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Cody worked on the brake booster some. I found a longer clevis. It also has a larger diameter pin which fits better in the pedal This brought the pedal height up and against the brake switch We messed with quarter windows last weekend. It was frustrating. Probably one of the tougher jobs to do, especially by yourself and get them right. We did get them installed last weekend. I wrapped a string around them to make it easier to get the lip turned out properly. But at the back of the drivers side window, it got really tight to the body and the seal ripped instead of turning out. On the passenger side, I wrapped the seal too tight to the glass and it didn't seal at the back corner of the glass Fortunately for some odd reason I had an extra set of quarter window seals. So this week in the evenings I redid the quarter window seals. We put them back in yesterday They both pretty much seal but they're still not quite right. The passenger side gap closed up but the seal turns in a little at the back becuase it doesn't have enough pressure on it to make it flair evenly. The drivers side does the same thing but in a different location. I visited Inline6 this week and saw his immaculate car. He said he used a slice of a bondo spreader to work the lips out from the inside of the car. It is flexible to put it down between the glass frame and the body to push from the inside. Tips for quarter windows. Grannyknots pick idea works really good to help manipulate the frames. Also just get the screws all started then work on getting the lips all turned out. The windows will still move a little until they're all the way tightened down. Also if the doors are off you can use the door jamb up by the door hinges to help push with your foot to get enough force to push the window back in place I finished the inner weatherstrip on the hatch yesterday and got the hatch back on. It sits a good bit proud of the body because it's so new. Hopefully it will relax over time I also used some silicone grease on the weatherstrip at the hood hinges to keep the hinge screws from nipping the weatherstrip. Seems to be working

Some of you have dealt with this little annoyance, and I have found a perfect solution. When doing a full restoration, or at least the full interior, you often have to replace the head liner and the A pillar vinyl, as well as the vinyl trim that goes across the top of the windshield where the sun visors and rear view mirror mount. While I won’t discuss the pain of installing these items, what I have found is even more of a pain, is finding the nine M5 threaded holes to put the visor and mirror mount back in. All that fresh painfully installed lovely vinyl, and 9 secret little holes you have to find to poke holes through. Get out the pokey thingy of your choice and start poking until you find them. If you put some kind of thin foam behind the vinyl like you’re supposed to, those damn holes are just a nightmare to sleuth out. Not any more! I put some nice long M5 grub screws in the nine threaded holes, THEN do the upholstery. Then finding the tips of them sticking out is easy! Make little “X” slits to expose them, grab your M3 hex key, back them out and screw in the visor and mirror mounts. Five minutes each! Easy peasy.

Today i got something very special, which i found in the USA: A box with "Maintenance of the Datsun 240Z Sports" Service slide films. Let me explain: The Box contains 7 small, numbered plastic cans. Each can has a dia film of colour photos (aka "Slides"). The booklet was Printed in November 1969. So it is from the very beginning of the 240Z. Additionally, there is a booklet which is called "Slide narration" the booklet contains the text to each slide. My understanding is that this was used to train workshop employees. Whoever trained them got a bunch of coloured slides which show how to maintain the 240Z in a workshop, and a book which shows what to mention for each slide. The purpose of the whole kit is also mentioned in the foreword on the first page of the booklet: I have never seen such a box before and think it's quite cool. It's basically a Service manual in colour photos. Some photos appear to be actually the same as in the black-and-white printed Factory Service manual. There are some awesome photos of Nissan works employees working on the cars. I still have to read it all and look through the photos. There are also many graphics and drawings shown, which I have never seen before, and most probably were made specifically for training purposes. I'm already looking for a dia scanner to digitalize them all and if I find time, I will share some of them with you. More updates in the coming days. I have planned some work and there is a sea-freight crate from Japan waiting for me to be picked up.

Hey fellow Z heads. It's been a long time since I logged in here much less made any posts. I thought I would check in to see who is still here from the old crew of 10+ years, actually it's been almost 20 since I first posted on this site come to think of it......and say hello to those who are new since I was last active here. SInce then I've gotten married, have 2 grandchildren, moved from Santa Cruz, CA to Auburn, CA and switched companies and focus. I haven't lost the bug but life, family and career had to take priority for a while, however I'm planning to dedicate more time to the hobby and hope to start reassembling the Z and get it back on the road in the coming months. Actually. I have both the Z and a 1967 Camaro RS/SS 396 to get back on the road and both need some electrical and mechanical work. Wish me luck and more importantly the time and dedication to get it done. I hope you're all doing well and spending plenty of quality time with your Z (and your families 😉).

I figured I would let the cat out of the bag. From September 2020 at the unveiling, I thought that Nissan finally designed a Z I would want to buy new. I was too young to buy an S30 or S310 new. I was young and broke when the Z31 and Z32 came out, and I never was really taken by the Z33 or Z34. Yes, the RZ34 is a Z34 with a new wrapper, but I really liked the heritage touches. To me it looks more like a GT car and less boy racer. When I talked to a couple of Nissan people during the pre-sales road shows, they confirmed New Sight Orange would be coming. The first Z I remember was a 260Z in New Sight Orange. It was owned by a former NASA test pilot, and I lived down the street from him. A friend's father bought the car and got it back on the road. My friend got to enjoy it for a few years before the car was hit by an uninsured motorist. My first Z, a 73 was originally New Sight Orange, though someone with questionable taste had it repainted a color similar to Metallic Gold, though it looked worse than a MAACO paint job. I still have that car and hope to return it to New Sight Orange some day. I was excited to hear that Nissan was holding to its word that orange was coming back, but my excitement diminished when I learned it was on the Heritage Edition only with a sticker of $62K (plus whatever the dealers think they can charge for a special edition). So I set about looking for an alternative. I noticed that dealers were finally coming off sticker price for the Z. On the other hand most of those Zs were Gun Metallic. While I don't worry too much about color, I didn't really want grey. No blue Zs with manuals were popping up nearby, but finally a Z in Sport trim showed up at one of the closest dealers sporting Ikazuchi Yellow Pearl paint. I took it for a test drive, and the wife loved it. It felt right for my new daily driver, so a couple of hours later I drove it home. The new Z has very good acceleration as one would expect with 400HP on tap. The steering feels extremely light at low speeds, but the feel improves as speed increased. With no limited slip, it's easy to spin the tire a little getting into traffic. The seats are comfortable, and the shifter is in easy reach. The clutch engages higher than I think it should, but I am just going to live with that. The blind spots are huge, but the blind spot warning system seems to work well. The view out the rear window is small, too. I have an Android phone, so one of the USB slots is taken by the phone if I want to use navigation. If you want more creature comforts, or if you are planning on tracking the car, go for the Performance trim. The yellow pearl paint stands out, but it doesn't look like a taxi, even with the black roof. I have experienced one problem with the car so far. Yesterday, the TPMS monitoring system lost communications with all 4 tires. I drove the car around for a while, and the system found the left front, though that didn't last. I guess I'll see how good the local service department is.

Didn't Madonna wear those?

I just re-covered my passenger seat with the Interior Innovations cover that I bought from @KenFirch a while back. I purchased the replacement foam from Interior Innovations as well. I wasn't really looking forward to the job. It sounded like it was a bit of a pain, but it went very well and didn't take me more than a couple of hours. I thought I'd add a couple of things to this thread that might help people doing it in the future. My car is a 1971 240 (the one @grannyknot has been working on in a current build thread), but the seats seem to be from a 280Z. They have the metal "springs" in the seat bottom rather than the webbing. They've been recovered previously (the covers were obviously not original), but the foams seemed to be original. A couple of things made the job easier, as described here. There was a thin sheet of plastic covering the foam of the seat back. It seemed to be professionally made to fit the seat, but I don't know whether it was something that came from the factory. It was a little worse for wear, but I was able to reuse it. I was also able to leave the very thin layer of foam on the metal seat back. It was wrapped around and over the edges of the foam on the front of the seat back, but I was able to peel it off. I first glued the edges of the new foam to the metal seat back. I used Lepage Multi-Purpose Spray Adhesive and it held very well through the rest of the work. The plastic on the top of the seat back made it easy to slip the top of the new cover over the seat back down to the point where I needed to hog ring it to the metal back. Once I'd done that (more on that in a minute), I was able to very easily roll the rest of the cover down over the rest of the back. When using the tangs to secure the front and back of the cover to the bottom of the seat back, it was easy to pull the material down far enough. This was probably because it could slide easily on the plastic sheet. I was able to hog ring the cover to the metal back through the slot without too much trouble. I first used plastic cable ties to pull the wire on the metal seat back and the wire in the seat cover insert together, then used the hog ring pliers I bought to add the hog rings. I was going to cut the cable ties off afterwards, but decided to simply trim them instead. I can't see them doing any harm, and they're providing extra holding power. When I did the seat bottom, I first used the tangs to pull the cover down tight on the foam and metal seat base. Once I'd done that, it made the job of attaching the hog rings much easier because the foam was quite compressed. I used the cable ties again, which made it very easy to attach the hog rings. I do kind of wonder whether you could do this job with the cable ties and not bother with hog rings at all. Maybe they'd wear through over time. So I would suggest using a plastic wrap over the seat back, attaching the seat bottom cover using the tangs before doing the hog rings, and using cable ties to pull parts together when installing the hog rings. I'll be doing the driver's seat over the next few days, so I'll get a chance to do this again. Hopefully it will go as well as this one did.

It seems over the years we've come to love cup holders in our vehicles. Unfortunately, they were unheard of when our Z cars were built. So I decided to fabricate some. They came out pretty good, so I thought I'd share the details with the group. Mine is a 1973 but I'm pretty sure earlier Z's are the same. I have about $20 in the build. See Pics of finished product and original consol. Material List: (see Material list 1 & 2 photos) Piece of hardboard or paneling 1/8" thick (2) Orings 2-1/4" I.D 1/4" thick (4) pcs of 3/4" x 3/4" x 2" long wood pieces for legs. You could also use round dowel rods if that what you have (2) SS cup holders. I got mine on ebay for $9.50 for the pair. Size is important and not all the ones offered on ebay are the same size. Look for a size that is 2.7" I.D; 2.2" OAH; 3.15" OA Dia (at the lip). The item # on ebay for the ones I bought was 145114090133 (not sure it the same vendor is still listed) See photo. (1) 8-32 x 2-1/2" long screw with nuts (2) or a #8 sheet metal screw the same length. If you look at material list 2 photo, what I did was braze two 8-32 nuts together to make a threaded sleeve then used JB Weld to attach them to the bottom of the consol (1) pcs 1/2" x 1/2" x 1/16" aluminum angle 4-1/2" long. I attached it to the front of the assembly using 3M Auto trim tape to give the assembly a more finished look. This is optional. You will also need 2-9/16" hole saw All the dimensions included are approximate and based on my installation. Some modifications and fitting may be necessary to fit your application. After cutting the holes for the cup holders, they will still need to be enlarges some to fit the holders. I used a Dremel with a sanding wheel for this job. Go slow and test fit often. You want the holders to fit snug in the holes. The o-rings go on the bottom of the cut out to provide additional grip on the holders (see photo) Note that the legs are set slightly in from the edges on all four sides. This is to compensate for the slight taper on the sides of the original consol. I attached the legs and the front panel using Elmers glue and wire brads (small screws would also be acceptable) The 3/16" hole between the cup holders is for the bolt (or screw) that attached the assembly to the original consol. Note also the small area in front of the cupholders is ideal for your cell phone

Today I was able to pick up the long-awaited sea-freight shipment from Japan with some parts I bought as long ago as June last year. I almost forgot what I bought back then, so I was excited to see what i got. The shipment originally included parts which were not for myself, so when the shipment was ready to be loaded on the boat, and then these items popped up for a good price, i just bought them blindly to use the opportunity of almost free shipping. This set is what i think an original Nissan factory adjustable suspension. I still have to check the numbers and all the details. But ut looks like it could be an original nissan set. The other (rear suspension) set looks like a reworked original strut. It has some Nissan stamps on it and obviously got repainted at some point, but it was quite cheap and looked close to factory (not like these modern designs), and it came with multiple boxes of what appears to be original Nissan suspension parts, so I added it to my delivery. The third item was a real win. a set of genuine Mikuni JP PHH44 Carbs. The price was very low, because it looks really rough. But if you studied the details thoroughly, you would see the inside is in pretty damn good shape. All the original parts are included, and the plating is still nice on most parts. And it came with an old school heat shield (not sure if original Nissan) plus a set of two modern style heat shields. Both still unused. The price was a real bargain for what you pay for those these days. And it seems to my untrained eye, that all it needs is cleanup and set of fresh gaskets. but we'll see.. Not from Japan but also delivered today was this used DiaFilm scanner which I bought online recently. So I gave it a try to scan those first original Nissan Maintenance training slides, which I bought recently I still need to figure out that colour correction and other stuff, but the first results are promising. and those slides are really, really cool! My goal is to digitalize them all.

Pulled out this car after a long slumber. I purchased over 20 years ago in Orlando area from original purchaser family. Windshield shows last inspection in April 1981… Original windshield, 4 side windows dated 12/69. Hatch glass 3/70. Interior all there. Hoping to do a light refresh/clean of interior,drop the suspension, clean and paint. Engine needs to be rebuilt….”matching numbers”. Dog legs being replaced small rust area under drivers seat between alignment “flap” from rear body and floor 2”x2”. Green Tan…. My favorite combo… Wet blasting hood revealed surprisingly…. A virtually perfect hood..!!!!

