TURNING YOUR 25+ YO CAR INTO A CLASSIC FOR UNDER $1000.00

On Labor Day 1998, I was walking a new puppy at 6:30am to potty train her & to become my disability Service Dog when I spotted a young couple setting up a yard sale. The young man was putting a $900.00  "For Sale," sign on a 1981 Datsun 280ZX with the stainless steel package. (Only 1,100 of them were ever made). After running home to get my check book, I bought it.

Every year at Virginia's 81 point inspection time, I have dreaded taking my car in because parts for an old foreign sports car are expensive & labor usually makes for a $500.00 repair bill. I fell in love with my 1981 Datsun 280ZX, so I knew I was going to keep it for life, if at all possible. I didn't realize at all that I had literally stumbled upon a potential classic at a yard sale! I was in the process of doing a Doctorate. I read & wrote, repeat cycle, without much sleep, either. These hands had never touched an auto mechanic's tool. I'd never even had to change a tire before.

Here's what I did to completely restore my yard sale find of the 20th Century:

1) Every time something sounded or acted funky, I'd take it to the best auto diagnostician in town who didn't charge me a dime. There are many if we just take time to look long enough to find them.

2) Once I had a diagnosis, I bought a repair book for a 1981-1983 Datsun 280ZX, then hit the junk yards to find the parts I needed to do the repair myself. Junk yards usually have tools consumers can borrow to disassemble the parts. While disassembling the parts I learned how to put the part back on my car & take the broken one off. (This made me feel less nervous about doing my own repairs). So for that job only, I might have to buy one unique tool, or maybe none at all with a good socket set & ordinary tool box tools like screw drivers, an electric drill, plyers, channel locks, & wrenches. I found out the first time I tried to get under the middle of the original low laying car, that I couldn't even get my chest under the side fenders or move my hands if I tried to go underneath from the front or the back. At first ::blushing purpled:: I used piles of fat text books to assure myself the jack wasn't going to let the car fall & crush me. This is when I first learned I am clostraphobic! For under 20$ I bought ramps, instead. They are necessary, after all, to do an ordinary oil change. That's about all the equipment I had to buy to do the rest of the restoration.

3) But then, major things like the whole rear assembly definitely needed to be replaced. Plus, I wanted a neqw dashboard without any infamous Datsun 280ZX cracks from exposure to the sun & once I moved away from a farmhouse with a carport where the car was covered, a little acorn spider cracked one of my smoked glass T-Tops. (Try replacing them!) Even at the junk yard, after two years of searching for one, they wanted several hundred dollars for it. Hust the parts to replace the whole read end would cost more than I paid for the yard sale sports car! But, I said to myself, "I've now only got three more inspections to go before this thing turns into an antique. I can get permanent antique tags & registration then." I felt like the little engine with a big engine saying that "I think I can, I think I can." Believe me, sometimes I had many doubts about my sanity of doing all this labor. But, in the long run it has turned out to be a labor of car love. So what would you have done facing these repairs?

4) Look for another Datsun 280ZX that has all the parts I want that someone else is practically giving away. "Seek & you will find what you're looking for," is what researchers say all the time. I applied scientific methodology to car restoration practicality on a student with disabilities' 300% under the poverty line budget. I bought a 1983 Datsun 280ZX sitting on cinder blocks with a near perfect interior & two perfect front fenders (no rust or dents) for less than half of the cost of one part for the rear end. 

4) After that, I was home free. I cannabalized the 1983 down to the frame & then some. I still have around a quarter of a car sitting in my storage room, in case I need the parts. The antique mags alone paid for the '83. Now I two sets of four. Brand new seats. Near perfect dashboard. Leather edged new carpet. Two T-Tops so one spare now. Blau punkt speakers ta boot!

5) Including the cost of the 1983 280ZX parts car, tools, sealants, new hoses, belts & regular maintenance oil, antifreeze, power steering fluid, fuel injector cleaner, I restored my 1981 for less than $1,000.00.

6) In 1999, 2001, 2003, 2004 & 2005 different diagnosticians I took the car to warned me that "this car will never last." The Datsun dealer was ever so eager for me to trade it in for a different newer used car that I can't even locate the battery in! No Thanks. I know every inch of this car.

7) In Virginia, we have to wait until the following January after the car's 25th anniversary to get antique tags. In September 2006, I realized I had one more unexpected inspection to go. I was confident . . . but, you know how mechanics can "find" things wrong when they look for them--just like scientists find what they look for. That inspection sticker with '07 on it is the prettiest official document I've ever seen. Second only to the antique tags that are now on my restored classic 1981 Datsun 280ZX that purrs like a kitten going for a regular maintenance ride.

8) This September, rather than having to do all sorts of mostly unnecessary labor to satisfy an inspector, my car is going back to its original color: silver, with a maroon interior. Nothing's been more satisfying. Not even a doctorate. There's something very reassuring about knowing what I'm driving is home done with my own labor of love.

9) Welp, gotta go now. It's time to take the T-Tops off, turn up the Kenwood CD player with some new Bob Dylan & take my dog for a two-seater spin, in the spring, in the country, around the S-curves that we'll hug. She's got "Doggles" so that she can hang her head out the window without getting junk in her eyes.

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