1970 240Z Works Rally - the road to restoration

[xs10shl]

Here's a fun little detail seen on the early cars.  The rear light pods were affixed from the rear of the car (sometimes using sheet metal screws?), so they could be removed from behind and outside.  I imagine there were several reasons for this: surely, to facilitate the changing of a bulb without having to open and unload the trunk.  Perhaps also: to provide an easy way to swap out the entire assembly, should it be damaged during the rally. 

I'm not entirely confident that the lights were always affixed with screws, as I have not seen them affixed this way on another car.  For example, the included picture of an earlier car does not appear to have screws, but it does have the quick-change rear panel installed.  From what I can see with my car: they appear to be original to the car, or at least installed in-period.  That said, it's possible that the lights were held in place using other means, such as being just loosely glued in place, and could therefore be pulled off by hand, without tools.  But this is just a guess.

From what I can tell, all the rally cars campaigned in 1970 and 1971 had this feature.  I don't exactly know with what car the practice ceased, but around late 1971, Nissan stopped fitting a rear panel which could accommodate this feature. I assume they also eliminated the "external-change" feature along with it, but perhaps they just eliminated the custom rear panel. Another possibility is that the feature remained, but that Nissan perhaps altered the lenses to be removable from the housing. Again, this is just speculation. If someone is willing to go tug on the rear lenses of Nissan's cars and see what happens, perhaps we can get a few answers!

 

Edited November 2, 2022 by xs10shl

[26th-Z]

I'm surprised that they ran with the rear interior panel.?!?  What I just noticed is the enlarged tail light opening in the exterior finish panel.  Also on the car in your post 81.  They must have wanted access to the housing from the outside of the car.

[xs10shl]

1 hour ago, 26th-Z said:

I'm surprised that they ran with the rear interior panel.?!?  What I just noticed is the enlarged tail light opening in the exterior finish panel.  Also on the car in your post 81.  They must have wanted access to the housing from the outside of the car.

Yep, an enlarged tail light opening in the rear exterior panel, thru some time in 1971, I believe. (I referred to it as a "valance" in my post, but I edited the post for consistency.) 

Works rally interiors that I've seen were almost fully trimmed out, perhaps to keep with the illusion that these were production cars. The interior panels themselves of course don't weigh much, and the Works team used rubber mats in place of carpeting/sound insulation.  The panels also served as protection for the wiring harness, fuel lines, etc., and to keep miscellaneous spares and tools from falling into the wrong places.  Period photos of trunks that I've seen were crammed with all kinds of supplies needed for field repairs - oddly enough, not so different from the strategy I employ when I go on a road trip!

Here's a picture of my car during MC '71, showing the same rear tail panel, featuring enlarged holes for the tail light assembly. (credit: Nissan Global Media)

Edited November 2, 2022 by xs10shl

[HS30-H]

7 hours ago, xs10shl said:

Yep, an enlarged tail light opening in the rear exterior panel, thru some time in 1971, I believe.

In fact it seems it was restricted to the 1970 RAC Rally and 1971 Monte Carlo Rallye batches of Works cars, as the 1971 East African Safari Rally batch and onward batches of cars didn't have the cut-away finisher panel holes.

There was clearly - as is so often seen on these cars - an evolutionary process going on here. The very first batch of cars sent overseas - for the 1970 RAC Rally - featured the cut-away finishers, but not the extra self-tappers. Instead they had threaded studs inserted where the normal fixing screws would thread into (those pesky...) captive nuts in the plastic lamp housings, and butterfly nuts were used to hold them in place. This allowed the lamp units to be removed fairly quickly without having to take off the finishers:

   

Obviously the 1971 Monte Carlo Rallye batch (an event where rear quarter damage was more likely) improved on this with the addition of spring nuts on the body and self-tappers passing through the plastic lamp housings, so it was no longer necessary to fiddle around undoing butterfly nuts inside the car. Better!

However, for the 1971 Safari they reverted to uncut rear finishers. The finishers were secured by self-tappers (rather than the stock plastic rivets) so could at least be removed fairly easily. 

9 hours ago, 26th-Z said:

I'm surprised that they ran with the rear interior panel.?!? 

That area of the car was a good place for storage. They tended to store the onboard jack near there, as well as a host of spares, ropes, jack base, shovel etc housed inside a fabricated pocket. LOTS of storage on these cars: 

[xs10shl]

A view of the rear interior of the car.  There's a few things to see here that are not frequently seen- I won't go into all the minutiae, other than to point out a few obvious features: a few of the features which I'd label "stock PZR" from the parts manual (for lack of a better description) include the spare tire cap and 4-point seat belt shoulder strap mounts. Then there are a few obvious Works features, such as the roll bar mounts, some drilled access holes, and a Works fuel delivery system. There are several more details that enthusiasts can spend the weekend spotting!

Also visible is a rusted rear quarter panel, which helps make this Lightweight Spec even lighter today than when new.  Most of the trunk area appears quite servicable, but that rusted area will need to be fixed, with new metal.

Of note, the 4 silver rivet nuts now occupying the existing spare-tire hold-down mounting holes on the spare tire cap are my "quickee" addition to the car- that's unlikely to be how it was done in period. I had a show deadline, and I needed to affix the spare tire bungee brackets using the same existing holes. The only options that I could see were to either remove the gas tank to access that area, or add a few rivet nuts - a 2 hour job vs 5 minutes. Done and done!

Also, the fuel pumps are obviously brand new - a prior owner had installed later pumps of a non-original make and type, probably decades ago, so I put these on the original brackets, so the car could be displayed.

