I saw that progress on my car was very low, so I did a short notice that I was going to Arizona to work on the car. 2nd time this year, I went to Arizona. This was to help with Project Leopard. I’ve been wanting to get this going. Anyways, probably the biggest hurdle was the hood.
The zenki hood is more square, but the contours in the center of the hood are more prominent.
As opposed to the M30/Kouki Leopard, it is a smoother transition from the front to the back of the hood.
Chuck (Greg’s dad and the one that actually DOES GOOD WORK) is genius. I was just hoping for them to just cut the M30 hood and weld up the Zenki hood cut. When Chuck turned over the hood, we could see there was a huge difference in the skeleton.
Chuck wanted to take measurements, so we mocked up the front end (of course being a former drift car… tons of tweaks).
Then Chuck started to cut things up.
Chuck separated the Zenki hood skeleton and started to measure the M30 skeleton to the zenki one.
Then it was mating the skeletons (precise measuring) and the hood skins to see how it would look. HOLY SMOKES….. The contour wasn’t as bad as we thought!!!!
Can’t just toss on a rusty 1986 hood cut. So where the Kaido racer hood scoop was on the hood cut, is pitted and will need some work.
The zenki skeleton on the other hand, it was cleaned up quick and an anti-rust agent (POR 15) was applied.
While Chuck was working on the hood, Greg and I were tackling the car. He was removing the passenger side door with Luke. They were also pounding out a dent in the floor pan (looks like someone didn’t know how to jack a car?)
*RED FLAG MOMENT – Why did he want to remove the doors and then remove the glass. This was a waste of time. He said he wanted to spray doors separate. Regardless, the doors ended up having the most drips in clear!!!!
I was working on the trunk and cleaning things up. The battery was located in the spare tire bin and it was hit there, possibly exploding the battery as it was ash/powder and rust. I cleaned out the trunk and wire brushed it (surface rust). After cleaning it up, Greg used some POR 15 as well.
Greg wants to paint everything, so we are disassembling as much as well can. (In hindsight, Greg did a shitty job of painting this car, I just didn’t know it at the time.)
Greg also started working on my Authentic F31 Leopard Piko Racing side skirts *2023 UPDATE – HE NEVER FINISHED OR EVER PAINTED THE AERO
My last day, I cleaned up a bit and tried to organize with containers I had bought. I was happy to see the hurdle of the hood situation being solved and honestly solved in a truly impressive way.
Now it’s just seeing the next steps.
*2023 hindsight – After seeing my car not being worked on, Greg said it would be done by November. I was hoping this 2nd trip would help get everything in order so he can just paint the car. The hood was suppose to be the most difficult hurdle, then prep and paint.
What I didn’t expect was to dismantle the car. We removed the doors, door handles and even the glass in the door. Greg’s big talk was “I do it this way because I do restorations”. That was all BS. Because guess what, my car came back looking like trash and all that time, he rushed the paint and didn’t complete his job.
These were red flags.