26th-Z

I'm going to have to go out to the shop and check on the metal caps for the dampers. I seem to recall plastic, but I do know of metal caps for this type of carburetor, whether SU or Hitachi. Old, old, old SUs had brass caps with knurled edges. I'm up to four sets of carbs now. I'll take a survey.

A nod of correctness to this conversation from Her Majesty and the Princess. "We ain't got no drain plugs"!

Ohh, the poor Princess! Little Miss Rustbucket! As you know, I took 26th to a place and had her dipped in an electrolysis rust removal process. She came out with many more holes than I thought - holes where "surface rust" used to be. I was really taken aback at first, but I bought a couple of welding and sheet metal restoration tapes from Eastwood and gathered up my courage. I hired a welder and bought sheet metal. Working together, and months later, Her Majesty is all welded up and in pretty good shape. I learned a lot from the experience. I figure that now that I know what I'm doing, Princess 27th should not be all that bad. Just more months of welding and grinding. If I was paying myself for all the hard work, this would cost me a small fortune. However, my suggestion is hire experts to do the stuff that requires skill and do all the grunt work yourself. Having said that, please enjoy some more pictures of this diamond in the rough.

No, no, no, my dear. MINE'S completely rusted out! :knockedou

I agree with Alan. If this is what it is and the pictures are from where they appear, this baby will be restored to a very high standard. Certainly it is rough. So?

Hi Kats! Great information and most relevant to the conversation about S30-00002. I think it would be best to describe the factory prototype cars as those constructed to test the production process and the primary production cars as those intended to display and road test. Just think of this first family of the Z car! The very first generation!

Stock L24 exhaust manifold without emission ports. Passenger foot rest. Headlight covers.

I guess 'D' wheel covers are the diamond belly-button pierce of Z cars. I have sets for my babes, but they need to be restored. Fortunately, all the plastic 'D' centercaps are in great shape. Personally, I think the wheels and hubcaps are way underperformance for what a stock Z has to offer and I bought a set of 6" Watanabes. I also have a set of 6" slots. I don't think the $1,300 is all that much for a really nice set. It's going to cost me that to have mine restored.

There are several diferent castings under this part number. What you are looking at seems to be latest variant. I bought one of these from Nissan two years ago for about $45. Here are some other versions of the same part number.

First post - looking for parts. How appropriate! I thought my first post was looking for an intake manifold balance tube, but I see it was two days later. What a great idea for a thread, Mike! I have to say that this club has brought me a significant number of smiles over the past few years. I have met quite a few friends, here. Chris

In Mike's picture, the top cap is correct for an 8/70. The one without the metal tab - thumb tab. The cap with the tab is much later - 4/72. The cap without the tab came in two varieties; without a chain and with a chain. 17251-E4101 and E4102 The cap Zhead is refering to is E8800 or E8801 with a chain.

Hey there 333. I just shot off an e-maill to 332. Welcome to the low VIN club. Although it is true your car was registered and titled as a 1970 model year, your car was built in 1969 - November? Check the ID plate on your door jamb. This is a great site for pictures of peculiarities concerning the early cars. http://www.geocities.jp/datsunz903/ A search through the archives here (search "date stamp") will lead you to a number of threads concerning dates of manufacture and various other idiosyncracies concerning the early cars. Yes, you have a unique car. No, you don't have a fuel vapor recovery system. Take good care of that gas tank. You are not going to find another one like it very easily. Best of luck with your restoration. Let me know if you need parts. Chris

Hey there Orlando! You might want to join the Central Florida Z Car Club and meet all the Z owner's near you. http://www.centralfloridazclub.com/phpBB2/portal.php There is a hurricane of exciting Z things brewing in Florida. An early Z like a '72 is a great beginer's sports car because it is so simple and easy to work on. Rust is the biggest frustration and parts availability probably the next. It all depends on what you want out of the car, but for an inexpensive sports car, your budding new driver can't go wrong. Zs are fast and they do not crash very well, but they still have lots of style and there is a great crowd of Z owners in Florida to hang with. Get a copy of "How to Restore Your 240Z" by Humble and read what he has to say about rust. Cruise the archives here and make your evaluation of your potential car. Have fun!

May your spirit soar, Carl. I will miss you.

Radiator hoses were crazy when I started playing this game of Z restoration. Although I had made up my mind not to buy braided hoses, I just broke down and bought a set for about $300. The funny thing about it was that within a week of buying the expensive ones, I found a lower hose and bought it for $66. The most I have ever paid for an ashtray is $25.

this may help?

zip lock bags only last a couple of years before the plastic falls apart. wipe your parts down with oil, wrap them in paper and put them away in a box.

This is so frustrating. Wanna see something rarest and obscurest hardly any one of you has ever seen or ever will see? Presenting the Silver Pennybody! Yes ladies and gurus, boys and girls, the lucious, exclusive, royal body forged from solid silver by twenty-six hundred year old monks living a cave atop Mt. Fuji. A glitter to the eyes, this body cannot be viewed by anyone under sixty in the bright sunlight. Even a slight glance in total darkness is likely to grow hair on your palms. The studly hungwell who took this photo gave up his life for the opportunity to see this body - a result of years of cruising porn sites in search of the perfect body - and only lived long enough to pass this photo on to the archives. This body is said to be THE ultimate vampire slayer, however the facts get a little blurred because the Silver Pennybody is hardly ever seen and any record is obscured in semantics. Please don't pass this picture around. It is not FDA approved and may contribute to global warming. But Z car guys deserve a break every now and then.

