A crash, alot of salt, and another cold Colorado winter.

Well finally got some time to post some of this years Z car adventures, as I am laid up in bed with the flu and can't get any Z work done anyway. So here is a little tale.

All started with a great day riding my quad up in the mountains, at least until I got a little over zealous and found out that a human knee isn't quite up to the job of stoping a 500llb quad from tipping over.



Whoops.. torn ACL well not going to be driving the z for a while, (can't press clutch) and I was going to have a lot of time on my hands as I couldn't go to work either. So it was time to do some much needed and long overdue work on the Z. Too many winters were spent in Missouri snow and SALT!

Step one.......... Find all the damage.



as you can see from this pic, some very familiar rear camber issues. Plus isn't that frame rail supposed to have a bottom? Well I already knew I wanted to do some Camber mods before I put any new tires on, so put that on order.. also, it would seem that I have ALOT of welding to do.....joy joy

Well little did I know, how much welding I had to do.. everywhere I looked under there was gobs of rust, most I knew was there some was new to me.. anyway… it was time to start tearing parts out.



Well after getting all the big parts out of the way, I decided that the factory undercoat had to go, as it did a pretty good job of hiding rust. and as you can see from this picture, it was just plain nasty.




So after many hours with a wire brush it was starting to look better. except for all the rust holes.




which left quite the pile of crap on the ground every day.



worst of the damage…


Left frame rail is toast, but a semi easy fix.


Right frame rail where it bends down had the weight savings mod.. no steel!


aft part of that rear frame es no bueno either!


from below..


from above with light shining through.

Left side rear deck pan was Swiss cheese.

Sorry for the post chop picture, but I think there might have been some structural deficiencies the the left rear quarter.




Well that's about all I have time to post today. So I will leave you all hanging with that little teaser… Will I ever finish? Is this Z yet another destined to be sent to the crusher.. Have I lost my mind? Do I really need a new hobby? stay tuned....