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Haha I'm well aware, I don't use it for that for just those reasons. I DO use it for warming the car up on cooler mornings though while it's idling in the driveway. Thanks for the reminder though!

I have two that I restored this past winter... not sure if you're looking to go that route, or really want an original.

I have a 2/70 and it didn't get to me with the hand throttle, that's for sure. However, we did put one in last Fall, and like someone already mentioned, it works great as a cruise control - when the road is flat. We too took an old choke assembly and flipped it around. Fortunately the car had the requisite mounting bracket up on the firewall. Our solution to installing the knob was... well, rather elementary...

Hey Mike, Bob, Thanks for the good info on the colors. I like the color, and it'll certainly stay that way. The car needs to be painted though, and one question I've had as I consider that is: How do you ensure you repaint it the same color? Can you order "1970 Datsun Paint Code #907?" I've never had a car painted before, and I can't help but think they'll look at me funny if I ask that question. Arne - Thanks for the reassurance. It's been cool most of the days I've driven it, and I wonder (worry) about what'll happen as it gets warmer. It'll be the second summer I've had it, and while it didn't overheat last summer (nor do I remember where the gauge typically sat), we've done lots of work since then too. Never know what changing part A will do to part B... That being said, I've had it out the past few weekends. Running without issue.

Found a decent set of snowflakes from an '81 ZX Turbo. 15x7 with 205/60/15 Potenza's. Makes a big difference compared to the 195/60/14's I had on previously. Replaced the speaker and installed the power antenna from a 280z. Side note: I snapped this photo of the temp gauge on a relatively cool (~60) day in which the car had been running around town (50% highway, 50% neighborhoods). Does that strike anyone as being too hot? Thanks,

Good read. I've had the glove-box sitting in the garage for a few months now, and have been wondering how it's going to go in there. Even in terms of depth it doesn't look feasible; part of the dash wiring harness is right there. I'll give it a shot using some of these tips. Thanks.

I've searched around and read the different forums regarding Radios, speakers, etc. I still have some questions though, mostly probably stemming from not having done enough research prior to ordering parts. I have a 2/'70 build date 240z. It came without the radio. I pulled the panel off in the rear, and the original speaker was there, albeit destroyed, and the power antenna was missing as well. I shied away from spending the big bucks on a Series-1 radio, and instead opted for one pulled (I believe) from a ’73. I also found a power antenna (locally) that worked, but upon later research appears to be from a 280z. Finally, I’ve ordered a set of Pioneer TS-G1343R 5.25” speakers, which were recommended (low watt, shallow magnet). I attempted to install the radio, and was dismayed to find out that the wiring harnesses changed. The radio has the same male connector required for the power antenna, but the straight-three format (blurry photo of the rear of the radio) for what I believe is the speaker connection (?). It also has a red wire I assume is power, and the FM antenna connection. The harness on the dash (photo is clearer) has a connector for the power antenna. But, what I assume is the connection for the radio is different; 2 vertical slots and 1 horizontal slot (also shown). Question #1) From what I’ve read, the radio/wiring harness changed. To use this radio, I would (shudder) have to hack something together? Or create some ridiculous middle harness? Question #2) I’ve also read that it’s a bad idea to wire a second speaker up (in parallel or otherwise) to the mono-setup. Might blow the radio. Is this true? Even if you pulled it off, would you have true “stereo” sound or simply “mono” coming from 2 speakers? Question #3) All the links I’ve found to vendors who sell the mirrored speaker bracket are dead. Anyone know where to get this; or a simple/cheap work around? Thanks in advance, Bill

I know this isn't a story-time thread, but I thought I'd piggyback Sarah's story: I restored a steering wheel this past winter and installed it, along with a 'new' turn signal stalk (my brass pin was broken & gone). I drove the car last weekend for the first time since having done that (sunny day during the winter, car needed some love) only to find out that something must be bent: anytime the steering wheel goes by 2:00 or 10:00 during a turn, the horn beeps. It was a short, very awkward drive through the neighborhood, especially as I turned back onto my street (beeeep) only to find a pack of (presumably) high-school age girls at the corner. Yikes.

