I got an itch to acquire another Z last year...  This car on Bring-a-Trailer got my attention and I couldn't let it go.  A project car, the previous owner acquired most of the important rubber parts, a NOS dash, a bunch of spares, etc. and did very little to it other than keep it stored in his garage in the Denver CO area for over 25 years.  Prior to that, it was in Arizona.  So, having restored one Z which had a fair amount of rust, I was super excited to think about restoring one with next to none.  I've been at it for a little over a year now, and so I have a pretty good amount of the work done.  My hope is that within the next 12 months, I can complete the restoration.  

I've got lots of pics of progress so far, so, I'm also hoping I can post updates pretty regularly.  Here are a few pics after it arrived in GA:

The previous owner said he never started it.  If true it hadn't run in over 25 years, but the engine turned over by hand.  Before taking it apart, I wanted to see if I could get it running and then do compression and/or leak down tests to learn of its condition.  I power washed the engine to get all of the dust and gunk off.  Then I took the carburetor domes off and cleaned the domes, pistons, needles, inside the carbs, float chambers, etc.  The "choke" was stuck in the on position (jet nozzles down) and carbon was caked on the inside of the carbs keeping the pistons from moving freely.  Here's the engine after cleaning:

Here is the clean engine after it dried.  The distributor shaft had a lot of play, so I snagged the one from my other Z.  Fuel lines were completely clogged, so I disconnected at the hard line coming into the engine bay.  Fuel pump was gummed up, so I grabbed a spare mechanical one (once was on my other Z), and ran the rubber line down into a gas can.  Oil in the engine seemed like oil, so I left it as is.

After a few tries of the starter, I got it fired up.  Still no coolant in the system, no radiator hoses, etc.  I just did a quick sync on the carbs and got it running well enough to know that nothing catastrophic had happened to it.  Here is a video after only a few minutes of tinkering with it.

Next, I put radiator hoses on, put water in and other misc. things so I could run it for a while.  I wanted to run it for a minimum of 30 minutes so I could do the compression check or leak down test.  Here's another video.  The exhaust is original Nissan parts (verified part numbers of center section and muffler), by the way... and very quiet.  

Garrett

 

 

Edited December 21, 20195 yr by inline6
remove extra picture

Yes, and you do this after you torqued that particular bolt.. not all at once on a sunny afternoon when you feel like painting them all at once haha..

But.. if you make a stripe, you can ALSO see what moved! 😉

1 minute ago, dutchzcarguy said:

But.. if you make a stripe, you can ALSO see what moved! 

But that's not what is being discussed here. The yellow marks were applied on the production line to show that a check had been performed, that's all. Nobody was checking them for movement anywhere after that. 

Tell-tale markings - as used on race cars, for example - are a different thing. Usually thin stripes or dot points on adjacent components that can be quickly checked by eye. Like this:

 

The yellow marks from the factory were applied pretty sloppy, like inline6 did. Here is a good reference of an original car, check out the under pictures

 

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1971-datsun-240z-124/

Right, my understanding is that the yellow paint marks were applied at the factory to indicated the fastener had been torqued.  If you have a look at the paint markings on the 240z that sold on BringaTrailer for $310,000 US a few years ago, starting at about picture number 168, you will see that the paint was applied quite messily:  
https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1971-datsun-240z-124/
 

And, for what it is worth, I personally torqued all of these fasteners to spec! 

Edited February 19Feb 19 by inline6

This past weekend, I moved all of my project cars around to facilitate getting started on the "track car" - my 240Z with a prod date of 12/70:

      

 

    

I blew the motor up at Road Atlanta 9 years ago.  It took many of those years to get a replacement, but I have that sitting in the corner of the shop. 

While I had the project cars out of the "shop", I organized some things and put a bunch of parts away in boxes and on shelves.  Then I put them back in the garage.  My order of attack will be to bring this 240Z back to life, then repair my wrecked 2004 Honda S2000, and then build the 1970 510.  Unsure how long it will take, but going to guess 6 months or so on the Z.  Hopefully less than a year on the S2000.  And, I really don't know how long for the 510:

Probably several years.

But I still have some things to finish up with this restoration.  I removed my wide band O2 sensor from the track car yesterday and will be installing that in the newly restored 240Z soon to see what I have going on for air/fuel ratios. I'll be able to record some data with this and the wide band O2: