davewormald

This goes into the "I never thought this would happen to me, but ..." category. No, it isn't that kind of story for those of you who are getting the wrong idea. Back to the boobs thread for that kind of titillation. Since @grannyknot is thinking of driving the car up to a local muffler shop, I thought I'd better make sure I had everything in order so the car is legally driveable (as an aside, it's quite a trick keeping up with Granny on this project. Parts suppliers don't always work at the speed he does). When I started poking at the car back in 2020, I had the ownership paperwork. Somewhere between then and now, it disappeared. Not that big a deal. The car has been registered to me since 1994. So I went to Service Ontario to get a new ownership card. The nice lady behind the counter took my driver's license and typed something into the computer, then said "Hmmm, that's strange. What's the VIN". I gave her the VIN, and she says "We have a problem. You don't own this car. In fact this car was destroyed by a wrecker". Huh. It was in tougher shape than we thought, but I didn't think it was that bad! I asked which wrecker it was registered to, and when it had happened, but she wasn't allowed to tell me. Fortunately, I always expect something to go wrong when dealing with governments, so I was more amused than annoyed or terrified. I assured her that the car had never been near a wrecker, never mind destroyed. For some reason I had the original bill of sale and some other official paperwork from my purchase of the car, including an appraisal document with photos. To make a long story short(-ish), she got on the phone with the gurus at Service Ontario Headquarters. They apparently asked whether I seemed credible. Fotunately, I'd combed my hair and worn a shirt with no stains on it, so she put in a good word for me. They claim that they can undo the transfer to the wrecker, but it will take a couple of weeks. I'll probably need to provide something from an appraiser to confirm the VIN of the car. Apparently this happens from time to time - probably a similar VIN car was sold to a wrecker and a typo happened. It doesn't give you a lot of confidence in the system if someone can transfer ownership of your car without you even knowing ... I asked again about the wrecker, and she asked whether I wanted to request a Vehicle Information Package for the car. For $20 it would give me the history of the car's ownership. You can request this for any VIN at all. The car was apparently transferred to the wrecker in January of 2007. The wrecker is about half an hour from where I lived at the time. Maybe I'll drop by and ask if they have any parts left. Granny's running out of things he can work on again!

Yes, I read a thread in this forum about it, but that was a long, long way down the list at that point. Of course I don't move at "Granny speed".

Does the fan include the fan clutch? I'm 90% sure my fan clutch wasn't working. The fan always ran. I'm not sure what temperature the clutch should engage at, but mine always ran (after I got the engine running again in 2020). Regardless, I'm happy to cover the cost of a new fan! Don't you need the weatherstrip kit before you do the windshield and hatch? That's the part that's currently holding up the MSA order. It's apparently going to arrive "any day", just like it was at Datsun Garage (I'm not comparing the two suppliers - the experience working with the two is night and day). I think the problem must be with the supplier of the kit, as they're the ones giving out unrealistic delivery dates to their dealers. Have I mentioned how great it all looks? I'm hoping to be able to drop in next Thursday afternoon for the first time since you painted the car!

No kidding! I'm still trying very, very hard not to think about it!

Yikes, that's terrifying. It seems like a level of problem that should result in truly extraordinary effort to alert owners.

This shipment was from Z Car Depot. We have shipments of goodies coming from all over the place at the moment, including Rock Auto. Sent from my SM-S901W using Tapatalk

Not that anyone in this forum needs a reminder of how these things looked "in the wild", but here are a few shots of what the underside of the car looked like when I started poking at it in 2020. Looking good. Thanks man!

It's always hard to tell from photos displayed on monitors, but the colour looks great! It doesn't look as brown as the sample you gave me when I was there. How does it compare to the inside of the hatch lid now that it's on some car parts?

From the picture just posted it doesn't look like it. You can see DOT at about 8 o'clock, but there's nothing following it. Unless it's on the other side.

My car (the one @grannyknot is working on at the moment), has the original spare, we believe. The car is 04/71, HLS30-29817. If the spare wheel isn't buried, maybe Chris can get the info off it for you. I'm not looking to sell it, but maybe it can provide another data point for you.

I received an email from Datsun Garage yesterday: "We are very sorry for this late reply. We've had a change in our sales employees and apologise for the inconvenience. Your order is almost complete. We're just waiting on the weatherstrip kit to arrive. Once that's in we'll gather your order and ship it over complete with tracking info." I'm not sure why they couldn't have replied to one of my earlier messages simply saying that they'd received my message, and would get back to me, but at least I have an initial response. I've asked them how long they expect the weatherstrip kit to take. I'd rather pay for two shipments than wait for everything. There are 32 items in the order.

Wow!

Does anyone here have any recent experience with Datsun Garage? I placed a big order with them back in July, and haven't received anything from them yet. They sent me a few messages not long after the order was placed, letting me know that some of the items were back-ordered, and could take a while to ship. I received a reply to an email I sent them a few weeks ago, and was told that they'd check on the status of my order, but since then they've gone silent in spite of my sending a bunch of emails and calling them repeatedly. Has anyone received anything from them recently? On the flip side of this coin, I'm seriously impressed by KF Vintage. I've placed two orders with them, and both have been delivered (Colombia to Canada) in eight days or less. Shipping costs were reasonable and tracking info was meticulously delivered.