Quick Update: - Followed the instructions on this site to restore the car's steering wheel. Went well, and with some help from Fred (horn contact pin was missing from the turn signal stalk), the 'new' wheel is installed and the horn works. It's my understanding that power for the brake lights (the stop lights), works like this: - Power goes into the turn signal stalk - from the turn signal stalk, it goes to the stop light switch - from the stop light switch, it goes through the hazard switch - from the hazard switch, it goes to the bulbs. I replaced the Turn Signal Stalk and the Stop Light switch yesterday. Stop lights (foot on the brake) still don't work. More investigating is needed, because they worked when I bought the car.

Dug into the car yesterday, with three projects in mind: 1) Assemble the rear hatch's fresh-air/ drainage vents. Finally obtained all the parts to complete the rear-hatch’s fresh-air vents / drainage system. Took an hour or two to clean and install, but otherwise went well. 2) Install the radio Obtained a radio from a ’72 or ’73, thinking that although it isn’t the Series 1 radio, the din space in the dash should still accept it. Well, it didn’t, and since then I’ve done some reading that says you actually need to pull that faceplate (holding the HVAC controls, map light, etc.) to get the radio in. Further than that though, a good 45 minutes of searching didn’t yield the 3-prong female end of the radio’s connection to the speaker. There is some new wiring in there, and a black case holding a newer fuse. Not sure what the PO did, but shortly after finding that, I decided to move on. Lastly, I pulled the old Hitachi 5.125” speaker out and couldn’t find anyone in the area who sells a 5.25” speaker with that low of wattage. I’m interested in maintaining the stock system. My accord has a stereo after all, if I want to drive and listen to music I’ll take that. I’ve done reading on some older forums citing a low-watt Kenwood 5.25”, but it doesn’t appear to be for sale in that same configuration anymore. SO, any recommendations on a satisfactory replacement for that rear speaker? 3) Install the glove box It would appear that a PO magically re-routed the wiring harness exactly where the glove box should go. I don’t have the panel that covers the Heater blower, and I suspect the harness originall was covered by that (?). If so, I suspect the PO moved the harness (again, not sure how) so it wouldn’t be visible. If my assumptions are wrong – how in the sam-hell does the glove box fit behind that door? I’ll post some photos later showing my predicament. Lastly, I’ve begun the search to replace these tired wheels. The tires are 215/60/R14, and are less than 2 years old. Since I’m on a budget, I suspect a 14x6.0 wheel is my best bet to re-capitalize the tires. Open to suggestions.

I saw that car on the NC CL... wanted those wheels... Nice buy.

A few updates: - Did the 280zx alternator upgrade after experiencing some issues with the old alternator. What a slow and excruciating death the car experiences when the battery isn't getting charged sufficiently while driving. The turn signals stop responding, then I'd notice the fuel gauge starting to plummet slowly, and shortly after the headlights go out, the car sputters to a halt. Fixed this yesterday, and the amp meter seems to be in the positive. We hadn't done our research properly, and after bolting on the 280zx alternator, fired up the car. Turned on great, but without the diode, it wouldn't turn off. The battery's kill-switch was installed after the first time Jason pulled the main coil (with the shocking jolt that followed) from the distributor to turn the car off. Got the upgrade adapter and all now it works fine. - Jason took a choke assembly and created the throttle control linkage. The car is equiped with both the hook on the gas pedal, and the mount up in the firewall, and with some engineering, he got it working. Since we don't have the throttle control knob, we're just using a backwards choke knob for now. Works well for warming the car up, and it will hold the car at speed on flat stretches of highway.