You missed my point, Steve. Let me a little more blunt. You got cheap and you got low-class cheapskates. Which one is it? Quite frankly, SportZ was pretty close to the sharp end of the Z car world. In case you all haven't noticed, the number of S30s out there is dwindling rapidly, the S32 crowd is probably the dominant crowd at the moment and the Z33 crowd is very well about to take over. Z car events are geared to the Z32 / Z33 crowd and the S30 guys who have held the backbone of the Z world for so many years are simply not around anymore. Young kids are spending on their Z33s money that equals my complete restoration and magazines catering to any specific marques spend most of their copy space on what is new in the market. Pick up a copy of Roundel and show me all the space devoted to the 02, for instance. I applaud Nissan Sport. Look forward to their new venture and wish them all the best of good fortune.

I'm having a hard time reading this thread. Perhaps I'm confused. SportZ magazine is changing names, modifying their format a bit, will take a little time to put out their next issue, and there is a discussion about getting your money back? Excuse me?

Got your PM Al. Wow! What a lot of energy on this thread! The pictures I posted are the "before" pictures of both the babes. 26th didn't look very bad at all when I took her apart two years ago. She is currently resting in primer. 27th is rusting comfortably in a tent in my back yard. I bought one of those metal framed storage tents and put down a crushed shell floor. As you all can imagine, these are l o n g t e r m projects! For reference purposes, I paid $2,300 for 27th on eBay and it cost me $800 to have her hauled down from Dover, Deleware. That price reflects the VIN value. 26th was purchased in 1983 and there was VIN value in that sale, however much less. #248 is in pieces which lowers the value no matter what, however there is recovery value in the V8. I don't know about the "Scarab" thing. I would ask ZRush. My restorations will be mostly rehab of the original parts, however I don't get all wadded up about replacements. There are differences, but one simply buys the correct part - or make a replica. Then there is the whole issue of shocks, bushings, and rubber seals. I say just buy what is on the market and get the car on the road! After looking at more pictures, Al, I would hop on a plane and go look at the car with some cash in my pocket. Give ZRush a holler and ask about the "Scarab" engine kit. Those prices I posted for cost of restoration will get you pretty close to a concours car. I don't think a Z is all that expensive to get to a show quality level. Chris

I wonderd about those things also, Alan. They made one of each in the begining. Logical, but then what? I assumed the 14th car was a Canada car from what Kats said at the begining ot this thread. The 14th and 15th were Canada cars, supposedly. Then I have noticed that both the Canada cars were silver. 26th and 27th are green. 40th and 42nd are both gold. So I imagined that the construction teams began making cars in pairs or mutiples so as to establish construction proceedure. But I cannot account for the various fitment of engines and I imagine that would have made the greatest impact. How many guesses do I get, Kats?

Geeze! I gotta pay more attention! That's a low VIN Z! Somebody should have PM'd me. Hell yes, I can pipe in on this conversation. Here's my opinion - o p i n i o n. 350, your queston is too vague. Can it be restored? Certainly. What do you mean by "restored"? The answer I'm looking for is a description of what you expect the result to be. Pick up a copy of Humble's book or Reagan's book. Both will tell you to establish a level you are going to be satisfied with. Are you going to drive the car or show it? Are you going to sell the car and try to make money on it? Are you...see what I mean? What do you want from it when you are finished? The next big question is; do you have the time and money to restore it? How do you plan to restore it? Are you going to give it to somebody and come back a year later and write a check? Or, are you going to do everything yourself and sub out the stuff you can't do while you stand over the guy and direct his work? In my opinon, #248 (with matching numbers) restored to the level that the Vintage Zs were restored is going to be worth well over $50,000 in five years. It is going to cost every bit of $35,000 in parts and services to restore the car. The car will be quite literally brand new when you are finished. I have no idea what labor may cost because I'm doing my cars myself, but I could imagine $20,000. Essentially what I am saying is that I believe low VIN Zs are escalating in value such that the value of the completed car will be close to the cost of restoration. So, the rub to all this is that if you took $35,000 and invested it in the stock market, you would probably make more money faster than you would by investing in cars. Investing in cars is like investing in art or gold coins. You will make money in the long run, (could loose also) but the rate of appreciation is probably not going to outpace the rate of inflation by very much. And if you restore the car yourself, you are going to put in a lot of sweat for pennies of return. A job in a coal mine probably pays more. There you go. You answer the "is it worth it" question. I know a few guys who would take this one on. #248 is a '69? Let me know what you decide to do. I see you are in Orlando? Perfect! Let me know if you need a car shipper. I would say exactly what Carl Beck said to me when I bought 27th. "It can't be any worse than the pictures"! Why don't you send me a PM with a phone number and we can talk about this more. Chris

Kats' Your very first thread indicates that the 14th and 15th cars manufactured were "Canada" cars. Then you list how many cars - export and domestic - were made during each month. I don't believe Nissan made PS30s very quickly and suspect they made more S30 model variants to complete their own "domestic" line-up for show and testing. I also believe that Nissan was in the practice of making cars in pairs - two identical cars at a time. Thanks Alan for taking the lead on this quiz. Here are my thoughts: May 1969 - total 2 cars - one domestic, one export: 1 = S30-00001 2 = HLS30-00001 June 1969 - total 1 car - domestic: 3 = PS30-00001 July 1969 - total 4 cars - two domestic, two export: 4 = HS30-00001 5 = S30-00002 6 = S30-00003 7 = HLS30-00002 August 1969 - total 7 cars: 8 = S30-00003 9 = S30-00004 10 = PS30-00003 11 = PS30-00004 12 = S30-00005 13 = S30-00006 14 = HLS30-00003

Oh my! That one is much worse, John. Incorrectness everywhere!