abas

Ben I'm with you on the seat covers, but I suppose it depends on how bad they are. I maybe an outsider in my humble opinion on this, but I prefer a 30 year old car to look as if it has aged, with signs of use, not to be as shiny/clean as the day it left the factory. Excellent set of pictures of the Z convention by the way :classic: regards Andrew

Ben Do you know if that silver 14,000 mile car the one that was recently almost sold for $30,000? It sounds like the same one. I would guess that Kats was nowhere near interested in a trade though. IMHO these unrestored gems are and should be worth lots of money because anyone with enough money can RESTORE a car but there must only be a few truly original excellent condition cars left. Andrew

But there has to be a point where you say that it might be too far gone. Ed said it, 'more holes than Swiss cheese'. Sure you MIGHT be able to save it if you have a donor car and you are a very keen welder. This kind of argument takes place in the UK for z's, not many were imported and so many have been scrapped that there are very few left. Some people will now try to save ANY z- car that comes along purely because there are so few left. My humble opinion only Andrew

I've got to agree with SteveK here. I KNOW that because I am not a professional mechanic my first gear box change will be a time consuming task, because I want to make sure I don't miss anything or break anything, and because my time is no cost to me I would rather take it slow and do a good job. My first car in the dim and distant past was bought with a blown engine. Getting it running was a bleeding nightmare. I must have removed and installed the replacement (also shagged) engine 20 times. To start with it took me about 1 week to remove and replace. the 20th time it was about 1 hour. I'm sure removing and replacing a gearbox for the 20th time would probably take 3 hours no problem. Andrew

I had an interesting conversation with Carl Beck a short while back about how Nissan produced prototype V12 engined S30 cars, which only didn't go into production because of the fuel crisis in 1973. Now THAT would have been something. And it transpires there were attempts to make it a convertible too. Can you imagine, a V12 convertible Z!!!!!

I asked Chloe for one of those grommets a few weeks back and she said didn't have one but 'she had some ideas where to get one' Could be worth following up when she has cleared her backlog of orders etc.

In new door panels too (choke!/gag!!!!):classic:

Also later rear hatch on it? ( no grilles on the rear deck) and no ashtray. These could be resolved a lot easier than removing a sunroof though.

Its a bit like the guy who keeps re-listing one new 240z carb on ebay for $500US. :stupid:

Thanks Les Of all the places I could have looked I never thought about MSA!!!

hate those bloody clips!!!!! bugger to remove especially if they have been on there 30 years. As your handbrake cable is broken can you hacksaw the cable off flush with the hanger brackets on the underside of the car which will then let you remove the remnants of the cable and the clips. Plenty of copaslip on the clips when you get to put them back on is a good idea. Hope it helps Andrew

Does anyone know whereabouts I can buy a replacement antenna mast for my original early 70's electric aerial? thanks for any help:classic: Andrew

Anyone would think you were English Mike!!

Hi Chris!! Thanks for that. I too am not tremendously happy about using potentially very old hose in a car just to get the braided look. I intend to go for the 'all rubber' hose when my car gets back on the road, at least for the short term. The braided hoses I have would probably be wasted on my car and belong on a concours car. I'd be grateful if you would let me know if the guy with cloth contacts you. I (and I am sure, many others) would be very interested. We just need to find someone who will pay for the setup costs and jigs for the front inner wings and rear quarter wings for a z :classic: Andrew

Cloth braided hoses availability Quite a hot topic I suppose with the infamous $104 top rad hose on ebay. I have been looking into the availability of braided hoses and the likelihood of making them myself. I realize this is probably not what some of the early car purists want to hear, but for some people remanufacture or some kind of pattern part could be the only way to achieve the original look. What I have found is: The internal diameters sizes that are on the car are 10mm, 12mm, 15mm, 18mm and the 2 big rad hoses are about 35mm. Most are water hoses but the original fuel tank and breather hoses are also braided. I have been able to get cloth braid hose up to 15mm internal diameter. These are fuel grade hoses and I presume these will be OK with water too ( I’m not really sure). The colour is not the same as the original datsun hoses but you can paint them to match. I can only find braided hoses bigger than 15mm that have a stainless braid. Again this could be painted to help it match the originals. The braid itself is a fairly simple 4 strand cloth braid. In time, I might look at trying to weave some of this myself to apply to a set of rubber only hoses, as a cosmetic solution. I am fortunate in having a set of braided engine and heater hoses to copy. I’d be interested to hear/swap any other member experiences in trying to obtain braided hoses. regards Andrew

I've got mine in wooden garage at the back of my garden. Has the best possible security at present as I would have to demolish my workshed to get it out onto the road:classic: Presumably not an issue in Florida but in my area of the world ( UK) a wooden garage with plenty of ventilation is great for keeping the damp at bay, even in the Winter.

ROFL ROFL pure gold Andrew

Quite rare now, even though this is not the early type as it has the array of round holes. Could be expensive as $61 with 6 days to go. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7907713775&category=6763#ebayphotohosting Andrew

Nate take heart from the pictures in Grammercyjam's gallery, even cars that would seem to be scrapyard fodder can be repaired. Even really bad rust in the rails and floorpans can be repaired if it comes to it. I suppose the question is what is the rest of the car like? If it is good then probably worth trying to repair it. Brian Interesting suggestion. I have considered something like this on my long term project which has a very rusty front end. Rather than try to source replacement inner wings I was considering making up a tube front end, which can be made significantly stronger and lighter than original. ( It is intended to make it into some kind of track car so it would need some strengthening to the front end anyway) As I haven't done anything like this berfore the difficulty is knowing where to start and with what strength materials. Andrew

Chris Having visited a couple of shows recently and met up with some zedheads local to me, I've got up a real head of steam over here to get my car running this summer and so other non-essential items have taken a back seat. I'm sure you had a great time at the convention. I saw your photo standing next to Mr K: if that smile had been any bigger your head would have split in two:classic: Now that you have seen them up close, do those seat guards have a smooth texture or a crinkle texture similar to the dash? I can't promise I will be able to replicate the texture anyway. Apologies to Halz for screwing up his thread:stupid:

quite a lot of info on Big Sam at www.zhome.com including technical specs. Click on the picture of Big Sam on the home page to get to the menus. Andrew

I don't have another paper copy of the template, and realistically I am not likely to produce any more. Not because of any 'attempts to restrict trade' but because it wasn't that easy to do. My original plan was to remove the staples from a shabby z glovebox and simply trace the pieces onto a template. I then found that the shabby glovebox wasn't actually from a z..... Me and my big mouth :classic: Plan B was to produce a template from the one good glovebox I have. But I wasn't about to take that one apart, and so I traced around the sections of the box, and than had to manually correct my templates for any effect that the overlaps made, and then a lot of measuring up to make sure the templates were consistent with the assembled glovebox. The result was in total about 3 hours careful work. A few detailed photos to Mike were necessary to show how it all went together. It's great that this little project has been so well received. Shows what we can do as a club together. Andrew

I got a car wash kit as well ( sponge, wheel brush etc etc) and a HUGE bar of chocolate from my chocolate loving eldest son. Guess who has eaten most of it!!!! Best present of all was being able to sneak in 3 hours of spraying up suspension parts on my z in the afternoon.:classic: Andrew