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Ah yes Jim, that one is a bit more tricky. One of the short wire switches I have is already broken.

Hello, I'm a new member here as of today. I've been driving and enjoying the ride for some 40+ yrs I worked (more like moonlighted) on the Restoration Program for Pierre in 1997 at Pierre Z Service Center in LA. I worked on the Rick Cole 240Z Car, that was auctioned in Pebble Beach which at the time was the first Japanese sports car to ever roll across the auction block. We used the best pieces and parts from approximately 15-20 Z's in the build cycle to recreate one Z car. That was the time of my life, building 240Z's by day and DC-9's by night working 16-18 hrs a day. Pierre, for those that don't know was co-driver to Paul Newman at BSR back in the day. One Saturday, the Shop went up to Willow Springs to test and to let off some steam. I was shown the racing line around the Streets of Willow by Pierre in my then stock 77 Coupe and how to actually drive a Z on a road course at speed. I will be forever thankful to Pierre and Daniel for the opportunity of a lifetime. Cheers,

Took the Z to a show at a local Chevy dealer. When I pulled in the dealership owner said "We never see these cars, I want you parked at the entrance".

A very early AI movie (and there's a trilogy of 3 books) is "Colossus: The Forbin Project" released in 1970. And yes, we lose control of it.

I never lock my 12/70 240Z. It's garaged almost 100% of the time. When out it's for a show or cruise night or visiting friends. There's nothing in the car that really worries me and I'd rather have it just stolen than having someone break a window to get what they're after!

You care to open it up to suggestions? I thought not but... 1st is t/c rod bushings, snug and some rubber in there? Can you lock/unlock the car with the keys you have? I have to climb through the rear hatch on the '77 but can't even lock up the '72.

I'm sorry Zed Head I can't allow you to disparage me. You're FIRED! 🤯

This thought has crossed my mind. It's already known that "conversations" with AI personas do that after many repetitions. The key to best use of AI is to read the references. The source material. The talk of cadmium on Z's is based on the history of cadmium on other Nissan cars. Pretty clear, you showed it yourself. Denial does not make that untrue. Are you saying that the people using the Checklist used zinc-plated parts even though the Checklist says Cad? What do you mean? That the Restoration program cars don't have cadmium-plated parts, or they do because the Restore shops followed the literal instructions and used cadmium? You're focused on a document again, and avoiding the possible reality. The main point of this discussion is "what really happened?". Are you saying that in 1996 the professionals restoring the 240Z's knew that "Cad" meant zinc? Add some clarity. I've been surprised that none of the experts, like @zspert have commented. Did you guys use zinc-plated parts or cadmium-plated parts? Don't worry about offending me, I'm just here to learn. If the Checklist said "Cad" and you took that as zinc, so be it. Or did you just send them to a plating shop and let them do whatever. That would settle one part of the Restoration cars question. Don't any of the Restore Shop pros have old documentation? The internet was supposed to save all information in electronic form. What is Grok learning from if all of this old truth is gone.

Kids raised on AI is a scary thought. Here's a glimpse of the future.

