Mike B

Arne, I think Bonzi is referring the bracket is welded to the underside of the cowl area. That bracket is used to route the hand throttle cable so that it aligns with the accelerator pedal. Here is a picture of the one in #32. -Mike

You might check with the local Z car club to see who they recommend. -Mike

Last time it hit $50,100 and the reserve was still not met. Considering that a deal wasn't worked out offline after that, I assume the reserve is set pretty high. -Mike

So, does anyone else have a dipstick with the number E3000 on it, like the picture in post #15 above? I'm curious if this is another very early part (since it is removed from the later catalog) or if later 1970 cars have them too. Also, I just checked the accelerator pedal on #210 and it still has the original plastic grommet at the top for the hand throttle, just like #32 did. The throttle must have been cut out at the port or by the dealer. -Mike

Just on the painted areas. -Mike

First I washed them with soap and hot water. I just used some fine steel wool on the backs to remove the brake dust (I left the areas around the date stamps alone). On the front painted sections, I used some wax and grease remover and then used System One cutting polish with some low speed buffing. These are probably the best condition used caps I have seen, so they were easy to clean up and almost look like a NOS set now. -Mike

Will, I don't think I would want to use a composite hatch unless I was building a race car. For a driver, wouldn't this have a lot more potential to get cracked or damaged with frequent opening and closing? Also, wouldn''t it hurt the resale value later on? Also a thought regarding the flanges on the stock series 1 hatches - could part of the purpose (at least for the top flange) be to channel away some of the water from the vent holes? I'll have to take a look at a spare hatch I have tonight to refresh my memory of what is looks like under the external vent trim piece. -Mike

Here is a thread from last year when the same car was listed on eBay and didn't sell. http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=27374&highlight=bob+sharp+ebay -Mike

The question about the dipstick reminded me that I have noticed that the dipsticks on the 1969 production cars are longer and have a different number than the one that came on an early 1971 parts car I had. I was curious when the change over was and why they would go to a shorter version. Interesting...I just checked my 11/69 USA & Canada Parts Catalog and it shows the dipstick (Gauge-Oil Level) with a part # of 11140-E3000. However, the 12/73 version of the same catalog starts with part #11140-E3001 and then goes to #11140-E3002 with no application dates. -Mike

Thanks for all the kind comments guys. This car was just too original and rustfree to pass up. Yeah, to borrow sblake01's phrase, I feel a bit like a "Datsunologist" looking at this car. I think I did get the deal of the year, but the guy I bought it from got the deal of the century. Makes you wonder what else is sitting around waiting to be discovered in garages around the world. The dipstick is still there, just a little difficult to see from that angle. The decal on the firewall was apparently put on when a set of Gabriel struts were installed on 11-20-84. I'm looking forward to slowly going through the rest of the car. One of the things I want to do is a side by side comparison of the original carpet set (made by Chester and Herod) to the reproduction sets I had made by them this spring. -Mike

Hubcaps before and after, solid metal hood emblem, and original OK inspection sticker. -Mike

