zKars

The bumper mounts are early 260 style I believe. 280's would have have big holes where the shocks stick through. 240's have a pair of holes for bolts, these have 3 threaded holes. ??

Never seen them. There are too many options for sizing, even the amount of the circumference that's removed to make the step. It;s one of those projects that is "easy" but takes forever to get the washers just right....

Very nice! This is my kinda project. Rode hard and put away wet; Very wet. That thing isn't rusty, I've shown you what rusty looks like. That hole in the side of the cowl is a bit strange. Get that fender off and have a look.

Perhaps I can do the old "picture is worth a 1000 words thing" here. The copper washer has an ID of 1.05 inch. The ID of both bearings (hence the OD of the place on the axle where they press fit) is 1.25inch. That copper washer CANNOT be placed both above and below the distance piece to be used as a spacer. Here's me putting it over the smaller 240 splined stubby. I have a "B" distance piece on the axle, and this axle still has a grimy outer bearing on it, so the distance piece sits in its correct location. Here is the copper washer sitting on the upper bearing shoulder. IT CAN'T GET TO THE DISTANCE PIECE TO ACT LIKE A SPACER. If you have some that will, someone has enlarged the ID of them. If those spacers on either side of the distance piece in that drawing DO exist as real parts (and they may have at some point) they are NOT these copper noise reduction washers. BTW, the 280 stubbies won't even let this copper washer get over their larger splines.

We need to come up with a guide line for flow rate, not pressure. Pressure just needs to be in a range between 0 and whatever your needle valves wil hold without letting fuel through. New ones might hold 5 psi. 2 or 3 psi is usually fine for all but the most beaten up needles and seats. What matters is being able to supply enough fuel volume coming in, to refill the volume leaving the bowl and going into the engine. And to do it across the entire engine operating range. Had a lovely roadster with a cheap electrical pump that drove the owner carzy with what acted like fuel starvation, but because that lovely pressure gauge said 3 psi, he wouldn't believe it had anything to do with fuel supply. He even changed the distributor. Until I took the line off the carb and watched fuel barely dribble into a yogurt container... Put my finger over the end of the tubing and it stopped the pump dead. New pump, car ran like a champ. And it's a system. If the lines are plugged, or the fuel filter is dirty, or the tank has crud that gets intermittently sucked in, a great pump (at either end, electrical or mechical) is not going to be able to do its job.

I'm a bit disturbed by the "either or" opinions about FB vs forums. I communicate with friends, family and my Z family in whatever form each of them are comfortable with. We use Messanger, WhatsApp, FB, SMS texting, email, Instagram etc etc. It is a bit hard to remember which 'ding" I've set up for what program, but that's half the fun. Now I pretty much don't share anything of my Z or real life or activites on FB. You will never know (or see) what I ate for dinner tonight or how I'm doing on my latest diet, but here is a small list of the real life good things I get from FB. 99% is me soaking up information that is useful to me, it's not about sharing other than some tech advice now and again. -Huge audience of Datsun lovers. Get to see their projects and hear their challenges, and watch the trends. -One guy shares all the for sale posts he finds for S30 once a week. Craigs list, BAT etc. -Tons of stuff being sold on the various Datsun buy and sell forums. There is surprisingly very little being said about bad sellers (so far).. -Keep up with some very cool 510 racers (Like John Morton and Troy Emerish) on the "Vintage Datsun Road Racing" group -Keep in touch with the Alberta Datsun gang on the more local forums. Pretty much all of the recent rusty acquisitions have resulted from the contacts and friends I have made and continue to communicate with both HERE and on one or more of the other platforms I've mentioned. Yes you can waste your life sharing crap and chasing "likes" and doing nothing more than feeding the advertisement $$ generator monster on FB or you can use the technology to your advantage by using the parts of it that suit your purpose. Even old dogs can learn new tricks.

I don't think there any differences in 240Z rear struts. And I think all S30 shipped with Aluminum drums. There are services that can now reline the AL drums and there are reproduction new AL drums available. MSA has them for $229/pair. I too have a stack of pretty much wore out (lining wise) drums hoping they will be valuable some day...

FYI, you 280's guys up to 76, the 240 senders fit. Have to change electrical connectors, and you'll loose the "empty" sensor, but, you can still get your fuel level to work. Such a shame they had to change those tanks so much in 77-78...

I considered that. I'm sure the outside can be blasted, the inside cleaned, and massive money can be pored into coatings inside and out. Worth it? Not sure. Removing two vents from an otherwise good condition later tank seems like a better usage of time and funds. Or is that sacrilegious?

