Mike B

I agree wit spitz17, keep your rally clock and oscillator. You have a rare and mostly complete early Fairlady Z-L. Don't start selling off the original unique bits, or you will kill the value of the car and its originality. Finding an early 1970 Fairlady with its original L20a engine in the US is very rare. Since the car has been sitting so long hopefully you have the time/funds to slowly bring it back to life and not looking to make it a daily driver right away or something like that. Hopefully you did some prep on the engine before you just fired it up after sitting. I'd be interested in hearing more about how you found the car. -Mike

Yeah, now that you have it running again you should enjoy it as is for awhile before doing anything major, like a respray. No point in burning you or your assistant out. -Mike

Looks great, and I can't believe you got all that work done in just three weeks! I feel like a real slacker now. Is that the original paint? It's great to see such an original and early HS30. -Mike

Hi Chuck, I'm also in the Seattle area and have a few early (1969 production) 240Zs. The rubber deck mat you have is original to the very early cars in North America, although I am a bit surprised to see it with a VIN as high as yours. They were also standard on the base Fairlady Z in Japan. There was a complete set of five mats from the factory (2 in front of the seats, 2 behind, and the rear deck mat), although it seems to have varied as to what combination of mats/carpet the dealers chose to leave on the cars when they were delivered to customers. Here is a thread with some info on the mats http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/thread30706.html and another on some of the carpet variations and available reproductions as of a few years ago http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/thread29317.html. It looks like a prior owner cut a hole for access to the spare tire well in the rubber deck mat you have and glued it to the floor. I would be interested in seeing the other mats you have, if you can post pictures of them. If you have mats in the footwells that say 'Datsun' and have snaps that match up to snaps on the firewall insulation it sounds like they are the original from mats that are part of the set. Do you also have the rubber mats that go behind the seats? Hopefully the information in the two threads I linked to will give you some information that may be of use to you. -Mike -Mike

Interesting that your car has the clear glass hatch with no defroster. I wonder when that changed for the Australian market? The front windshield would also have had a Nissan stamp and be marked M-34G if it were the original clear glass. This is a photo of the original clear (untinted) windshield from my HLS30-00210, an 11/69 production US car. -Mike

Based on the M-214 markings on your glass, it appears you have clear (untinted) window glass. Is your windshield and hatch glass the same? Do you have a rear defroster? I thought only the very early US market cars and the base model S30-S JDM cars had clear glass standard, so it is interesting to see it on an Australian market car. I wonder when that changed? Based on the date codes on your car, approximately when was it manufactured? There is a right hand drive 240Z register on zhome.com that shows manufacture dates of 7/70 for HS30-00044 and 10/70 for HS30-00117, so I would expect it is somewhere between those dates. -Mike

Hi Dan, Yes, you are correct about the location of the washer. It goes between the seat and the hook, not between the screw and the hook. I realized that after I checked a couple of my cars and forgot to go back and update my comments here. Your rational of keeping the hook from rotating makes sense to me. If your 1/71 car has the small hooks then it sounds like all of the series 1 cars would have had them. I am not sure what I was basing that one, but I must have been wrong. I have a 10/70 JDM s30 and it also has the small plastic hooks, although they are mounted higher up, near the headrests. I am not sure why the JDM/Australian market cars had the hooks mounted higher up, so if anyone knows I would be interested in finding out. By the way, I found a spare small plastic hook, so if Classsicdatto is still around send me a PM and I will mail it to you. -Mike

Yeah, it looks like the link above didn't work and it won't let me go bad and edit it. Hopefully this one works http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/thread45010.html -Mike

Some good pictures of what the original paint on the front of the rad support should look like in this thread: http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/thread45010.html. One picture shows the entire front of the rad support repainted black, but all the originals I have seen have the upper portion still body color with a straight line painted under the fresh air intake holes and the brushed on black paint below that. -Mike

Cool, I didn't know that. I will have to remind Eiji the next time I see him that the BRE 240Z had a black valve cover though. I would probably go with the polished valve cover if it were my car, especially with it being silver, but I suppose other people may like the contrast of the red. -Mike

Looks nice, but why the red valve cover? -Mike

If that is a $15K car, what do you think this one worth? http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Datsun-Z-Series-Stock-1970-Datsun-240z-One-of-the-most-original-around-06145-/140781648517?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&hash=item20c73d7a85 -Mike

That was listed on ebay a few times. This was the last one: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&_trksid=p4340.l2557&rt=nc&nma=true&item=150819504364&si=L38M1G2Kyz0GrjBlYk2hLYSCHKc%253D&viewitem=&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc The gas turbine ZX didn't sell on ebay, put apparently the gas turbine powered go cart did (from the same seller): http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Jet-Engine-Powered-Go-Kart-Gas-Turbine-Engine-Rat-Rod-Hot-Rod-Rocket-/150834100288?pt=Other_Vehicles_Everything_Else&hash=item231e69b840