5 weeks since surgery and it's still pretty sore. Really depends on what I do. Therapy one day, rest the next and then back for more. I'm doing a lot at home with a recumbent bike and weight bench with a leg lift I bought years ago to hang clothes on. Now they're my nemeses just like the upstairs garage apartment I've loved for so many years. The doctors say I'm halfway, 12 weeks is their recommendation for release but say it could take up to a year to feel like it never happened. Haven't taken a pain pill in 2 weeks, not saying I wouldn't take one the size of a Frisbee right this minute but the OTC Aleve plus herb(s) are working great. Happy New Year Mark and Kathy!

I just wanted to let my friends know that I've been under the "weather" for over a year now with my clutch leg (LHD). I had a knee replacement 10 days ago and walked on my own after 1 week. I didn't get the robotic arm installation just the old fashioned human arm job. Very happy with the prospect of being young enough and pain free to maybe work on another Z sometime in the future. I'm keeping them cranked up and fluids flowing monthly but unable to drive. Soon enough my doctor says.

Okay, time to come clean. I found this car for sale on Vancouver Island and couldn't resist buying it. My Canadian girl, number 6521 now has an American cousin, Number 957, a 1/70 car. When I finish restoring 6521 they will be twins. HLS30-00957 was owned by a member here, @M3333hp. sadly he passed away in 2020, mid way through the restoration. Rest in peace Pete. Pete's son completed (except for a few small details) the restoration with great attention to originality in 2022, exactly as his dad would have wanted. Pete would be proud. He recently decided it was time to let the car go to another enthusiast. I was very happy to be that guy, and yes I still do plan to complete the resto of 6521. Not that haven't already, I will be taking my time on the current resto, leaving the final work to enjoy when I retire in a few years. I have really missed having a Zed to drive and for club cruises and shows, etc., number 957 will definitely take care of that. Here are of few more pics of 957. I will be starting a new thread soon to document the number 957, and the short list of items on my new todo list.

So I finally got back into the shop this weekend. A while back I was working on reworking some marker lights. Jim Arnett watched me struggle along with that for a while before he said "I have a nice set of running lights all redone if you're interested?" So yes, I'm interested! Jim does nice work and I got them in a week or so ago. I put the rears on yesterday and a engine room light that also came from him. I also got a new shift boot and rubber boot for the end of the transmission I also figured out how to get the maxima calipers apart There is a clip way down inside you need to get out I bought these snap right pliers. They work really good Needs some clean up Rebuild kits come in on Monday

I own a 1/71 car "Series 1", and I had someone approach the car and start pointing at all the incorrect things on my car. The fun part is , my car is all original and unrestored. I just said thank you.

I don't see to many "drive" posts on the forum, it seems to be more technical. I thought I might add a post from a recent ZCCW drive. We rent out Maryhill Loops Rd. and drive up and down all day with no worries of cars coming the other way or the like. A fun weekend for sure. https://www.maryhillmuseum.org/outside/historic-maryhill-loops-road Skate boarder's fly down and cars fly up. Interesting story about the origin it in the post above. Here are a few pic's and one video from the weekend. Out there having a blast in my 6/70 driver. We normally only have one car at time, but I talked the officers into letting me follow the other early (71) S30 up the road for a video shot. Reuel and I going up.mov