Edited November 5, 2022 by xs10shl

[kats]

I am so excited about to see this picture.After spending hours of looking at the picture  I found a Z432-R doesn’t have a pair of shoulder strap mounts for the passenger side . The difference between them is a persons on board.Maybe it doesn’t a thing to be mentioned , does it? 

Here are the pictures which I took recently, 1969 Z432-R . 

I have a question. Do you see the two brackets at the duct opening for the blower motor ? 
I am thinking the brackets could be only for PZR. If so, how about a PZR body Works car like yours . I am curious about it. Also , a mounting bracket for an igniter, do you see it in your car ?

Kats

[xs10shl]

@kats I'll be on the lookout for the brackets when we get the dashboard off - might be a little while yet before we get to it.

Curious about the Z432-R without the passenger shoulder harness mounts.  Did you happen to notice if the braces under the hole location were installed?

[kats]

3 hours ago, xs10shl said:

@kats I'll be on the lookout for the brackets when we get the dashboard off - might be a little while yet before we get to it.

Curious about the Z432-R without the passenger shoulder harness mounts.  Did you happen to notice if the braces under the hole location were installed?

Yes , I checked it and confirmed nothing there. Please see this picture, a passenger side (Left seat ) rear deck. 
Kats

[HS30-H]

On 11/5/2022 at 6:42 AM, kats said:

I am so excited about to see this picture.After spending hours of looking at the picture  I found a Z432-R doesn’t have a pair of shoulder strap mounts for the passenger side . The difference between them is a persons on board.Maybe it doesn’t a thing to be mentioned , does it?

Yes! 432-R was certainly 'driver focused' and standard equipment 4-point Takata harness was only provided on driver's side. Similarly, 432-R only got a headrest on the driver's side.

Early Works rally 240Zs were a kind of 'hybrid' of 432-R bodyshell parts mixed with upgraded details, Sports/Race Option parts and hand fabrication. The bodyshells were built in small batches designated as rally cars and therefore could incorporate a little extra attention and detailing on the line at Hiratsuka (such as the extra doublers for the passenger side four-point harness shoulder strap mounts under the 'cheesegrater' deck panel) before being transported as bare shells to the Works rally shop at Oppama where the build-up could begin. 

 

Attached photo shows stock 1970 432-R rear 'cheesegrater' deck with shoulder harness mounts on driver's side only:

 

[xs10shl]

@HS30-H Your comments made me revisit some old PZR pictures. I had not payed too much attention before, but all my photos also show only the Z432-R driver-side mounting holes. Unclear to me whether it was possible to spec out a Z432-R with L+R harness mounts, or whether it was only the Works cars.

Edited November 7, 2022 by xs10shl

[HS30-H]

11 hours ago, xs10shl said:

@HS30-H Your comments made me revisit some old PZR pictures. I had not payed too much attention before, but all my photos also show only the Z432-R driver-side mounting holes. Unclear to me whether it was possible to spec out a Z432-R with L+R harness mounts, or whether it was only the Works cars.

You would only have been able to fit 4-point harnesses on the driver's side, as there were no shoulder strap mounts/anchor points on the passenger side. Mounts could feasibly be added after the fact (I've done this on my 432-R replica project car because I wanted both sides the same) but they need a doubler underneath or - preferably - the welded-in L-shaped factory reinforcements and captive nuts as seen on the driver's side.

So this is another one of those Works rally car-specific differences. The Works rally team fabricators were able to specify non-standard additions and modifications literally before the bodyshells were welded together.

[xs10shl]

Today's upload shows a view from the front of the car.  On the right side of the car is the FIAMM air horn assembly.  To my eye, this (plus the accompanying compressor) appears to be a basic unit, most frequently seen on a period Ferrari.  Just based on pictures I've seen of other Works cars, there doesn't appear to be a standard compressor unit that Nissan incorporated, and the horn location appeared to vary from car to car.  It's actuated via the standard horn pad on the steering wheel, and alternatively through a foot button on the passenger-side floor, akin to how a windscreen washer fluid button would be placed on an old car.  Also shown are the oil cooler, fog light electrics, and hot air tubing, which runs from the headlight buckets to the heater box in the cabin. 

Of particular curiosity is a nondescript 1"x5" vented box located on the left side of the car, which is a part of the main headlight circuit.  This box contains what appears to be four resistive wires wound around 4 insulators, and is controlled via a large 4-position dial on the center console, which is labelled "HEAD RHEO" in period photos (which I take to mean "Headlight Rheostat"). [EDIT: On examination, this label is an example of me mis-remembering.  The console label actually reads "HEAD SELECT". But I have always assumed the design of the wire in the box resembles the feature-set of a 3-position rheostat, so I have been operating on the assumption the dial was a rheostat control.] This same dial is visible on several of the early Works cars, but appears to be implemented differently (and potentially not-at-all) on some of the later cars. 

Here's how it's wired: when the console dial is "Off", the headlight circuit is completed via ground: the headlights operate normally using the settings on the stalk, and the dial/box is not part of the circuit.  When the dial is placed in one of the three "on" selections, the headlight circuit is routed from the stalk through this box in one of several different settings, introducing what appears to be an "in-line" load of various resistances on the headlight circuit.  Just to be clear, the stalk continues it's role as the master headlight setting, but this dial serves as a way to further adjust headlight settings after it's been turned on by the driver, presumably by adding resistance to the headlight circuit. As of now, my box is not working properly, and the lights don't come on when it's in one of the three "on" positions (perhaps due to an open circuit?) so I cant yet determine exactly how it's intended to work.  This box is one of several head-scratchers that I have yet to fully understand the true nature and function of.  Any ideas?

If anyone is curious to see how this box is wired, I've attached the wiring diagram for you to look at, with the relevant sections highlighted.

Edited November 16, 2022 by xs10shl