hr369

When I measure for squareness i use places that are identical on each side like the hood stop adjusters and fender bolt holes down by the headlight buckets. You can solder a hook onto your tape measure and hook into a bolt hole. On the underside you can again use bolt holes that are identical on both sides. The datsun factory manual has measurements for the body but i've not used them. I check for squareness and how the sheetmetal fits. Pay close attention to how the fender gap on the door fits. If its hard to get the fender to have a unform gap on door from top to bottom, there may be a problem with the height of the frame rail. Using a tape measure for that is more difficult. You need a perfectly level floor for that. This is from the factory manual. The only measuement for squareness in the front frame rails is from the strut to the back of the car. For that you would need an adjustable jig to fit up under the strut tower.

First of all a few questions. What kind of pant are you using? What kind of paint gun and how big is your compressor? Is this your first paint job? when you say "uneven" you mean you can see the primer under the paint still or you have smooth and rough?

The nose on the z car is very long and im thinking alot of difficult door closure issues are related to flexing and misalignment of the front frame structure. So perhaps if you're having door closure issues, you might want to do a little measuring of your front end for squareness and look at how the front sheetmental fits. In this video the frame was out 5 mil's and it affected how the door closed significantly.

Speaking of rust and australia, I ran across this guy on youtube thats from australia and is really into doing rust repairs on old datsuns. check out some of his videos. if you are looking for someone to do the rust repair you might look him up. From the looks of it he's damn good at what he does.

does Roger know how much they're worth?

paint codes can be off by a few shades. If it were mine and I wanted an exact match to the old paint i would find a piece of original paint somewhere on the car and hit it with polishing compound. Then take it to a place that has one of those laser color matchers. Then i'de spray a little test panel and put the 2 side by side. If by any chance its off i'de get a tint package and tweak it until it matched.

over on zdriver they're talking about this "Back to the future dude" out in finleyville and I bet its the same guy. Sounds like a hoarder on a massive scale. " I have my guy that owns a defunct Datsun dealership out in finleyville. Weird guy kinda reminds me of "Doc brown" off them old Back to the future movies. He's got a 100 x 200 foot building that should be on "hoarders" full of z parts so next time I'm down ill see if he good some cherry ones." "Smitty is VERY unreliable anymore. I called him in march for a new T top and a turbo and still has not called me back. Im planning on heading down to the shop this week just to B.S. He had some health issues and is still working. But ill bring up I know a person looking for parts and see if he is comfy handing out his info. I got him kinda pissed last time I dropped his contact info. If your local should just stop down think he still working nights."

For me, i look at the back side of the metal that has rust. If its discolored or has any signs of rust I cut out that area and put in new metal. I've noticed metal thats been cleaned of rust, rusts faster if left open to the air as opposed to new metal. It's like the rusty metal has broken down like meat thats left out of the refrigerator.

Some researchers have said that iq's have gone up since lead was removed from paints and gasoline but others have noted a shift in the other direction. Check out this yahoo news article on the subject Yahoo! "previous research studies have found that women of higher intelligence tend to have fewer children on average, meaning that population growth may be driven by those with a lower IQ. And over time, the abundance of less intelligent offspring would affect the overall IQ average" Darwin and his theory of survival of the fittest must be flawed. As for slow drivers and high beamers you should see what i have to deal with in hawaii. I've had to buy night driving glasses that are slightly tinted so im not temporarily blinded by oncoming high beams.

Cheap afro wig and cheap leisure suit and anyone can reproduce that picture you lost so many years ago

I was into rebuilding wrecked cars back in the early 80's. This is my first z. It was a 260z from sacramento. The kid that owned it before had a sticker in the rear window that said "im a rocker" He had run it into a telephone pole. I replaced the whole left front side including frame rail and core support. Good new looking parts were so easy to find back then. I painted it with flashy red metallic centari. Too bad I have no before's because it was toast and should have been scrapped.