I just did that, waiting to hear back, will see how long I can string him along😄

This weekend, I disassembled the new Kanto Seiki ignition switch I got from Japan and changed out the wafers to work with the new, original keys that came with a new old stock hatch lock I bought off of eBay a while back. I found this link to Ratsun forums to be helpful with getting the key tumber out of the switch assembly. In order to get to the wafers, you have to remove the tumbler assembly which requires removing a small steel pin. I drilled as small hole in a spot that allowed me access to the backside of the pin. I was able to push it out and then pull out the tumbler assembly. After I got it out, I swapped a few wafers so I could use the keys with the black paint on them. The new ignition switch did not have these electrical wires. However, these were easily moved over to the new switch. All done: That was the light work for the weekend. Then I switched over to the hatch glass again. I have been dreading getting back to this, because I knew it would require many hours, and I was a afraid that even after investing many more, I would not achieve a satisfactory result. Last time, while I achieving success with removing the deep scratches that were in the glass, I was not having much success getting the glass shiny again. I picked back up with experimenting with the polishing compound that came with the kit. After repeatedly going over a relatively small area, I was unhappy to see I had made next to no progress. I just seemed to be going through polish with no real improvement. The manual said that if the polish wasn't working, I may need to got back to the previous grits. So, I decided to get my magnifying glass and have a closer look. Under magnification, I could see that the polish wasn't doing much even in the area I had concentrated on. I also saw, however, that there were some scratches left over from the first grit. Clearly, I would have to revisit use of some of the prior grits and rework. So, I used the magnifying glass and the green grit (second stage) until I had addressed everything I saw. Then I switched to the blue grit. I went over everywhere that I had used the green. I also went beyond where I had sanded with the green by a couple of inches. For the most part, the sanding scratches looked like )))))))))))). So, when using the blue grit, I went 90 degrees to that, so I could see when all the scratches from the green grit were gone. I used the magnifying glass to check progress. When I was done with the blue grit, I switched over to an Eastwood glass polishing kit I bought a long time ago to polish some wiper marks out of my BMW windshield. From memory, I recalled that the Eastwood kit was able to remove the wiper marks, but also polished that glass back to normal finish. So, rather than using the polish that came with the new kit, I decided to use the Eastwood kit instead. The Eastwood kit contains a powder. To that, you add water. Within a few minutes of polishing with this, I was able to see much better progress with the polishing stage. So, I kept going this route. I also utilized a laser thermometer to check heat, as polishing can heat the glass quite a bit. Polishing glass... is not easy. When I quit yesterday, I had worked on the hatch glass for 6 hours straight with just one 10 min break. And it wasn't done, but I no longer feared that I wouldn't be able to use the hatch glass. Today, I picked up where I left off with more polishing. After another two hours, I called it good enough. I put the factory original weather strip on the glass and proceeded to install it on the car. While that didn't go well, and I became highly irritated, I did eventually get it in. So, I have something like 14 hours of work in polishing the hatch glass. I have learned a ton about how to remove scratches. The kit I bought from Europe will remove deep scratches. But, it takes a lot of time and very careful work with the sander and the grits to get the glass back to a point where you can polish it. I think the polish that came with the kit is worthless. Perhaps it is ok on non-tempered glass. Instead, I recommend using the Eastwood product for the final polishing. Is it perfect? No. But, I got rid of a bunch of deep scratches and I learned a lot. If I had to do it again, I think I could get the time down to around 9 hours which is still crazy, but for what it is worth, I was able to save the original hatch glass:

Today marks a bit of a milestone: the 240Z frame / Body / Shell is more or less completed. The rollbar and all the accessories (optional passenger foot bar, etc.) are fitted. And all the panels are installed: The car got new floorpanes, new front inner fenders, rear quarters, rear inner and outer wheel wells, new frame rails, new inner and outer side steps, new roof, a complete new rear-end, new seat-rail mounts, and much more. Many small areas like alle the little brackets got fixed and rectified. I think i can say the car is as rust-free as possible. In the next few photos, you can find some details of how the rollcage was installed, as some were intersted how i installed it. I hope i got it right and close to the factory setup. Welds from the bottom side: Bolts from the other side (inside the inner rear wheel well): So now? They'll deliver the car back to my own workshop, so i can install all the locks, spacers, rubber-dampers, trim, etc. before it goes back for final gap-adjustment and to get the sideline into the doors, etc. Once the car is back in my place, i'll take a closer look at it and share the photos with you. On the first glimpse i'm very happy with their work. but there are still some areas to fine-tune and i'm sure we forgot some small things which i will figure out once the car is back in my place. Meanwhile the next project is already waiting at their shop. A one of four known-to-still-exist Bentley Airline. Something in a slightly different category with wood frame and all.

Just ordered the harness from Haltech. Wish me luck!

Thank you @grannyknot, very kind of you to say. At the age of 15 and 8 months old, I got my first car, a Datsun 510 4 door. My dad chipped in $500, which was the amount that he had given my brother for his first car a few years prior. That $500, plus every dime I had ever saved came to about the car's purchase price of $1200. As a single mother, my mom worked two jobs to pay for what was needed and little else. Needless to say, we were not a rich family. My dad convinced me to take it to the shop that worked on his car to go through it and "do everything it needed". That cost another $264, and my dad started to record what I owed him in a little black ledger. A couple months later, one of the rear wheel cylinders developed a leak. That cost another $100 to fix at the same shop. With each additional repair, it became obvious to me that I was going to either have to learn how to do some things myself, or I would just keep incurring a larger amount of debt with my dad. So, I asked for a Haynes manual for Christmas (1985). With that, my learning how to work on cars began. When I was in my early 20's, I partially restored/modified the 240z that I now refer to as my track car. I experienced a lot of firsts restoring that car. And I drove it for a lot of miles. Over many years, I upgraded and reworked several areas that I had previously given attention. For this 240z, my goal was (and is) to apply to a complete restoration... all I have learned from my prior experiences of working on my first 510, "restoring" and modifying my "track" 240Z, and repairing a few wrecked Honda S2000's. And, in addition to a full restoration, I would like it to be to a level that makes this car worthy of consideration by those who would know, those who are experienced with rebuilding and restoring cars... that this is "one of the nicest" 240Zs around.