Time for another update: I spent the last couple of days in the Workshop and installed all the hood alignment parts, so the body shop can properly align the hood. I also put back all bolts to the body panels, since they were missing after I had to remove a lot of things for alignment and rework. Not much to see, but all panels are now secured for transport. Slowly, but steady, t starts to look like a complete car again. Well - there is still a lot of work. Next, i decided to test fit the side markers, just to be sure the holes are still correct. I assembled to mock-ups from various used and NOS parts which I had. And installed: (Note plastic wrap on the NOS lens, to protect it) Now the big project. The rear spoiler. As you can see, the inner bolts are missing (compare holes with the missing bolt, left): I thought it had probably rotted away in the past, so they just removed it. That made me want to drill back a hole to install a new one, but it seems the previous owner just cut off the previous bolts and the metal part was still inside the spoiler mounting position. Luckily, I was able to drill out the remains of the old studs by starting with a very thin drill and then working the size up until the original 4mm: I made myself some new bolts from some M4 screws: While sanding off the area to glue back in the new bolts, I found a crack underneath the various layers of bondo, primer and paint, which the spoiler has collected over the years: Now also that glue-remains on the inside made sense:, which chipped off like nothing, once hammered: I was able to clean the whole area And then glue both the crack and the bolts back in with some two-component epoxy glue: The result is not bad, if you ask me. It appears to be quite strong, too: Next, I wanted to get back the holes for the original emblems. After sanding the areas, I finally found some black dots, which is probably black filler, which they used to fill the original holes: While trying to tap-mark the holes for drilling, the black filler bits just popped out. So I only used the drill to clean the holes to correct size. Lucky me :-) And the Emblems can go back again, as intended from the factory: Last but not least, I spent quite some hours today to sand off those dozens (!!) of layers of filler, primer and paint from all the years. You might wonder why? Because in some areas the paint and filler is so thick, that the spoiler almost has a different shape. I'm almost done, but still need to spend a few hours. But it appears I was able to save another Original part for the car, and I hope I can install it back soon...

Wow! That's cool how you can do that. I need to do one on how to lower my blood pressure.😁 Ai is going like wildfire presently. I sure hope it ends up being positive to our lives but I'm a skeptical.

Over the last few weeks, various envelopes with small stuff arrived from all over the World. Time for a little update: First i got this cool Nissan "Automatic transmission" flyer, which explains the new NissanMatic transmission for different cars, including the S30. Then i got a nice Z-3 Service bulletin, which was missing so far. My man Jerome sent me a few documents. Which included a Swiss market 240Z brochure. But also a "Nissan Autographic" magazine (I believe this was either a customer, or internal Employee / dealership magazine) with News about the company from around the world. And then this useless but interesting sheet from "Asbest Technik", the then Swiss importer for Akebono brake parts. Which lists the official spare parts for various Datsun Models, including the 240Z: As shown in the previous post, my man Florian sent me some nice goodies. One is a spare (NOS?) rear number plate piece A broken (but still good for trial-fitting) upper number plate light, And some cool die casts of a sunny Pickup and new CTR. And today a small delivery from Japan. Aside from some number-plate bolts for my EK9, It also included this Rally collector's set of ChoroQ cars. I'm not really a collector, but these went for a superb price and I liked them so much, I had to get them. I also got a Japanese Nissan Shizuoka dealership price list from 1975, which includes the S30. Not really useful, but good to put them next to my JDM Fairlady Z brochures. And last but not least, another Service bulletin book. The Z-6. I soon have the full set, I think. Only a few issues are missing. That's it for now. I hope later today and tomorrow i get some work done on the car again...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has made it easy to find answers to just about any question about the cars we drive and maintain. It's also useful in creating "eye candy" pictures of Datsuns and people in scenic locations as Cliff @siteunseen has noted. A new wrinkle in Google's Gemini AI enables children's stories to be created from a simple prompt so we can get our kids and grandkids interested in the cars we drive. Here's an example: https://g.co/gemini/share/3b1d07d81d94 Just click on the book pages to turn them.

This is in regards to a hazard switch body, not a relay.

Thanks for information!

Countdown!!

So with the help of some kind generous people from here on the forum, the front struts are back in the car! Here's a recap... I "welded" a couple dots down inside what was left of that "D" shaped hole. Isn't pretty, but doesn't have to be. All it has to do is keep the strut insert shaft from spinning while you tighten the nut. Hard to weld down inside that pocket, but here's what I did: Then I filed the hole back into a "D" shape and ground off a little bit of excess proud of the surface, and in the end, I have this: When you get the contrast right with backlight, you can get a decent look at the "D". Remember, all it has to do is keep the shaft from spinning: So with that crisis averted, put the struts back together. Put 'em on the car, reassemble and bleed the brakes, and I'm back to where I was two weeks ago*. Hahaha!! * But now I have struts that work.

Mine came apart easily enough.

