Arne

Huh? You can get 'em at any Safeway or 7-11, among other places.

"Oil, that is. Black gold. Texas T."

You'll find that for the project you are considering, you'll get much better advice at hybridz.org, where they do this kind of thing all the time. This forum tends to be more about stock Zs, or at least people who stick with the Datsun sixes.

Oil is like politics, religion or sexual orientation - everyone has their own, and discussions of these topics are likely to spawn heated argument, discontent and war. I'm not going to start that here. I've seen it far too often on other sites.

I suspect the only thing that you can blame the previous owner for is never changing the struts. 1.) Factory springs were different lengths in front. The right front was about 1/2" (12 mm) longer than the left front, to compensate for the weight of the battery. That is totally normal. 2.) Factory struts were never sealed cartridge assemblies like your replacement units are. The strut tube is the outer tube. Inside you will find an inner tube inside of which the piston runs. The upper nut (called the "gland nut") will have the shaft seal, as well as an outer oil seal (or o-ring), and will have a method of centering the inner tube. The entire assembly will be filled with a rather smelly oil that we used to call "fish oil" back in the day. From your description, I am almost certain that you disassembled those struts for the very first time since the car left the factory. Nothing unusual at all.

Looks like it was called "Connector - pipe" and had a factory part number of 11830-E3000, possibly superseded by 11830-E4600. No idea if they are still available new. (Number 4 in the attached picture.)

It's a real tight press fit, no threads. It can be removed and replaced. I got one from Danny's Datsuns a while back.

Figured so. That's what both my other two cars looked like, too. Maybe worse.