Listen to the wife. You don't need all those zparts. Please sell them to us

when are you going to paint the area at the bottom of the windshield? that area shows a bit even after the cowl cover is on.

Perhaps that old 240 motor has some stuck rings from sitting so long. You might try getting it running first and see if the compression on some of those cylinders comes up. Thats the route i'de take first before buying another motor. BTW... What shape are the exhaust ports on the 280z motor?

park that truck outside and park the z in the garage

if anyone is interested in reading about it. even has the seller posting how he obtained it and what his plans for it were. actually what i find more interesting is the new processes to make sand castings using 3d printers. I do wish they had a 3d printer that could print up a complete aluminum cylinder head. DOHC L6, Was somebody looking for the Goerz-Paeco DOHC L6 Head ? - Nissan L6 Forum - HybridZ

you can use the original blue and gold calif plates if you didn't register it in minnesota and you still have the original calif title and plates and the car is still on the calif dmv computer system.

nice wheels? wheel locks. sound system? take it out. good alarm system? protected by smith and wesson sticker? get the whole car wrapped in a wrap that has graphics on it that are graffiti rust and dents.

to lower it in the back try using 240z spring perches. i lowered mine quite a bit that way.Those are my favorite wheels good choice. The red one was lowered in the rear. This is what it looked like after.

I just sold one of my 78's for 8000$ and from the looks of this graph on recent sales they are going up. Searching Auctions for Datsun 280Z | Keith Martin's Collector Car Price Tracker If you're looking at it from an investment standpoint don't invest 20k into 1 car. Buy 4 5000$ cars and keep them stock. 240z prices appear to be flat on the other hand. Searching Auctions for Datsun 240Z | Keith Martin's Collector Car Price Tracker

be very wary when you see a newer looking "nissan" parts box on ebay. i know there are ebay sellers out there that have a nissan box but put aftermarket parts in them. ive bought rubber items that don't last long and start falling apart very quickly.

You need to do step 4 now and take it to a machine shop and have the bolt extracted. You were planning on removing the timing cover anyways right? Im not sure what you're trying to do here. Why don't you just pull the head and take it to a machine shop and have it pressure tested?

what angle are you looking at it from? to get a true idea of what the color looks like it should be flat and facing you and preferably outside under the sun. fluorescent lights inside the shop change what the true color looks like. did they mix the paint using a formula or did they computer match?

I replaced my heater core hoses a few years back with the rubber non braided type. I thought that was it for another 10 years or so but i got a big surprise when i heard a hissing noise and then tons of steam inside the car. This night really sucked. It took me 2 hours to travel 30 miles. It completely drained my radiator and i only had a lunch box with a dr pepper and 2 ice packs. You can't imagine how expensive a tow is at midnight in hawaii. So i improvised. First the dr pepper went in then i poked holes in the ice packs. Its semi liquid but helped a little. 2 mph in the emergency lane and i finally reached a little shopping center and drained some stinky koi pond water. Anyways, fortunately i live in a place that is warm enough to not need a heater so i just bypassed the heater core altogether. I was reading a few threads in the past about looping to bypass the heater and how bad it was for the coolant temps in the cylinders in the back of the head. So i plugged everything off. The lesson learned here was to replace the heater core hoses with the braided type that last 30+ years.

if you're going factory nissan parts the hard parts to find new are the expansion valve and compressor. The expansion valve is no longer available at any dealer for quite a while. If you will settle for used parts then there are quite a few available on ebay or other zcar websites. The hitachi a/c compressor was used on other cars. Don't limit yourself to just the datsun part number. 80's and 90's subaru's used a very similar hitachi's. I used a mjs170 from a 300zx. I had to change the high and low pressure fittings on the compressor but new hoses had to be built anyways. Condenser I used was aftermarket parallel designed for R134 An idea i was toying with was putting the zx evap into a s30. Its bigger and would have better cooling and the expansion valves are still available new. Lastly, if you don't like tinkering with cars then i recommend the a/c kits from vintage air or msa.