Ask the eZperts

[SpeedRoo]

After the auction of the BAT 01606 Jan 1970 240Z lots of questions were left unanswered on what is original and what's not on our cars. @zed2made the suggestion of setting up a panel of experts to answer questions and give feedback on originality.

I wanted to get the ball rolling. One of the things I noticed is that the Green $310k 04684 May 1970 still had inspection marks on the nuts and bolts, even after 21k miles of use.

 

The 14,000 mile 1973 240Z 160805 now on BAT doesn't have any yellow inspection marks.

 

 

Question for the eZsperts is when did Nissan stop the practice of using the bright yellow paint inspection marks?

Edited December 6, 2022 by SpeedRoo

[CanTechZ]

Nothing strange about finding inspection marks after 21K miles. I even found some on my '70 after about 150K miles. There is a great thread on the subject of factory paints marks here,

 

[CanTechZ]

12 minutes ago, SpeedRoo said:

Question for the eZsperts is when did Nissan stop the practice of using the bright yellow paint inspection marks?

Nissan has not stopped this practice, I found plenty on my 2017 Nissan Sentra SR Turbo when new, Still see them after 117,000 Km's.

[SpeedRoo]

Thanks @CanTechZ, I had looked at the thread carefully. My question was when did they stop the practice as the 1973 car doesn't have them and neither does the 2,500 mile 280Z 2+2.

 

Edited December 6, 2022 by SpeedRoo

[87mj]

Regarding the splash pan, I read a comment on BAT (I dont recall the auction) that the splash pan on an early cars did not have any holes in them including the 5 holes on each side.  I have seen only 2 types of splash pans. The ones with the 5 holes on each side to the rear and those that also had holes at the front.  I have never seen any splash pans that do not have any holes in them. 

Has anyone ever seen a splash pan that has no holes including the 5 at each side of the rear of the pan?
Did the early cars have splash pans (6/70 or so).  I have heard comments both ways. Absolutely yes they had them and absolutely no. The dealer could have easily tossed them too and the buyer would not have known.
What color were they from the factory?  I have seen them in silver (paint or clear zinc).  I have one that appears to have the factory finish on it that is chassis black.

 

[Mark Maras]

19 minutes ago, SpeedRoo said:

Thanks @CanTechZ, I had looked at the thread carefully. My question was when did they stop the practice as the 1973 car doesn't have them and neither does the 2,500 mile 280Z 2+2.

 

I don't remember any yellow paint marks on my Nov. 70 build 240. The key word is remember.

[CanTechZ]

1 hour ago, SpeedRoo said:

Thanks @CanTechZ, I had looked at the thread carefully. My question was when did they stop the practice as the 1973 car doesn't have them and neither does the 2,500 mile 280Z 2+2.

 

On mine I couldn't see the marks until I started started cleaning off 50 years of road grime. On the 2500 mile 280Z 2+2 I do see some white inspection marks on pics 255 and 263. Here are a couple of zoomed in crops from those two pics.

I wonder, if on later years the marks where applied less haphazardly, but still exist upon close inspection. I would think that for the QA process critical fasteners would have some kind of mark after they were torqued. We definitely do it on the mining equipment we manufacture where I work.

[240dkw]

I only did a quick read for the posting on the 73 car and although it is a nice car I did not see anything about documented low mileage, only that the odometer shows 14000. I am not sure I would use it as an reference point for  how it came from the factory. I would agree with CanTechZ and maybe your questions should be When did the factory change from the quick dob of yellow paint to a paint mark using a paint pen. I would think it would be around when production started to catch up to demand and the factory started to get a larger budget for tools. My guess would be sometime in 73

[26th-Z]

One of our members was just asking me about splash pans.  My cars don't have them.  This was my reply. 

"I have a collection of images from the first service manuals (ala 1970) showing the splash pan.  I think I got these from Kats some time ago.  Notice how the pan doesn't have any holes in it.  And, despite the color loss from the photograph, the pan is silver."

[HS30-H]

14 hours ago, SpeedRoo said:

After the auction of the BAT 01606 Jan 1970 240Z lots of questions were left unanswered on what is original and what's not on our cars. @zed2made the suggestion of setting up a panel of experts to answer questions and give feedback on originality.

At some point (it may have already passed...) it will become necessary to define what market sub-variant is being referred to. Production date will also be a factor with regard to detail changes.

For example:

14 hours ago, 87mj said:

Has anyone ever seen a splash pan that has no holes including the 5 at each side of the rear of the pan?
Did the early cars have splash pans (6/70 or so).  I have heard comments both ways. Absolutely yes they had them and absolutely no. The dealer could have easily tossed them too and the buyer would not have known.

I have a no-hole 'splash pan' hanging up on the wall of one of my garages. Obviously the splash pans were part of the original design for the L-Series engined cars across the board (because the fixing points are there on each car and we see them in the early factory literature) so the question then becomes whether they were being fitted consistently across all markets and models. USA/Canada may have been an outlier here considering the other examples of de-contenting in those markets. 

I can't imagine why dealers would go to the trouble of removing them from new cars? Here in the UK the splash pans had a reputation for not being re-fitted after servicing (especially after an oil change) but that was typically laziness rather than any kind of policy.

I remember we had several conversations on here about the splash pans in the past. The finish question (as far as I remember) concluded that the photos in the service manuals may have used unpainted (Zinc plated?) pans to allow them to be seen more clearly, but there were anecdotes of silver (?) pans being sighted on production cars too. My experience is that all of the 'early' style (no holes) pans I have come across were painted black and I have certainly seen black painted pans supplied as replacement parts, complete with Nissan parts sticker. 

 

So - in reference to this "eZperts" thread - I don't think it will be possible to make a definitive conclusion as to whether a particular car would have had a splash pan or not, apart from pointing out that it was part of the original design...