Hardway

Very nice! Congrats 240dkw.

I have to agree with Patcon. Stay away from getting a salvage title if you can help it. Just as DJwarner explained, get all your ducks in a row before the adjuster gets there. Since you are not at fault don't settle for the first offer the adjuster makes. Only settle once you are happy with everything. Good luck with everything.

With only 4 pictures its hard to tell the exact condition. Even with the massive overspray in the engine bay and condition of items and a few items missing, if the car is driveable its worth $6K - $7K on the traditional open market. Without seeing the interior that would be my best based on the ad. I agree, $11K is crazy but with a little more time spent on the details it would have brought closer to $15K and possibly more.

Hey Tamo3, what program did you use to create your custom wiring diagrams?

Dean hit the nail on the head. As I write this it is at almost $25K, reserve not met of course. The buy it now of $65K borders on the insane in my opinion. However, the seller seems to think its attainable since he has in the ad "Lastly, I don't really need emails saying Z cars don't sell for 65k..Yes they do ..Low Vin Series I cars in this condition will soon reach 100k..So why am I selling.. To get the funds to buy an ultra low first 500 VIN shipped Z ..BTW which is already hit the 100k mark" Personally, I would love to see this $100K Z car he speaks of. The VIN on the Z he has for sale is not really that low. It is a series-1 but #6157 is not like a single or double digit production number. It is interesting that he says there are several parts on the car that are incorrect but will throw them in if the buy it now is used. I think at $27K that car is done. If it were one of the Nissan restoration program Z cars it would probably bring a little more. I am sure we will see it posted over and over again like the project low VIN Z that was on Ebay just a week or two ago. Good luck to the seller, I know we will all be watching.

In case you have not seen the new video posted up on Petrolicious here it is. Its cool that both the father and son love the cars and the dad actually has the Rat 240z. Must also be nice to have the resources and space to own and enjoy so many other nice cars! http://www.petrolicious.com/these-datsun-240zs-are-animals-to-drive

Interesting post. The car definitely has a series 2 console in it, has the wrong hatch, wrong hood, and overall is in a pretty sad state. Its another case of a somewhat low VIN # car need a lot more money put in to it than it would ever be worth. Hopefully someone can pick it up at a reasonable price and get it back on the road.

Unfortunately no. In order to replace the outer bushings of the control arms the pins have to come out. There are plenty of threads dedicated to the misery of doing this including mine titled Spindle Pin Woes. You might get lucky but very few of us have been. Keep us posted on your progress!

Thank you Dtshaw66. Half of the adventure in owning a vintage car is working on it. For so much work having already been done to my car there are still numerous little projects to do on it. Next up is a tranmission drain & fill with some Redline MT90.

I messed with it some more today. With both the driver side wires disconnected and only the green wire hooked up on the passenger side I still get a closed ground circuit on the black ground wire of the passenger side light. When I hooked up the SLP on the passenger side and connected the ground to it the headlights came one. I just don't see where else it could be grounding out.

Good question 240. Yes, the other side is still mounted on the car. In the post above I was working on the passenger side front marker light. The driver side had not been removed. Do you that is possibly causing the complete circuit?

Thanks for the responses guys. Unfortunately I don't think I am being clear. Even with the marker light handing off the car and none of the housing touching the body I still get a complete circuit tone. The only way to make it stop is to unhook the green power wire going to the bulb. In my understanding of automotive electrics this should not be happening as it appears the wiring for the marker light circuit itself is also providing a grounding circuit. That should result in a short but everything functions properly. Any other ideas?

I bought one of Dave’s side-marker conversion plug kits from MSA and have installed both the headlight relay kit and parking light relay kit. Both of these were very straight forward and installation was pretty much a plug and play affair. Now I am working on the side-market conversion plugs (SCP) and having an issue getting the side-marker housing isolated from the body. The instructions say to use an Ohm meter and see if the black wire going from the housing completes a circuit to the body. I encountered a complete circuit tone so I widened the holes in the housing and put some electrical tape around the back of the housing and tried again. Once installed I continued to get a complete circuit to the body and after moving it around some I had no success. With the housing unscrewed from the car and hanging out I continued to get the tone from my ohm meter and discovered the only way I get break the circuit was to unhook the green power wire going to the side marker. The green wire must stay hooked up to the car for everything to operate. Unfortunately with the new plug installed, once you connect the ground for the housing to the ground of the plug it turns on all the lights on the car (headlights, turn signals, and markers) Pull the ground out, everything turns off. So I am stumped, what I am missing here? All of the lights work properly as-is. The housing has to have its green power going to it but I can’t figure out why the ground for it continuously closes the circuit to the body when the housing is not touching the car.

Thanks for the compliments guys. It has been good having the car back together. Now that the weather has turned a little cold down here I am planning to drive the car to lunch today and really test out the heating system. Hopefully I won't encounter any suprises.

After all that was done I finished wiring up the new stereo. It is an Alpine CDE-143BT. I had installed a model very similar to this in another car and really liked it. Given all the features it has plus Alpine’s high quality I think it is the best value in car stereos. I ran the mic over to the driver side visor. It is just clipped on and nothing was cut or altered to install it. For right now I am using 2 Pioneer 6x9’s from a previous stereo installation project. The boxes are from Custom Sounds and ran $30. It is not the highest quality speaker setup but they get the job done for now. Down the road I will install some kick panel speakers and re-locate the rear speakers to they are not so visible. That is all for now. Due to my current budget limitations and the peak driving season upon us in Texas I have no more plans at this time. 2015 will be the next time any projects are undertaken on the Z. For now, it’s time to get out and enjoy it.

I wanted to do a trial fit of the blower motor assembly to ensure the top cowl seal was the correct thickness. Before I could this I discovered the mounting holes has been a little chewed up, probably by whoever messed with the A/C before and sprayed foam fill everywhere. No worries as a few minutes with a tap and some oil cleaned everything up. A quick test mount showed everything was good so I moved back to the heater panel and cables. Since my cables were not in good shape I sourced a used set on Ebay. They were exactly what I needed and cost me $40 shipped. I picked up a used dash HVAC panel off the Datsun parts Facebook page. It was pricey at $110 shipped but seeing that new ones are $300 and my old one was toast it was a good deal. It is in very good condition and had already been cut for a modern stereo. I chose to hold off on touching it up until it was installed. Then I went about the task of reinstalling everything on to the back of the panel. Before I installed the control lever assembly I cleaned and re-greased the lever pivot points. This should help to provide years of smooth action. I carefully went about the process of reinstalling it the panel in the car, connecting the fan speed motor, and hooking up all the control cables. The blower motor assembly was reinstalled for the final time and everything hooked up to it.

With the holes filled I went about removing the rest of the old paint and surface rust. Once clean I laid down a few light coats of Rustoleum satin black. Unfortunately the paint did not setup properly as various imperfections made themselves known. Since this side would be facing visible to passengers I wanted to make sure it was right. I took scuffing pad to flatten and remove the paint. After another clean up I tried again and it came out much better. While the paint was drying I cleaned up and resealed the vent assembly that sits on the back of the motor housing. I chose not to fully disassemble and paint this since it would have been very labor intensive and 99% of it is hidden behind the blower housing. It was still in good shape so it was best left alone. The new seals will help insure it functions properly for years to come. Now that the blower housing was dry and looking good it was time to install the Honda blower motor. The gold cad screws that came with the Honda unit was course threaded and could not be used. The original screws that were in the housing were in sad shape so I sourced the replacements below from Home Depot along with some rubber insulated washers. I could have used regular flat washers as I have a million of them but these seem to fit the best. I reassembled the blower motor box and wired up the new motor. Again, everything is serviceable and no original connectors were cut or altered. I think the end result is quite nice!

With the new fuse box installed and tested I finished the installation of the headlight relay harness as well as the parking light harness. There is not anything to show but I will say that just like the MSA fuse box they are high quality components. All Z owners should look in to installed them as each one only takes about 20 minutes to install. For the headlight harness I mounted is relays using a hole that originally held the voltage regulator for the alternator. With all of the pre-radio electrical work done I turned my attention back to the blower motor and heating system. With my “while I am at it-itis” in full effect I decided now was the time to upgrade to a Honda blower motor. The blower motor in the car worked but was very heavy, had a metal cage fan, and probably drew more power than a new unit. I was lucky to find a complete blower housing out of a Honda Civic on Ebay for $50 shipped. I tested the blower motor and it was good so I removed it and masked off for painting. Definitely not one of my finest masking job but it accomplished the goal none the less. With that done I went back to the Z’s blower motor housing. Once it was disassembled I started cleaning it off only to discover 2 holes had been drilled in the bottom of it. I am not sure what they could have been for as the ARA A/C box did not utilize them. So with a body shaping hammer and anvil I went about working the area back down while being careful not to hammer too deep and losing the curve of the housing. After that a couple of zaps with my MIG welder filled the holes and I flattened them with an air powered abrasive disc.