Thanks. Lots of text, not lots of meat. I'll take some more detailed photos hopefully this weekend, and hopefully have some more details as well. To do list includes (in absolutely no order): - Glove box installation - Obtain/install radio (and speakers, antenna...) - Throttle control cover panel needed (to include defroster switch & wiring harness) - Obtain/install vertical overriders for front bumper (and new rubber for F&R bumpers) - Polish/replace wheels. Find center caps. - Clean up the bumpers (or replace) - Clean wiper control motors - Weather stripping & window gaskets - Corner light gaskets - Paint (& associated body work) - "Wipers" for the D&P door windows. - Headlight wiring harness. - Transmission/ Rear Differential insulator mounts. - Engine rebuild (next year or two) - Probably need a new front windshield (Small crack) - Carpeting - Shifter/e-brake/etc. Leather boots. - ...

Remainder of the photos. On a side note, I ran across a '73 240z on the Kansas City Craigslist yesterday (I went to Kanasas State Univ., so in moments of boredom I'll occasionally scan CL out there). The owner had it listed as a Parts-Car for $850. Looked fairly complete in the photos (I'm not going to post them; don't want to confuse things. But I have them if you're curious). I talked to him later that night, and it sounded like he was in a hard spot. His story was that he bought the car from PersonX, but when he got home he noticed the title listed PersonY. He called the State Police, who ran the VIN# and told him he was ok: it wasn't stolen. However, he can't title/register it since he doesn't have the actual owner's signature (I didn't pry too much, but he says further research has revealed PersonX is an ex-con). He's in the process of trying to request contact information from PersonY, but figured he'd just sell it as a parts car since he can't drive it. Anyone know Kansas law really well? He said the car's floor wells were shot, and that there was some rust on the bottoms of the doors and a little in the fenders, but otherwise it was straight. I feel for the guy - I hope he can get that title. He's since removed the CL ad; I think he's going to try and sort out the Titling issue, or Part it out himself. He can probably do better than $850 with a little effort. Cheers, Bill.

These aren’t too revealing, but attached are some shots of the floor panels and the undercarriage. We tore the “Supertrapp” off the exhaust and the exhaust note sounds immensely better. Previous Owner (PO) had said there were two Supertrapps at one point, but after an abrupt downshift there was a loud bang, and now somewhere along America’s great interstate system lives a lone Supertrapp. The other one is now in a box in the garage. I should note that the PO was a good guy. He (or someone else) did some wacky things with the car, but in terms of preservation, he absolutely did some smart things that made this a feasible project. Despite all my references, I’m not trying to badmouth him. We rebuilt the suspension & steering. In fact, the steering rack’s housing cracked, and with a replacement rack sourced from Fred, Jason was able to rebuild it get the car back on the road the same day. I called BlackDragon asking about the cost of a steering rack and the guy on the other end of the line just laughed. Not a good sign. Thanks Fred. So, Urethane bushings up front, including the steering coupler. We resurfaced the brake components, new shocks, shock mount insulators, new pads & rotors, and various other odds and ends. The old shocks were so bad, you could (with ease) compress the shocks by hand. What a difference new suspension makes. We sourced Monroe shocks from Advance Auto; no fancy Tokicos. Obtained front & rear strut tower braces, and Jason also installed a radiator coolant overflow to mitigate the small issue of the radiator spitting out nearly a gallon of coolant. The overflow seems to be working, as the radiator pulls the coolant back in just fine. As mentioned, the bumper was bent slightly, but we found some hardware and managed to get it mounted, which also required finding the 240z mounting brackets. It’s ugly (needs the rust taken off), but for the time being, we’re glad to have it back on. Headlight covers were removed, but we decided to leave the front spook on. - We’re missing the rear license plate light. The PO wired up some cheap light (see photos) but that’s since been removed. - Still trying to find a ’70-’73 radio. Will then have to replace the speakers, for sure, and decide whether to find an OEM antenna or use the Radioshack version we have installed presently. - Obtained the fresh-air vents for the rear hatch, in addition to the horizontal (external) panels. However, the tubing that connects the vents to the bottom of the hatch are MIA, so we’ll most likely have to fabricate something to solve that issue. You can see in the pictures the white epoxy the PO used to help seal the holes. More to come later. Jason is still down in hills of Virginia with the car. Rumor has it that one of the neighbors (rear rural part of Shawsville, VA) has two 240z’s that he’s trying to sell. I don’t know any of the details, but I’d sure like to know more.

