I have been restoring a '76 280z for going on 2 years now.  There's still a long way to go, but as most of you can probably understand I prowl ebay on a near daily basis just to see what pops up. Well last week a 280z dash popped up! My original dash is restorable - I guess.  It's cracked and covered and the cover's cracked too.  

What I found was an original uncracked dash with all of the instruments.  My winning bid was $599.  I hope it's the bargain it seems!  It seems from most of the posts I've seen that I could expect to spend $1K to get my original dash restored.

Here're the auction pictures:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Datsun-Nissan-280z-Complete-Dash-Pad-Speedometer-Rpm-Cluster-Rpm-77-/191442531532?nma=true&si=qyhaQpALAbKBOzsrexI%252BKPAePHY%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Nice. I wish I had an uncracked dash.

 

I'm pretty sure that the mechanical bulk of the dash is shared from 74 to 78, but I wouldn't be so sure about the wiring. I haven't looked into it, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were some minor wiring changes between some of the years. I would at least take a good look at the connectors and make sure the same locations are populated with the same color wires on all of the connectors.

 

76 to 77 sounds pretty innocent though... I would be more concerned between anything with an ammeter vs voltmeter or a 78 to anything prior because of the fuel pump changes.

 

All else fails or if you do discover any differences, just strip the wiring harness out of your 76 and move it over to the 77.

Definitely move your 76 wiring and instruments over to the 77 dash frame. There are significant wiring changes in almost every year. Not worth the hassle trying to get everything sorted out.

That said, all of the gauges in the 77 dash will work fine, but for a variety of reasons, like keeping the ODO to keep mileage continuity, you should likely just swap it all over.

ksechler, sent you a pm regarding gauges.