davewormald

A rather large pickup truck completed an unauthorized modification to my driver's side headlight scoop last summer, so I'm looking for a replacement. I see that MSA sells them, but I figured I'd check with people here in case anyone is trying to clear some garage space. The car is an April 1971 240Z, and currently has fiberglass scoops, so that's my preferred replacement material as well. I'm not worried about colour, because it'll be painted anyway. The car is the one @grannyknot documented here. I'm in Canada, but have a US mailing address I can use if anyone has a scoop, but doesn't want to ship to Canada.

I went through the same thing last winter. There's a thread in this forum about it somewhere. It went on for months with various different reasons why nothing had shipped. I eventually heard from someone named Mark, who got things sorted out as well as possible. He shipped the items they had on hand and cancelled the remaining items. The email thread with various people from Datsun Garage stretches from July 2023 to January 2024. I was calling and leaving voice messages at the same time I was emailing. I never had anyone answer the phone. I would keep after them to ship anything they have from your order and process a refund for the rest.

I've been meaning to say something similar. I purchased well over 100 different parts for my car while I was working on it and while @grannyknot was working on it. The parts came from a lot of different suppliers. Z Car Depot was the best supplier I dealt with by a pretty wide margin. I look on their site first now.

I used blue loctite (because I had some around) when I got mine back together. I eventually accomplished that by cutting the stainless steel braid back a little from the end of the inner sheath, then wrapping thread tightly around the braid so I could get it back into the ferrule. That worked very well after many frustrating tries without the thread. I'll eventually attach the cable to the adjuster, but am avoiding blipping the throttle from the engine bay until I do. Replacing the linkage with the cable has made the car a joy to drive again. Having said that, I've found one particularly sticky joint in the linkage I removed. I don't think I'll be going back, though.

Sounds like the right solution. I'll be doing that with mine when I get a chance. Other than that avoidable (but disconcerting) issue, my installation of your kit is working really well. My old linkage was sticky enough to make driving in town somewhere between embarrassing and impossible (it was really fun the time or two I drove it without a muffler). It's now a joy to drive it. I went out for an hour or so this morning and was in heaven. I came home and told my wife it was time for her to come for her first ride in the car. That's partly a result of the improved throttle, but mostly because of a slightly ugly, but very successful seal job I did on the hatch, which has all but eliminated exhaust fumes in the cabin. I'll post a couple of pictures of that in the build thread. Thanks Ken!

I wouldn't if I thought cheaper definitely meant lower quality, but I haven't always found that to be the case. That's why I asked for people's experiences. I don't mind paying for a quality product and/or a quality design, but I don't want to pay extra for a brand name (I don't know anything about Lokar, but their pricing certainly implies quality). From Ken's response, it seems like there are functional advantages to both products he's worked with, and a quality advantage to the name brand version. I do understand your question, but I don't think it's actually rhetorical.

Ken (or anyone else), do you have any thoughts on the Lokar versus cheap Amazon versions of the cable? In the grand scheme of things, the Lokar isn't a big expense, but in some cases there really is no difference to justify the 4 to 5x price premium of the name brand item. I don't mind paying for quality, but I don't like throwing money away, either!

Just advise him to order a weatherstrip kit as soon as possible.

The gaps are small, and are slightly on either side of the latch. There are probably plenty of creative ways to deal with it.

Does it make it worse that I'm having to use the wipers this morning?!