3 posts about the car... 3 comments about my fiancée. Thanks guys... haha.

Don't worry Guy - as we rummage through his garage he'll say "Oh, so-and-so was just asking about that. Gotta' hold onto that for them..." He's not letting it all go! Fred has really helped us out more than we thought possible. He gave us a spin in that 280z of his too. That's one helluva machine.

Here’s the state of the car after we hauled it home via trailer. The front spook and the headlight lens covers were the start of a pseudo-BRE conversion by the prior owner. A low-speed front end collision by one of the previous owners ever-so-slightly bent the front bumper (which was missing the vertical over riders anyway), cracked the driver’s side headlight bevel, and (still under review) may have bent the grill. The paint is tired and faded, in desperate need of being redone. The owner had smeared it with a wax to prevent any further damage from occurring while being stored, but much to my dismay, once I removed the wax, there wasn’t really much worth protecting. Some of the badges had allegedly been stolen, and much to my more recent chagrin, many of the Series 1 specific parts were long gone. Radio, fusebox/cigarette lighter panel, cigarette lighter, Choke cable/ defroster switch shroud, defroster switch itself, rear hatch vent assemblies, and more. Glovebox was MIA. I’ll discuss wiring later on, but I’ll say now that we pulled multiple sets of wiring out of the thing (not connected to anything either). Wipers & jets were there, but none of the hardware for wiper fluid. Fuel gauge & clock didn’t work; the lighting for the gauges was terrible as well. Headlights too, were questionable at best. Aftermarket fog-lights connected to a switch housed in the Fairlady’s cigarette lighter dash-opening. Horns didn’t work, and a Grantt wheel was installed. Most importantly though, the car didn’t show a lot of rust. This was my first Z-Car, and having done my research, I felt pretty confident I’d found a good one. Floor pans were pretty solid, although they look to have been replaced at some point. Battery-tray area was fine, as was the rear hatch deck. I’m not saying its perfect: I think the rear quarter panels may have been replaced, as well as that rear hatch deck as well. Fred later confirmed that we did a good job finding a very rust-free car, especially for it being A) a 1970, and an East Coast car. Oh, and the dash is straight too. A low-end “Cannonball” ignition system had been installed, and while the distributor had been upgraded to remove the points, it was still the stock ballast system distributor. Valve cover was original, but painted. Engine & Transmission match the car, which was great to find out. Original carbs were in place, and through some research we found out that the seats had long ago been reupholstered. They still have a pretty good vintage look to them though, and I’ve grown fairly fond of them. Suspension was shot all around. Car ran like hell with a tendency to stall out. Rear hatch slits were filled with bike-inner tubes to prevent water from coming in. Typical monkey-shifter had tons of play in it. Shifter boot was missing (previous owner joked about it being his ashtray to the highway), which let in a wonderful amount of exhaust gas. Passenger side fresh air vent in the bay was missing. Wiring was a disaster; aftermarket radioshack antenna was installed, no carpeting on the floors, and all the weather stripping was shot. Here’s the shots from the day I got it home. I’ll apologize now for my roommate seemingly grabbing himself, and as for the expression of my Fiancé’s face, well, it’s been 6 months. She still feels the same way about the car.