If I could remove the drums without beating the crap of them, I'd save them. Plus I have no way of knowing how much lining thickness remains. Struts, well, they have the intense rust weigth reduction problem most of the other parts have... so, no..

I remembered the other body part that shocked me. The passenger door. While the drivers door was a 72 transplant (along with the hatch, dash and seats) and was in horrible rust shape, the passenger door was all 70 original, and in remarkably good shape. The bottom has only very minor rust. The drivers side of the car was overall much worse than the passenger side. Must have been half submerged in a slough. The hood wasn't too bad, but has major crush damage to the nose and a good smattering of rust over all. Roof was horribly dented, likely elephants and lions spent days sunning themselves up there.

As a further demonstration of the advanced rust, the gas tank may be the most glaring example. Most sad is the rarity of this tank with it's lack of the top/front and far left vent lines associated with the Canadian no-evap equipment. (Yes, UN, no UA, thanks Dan!). I do not believe this tank to be salvagable. While it does not leak at all at any seam or through any rust perforation, there is nearly 50% loss of surface metal on the outside. The tank contained about 5 litres of incredibly smelly old fuel. I did remove the sending unit. O-ring was intact, but the mechanism was totally rust locked. Inside the belly of the beast. Here I've ground away the surface rust to expost some remaining bare steel to show just how deep it goes.

Well we have finally come to the end of road for 2744. The only parts of the body that were salvagable were the rear hatch slam panel and downward to about half way through the tail lights, and various little sections like the hood latch bracket, center front grill support (attached to lower rad support), take kind of thing. After sweeping up the rust pile in the center of the floor after final body separation, I'm estimating the weight of said pile to be in the 50 lb range. I dutifully combed through the pile to salvage all useful hardware. I'm going to put a small amount of the rust/dust in a clear glass jar and put it on the mantle as a memento to it's service. Warning. The following pictures are graphic in nature and may be upsetting to some viewers.

Oh you're really asking for it! Listen, this only got started because humans like to have names for things, and we are intrinsically lazy. The big exterior obvious differences with cars that do or do not have the hatch vents, pillar vents, vertical def. glass, original console, and the big perceved value, rarity and coolness jump between "early" and "late" 240's that have these big obvious differences, required our stupid human minds to create a simple way of expressing ourselves when we wanted to say "the cars with the hatch vents, vertical lines, original console" but since we're lazy decided on "Series 1". I'm surprised no one has claimed to be the first to use the term. Tweren't me. Then things got crazy when there were so many other changes, some small, some big, that happened as the cars evolved and individual country laws evolved that required the cars to evolve in unique ways across the globe, as well as Nissan deciding to add value with more features and power. As we've discussed there are likely 7000 small and large incremental changes most of which do NOT constitute any reason to give something a new name. I'm happy if I only ever hear these terms to give us clear and simple names that we can use for discussion. S1 240, S2 240, 260, and 280. Hell, just use the year. I have a 70. I have a 71. then if anyone cares, tell them if you have vert def glass or a late console. It is impractical to arbitrarily decide what specific changes constitute adding a another number to the series series. Frankly the more I think about it, its really all about making everyone think your car is better than theirs just cause it has all that early stuff or is special. That's why I'm busy sharing all the cool unique stuff about 3798 and 2744 cause they're Canadian and have unique stuff AND they're early, AND I found two of them! Na Na Na booboo. I don't spend hardly any time telling you about all the stuff on my 73. (Unless I'm trying to sell it, then look out!) Damn it, humans are crazy beings.

I know, I know, I'm just stirring the pot and making people think about crazy issues like this and how to work through them. Keep buggin' about the whole Series thing. We'll learn sooner or later.

To a certain degree (sic), burning out all the moisture is a good thing, but There is a temperature threshold you don't want to exceed or the expansion and possible melting might cause both a structural strength and alignment issue.

That has to be home made. L28 engines in the 280's have that threaded heater hose outlet on the lower rad hose housing, making it easy to make a threaded fitting to weld to a pipe. Not a bad idea overall. That thread is 1/2" BSPT, I've used it to add SS braided hose fittings for heater lines in the past. The back head fitting is also the same thread.