A few more pictures. -Mike

Here are some more pictures as I first found the car. -Mike

I didn't want another Z car, I really didn't. I already have three and I'm looking to downsize to two, but some times you come across a deal too good to pass up. So here is my story.... A couple of weeks ago Carl contacted me and let me know that someone in my area had just bought HLS30-00210 from the original owner. The new owner didn't know anything about Z cars, but came across Carl's Zhome site and read about the 1969 production cars. Turns out he only lives a few miles from me, so he asked me to come over and tell him what he had. The original owner had gotten into a fender bender (hood bender actually) in 1997. He was able to drive the car home, and it sat in his garage for the next 11 years. The guy I got it from saw it in the original owner's garage and bought it for a steal. He towed it back to his house and stored it in his carport for a couple of weeks before I saw it. The accident damage is limited to the hood, front bumper, headlight buckets, grill, slight ding in the lower valance, and the left headlight bucket mounting structure. Fortunately, the frame is fine and the radiator didn't get pushed back into the fan. The only rust is a dime size spot on the lower driver's fender and a little rust through at the bottom edge of the driver's door. The car was always garaged and has just over 148,000 miles. It has almost all its original paint. The right headlight bucket is metal, so that must have been replaced in an earlier ding, but nothing else looks out of place, so he may have just cracked the original FRP one somehow. The car has alot of door and fender dings from people parking too close and the rear bumper is tweeked slightly in the center so he must have backed into something. It looks like just the center bumper section needs replacing and some minor damage to the rear valance. The exhaust has been replaced with aftermarket stuff. The car also has an original BRE spook front spoiler in pretty good shape. It has the all the original hubcaps and steel wheels in excellent condition (more on that in a minute). The original spare looks like has never been used. The interior is in great shape, just a couple of splits in the drivers seat, and the choke cover on the console is broken, otherwise it just needs a good cleaning. The dash, door panels, vinyl, plastic interior panels, and passenger seat are perfect (the seats had sheepkin covers on them). The only early production items that are missing are the front rubber mats (if it actually came with them) and the plastic fuel door knob. It has all of the grey interior plastic in great shape, all clear glass (even the original windshield), red dot mirror, early seat belt hooks and plastic edge guards on both seats, early alternator, plastic inspection lid clips, chrome Z emblems, rubber mats (behind the seats and cargo area), and even the original carpet in very good shape (he used aftermarket front floor mats on top of the originals). It came with the original owner's manual (Jan 70 edition), radio manual, warranty booklet, and a can of original touch up paint. The original registration certificate shows the car was sold on May 11, 1970. It still has the original license plates on the car. Anyway, I went over everything with the new owner. He said he planned to outsource a concours restoration for it sometime next year. I told him that would be expensive, but if you were going to restore a Z car, this would be an excellent candidate. I also told him I wasn't looking for another Z at this point, but if he ever changed his mind and wanted to sell it to let me know (thinking that would be a year or more down the road). Well after calling around and getting estimates to have the car fully restored to the level he wanted, he decided he would rather sell the car now at several times what he paid for it, rather than restore it and sell it later. He emailed me after about a week and told me what he wanted for it and asked if I knew anyone that would be interested. I told him I might be myself, so I went over and looked it over one more time (especially the front end). We worked out a deal for slightly less than he was asking and I had it towed over to my house yesterday. I'll be following the "waking the sleeping beast" thread advice and slowly getting the car ready to be restarted in the spring. I spent a little time cleaning the interior and exterior up today and found a couple of cool things: -the original signed "OK" inspection sticker was between the jute and the carpet under the passenger seat. -the hood emblem is solid metal. I've seen other solid early emblems (quarter panel 240z emblems, and the rear deck Datsun emblem), but I don't think I've seen a solid hood emblem yet. -the quarter panel emblems are also the solid chrome Z's. I'm still working on carefully removing the other emblems to see if they are solid or not. -the hubcaps and steel wheels cleaned up great. Hard to believe they have been on the car the whole time, but that appears to be the case. All the hubcaps have a date code of Jan 23, 1970 (showa date 45.1.23). Three of the steel wheels and the spare have a date code of Sept or Oct 1969, but one has a date code of Jan 1970. Very interesting, since the car has a 11/69 production date on the door and it was sold in May 1970. I'll let you know what else I find as I go through it and get it ready for a restart in a few months. Here are some pictures as I first found it (more to follow). -Mike

Looks like it has the chrome Z emblems. I wonder if it has any other early parts. If you get it, I guess you will be needing the NOS rockers and quarter panels you have for this car. What do the floors look like? -Mike

He can get reproductions directly from BRE now. http://www.bre2.net/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=B&Category_Code=decals_sub_510 -Mike

Yes, you can just swap out the seat hardware from your 1970 with ones from a 1972 or 1973 (with the reclining mechanism). -Mike

If the wheels are date coded 4/71 and 5/71 wouldn't they have come from a 1971 240z? -Mike

It depends on if it still works or not. The last one on ebay sold for $412 recently. Before that I think they were in the $200-$300 range. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=140280277630&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWAX%3AIT&viewitem= -Mike

I've seen that car list on ebay a couple of times. The seller never posts more than a couple of pictures and none that really show the car very well or any of the unique 1969 parts. He is also pretty vague about what the VIN is, and other details. He says it is a rebuilt engine, but doesn't mention if the engine is original, so I assume it is not. Based on the couple of pictures that he does show it looks VERY rough, and I assume the parts he doesn't show are worse. -Mike

Interesting. I would guess they must have still been working out what the final hubcaps would look like when the picture of that prototype and the one on Kat's slides were taken. Here is a picture of what must be one of the final prototypes or early production car because it has a gas door (the other one did not), an "OK" sticker, and the Datsun fender emblem. I would bet all of these prototype hubcaps have the larger mounting tabs on the back. HLS30-00032 has three of its original hubcaps and I recently came across another one owner low vin car (11/69 production) that has all four of its original hubcaps. All of the early caps on these cars have the valve hole below the D and the valve hole is centered on one of the spokes. See the pictures below. -Mike

Yes, 3 caps (later version) have the valve hole above the D and the hole is between the spokes. The fourth cap (earler version) has the valve hole below the D and the hole is aligned with one of the spokes. -Mike

I saw this ad a few days ago and briefly considered it, but I don't really need any of the parts and it seemed like too much work to try to resell it all for the price he is asking. Here is a link to all of the pictures if anyone else is interested. http://www.flickr.com/photos/s30_parts/ -Mike

It's actually 1 early "D" cap (with the valve hole below the D and fewer larger clips on the back) and 3 later "D" caps (with the valve hole above the D and more smaller clips on the back). -Mike

I don't know that I would call that being sneaky. He may just not be aware that the location of the valve stem hole indicates if it is an early or late version of the "D" caps. I wasn't until Geezer pointed it out to me recently. -Mike