So I have a Harbor Freight blast cabinet. It is probably 15 years old or older. I have wanted to do the Tacoma Company upgrades to it for years but I've never pulled the trigger because the timing was always bad. I finally bought the pieces last month. https://www.tacomacompany.com/ The original cabinet Cut the bars out from under the frame New funnel adapter on bottom of the cabinet Drilled a hole in the left leg for a new air regulator Two new holes for the air and media for the gun Regulator Cut the lower shelf back New box that covers the air intake on the left side of the cabinet Air flow is reversed in this new setup I had to silicone the screws at the glove cuffs because the static from the cabinet would shock the fool out of you Cut the spring steel screen down and wrapped it with metal screening to prevent little parts falling down in the cabinet Added a foot pedal for the cabinet versus a hand trigger New gloves inside and a fresh piece of glass I have a switch on top that cuts the LED's on in the cabinet and start a vacuum that sits outside the shop door I finally got the air all hooked up today. It's a totally different cabinet now!! I can see and it cuts really quickly. I have some new Bufferfly screws for a quick change glass setup

We bought an uncoated header for the 510 from Troy Ermish a while back. We added two O2 bungs so we can check the carbs separately and added a Vband fitting at the exhaust end. I sent it off to JetHot over Christmas and got it back this last week. It looks nice!

I am very tired and sore. What I thought was going to be a three day job ended up being two weeks… because I am a perfectionist. 😕 The installation of the left door window was no big deal, but I wanted the glass to be as clear as I could get it, so I spent six (!) days working the scratches out of what was a B+ window when I pulled it out of a wrecked car a year ago. I used a combination of diamond polishing pads and cerium oxide, which works well, but there is a learning curve. The right side should only take a day now that I know what I’m doing. It’s now a solid A grade, but I came a little too close to the Nissan etching, so that’s less crisp than it should be. All told there are two 1/4” scratches and some light swirls that I couldn’t get out without risking distorting the glass. Not bad. Acceptable I guess. Installation was not hard, although I should have brought a second set of hands. I have some alignment issues with the rear corner sticking out and not sliding back enough without help from outside, but I don’t feel like dealing with that right now. New seals, new hardware, and tons of grease.

The "grocery getter today": Walking towards the car with my grocery haul, I laughed out loud as I gazed at the car. Though not quite as small as a Miata, the size of these things is quite laughable. Pictures of it by itself (purposely parked far away from others) don't reveal its compact size. But, put it next to nearly any modern vehicle and the small size becomes very apparent. My tire diameter is a little smaller than stock. So, even though I have a "red gear" speedometer drive to match the 4.11 rear end ratio, the speedometer appears to be off on the high side. I will check it vs. actual speed with my phone/GPS soon. For now, I am just trying to keep from being freaked out while I drive it around. For the first 15 or so miles, I have been pretty anxious, thinking of all the things that could go wrong. On the way back from the grocery store, I started to feel "at home again". The exhaust note is quite aggressive, and loud... and that is a good thing. 🙂 It has been 9 years since I have driven a 240Z, albeit the last one was my more "track focused" 240Z, which is an entirely different beast. I still have many things to finish up, some of which include: figuring out what to do about putting a speaker in the stock (rear, left) location. This is holding up putting the left side interior trim panels in place. decide whether to put the factory radio in the dash, or install a blue tooth compatible "Retrosound" unit. troubleshoot why interior fan is not functional install glove box door spray paint and install tail light finisher panels and rear license plate light spray paint and install front grill install steering wheel horn hub/garnish install luggage straps cut jute for the front floors install front right kick panel (I am still evaluating right door fit/alignment) Install storage compartment liners - glue to body Place jack and tire stops in storage compartment

I have installed the windshield - this time with the stainless trim! It's not fully in place as it should be - it sits about an 1/8 of an inch more toward the passenger side. However, that will auto correct when it sits in the hot sun for a bit. This third windshield seal was very flexible which made a big difference when installing the stainless trim pieces. And so far, this second windshield has not delaminated in the corners like the first one did. The other part I was waiting for was a replacement brake booster push rod. With its arrival last week, I was able to complete the rebuild of the brake booster and to get that installed in the car. Using a vacuum tool like this one - I was able to build vacuum to 500 mm Hg by connecting it to the hose from the booster and waiting the 15 seconds specified in the factory workshop manual to confirm it was within specification (did not lose 25 mm Hg or more in 15 seconds). With these two things completed (brake booster installed and windshield installed), I was ready to take the car for a brief test drive. The car now has 15 miles on it 😉 During that brief drive, I noted that the brakes are not 100% yet, and the exhaust was vibrating against the rear apron at idle. When I got back, I put the car back on the lift. I found a bit of brake fluid on the front right caliper, so I quickly cleaned that off and went around to all of the brake line fittings and ensured they were all tight. I will need to bleed the brakes again to ensure all air is out of the system. For the exhaust, I simply loosened the band clamp that holds the muffler to the tail pipe and moved the muffler forward 3/4". One of the things I was worried about was the differential. After all the trial and error with shimming and the custom work to rebuild it, I was worried I still didn't have the gears meshed properly and it would make a lot of noise. I am happy to report that I don't hear any noise coming from it. It is super quiet even. I am glad to have these two things that were holding me up out of the way!

I've recreated the frequency panel for the 240z radio panel- From what I can tell its as close as I can get it- what do you think?

So I debated trying this or not. I'm glad I did though So the water tubes in the intake manifolds have been there for 50 years; steel in aluminum. They are 19mm (3/4") I don't have a flare nut wrench that large. But I took the propane torch to it and they came out! This is the end of the water tube. There is a rubber o ring that goes against a conical seat at the bottom of the hole. Then I used the induction heater to try to get the nuts off the pipe They came off which was great! That tool is really impressive in what you can get apart. Then I bead blasted these parts I'm glad that I did because the tube has a pin hole. I believe this would leak because the seal is a the bottom of the nut at the seat. This pinhole would be inside the nut. So I found a piece of tubing. I couldn't find anything on Amazon but I found some 10mm OD 8mm ID tubing on Ebay. So I have 20" of that coming. I will try to replate all of this in the next few weeks I pulled the studs out of the manifolds too. And this is what I had I degreased then and put them into the bead blasting cabinet. After the first pass, I turned the air pressure down to about 60psi and blasted them again. This is how they came out. I'm really pleased they look this good! Then I treated them with Sharkhide. Before and after

Fun day with the Driven Edmonton show. A little overcast and turnout was still good with around 300 cars. SASSZ was one of two cars picked for Judges Choice award!

I'm working on the glove box lid, had to repair the hinge, repaint the hardware, etc. So like a dope I left some cleaner on the lid too long and it discolored it 😞 I knew better but got distracted with something, lost track of time, and came back to a faded grey for the color of the outside lid. At this point I was open to trying to paint it and since I have a bunch of the SEM stuff for the panels I'll be doing next month I figured I'd give it a try. Then I had another idea. I recently restored the radiator and used this to paint it when done. It came out beautiful BTW I had also used it for the inner door sil kickplates and those came out great too So I figured lets give it a try on the lid. Well, it came out nearly perfect match to the dash lol. This rad paint sprays on so thin since its made for radiator fins and dries so fast it was really easy and i didn't need to go through all the SEM prep and sandless and all that. Pictures don't do it justice but here goes When I'm ready to do all the panels I'll give this a try to see how it holds up and report back. Maybe an easier alternative for some.

Brigham City, Utah, Sept. 7, 2024 - 1,070 cars. I found I had relatives/in-laws with Z's, we were the only Z's except for a 370Z that was with the tuner cars. The ZX is an original turbo car and the 280Z has a LS under the hood. Different generations, we had a blast and I'm old enough to be their grampa. Funny, one kid about 12-13 walks by and says "look, Jaguars".

I finally figured it out. The white plastic adjustment screw for the outer door handle rod was screwed too far out. I screwed it in further and it works. Whew.

So more exhaust work last weekend I can't load all the images I want to. I get an unknown server error -200 @Mike Here are the one's that did load Old next to new We couldn't get the exhaust back under the car once it was tacked up. So we cut it here and will add another Vband. It pretty much all tacked up up. Once we verify that, we will ship off the header for jet coating. The cross section on the new exhaust is 315% bigger then the stock exhaust (1.25" vs 2.5"). It'll probably be rowdy but Cody will like that

I don't find the Series 1 / 2 terminology offensive. I look at it as a general description that gives some idea of the traits the car could have. It's not normally used as a hard and fast rule or an absolute. I find the terminology very helpful and always have. If I want exactness I use production dates but it's very rare I care that much.

Just advise him to order a weatherstrip kit as soon as possible.

Ok, a few minutes for an update to what’s going on technology wise on the 510 project First, an update on the speedo cable drive. I couldn’t get the Dakota DIgital box to read the VSS out of my ECU for reasons I have not resolved, so I went the lazy route and bought the one from Speed hut that uses GPS as an input. It has been operating flawlessly, EVEN on a recent trip through the mountains (unlike my satellite radio….). While it can be calibrated to any speedo, somehow this work of art managed to read PERFECTLY out of the box on my Metric KPH marked 69 510 sweep style 50+ year speedometer. Maybe the RPM/MPH thing is pretty standard across speedometers….. https://speedhut.com/supershops/speedbox-without-mechanical-cable-gps-vss-to-mechanical-drive-speed-converter/

Painting the block, masking is always fun to do. I couldn’t stop my self to paint the bolt fixing the engine mount bracket. If I had extra genuine marked ‘7’ bolts I would have re-plated it. The outcome is so so, I sprayed fluorescence green over metallic yellow. Finally I put just a little bit of metallic purple. Please see the engine mount bracket, it has over spray of blue, is is original? And the date shown on the center muffler and the rear muffler ‘72 07’ they make the car so proud as a survivor. In Japan so many people wanted to replace it with a dual exhaust pipes. I think it looks odd to see some very bright parts in the non restored engine bay. Kats

Pulled the Old Gal out of the garage to sweep out the dust bunnies underneath. Bonus...no fluid puddles on the concrete 👍

I brought the z to a car detailer who polished it..it was full of swirls etc. Paint is 8 years old but wel maintained. Looks like new again he did a great job.

I finally got around to doing something with this. I dropped by my local Z mechanic last week to see what pro tips he may have and it was well worth the stop. Super simple fix using something everyone has in their garage (I was obviously over complicating it by seeking a pipe expander). He took a socket that was just barely too big and hammered it in the end to expand it ever so slightly, this also had the added benefit or making the tube perfectly round again (not sure if it was already or not). Super simple fix!! I installed it today and the install was just as I would have expected, a nice tight compression fit...tapped it in gently with a hammer. All is good. 🙂 Hope that this helps someone else in the future.

Back to the Future

Better picture of firewall vin stamp, proper inspection lid, and a small example of needed parts…… But my “part doner car” 740 is showing great potential. Red dot mirror, radio, console, perfect fuse box,and ashtray dash wiring harness!!!. Much needed parts for 51

Dave takes his first drive,

This goes into the "I never thought this would happen to me, but ..." category. No, it isn't that kind of story for those of you who are getting the wrong idea. Back to the boobs thread for that kind of titillation. Since @grannyknot is thinking of driving the car up to a local muffler shop, I thought I'd better make sure I had everything in order so the car is legally driveable (as an aside, it's quite a trick keeping up with Granny on this project. Parts suppliers don't always work at the speed he does). When I started poking at the car back in 2020, I had the ownership paperwork. Somewhere between then and now, it disappeared. Not that big a deal. The car has been registered to me since 1994. So I went to Service Ontario to get a new ownership card. The nice lady behind the counter took my driver's license and typed something into the computer, then said "Hmmm, that's strange. What's the VIN". I gave her the VIN, and she says "We have a problem. You don't own this car. In fact this car was destroyed by a wrecker". Huh. It was in tougher shape than we thought, but I didn't think it was that bad! I asked which wrecker it was registered to, and when it had happened, but she wasn't allowed to tell me. Fortunately, I always expect something to go wrong when dealing with governments, so I was more amused than annoyed or terrified. I assured her that the car had never been near a wrecker, never mind destroyed. For some reason I had the original bill of sale and some other official paperwork from my purchase of the car, including an appraisal document with photos. To make a long story short(-ish), she got on the phone with the gurus at Service Ontario Headquarters. They apparently asked whether I seemed credible. Fotunately, I'd combed my hair and worn a shirt with no stains on it, so she put in a good word for me. They claim that they can undo the transfer to the wrecker, but it will take a couple of weeks. I'll probably need to provide something from an appraiser to confirm the VIN of the car. Apparently this happens from time to time - probably a similar VIN car was sold to a wrecker and a typo happened. It doesn't give you a lot of confidence in the system if someone can transfer ownership of your car without you even knowing ... I asked again about the wrecker, and she asked whether I wanted to request a Vehicle Information Package for the car. For $20 it would give me the history of the car's ownership. You can request this for any VIN at all. The car was apparently transferred to the wrecker in January of 2007. The wrecker is about half an hour from where I lived at the time. Maybe I'll drop by and ask if they have any parts left. Granny's running out of things he can work on again!

So my wife is wrong. I AM good for something! I'm glad you could get to the bottom of your problem.

Success, I did the ohm readings and you can see from my chart compared to Steve's chart that the left #4 terminal and the right #6 terminal where not getting power from #5. I took the switch apart again and bent the #4 and #6 contacts down a fraction of a millimetre and I also put a thin spacer under the spring so the contact toggle would make firm contact when switched to left or right. It is working perfectly now. Thanks @SteveJ

They'll have to pry this new one from my cold, callous coverd dead hands.