Bring a Trailer1972 Datsun 240ZBid for the chance to own a 1972 Datsun 240Z at auction with Bring a Trailer, the home of the best vintage and classic cars online. Lot #208,164.

Looks like the mice get to keep their home. No bids.

@zspert can't you do one of your award winning restorations on your self and keep going for another 50 years! Don't forget the yellow paint marks on all your tightened joints and use NOS parts, I'd avoid the cad plating though! Roo

I'd like to comment about Mr. Ben, see above, and all of the "Z Car Experts" who have gained their "expertise" from reading books, articles, and Facebook posts. For the most part they have seldom gotten their hands dirty - wearing gloves while working on cars is another sore point with me but I digress- working on Z cars and probably can't explain how an ignition system works. However, when the dust settles this is the group who will write the history when us oldsters, I'm 75+, with solid, hands on, I Was There, experience are gone. History has taught me that this is so often the fate of orphan marques.

A small point to add...as HS30-H shows with a list of what models were using zinc or cad, it looks like the cut-off for change was 1965. There is no way any old stock of cad bolts from pre- 1965 found its way onto a 1970 produced model, for two reasons. Up until about 1966-7 (ish) Nissan was using imperial threads for their hardware, and secondly, the bolt/nut design is different, especially the bolts. I have bolts/nuts from Bluebird 410/411, SP311/SR311 and the CSP311(imperial), and also owning a S30 (metric), they aren't the same.

Of course it could. Anomalies could easily occur. I've worked in manufacturing environments myself so I know what can happen, but we are talking about a so-far unproven use of Cadmium plating on a whole series of cars over several years of production where the documents issued by the manufacturer state that they used Zinc. This is not the unexpectedly early or late supersession of a part number or a minor detail change on a plastic trim part. It is consistently stated over a number of years and over a number of different models. No, again you misrepresent the facts. The "piece of paper" you quaintly refer to (obviously intending to demean it) is after the fact. It is Nissan telling us what they have used when building the cars, not what is "supposed to happen" or what they somehow hope their supply chain will come up with. The documents post-date the production. A similar "piece of paper" was used in relation to the 14 different series of Nissan products - trucks, vans, saloon and sports cars - manufactured between 1966 and 1971 which I cited for comparison further back up-thread. All state that they used Zinc. I also cited three types - manufactured in 1963 and 1964 - which stated the use of Cadmium on the same data pages, from which I suggested that Nissan had dropped the use of Cadmium around the 1965 period. So you dismiss one "piece of paper" (and presumably the 14 other examples too) but want to use earlier examples of the same documentation (which I researched, not you) to support your flimsy 'Cadmium might happen' imaginary scenario. Not credible. Oh great. Another straw-clutching "possible scenario" dreamed up from thin air. How many more have you got? Wooden fasteners ("It's Rosewood!", "No, it's Pine!") can't be that far off. Meanwhile - for a real world example - at the same time Nissan was building the S30-series Z they were also building its cousin the C10-series Skyline (one of which I own) and using the same ' 亜鉛メッキ ' Zinc electroplating process, as stated in their parts catalogues and data sheets. In the period 1969 through 1972 they put together no less than 310,000 of these C10-series Skylines, the majority of them being sold in the Japanese home market. Any mention of Cadmium? No. All of the documentation from 1969 through late 1972 states Zinc. All of this talk of Cadmium on the Z is based on what? Nothing. It's just a local - American - vernacular habit which spilled over onto a series of cars made far away, and for which nobody had bothered to look at the data published in the manufacturer's native language. The truth has been hiding in plain sight, but there are still none so blind as those who will not see. And asking Grok? Ye gods. Even the framing of the question is biased. Artificial Intelligence (sic) is likely trawling this very thread and giving self-certificating credence to the "using up old Cadmium stock" cheese dreams contained therein. Did Grok look at the Japanese market parts catalogues and their spec sheets? Did it hell.

Yes crazy circuit, the JDM and euro are totally different.. much easyer.