While we are on the topic of all things "early", I've noticed an interesting feature on the two early HLS30 UA's that I've had my hands on. The topic is a rear sway bar. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I wasn't aware of a factory rear sway bars prior to the 260's. But on both 03798 and 02744 there is a rear sway bar. So what you say, after 40+ years, PO's will add all nature of performance crap, right? Well on 3798, the car had aftermarket front springs and a fatter than stock front sway bar, so I wasn't surprised to find a rear bar on it. Never gave it a second thought. But when I peaked up the butt of 02744, and saw the EXACT same rear bar arrangement I started to wonder. What are the chances of this? Was Nissan Canada adding rear bars? These bars are the style where the bar mounts to the transverse link uprights behind the diff, rather than the stock 260 and later bars that mount ahead of the diff on a frame box member. As you can see, this style requires that you replace the uprights with the wider ones with wings that accept the bar bushing mounts. So my sample of two isn't exactly statistically re-assuring. But what I notice is that all the components have exactly the same age related corrosion and patina. That is, if these bars were added by owners, they were added very soon after purchase. Has anyone else seen this style of rear bar on Z with VIN's around the 1000-5000 mark, especially Canadian spec cars? I just had a thought. When I get the rear suspension out today, I'm going to look at the nuts and bolts that mount those bushings. If they are factory, they will be quite recognizably metric and JIS standard. If they are SAE or metric but hardware store variety, then I have my answer. The style of the bushing cap can also be compared to the front sway bar caps to again compare to factory components.

FB as you have experienced, is a very poor place for sharing or getting technical information. Search is terrible, the experience level is poor. Try to find something you saw yesterday. Total crap. There are a few of us experienced guys who are trying to provide some level of real help. What is powerful is the number of people who are on there. If you have something to sell, or need something, you are more likely to find what you need more quickly. Also there a variety of Datsun forums, not just Z's. It is a more inclusive community as there is more and more people with more than one type of Datsun. Another reality we more mature types won't like is that if we want to continue to attract the young, then we have to be able to cater to them in a way they like. And it sure isn't via our beloved Forum.... I have tried to suggest that anything and everything anyone needs for tech help can be found here but have you noticed a huge increase in membership here? I don't think so.

I know you're just pulling our leg, but please no more "series" designations. Considering the apparently endless list of ongoing changes throughout the entire S30 line, it is not wise to attempt to draw time lines that correspond to only certain changes. I think just using the break point where the vents moved to the sail panel from the hatch to delineate the "early" and 'late' is quite enough. Series 1A, 1B, 2, 2A, 2B, 2B or not 2B? That is the question...

Ok, here we go... Antenna wire through the chassis was a smaller diameter on Z's up to (2744 and 3798 are my samples) than I've seen in later cars Front bumper on 2744 mounts with a single M10 stud on each side, rather than the two on later 240's. The mount brackets are correspondingly different and made of lighter gauge steel than the later ones. 240 Gas tanks on the Canadian UA models have only two vent lines. The floor of the hatch then does not have a steel pass through tube for the left side, just a rubber plub. They also have no evap tank, hard vent line to the front, no "flow guide valve". Which also means the block vent tube does not have the little extra knipple, and the big end of the PVC hose is unique too. And the air cleaner may not have the nipple that attaches to the flow guide valve outlet. Not sure about that one, I don't have the original box on 2744 or 3798. Horn mounts. One 3798, there is a 3 sided retangular bracket welded to the lower rad support that sticks out about 3/4 inch that both horns mount to. On 2744, these brackets are absent and you have the usual (in my experience) two M8 bolts that go directly into the lower rad support through the two horn bracket holes. Never seen these sticking out - brackets before. They are factory. As if there was something behind them that had to get clearance. Factory turbo intercooler? The car was not an automatic. The change of where the rear brake proportion valve is located and all the tubing and tubing support bracket changes that go along with that Gas caps Brake master cylinders. Early had the Front reservoir in the front, with associated changes to the hard lines below. Gas pedal rod in foot well with extra clevis-y thing on top for throttle control cable found on early ones. Different style J-hook on the throttle actuation mechanism. Different bell crank design early to late Hoods. Early one with no holes either side of the latch. Also difference in how hood skin is wrapped around the top corners. Inspection lid catch changes someone else take over, I'm tired....

Tuning carbs is the lowest form of witchcraft. Every muggle knows that. The second thing of interest in the glove box is well, two items. First was the last registration form from Alberta, dated 1990. 27 odd years ago. Second is a letter from the Solister General of Alberta dated late 1990 detailing the driving record of the owner. There were four speeding offences in the past 18 months, with a corresponding large number of demerit points. Included in the envelope was a warning letter from 'the man" indication the perp's options and requesting an improved driving attitude. Apparently the selected option was to park the car... We now know what happened over the ensuing quarter century +. Nothing but a slow weight reduction strategy and budget varmit accomodation.

It came with an instruction booklet.

Found an interesting item in the glove box. Well two, but first things first. Seems its a tool to assist with SU tuning.

Yes