrived here a few weeks ago.

Inside was a pair of New-old-Stock (NOS) Left and Right Front fenders. Original Nissan parts still in its factory packing and with all the labels, etc.

But more about that in a second. First, I spent some time inside the car to remove all factory seam sealer. It’s not something I had planned to, but once I realized that surface rust is hiding underneath (nothing critical), I decided to remove it all. It’s not really visible in this photo, but I think I ended up removing a few kilograms of old brittle Nissan Seam sealer, totally!

Now that was done, and cleaned up, it appears like a nice base shell to work on, again.

The next job was to remove all body panels. Some were only placeholders for “good” panels, which I had installed as a test-fit to see where the body needs rework. So a lot of parts will get replaced, soon.

My first body shop working on the car “kindly” put some undercoating on the car’s front right inner fender (which we never agreed on). Meanwhile, I think he had some leftovers from another project and just wanted to use it and charge it to me or so, also it appears he covered some not-so-nicely-done areas up with that.

So I spent a few hours with the heat gun and spatula, to remove all of that:

And here we go. That red stuff you see is a rust-protection primer, which is fine. But I wanted to avoid paying the next body shop for all the hours to remove it (And it’s surely not a job they like, either):

I went through my collection of Body panels and decided it would make sense to have a EUDM and USDM front lower corner valances prepared and painted in the original color, so I can switch between the two looks at any time.

One corner valance appeared to be from a car without the EUDM front spoiler, so I had to ensure the hole is there, before they paint it (ignore all the wrong holes, the bodyshop will have to close those)

In my opinion, the shell and all panels are now ready to be test-fitted. I will have to place a fairly big order for all original Installation hardware. I was asked to install all panels with the correct ones, as some will be installed before the paint goes on, to maintain the factory look.
Now back to those fenders. You might be wondering why I bought a set of expensive NOS panels when the car already had a set? Well, the point is that the green ones (special primer after dipping) had the bodyline removed by a previous owner who thought it was nice to have the car “clean”. It took me a bit to realize that and now it was too late. It’s possible to get the line back in, but it’s a shitty job, and when the opportunity came to buy a set of NOS panels, i decided to go for it. Another few hours of bodywork saved.

Time to put them on the car:

Here you see the body line / kink on the new fenders, vs “cleaned” (unexisting) one in the door.

Those aftermarket panels have come a long way since this project started, but nothing yet beats the look and feel and fitment of original Nissan Factory panels: