Sourcing Parts in Canada

[davewormald]

I've been lurking in the community learning a lot of stuff over the couple of months, but this is my first post. I live west of Toronto, Ontario. I have an 04/71 240 that I bought back in 1994 (I'd had a couple of 240s and a 280ZX back in the '80s). The car came from Georgia, but I don't know much more history than that. I drove it summer and winter(!) for about five years, then garaged it when it started to get some visible body panel rust in the usual places. I managed to keep the car out of my mind until a few months ago when someone told me what was happening on BaT. I don't have any expectation that my car will ever be worth what some of those have gone for (and I can't imagine selling it), but just reading about Zs again got me re-addicted (Hi, I'm Dave and I have a problem). I started poking around at the car and was pleasantly surprised by what I found. I decided to carefully see if I could get it started after 20 years. Fortunately there are good threads in here to help avoid disasters. I'll spare you all the mundane details, but after several weeks of prep, I turned the key with the plugs in and connected and it came close to starting before flooding. So, here's my first question (I already have lots)!

Where do Canadian Z owners source parts? I'm going to need lots over the next couple of years and I'm sure some of you guys can save me a lot of wasted time and money. At this point I need a valve cover gasket and carb rebuild kit. It's easy to find US suppliers of parts. Is that the best bet or are there Canadian (even Ontario) suppliers of some parts? I'm happy to take this conversation offline if it's not relevant to most members, but I figured I should introduce myself and say thanks to all the fine people in this forum who've been so generous with their knowledge, and their descriptions and pictures of their work. I'm no mechanic, but I think I can do a lot of the basic stuff to get this project going. I've loved Zs since 1984 when I sat in my first one. It feels a little bit like magic to me that I have one sitting in my garage!

[wheee!]

There are performance parts suppliers in Canada but not many people selling original parts. Canada has a better stock of old Nissan parts at the dealer then the US. The main warehouse is in Calgary.
For spare parts in good condition, check with [mention]zKars [/mention] for hard to get stuff.

[240dkw]

I found this site good for some things. https://www.autopartsway.ca/category.cfm?nissan/1971/240z/base/2.4l-l6/allb/allct/allsct 
 

[grannyknot]

Unfortunately not a lot up here,  there is https://whiteheadperformance.com/shop/

in Toronto, they're convenient but I end up buying most of my stuff at Rockauto, MSA, and Zcar Source in the States.  I use a drop service, https://www.crossborderpickups.ca/  

Everything is shipped to their Niagara Falls depot, they bring it over the border and up to their Mississauga warehouse for pick up, I save about 2/3rds on shipping.

Your car car looks in very good shape, welcome to the forum.

 

[davewormald]

16 hours ago, wheee! said:

There are performance parts suppliers in Canada but not many people selling original parts. Canada has a better stock of old Nissan parts at the dealer then the US. The main warehouse is in Calgary.
For spare parts in good condition, check with [mention]zKars [/mention] for hard to get stuff.

It seems amazing to me that Nissan still has some Z parts after all these years. Nice to know, though!

[davewormald]

14 hours ago, 240dkw said:

I found this site good for some things. https://www.autopartsway.ca/category.cfm?nissan/1971/240z/base/2.4l-l6/allb/allct/allsct 
 

Excellent. Looks like they have several of the parts that I already need, including clutch master and slave cylinders. They were leaking even back when I was driving the car and the master is now completely seized. Hopefully their inventory is up to date.

[ZCarFever]

@davewormald welcome to the joys of being a 240z owner In need of parts in Canada!...

From my experience, like grannyknot said, the US is the best place to get parts. Not much if nothing available here, yes there are some vendors in Canada, but very limited variety of parts offered and very questionable service offered compared to the USA.

The only advice I can tell you is to make lists of parts, accumulate for a while (if non essential) and bundle them in one purchase sourced from the USA. That is what I do every other month, costly in shipping fees but you get what you need!

 

[grannyknot]

7 hours ago, ZCarFever said:

The only advice I can tell you is to make lists of parts, accumulate for a while (if non essential) and bundle them in one purchase sourced from the USA. That is what I do every other month, costly in shipping fees but you get what you need!

Also,  the new NAFTA 2.0 just kicked in so no duty is paid on orders under $150 CND.

[davewormald]

Over the course of the summer I pulled pretty much all the "auxiliary" parts off the engine, cleaned/refurbished them, and re-installed them. The cleaning was made gooey-er than usual by a late-1990's trip to Toronto's cottage country with the oil cap removed. I can report that a fresh oil, sand and grit mixture remains fresh for 20 years. The engine isn't exactly clean, but it's night and day better than when I started. I've used several of the suggestions from this thread for parts, including crossborderpickups.ca, which I've since recommended to several others. Thanks guys!

Anyway, yesterday was a big day in the garage: https://photos.app.goo.gl/re6ZWjiwKuRkZgZx7

First start in about 20 years. The observant will notice a few missing sub-systems and some "non-OEM" parts. I also learned what the fuel return line does in the 45 seconds or so I let the engine run. Who'd have thought that a fuel return line would return fuel to a non-existent gas tank? One step at a time!

So many of the discussions in this forum were helpful, but I'd be remiss if I didn't single out a couple of the very long, sometimes comical, threads about carburetor adjustment. You guys display admirable patience! I'm happy to report that the "bend the float tang" per the FSM/Haynes manual method got me this far in one go. We'll see what happens from here!