If I'd seen all this when I first started looking at the car a few years ago, I doubt I would have moved ahead with it. So I'm really glad I didn't look too hard! It would be interesting to know what state it was in when it was moved from Georgia to Ontario back in 1994. Five Toronto winters, followed by 20 years in a garage (even a dry one) probably accelerated dramatically anything that had started in the south.

I've been in a few Tesla's, and they weren't very interesting to me at all. I got a demo of the 0-60 acceleration in either Insane or Ludicrous mode (can't remember which), and it was quite surreal, but it didn't compare to accelerating an IC engine through its gears, even though it happened in a third of the time. Silly developments like this one tell you that there are people who will never see electric cars as a replacement for their IC-powered toys: "For those who find electric cars a bit boring, Toyota engineers are working on a realistic-feeling fake manual transmission as a possible feature. To be clear, a manual transmission on an electric car would serve absolutely no purpose. It would be just for fun, an add-on for people who like shifting gears in their gasoline-powered cars." I've also seen articles talking about manufacturers adding engine-like sounds to their cars. It's hard to imagine the people they're aiming these "innovations" at being "fooled". I'm an electrical engineer. I've spent most of my career in software businesses. In my opinion, auto manufacturers have always botched up electrical systems, and have been even worse with more sophisticated electronics, and (especially) user interface design (post-physical dials, buttons, and switches). Modern "infotainment" systems are abominations. It's one of those glaring hypocrisies that we levy heavy fines for distracted driving when someone touches a cell phone while driving, but expect people to adjust the cabin temperature or change the radio station on one of those things. Give me an early Z dashboard any day (even with the cracks).

I kind of look at this as two different activities. For a lot of travel, I'd love to be able to call a car to come pick me up and drive me to my destination while I read/talk/sleep/drink a beer. This would have been especially true when I was travelling for business, and had only a crappy rental to drive. On the other hand, I like driving, so there are times when I want to go out just to enjoy driving, either as a dedicated activity, or as a side benefit while I'm going somewhere. Fortunately, I don't think driving is likely to be banned in most of our lifetimes, though gas and parts could one day get very expensive and hard to find. So @grannyknot you don't need to add the self-driving option to my car.

I can only address number 3, and only speculatively. It sure looks like a corn cob. We seem to be raising corn-fed mice or rats! The house I lived in when I first bought this car was on a lot cut out of a corn field. I moved out of that house in 1996. I'm wondering if it goes that far back! It's more likely that they pulled the cob out of the nearby garbage can in the garage and took it back to their "dining room". I did drop in on Chris the other day when he was enjoying some quality time with removal of the tar mat. No dry ice was evident, but he did comment that recent cool mornings made the mat more brittle and easier to remove.

Unless Chris has hooked this one up, I can't honestly claim that this one is still working, either! I was playing tapes in it in the late '90s, but it's been sitting in the garage for a lot of years since then. It's possible that the mice stashed some of its important parts in the ventilation ducts.

That would be great, but it isn't a priority. I agree it would look better without it, but I don't think any of it is doing any harm. I thought the passenger rear wheel well looked original - thought it still had the weld marks, where the driver's side doesn't. The paint job was pretty terrible. I suspect it was done just before the car was sold. Looks like the radio/tape deck is late '70s/early '80s vintage, so it probably came with the car (I didn't get the car until 1994). I did install a set of rear speakers in a piece of wood that ran across the back of the hatch. Sadly, I also hacked out the piece of plastic at the bottom of the slot in the console so it would fit better. I remember regretting it even as I was doing it! At one time I had the original radio (and some gauges) from either the '72 or '73 that I owned back in the '80s, but somewhere along the line I got rid of them. Too bad. The good news is that I still have a few old cassette tapes hanging around!

Shiny is what it's all about! I'm not keen on that pollution control stuff getting in the way of my driving! It mostly looks like a bunch of vacuum leaks waiting to happen anyway!

Did you have a close look at the hose I've circled in the picture? I believe it's a solid piece of rubber. I thought it was interesting that someone would actually have manufactured such a thing. I don't think any of the pollution control stuff was functional. The air pump had been removed and the air conditioner had been installed where it was normally mounted. I wonder what valuable things the mice stored in the ventilation system, aside from the jute from under the carpets. As far as the dash goes, I'm keen on preventing the cracks from getting longer. If holes at the ends of the cracks are effective, it's better than having them extend farther into the dash.

I think it's quite likely that I left them off when I was adjusting the carbs a couple of years ago. They might have been in the bag with the remaining parts of the carb refurb kit.

I remember having that problem when I had my 240Z back in 1984/1985. I also seem to remember that if you shifted out of 4th, then tried to go directly back into it, the result could be noisy. The problem got worse when I sold the 240Z at the end of 1985 and replaced it with a 1983 280ZX with a 5 speed. The problem was a bit more severe when you forgot you were already in 5th and tried to shift up one more time ...

I'm in Canada, so I tried amazon.ca, without success. Amazon.com returns a dizzying array of products. You can add a filter for the Make/Model/Year of your car, and it returns lots of products, but when you click on any of them, you're told it isn't a fit for your vehicle. Fabulous! The hassle of getting things to Canada means you want to be certain when you order something. The recent exception was an order of 9 body parts from KFVintage. They arrived a week after I ordered them and the shipping charge was quite reasonable. I figured if @inline6 has the Exedy part number, that would be the safest bet, since (based on VINs) our cars are the same variants.