My two swiss S30Z Fairlady Restoration build thread

[JDMjunkies.ch]

So, a few days ago, i had a phone call with Chris from S30.world. We agreed on a deal (soon more) and he offered me one of his new Reproduction fuel tanks in return. Since my fuel tanks both are very worn, who am i to turn such an offer down?
This is how the original ones look. They don't seem too bad. But while one of them could surely be rescued with a certain amount of money and time, the other one is beyond reasonable repair, especially if you look inside....

Today the New Tank arrived here, straight from the netherlands.


I have to admit it looks fantanstic.


The only small downside is that the black coating is slightly too flat and is more glossy on the original product. According to Chris it was due to the production process or something. Nothing that a little respray can't solve. Otherwise it's perfect, down to every last detail. 


Check out his Homepage where you can see the different versions of the tank and how they are made (inside pictures too). Also he now started offering the mounting hardware for it. He now plans to offer a variaty of as-close-as-possible-to-the-original Reproduction parts in near future. Some very interesting stuff, which he told me, and which is definitely very sought after in the market. Especially with this high quality and so close to the original parts. Thanks again for such a nice piece!

Now Since the original rubber-damper / Spacer pieces on the tank are missing, i immediately started to remove the ones from the old tank:


A bit of heat from the heat gun and a spatula and they came off very easy:


When i started to clean them, i realized that one of them has started to become a bit brittly. So i will definitely have my local rubber shop make for new pieces for me soon.

 

I have ordered all the missing parts for the tank including fuel tank sender, all the hoses and fuel filler neck, etc.

 

If you remember, i already got the protecing plate not too long ago 🙂

Thanks again chris and see you soon!

 

Edited November 6, 2020 by JDMjunkies.ch

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Since i got a new fuel tank a few days ago, i decided to get all the parts that belong to it. The first parts came today. The Fuel tank sending  unit:

 

Including the Seal O-Ring

 

And while ordering parts, i decided to get some random parts that were available too. Like the Battery tray:



 

And the choke lever Handle:

 

More parts are on the way 🙂

[JDMjunkies.ch]

More parts arrived. this time a NOS fuel filler neck, straight from Japan:

 

This fits my restored Fuel filler cap and mount perfectly 🙂

[Patcon]

How flexible is that NOS filler neck? I have often wondered how malleable the originals were. Most of the ones I have seen are super stiff almost brittle

[JDMjunkies.ch]

8 hours ago, Patcon said:

How flexible is that NOS filler neck? I have often wondered how malleable the originals were. Most of the ones I have seen are super stiff almost brittle

i was a bit worried too, but to be honest it looks and feels like new. Very soft and flexible rubber. I have the feeling it's coated in a thin layer of petroleum grease or so, but might be wrong.
It Came (via ebay) from a big japanese parts dealer inside a closed Nissan Bag with all the original Nissan labels, but the labels don't seem to be of a very old type.
I guess the company bought some of the last units, compared to others who probably have really old stock parts which where manufactured decades ago.

[JDMjunkies.ch]

I work with CAD Drawings and renderings daily in my work life and always wanted to learn how to draw them. When i realized i need those 240Z Tank rubber pieces redone and probably should make a nice drawing, that seemed like the perfect occasion to download FreeCAD and spend an hour on youtube watching beginners guide to CAD Drwaing. I'm used to electronis CAD programs so it's not completely new, allthough i've never designed something 3D. Until today. I got the hang for simple basics pretty fast and here i have my first design for the rubber piece:

Of course this is something stupidly simle. but just perfect for a total newbie like me. And it will give my rubber-shop a better idea of what they  have to make for me 🙂

So after all i'm pretty proud and i hope i can improve my skills in other occasions soon. at least i've got the idea about what the CAD Designers in my company do all day now 🙂

[JDMjunkies.ch]

sorry, double post

Edited November 20, 2020 by JDMjunkies.ch

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Over the next week i've planned to bring the Chassis to a Blasting company (more on that in a separate post). But before that i had to remove the installed bodypanels.