With the car came a folder of documentation. Some service history, along with the original Datsun Warranty Book and the original Invoice were included. I'm the third owner. I think. Second owner went down to NC/GA to pick it up. This was the story I was told from the seller, but intentionally or not, a lot of the information he provided pre-sale was just plain wrong. So, we take it with a grain of salt and move on. Regardless, these are some neat documents. Haven't been able to track down a Charles Thomas Medlin yet (figure he'd have to be in his 60s or older), but there's plenty of questions I'd like to ask him if I do.

Hey Good Afternoon, I started a thread similar to this over at HybridZ, but the more I’ve gotten into the project, I realize that ClassicZCar is probably where this belongs. Both are great sites though, vast amounts of information out there. It’s a long write-up, but thanks for bearing with me. I bought HLS30-01222 this past spring. Local seller (Herndon, VA) was moving and reluctantly was parting ways with the car, which had been sitting for two years in his garage. He said it had previously been his daily driver, but the birth of his first-born required a more reliable car (what, no car-seat under the hatch?). First time we went to see the car, it wasn’t running. Paint was rough, tires were flat, interior was incomplete, but otherwise in decent shape. Second time we went to see the car, he was able to get it running with a new battery and some fresh gas. That being said, it was (we would later find out) a miracle it was running at all, and it had plenty of issues. Two people have been instrumental in making this project happen: Fred (zpizzaman20), who’s wealth of Z-Car information and treasure trove of parts have been instrumental in making this thing work properly. Second, a good friend of mine, Jason, who was wounded over in Afghanistan in August, such that they sent him back here to Walter Reed. Jason is part-mechanic, part-miracle worker. He’s kept 7 cars of mine (nothing fancy) on the road at this point, and the work he’s done with the 240z is staggering. He’s about to head back to Germany to rejoin his unit, so as his work comes to a close, I figured a write-up was about due. I’m going to use “We” a lot, but Jason is the bigger part of that term. The goal was to rebuild the 240z as a reliable, nearly-original, car. The budget was slim, so building a Concours d’Elegance grade example was out of the question. Every step of the way, we analyzed how much the parts would cost and what benefits to reliability, accuracy, (and performance!) would be gained. For example, one of our biggest challenges was the engine bogging out under load. The deeper we dug, the more we found that needed to be fixed. We ordered the Z-Therapy SU Carb rebuild kit in leiu of switching to Webbers or another type of carb, but when it came to replace the distributor, we went ahead and did the 280zx swap. We’ve also put an electronic fuel pump in the rear. No, it’s not accurate, but after the first time Jason ran out of gas and had to suck it from the tank (consequently vomiting in the parking lot), he decided that wasn’t going to happen again. So I could type for awhile, but I figure I’ll post some photos from when we got the car, and then post newer photos from there. We still have a to-do list, but considering Jason just drove the car from Chantilly, VA to Shawsville, VA, and back without a hitch (8-10 hrs round trip. Measured 27mpg), I think we can finally declare we’ve accomplished the mission. Thanks, and I’ll update in due-time. Bill I'll start with some pre-purchase photos. Some of you might recognize the car, as this is how it looked in the Craigslist ad. Will continue to post more later on.

Mike B: I did it with hesitation, knowing full well that there's a community of people out there who follow these cars. I was relieved that I didn't see anything stating #1,222 was totaled/repaired/stolen/whatever. But, that's why I went looking. I figured there had to be something out there about the car. It's been 40 years, after alll... I'm going to start a thread in the "Open Z-Car Discussion" with photos and a dialouge of what we've done over the past 1.5 months. I have access to 2 very important people: 1) A Z-Car Fanatic with TONS of information and parts 2) An incredible mechanic with TONS of free-time. I/Car am located up in Arlington, VA. Hoping to bring the car to the local meeting on 10-Nov. Thanks again.

Haha I can show you all the photos you want - I'm the one who ended up buying that car. Didn't want to play all my cars on the first hand, you know? Anyway, you google your VIN# and see a comment like that... makes you wonder. Thanks Mike B.

I must ask - what was interesting about the headers on HLS30-01222? Any chance you remember back this far? I know the listing is expired...