Randy, the early cars didn't have the spring, so yours isn't missing, it just never had one. Here is a thread that discusses the lack of springs on the early cars: http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/thread38546.html -Mike

So the seller has two "associates" with hundreds of ebay transactions each, make two separate offers for the same amount, that no one else can even see until after the auction ends (and which are hard to find even then, unless you know where to look). Might be a better tactic if he had a low starting price and a high reserve, so people could at least see the bids, instead of just using a high BIN price and offers that no one can see until the auction ends. Sounds a bit conspiracy theorist to me, but anything is possible I guess and I have no knowledge of what really happened.... Maybe he is just trying work a deal outside of ebay with someone that was close to his asking price? Was the $20k BIN on the other 73 also a schill bid? I also see that the silver 1970 from Atlanta that was discussed in another thread (in need of repaint and with a dash cap, etc.) closed at $16,089 http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/?cmd=ViewItem&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2648&item=160823199278&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT Just because someone else bids more for a car than I may think it is worth doesn't necessarily make it a scam. -Mike

If you look at the three offers on that car, now that the auction had ended, it will show you what the offer amounts were. Surprisingly, there were two offers for $37,000 that were not accepted. Those seem like great offers and only $4,500 off the asking price, so I'm very surprised the seller didn't jump at them. There was also another 73 that I was watching that sold with a BIN of $20k recently, http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270997961890&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2648 I was a bit surprised, since it wasn't totally correct (black engine bay, etc). Maybe the market is picking up? -Mike

The sign also says "purchased from Tokyo Nissan in 1981", but it doesn't say it was new then. My guess is that is just when the owner that shipped it to the US in 1983 (maybe still the current owner) bought it as a used car. -Mike

Here are a couple of pictures that Kats posted in another thread that show the side by side comparison of the early and late plastic hooks and the mounting location on JDM cars. -Mike

Chris is right, the washer goes between the hook and the screw. The small plastic hook I posted a picture of in post #3 above was also only used in relatively early 1970 production cars. After that they switched to a larger plastic hook. There are a couple listed on ebay in the US right now. Here is a photo from one of the listings. You can see they are quite a bit longer. Which one do you need Greg, the earlier small plastic hook or the later longer one? I may have a set of the early hooks, but probably not any extra screws. Let me know if that is what you need. Another interesting thing about the hooks is the JDM cars had the hooks mounted quite a bit higher on the seat, near the headrest. I think they are the only market with them mounted in that location and I not sure what the reason for that was. I'll see if I can find a picture showing a JDM hook. -Mike

Here are several pictures of the very early seat belt vinyl covered metal hooks and attaching screws that Chris referred too. These are from an 11/69 production HLS30, and were only used on cars produced in the first few months, so I think your car would have the later plastic version. I attached one picture of the later style. I believe the screws are the same. -Mike

If you do have it, it's not original to the car, unless your '69 is a Fairlady Z (S30). -Mike

Yes, I think all of my tanks have that stamp. It's just the inspection/manufacturing date code. There are many other such stamps and date codes on other parts of the car that indicate when the various components were made. Search for 'date codes' or 'date stamps' or 'tanks stamps' in this case and you will find lots of old threads about this. The date on yours is sometime in January 1970. 45 is the Showa date for 1970, 1 is for January and the blurred two digit coded at the end is the day of the month, which would have been 1 to 31, so 98 is obviously not correct. -Mike

I found these on ebay the other day, but have not tried them yet. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Datsun-510-240-260-280Z-door-handle-rubber-1-pr-New-/120902246088?pt=Vintage_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item1c2655dec8&vxp=mtr -Mike

Not trying to be too critical of your new ride, but that is a pretty big statement. It looks like it has had patch sections welded on the floorpans and the frame rails. The paint overspray in the engine bay (rubber grommets, etc) and the lack of a hood emissions sticker indicate that the car has been repainted at some point. Actually, all of the carpet looks to be aftermarket to me. There shouldn't be carpet on the transmission tunnel, on the door thresholds, or on the sides of inner rear wheel wells. Is the original vinyl underneath? The rest of the car seems to be in good shape for an Ohio car, so if the paint and repairs were done well and you got it for a decent price, it looks like a good find. Good luck with the move. -Mike

An L24 engine with a number of 005164 is still in the range of what might be expected for HLS30-01955. The L24 was used in other model Nissan vehicles, so the engine number is always higher than the VIN number of the car for North American market cars. You need to check the data plate on the rights shock tower in the engine bay to see if that is the original engine for your car. Both the VIN and engine number are listed on it, and the engine number should match what is on the block. Also, there were several other models of the S30 family being produced at the same time (and well before) yours, so yours is not the "1955th off the line". -Mike