So the passenger door and fenders came off and we have the naked chassis back.

 

Then i decided it would make sense to drill holes before the blasting and before a primer would be applied, so i decided to prepare the holes for the optional passenger footrest.

 

It took me a while to figure out the "original" position. It appears that the Drain holes and everything are not simply mirrored on LHD and RHD Cars and floorpans. So i had to do a mix of guessing and measuring to figure out the position.

 

But at the end i think i nailed it.

 

And now even the bends on the L-shaped foots make sense. I thought those were bent by accident, until i heard from several people that they've seen those feet with bends before.
(ignore the uncleaned welds, those will be cleaned of course). If you get the location right, the perfectly fit with the shape of the transmission tunnel / Floor pans. Also note that measures for the position i had first where made for the two inwards-facing "feet" but my one has two Left-facing feet, so of course the position of the holes are different...

 

At the end i had it all installed and with a nice fit, if you ask me.. 

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Shout out to my man Stefan who gave me the Tip on this NOS Front Fender for sale. Actually it said NOS but, i'm not 100% sure. it has a weird Handpainted primer-layer on the outside, but other than that looks prety NOS. it's in perfect shape (aside from a few small storage dents and scratches), has absolutely no rust (Some very small surface rust spots) and looks straight

 

After all that's exactly what i needed, so i don't really care if it was NOS or not and i just believe in it *lol*

 

Had to test fit it of course but nothing seems wrong with it.

 

Looks nice in my growing collection of Fenders. Why another one you might ask?

 

The black set is quite rusty at the bottom and with the "golden" set i realized at some point that some of the previous owner thought it's super-nice to remove the original Line that is in the fenders to make a "smooth" look. And also they deleted the Holes for the 240Z emblem

 

This is the new fender with the original line nicely visible and all factory holes are still there. So finally, one piece more in the puzzle 🙂

[JDMjunkies.ch]

Lately i got really interested in the Datsun Switzerland history and i've started to collect a few documents. Luckily it seems that thanks to Covid some people find time to dig through old piles of documents and put them for sale. Thats how i got t his Datsun (Suisse) Information brochure, very similar to this one. It seems to be  a bit older since the Z is not listed inside, but it has figure from november 1969, so i think it must be from very late 1969 or very early 1970. It seems to be higher quality than the other one, but the content is very similar.

 

Mainly advertising the Datsun Brand and Nissan Mothercompany, the Datsun Switzerland headquarter under construction and of course the cars. Including some insights into the racing programme of Nissan:



 

The second item from the same seller was a little fold-out flyer advertising the various Cars:

 

Again by Datsun switzerland, both in German and french:

 

On the backside you find the specsheets and the dealer list including the 12 Months / 20'000 km Warranty claim.

 

I thought it's such a nice and authentic piece, i had to put it in a frame and will find a nice place to hang it on the workshop wall.

I got more parts today and expect more documents soon, so stay tuned 🙂

[RIP260Z]

Hi Nils,

To add to your mental Datsun/Nissan history for Switzerland which is on my website;

https://csp311.net/publicity-and-miscellaneous-media-広報およびその他のメディア/swiss-magazine-advert-スイスの雑誌広告/

I think this about 1967, as it ties in with a Silvia exhibited in one of the Dutch car shows.

[JDMjunkies.ch]

On 12/2/2020 at 9:51 AM, RIP260Z said:

Hi Nils,

To add to your mental Datsun/Nissan history for Switzerland which is on my website;

https://csp311.net/publicity-and-miscellaneous-media-広報およびその他のメディア/swiss-magazine-advert-スイスの雑誌広告/

I think this about 1967, as it ties in with a Silvia exhibited in one of the Dutch car shows.

Thanks for the input. I've currently focussed on the company itself and the Z-cars, but of course it's nice to see other cars too. Currently plenty of datsun CH docs for other cars are for sale cheaply on the local auction sites, but better don't start to hoard all of this too *lol*