The clunk in the passenger side rear suspension turned out to be a result of me not having tightened down the nylock nut on the top of the strut. I remember now that I didn't do it because I thought I might have to take it off again before getting the car back on the road and I didn't want to have to replace it. Neither side was tight enough, but only the passenger side was clunking. I tightened them up and the clunk is gone! In fact I've never driven a Z as quiet and (relatively) well-behaved on rough roads! If anyone happens to know the torque spec for those nuts on KYB rear shocks, let me know. I dug around a little, but didn't find anything. The TachMatch was shipped four days ago and has so far made it from Seattle to Los Angeles. I guess I should consider that to be progress, but it's not exactly the most obvious route to Toronto. I checked the resistance of the fuel sending unit and it's showing 0 ohms, so I think I'm just going to order a new one and move on. There are some gaps between the hatch seal and the bottom of the hatch, which explains the "richness" of the interior environment. Tomorrow I think I'll try filling the gaps with a towel or something to see how much I can seal it up. The sides of the hatch seem to be well sealed, so I'm not sure why the gaps exist at the bottom. Both hinges are interfering with the top of the hatch seal, but I'm hoping the exhaust isn't getting in up there. Slowly, but surely ...

This is more a "What I Did With My Z Today" post, but there really haven't been any pictures of the car in this thread since it got back on the road. I went out for a four hour drive on the local back roads this morning, including some fairly fast runs on a couple of gravel roads (I cringed a lot, but it was always intended to be a driver). And it's fun to drive! Lots of waves and comments from other drivers and pedestrians when in town. People in the lane beside you find it funny when you have to lean over to the passenger side to roll the window down! It's going to be a fun summer!

Count me in!

Sorry man, I'm sure you can understand that I've been a little distracted! I got the muffler on the car last Friday, and spent a couple more hours driving around on the way home. For the benefit of everyone else, there were a few outstanding items when I picked the car up (none of them were Chris's problems - they were almost all parts that I hadn't ordered or that we were waiting for). The missing muffler was the most notable item, so it was good to get that completed. I had to remove all the spacers from under the driver's seat. That tells you how much the original seat cushions had collapsed, because I never had any trouble fitting in the car back in the day. Even with all the spacers removed I'm brushing against the headliner with the seat back and reclined. The rear sway bar links that I'd ordered months ago were the wrong ones, so the sway bar was in place, but not connected to the suspension, which was the suspected cause of a clunk happening when hitting bumps. I got the correct links (unfortunately I mistakenly ordered only one first and had to order a second) and installed the second one this morning. Unfortunately, the clunk is still happening, and I'm starting to think it might be coming from inside the passenger door. The other suspect is the gland nut on the passenger side strut. I might not have tightened it down properly when I re-assembled them a couple of years ago. The tach isn't working consistently, so I need to order and install a TechMatch device to sort it out (I believe it's the TachMatch TM-03 I-Drive that I need? Current-driven tach?). I'm not confident that my ear is good enough to recognize redline, so I probably haven't gone past 5000 RPM yet. The engine sounds and feels absolutely great up there, though, so I'm looking forward to really trying it out. The throttle's a little sticky, which made driving without a muffler quite interesting. It's either getting better or I'm getting used to it. The linkage all looks fine and all the pivot points are properly lubricated, so I'm going to keep driving to see what happens. The gas gauge isn't working, which is mysterious, because Chris and I both had the sending unit working properly, and I think I tested it once when connected to the gauge in the dash. It's probably something simple, but I haven't got to that yet. Mostly I've been driving the car, which has been fantastic! It's starting to come back to me. As I mentioned somewhere a while back, the engine somehow feels much larger than it really is when you first start driving it. That long hood has something to do with it. The car's already starting to feel smaller and more nimble to me after only a few hours of driving. I'll keep driving and knocking these items off, and I'll keep this thread updated!

It was March 14th when I posted that message. Today I got a call from the Ministry of Transport Ontario saying I own the car again! The paperwork to have it transferred back to me disappeared twice in the depths of MTO, but good eventually triumphed over bureaucracy. I wasted no time getting insurance on the car, and picking up the new ownership papers and license plates. We're now one exhaust system and a signature on a Vehicle Condition Report away from being on the road! MTO doesn't require the Vehicle Condition Report - they returned the car to "fit" condition, because that's the state it was in when transferred to the wrecker. My insurance company needs the form completed before they can put collision coverage on it.