Knowing I did not want to reuse my old connectors I did some research and found new female connectors are available but new sheaths in the proper size was not. Another reason I did not want to reuse anything from the old box was the age of the wire itself. Over time copper wire corrodes by nature. After 40+ years the wiring for the Z’s fuse box was no different. The copper itself has become green and oily to the touch. The insulation was also a little brittle but one could clearly see the green residue from the corrosion. All of this creates resistance thus creating heat. NOTE: Keep in mind that all the wiring in the car probably looks like the pictures above. This is why it is so important to take as much load off the original wiring harness as possible. This can be accomplished by installing the various relay harnesses shown above and is exactly why I am doing it now. I located some new crimp on 12-10ga female spade connectors at Auto Zone. I installed a few inches of yellow 10ga wire and crimped it in to the connectors on the new fuse box. At the other end I crimped the new female connectors. With the new box installed I connected everything. It takes a little work as the new fuse box harness curves in the wrong direction. Since I did not have sheaths for the power wires I double heat shrink wrapped them for protection. This way if I ever need to service or disconnect the fuse box I only have to sacrifice a few cents worth of shrink wrap.

I am finally back with an update. It has taken me awhile to get back due to some professional changes and challenges in my life. It is good to see the conversation around the brackets has continued. Who would have thought some NOS frame rails would show up on Ebay! Neat to see that the NOS pieces have the brackets on them. What brackets are really for, we may never know. A lot of this work was done over the course of several weekends, usually just spending a few hours each day working on it. After a conversation in a thread over in the Electrical section on what route to go with the fuse box I ordered a new upgraded fuse box from MSA. At the same time I ordered one of Dave’s parking light harnesses, corner light flasher conversion, and I already had the headlight harness from when I owned my previous 240z. The new fuse box from MSA is a high quality piece. Even at $200 it is still a good deal as it is pretty much a plug and play affair Back when I removed the old fuse box I was immediately drawn to the black around the sheaths for the two primary power wires going to the box. It is obvious they have seen some heat during their life and this will need to be addressed. The terminals in the sheaths are where the large flat spade connectors go to. The new fuse box is 95% plug and play and the new box offers 10ga crimp connectors to cut and transplant your old fuse box power connectors to the new one.

Hey 77Z. My apologies for now seeing your questions sooner. On the foam on the back, I don't think it is required but I think it gives a better end product. The green foam I had was really too thick and I think that is why the cover was so hard to get on. You just need a little padding and 3mm foam may work better. When I recovered my passenger side seat I made a point to salvage the foam already on the back. On the edges where the hog rings attach, no, there was no wire in the seat cover whereas the original had wire around the edges. If I had to do it again I would go with the wire as it would be more secure and possibly keep the hog ring from ripping away at the material over time. Based on the reports from the guy that bought my car the seats still look and feel like new so I guess it comes down to personal preference. Recovering the seats was definitely a learning experience. My passenger seat recover job went twice as fast as the driver seat. I say if you like what you have where it is at, I would not go back and change it. Let me know if you have any other questions.

Good work and progress on the Z! The end result of your suspension rebuild looks fantastic. The new Panasports will definitely enhance the look of your Z as well. On the topic of your seats, recovering them is a total DIY job and will be much easier than your suspension rebuild. Check out my thread of when I recovered my seats. Once you have everything together they only take a few hours each. http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/interior-s30/47221-diy-how-recover-your-z-seats-lots-pictures.html

My apologies. I did not see the 20+ pictures for whatever reason. I agree, any cleaning or sprucing up that can be done will go a long away in helping it sale. Good luck with it!

A big congrats Courtney on your new Z! I loved reading your story and seeing the great pictures you took to document the event. Your experience reminds me of several that I have had over the years of buying cars. Like you, my Z was several hours away and despite the many possibly challenges in getting it I knew it was the one. I ended up renting a F-150 and car hauler from U-Haul for around $250, gas and all. Once I got the car home I was really glad I did not try to drive it as it had 2 pin sized holes in the radiator there were not seen by me or the seller when we had it on a lift looking it over. We have all been there and a big thumbs up to your friends helping you keep the dream alive. All this stuff happens for a reason and I am sure you feel even more attached to your Z now that you are invested in it. Keep us posted on your progress and I will be checking out your other photos from CATuned.

I am assuming the bidder from Bulgaria backed out or you canceled their bid. None the less, to really make your auction more attractive you need a lot more pictures and detailed info. As they say in the car biz, "words tell, pictures sell" Several years ago I was selling a good running running but very rusted '77 280z. It was on CL and the Datsun Classifieds. I had a very detailed description and 29 pictures for viewing on my Photobucket. I did not want any perspective buyers to have any illusions of what they were getting or not getting. In the end I got my full asking price of $3,200 and the buyer from out of state had it shipped. I am proud to report he was very happy with it upon its arrival and dove in to fixing the rust. BTW - What happen to your friend that was interested in buying it?