v12horse

This whole time I thought the corosion was causing the problem, but it was a partially stripped gear. I am now in need of a nice condition gear for an oem antenna. If anyone has one to spare, please contact me about it. It is the white gear in the pictures attached. Thank you, Ben

Thanks guys for the lubricant recommendations everyone. Andrew, the light bead blasting would have been a lot faster and thourough, but I have cleaned it up quite nicely with a knife and flat head screw driver. I am going to use some chemicals to get all the old sludge off. p.s. Look at the numbers, it appears to be the date. If so, they have the exact day of manufacture too.

In the begining I was just planning to replace the mast, but looking at the antenna unit, I am restoring the whole thing. The motor is in good shape, but the housing is corroded quite badly. I have been chipping away at the stuff for the last hour. I will post pics of it later. Here are some pictures of how it looked before. The tar on it is from the ZBart. This is one of the downsides to that sealer. I am going to clean the whole thing inside and out. Does anyone recommend a good lubricant for the moving parts? Thanks in advance, Ben

Hi Chris, I think the bullet style tip is for the earlier cars. 70-72? I am not sure on that though. In the picture you can see my oem one next to the packaged oem replacement mast. Ben

These pictures were taken in Pleasanton, California at a Z get together. Marc's 280z (CZC sn: 280z) is the silver car beside mine.

Here are the finished hubcaps.

Here are the center emblems. They are made of plastic, so be very careful when removing them as the pins in the back can easily be broken. The one on the left was treated with nevr-dul. The other one on the right is before treatment.

Here are pictures with the paint completely stripped off. The second picture is of the wheel that has a few dents filled before sanding. Unfortunately, I do not have pictures of them taped off :disappoin .

To clean the rim area where the clips are, I used many SOS pads. It is not rust free, but it looks a lot better than before. I just plan to take them off every now and then to keep them clean front and back. note: IKI Japan is where they were made. IKI is short for Ichikawa. Courtesy of Kats Endo. It even says 5J on them, does it say 5 1/2J on the 75-76 hubcap I wonder?

This is a before and after picture of the back of the caps. As you can see there was still quite a bit of rust when I was done, but I sealed it with a good primer.

These are exactly how the caps looked before I did any restoring.

This is for people that are interesting getting a set of Z hubcaps to restore. The hubcaps I refer to are for the late 71-76 model years. I mainly restored my own hubcaps instead of buying already restored ones or nos ones as I wanted to save some money. I bought a decent set off of ebay for 50USD including shipping. The paint was not in great shape and there were a few dings in the painted areas, but there were no dings or scratches on the exposed chrome areas. This is key because a lot of that will not be able to be removed without damaging the chrome. The backs were also quite rusted too. All of the emblems were present as well as the pins with clips on the back. Watch out for the clips that hold the hubcap to the wheel; make sure they are all there. If they are bent, you can bend them back without too much trouble. Mine were not perfect, but I bent them to the original position. 1. Remove the emblems from the back. Very carefully, twist the two clips off and save these. Put them in a Ziploc bag with the emblems. 2. Start to tackle the rust on the back. I used the most course steel wool to accomplish this. The result was not a perfectly smooth metal surface, but it was a lot smoother than before. It is near impossible to remove all of the rust so just remove what you can. 3. Remove the paint on the front of the hubcaps with an aerosol paint remover. I used “ Tal-Strip II” AIRCRAFT COATING REMOVER. Let it sit for about 5 minutes and the paint will wipe right off with a rag. Use gloves and work in a well-ventilated area because this stuff is really caustic. 4. Remove any of the dings with a small hammer. Fill the areas that are not level with filler. I used plastic model filler that did not shrink, but I have heard that JB-Weld works really well too. Let it dry completely and sand it smooth with 220-400 grit sandpaper. 5. The trick to this is the taping. I used blue 7-day clean strip painter’s tape found at the hardware store. Be very careful about taping, as every edge will show after painting. Tape all the chrome trim areas off and burnish it with your nail. Cut very carefully around the trim with a NEW x-acto blade. You will need a lot of blades for this, as you want to let the blade do most of the work. After all the edges have been cut, make sure that the tape has no lifted edges. For the smaller trim ring, use 1/4” tape and use one piece for a constant width. 6. Now check the tape again for quality and contact. 7. Get a good primer that is rust resistant and use as directed on the label. 8. After the primer is dry, sand any rough areas without going through the primer. 9. To seal the back of the caps either use rust resistant primer or POR black or clear. 10. The paint that is closest to the original color that I have been told is Dupli-Color HIGH performance wheel coating Graphite (WP102 GRAPHITE). Use as directed. I bought this from autozone. 11. Within 1-2 hours, paint clear coat over to get the matte finish of the original hubcaps. The paint that I used with great result is Rust-Oleum Painter’s Touch 1902 Matte clear. This I bought at Ace hardware. 12. Now you are done painting. Let the paint dry for 24 hours before removing the tape. 13. Carefully, cut around the tape before removing to prevent the tape from lifting any paint with it. 14. To restore the emblems I used nevr-dul to shine them up. 15. Put the emblems back on the wheels. 16. Put the wheel on your hubcaps and people will be amazed. This is a tedious task, but the results are remarkable. My caps are not perfect, but I am extremely happy with how they came out. I was worried about how the paint would hold up, and so far they are great. I have driven through heavy rain and there is no chipping. I have had them on for a few months now and they look just as they were when I finished painting them. Find a nice set and be very careful during the whole process. Set out a few weekends for it. If anyone is doing this I would be glad to help. DatsunZguy has done this as well. He taught me everything I know on the subject. Take care and get those hubcaps on your car! They look really great if you are going for the oem look. They have not fallen off either…yet… Good luck and take care, Ben Yount :classic:

You should buy one of these masts. Here is one that is on ebay right now. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7974682068&category=38655 I changed my title to the lone potter as I recently took up the hobby of pottery. I have fallen in love with making ceramic bowls, cups, and jars that I thought it would be fitting to incorporate it into my title.

About a year ago my antenna stopped retracting, but the motor was still working. I decided that I was going to buy one of those oem replacement masts that have been offered on ebay. I bought it and I am really pleased with the quality and originality. I took off some of the panels to get to the antenna unit and I found that it was covered with Zbart. After disassembling the unit, I found that it had old grease and corrosion everywhere. It would be a lot easier to just buy a new antenna, but I am going to restore the one I have. Has anyone done this before? If anybody has any experience, please chime in here. I have not taken it apart completely, but I am going to tomorrow. To clean the metal parts I am going to soak them in CLR as I have had good luck with that product before. I also noticed how wimpy the stock speaker bracket and speaker was. I am not going to go outrageous with the stereo system, but I was thinking of just getting a more substantial bracket and a better speaker because I do have a pretty nice Alpine CD deck. Does anyone have the speaker bracket from Classic Datsun Motorsport? I emailed Mark about it so I should get some information soon. http://www.classicdatsun.com/new/240Z.html Anyways, I will post some pictures and some info on restoring the antenna unit. Regards, Ben

Wow, that is a beautiful car Zhead. It is so clean and original. I am loving the hubcaps. Was the car restored, or is it original condition? Either way, you got a gem of a car. I hope mine looks that good someday. Keep the pictures coming. Congrats, Ben

Hello, I accuired these hubcaps when I got my steel wheels and I was going to keep them for safe keeping, but I would rather give them to some one who has a need for them. I am offering a set of four Z hubcaps for the model years 77-78. They are the mag style ones. They are all in great shape and all of the caps are present. There are some minor scratches, but nothing that some old elbow grease won't remove. The plastic area is in excellent nick. If these were cleaned up a bit they could be an extremely nice set. All I ask is that you pay for the shipping. Just pm me your address and I will tell you the shipping cost and they are yours. Regards, Ben

I own this magazine/book and I can vouch for its great pictures and probably great text. The pictures are well worth it. That is not a steep price as I payed 35usd before tax at a Japanese book store. -Ben

Marc and I caravaned with our Z's to San Francisco for a nice drive, lunch, and then we attended the Z meet. There were a lot of newer Z's, but very few old Z's. I was expecting that, but I still had a good time. I couldn't help to notice how segregated it felt there. Marc and I were parked with 4 other S30's and three S130's. Marc and I were one of three L6 powered S30's. I am glad that I went with my mostly stock S30, but I felt left out. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't have it any other way, but it is a shame how we people don't appreciate the heritage of the Z's. I could be very wrong to stereotype. Marc and I made our rounds to look at some of the Z33's, but I am in the dark about the mods of those cars, and vice versa. I am not sure where I am going with this. Anyways, I hope there are a lot more S30's and enthusiasts of the S30 at the Blackhawk show. I am looking forward to it. -Ben p.s. There are a few pics from the meet that I posted in the gallery. Errr, you can see my bias. I am as guilty as those 350z guys. They probably do not have pics of our cars either. I am stereotyping again.

Marc (280z) and I will have our Z's. See you guys there. Hopefully there will be a lot of older Z's. -Ben

Those would clean up real nice. Watanabe's are my favorite. They look good on almost any vintage Japanese car. These are getting more popular here in the US. It is great. They are the BBS of Japanese wheels. Thanks for posting the link. -Ben