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I put Apex front and rear control arms on my car this year, along with BC coilovers, and am loving the setup. Their control arms are very well built and provide a lot of adjustment (more than I need for a fun backroads car). If you do get the rears, I'd skip on the dust boots. It was impossible to tighten up the hardware without destroying the boots.

Excellent analogy. That's a great philosophical thought exercise. Wonder what the right answer is.........

Making the frame rails alot thicker changes the handling characteristics of the chassis. It also moves the potential failure points. Unless you plan on running tremendous power I wouldn't expect thicker frame rails to be necessary

As I’ve documented on this forum before I got kind of stift by the auction company and the previous owner of my 77 280z. The frame rails are rusted and need replacement to pass inspection and something is wrong with the rear suspension. I’m trying to not spend too much money at the moment but still want good parts that will stay on the car trough out the build as doing thing twice costs more in the long run. I will have to take the car to a body shop to get the frame rails welded so I’ll be looking to get pre made frame rails to save on labor cost. That gives me two choices, 1,5mm thick reproduction rails from KF vintage or the 3mm thick rails from Apex. The KF rails are send trough a warehouse in Spain so that saves a lot on import cost for me but the Apex rails are twice as thick which may give the almost 50 year old car some much needed strength and rigidity. Does anybody have the Apex rails on there car and how are they holding up? As for the rear suspension the question is if it is the chassis itself that’s crooked or something in the suspension. As I can’t find many stories of bend chassis online I’ll take the bet that it’s the rear suspension. That means I’ll have to look for adjustable rear control arms. That way even if the chassis itself is a little bit crooked I can tune it out for now till the car will be fully restored. Again that search let me back to Apex, there was also Silver Project from Europe which was a lot cheaper but I don’t hear much good from them. Has anybody installed the rear (or front) control arms from Apex with mostly stock suspension? I currently have a list of products form Apex which interests me and I’ll probably wait till Black Friday to see if they got any good deals. I don’t know if I’ll order everything but the frame rails and rear control arms I’ll probably order. This is what I’m interested in at the moment: - Frame rails - Rear control arms - Fender brace (If the car gets welded anyway, why not) - Rear strut brace - Front control arms - Low profile outer tie rods (I run 15” atm) - Inner tie rods (because of the threat difference) - Steering knuckles All combined should give the chassis and suspension a nice upgrade and the adjustability I need to get the car on the road. I do plan on keeping the four lug setup and the coilovers that are currently on the car. I do like there coilovers but That may be too much money for now. Yesterday I contacted Apex Engineered with some questions and they claim that the suspension components I’m looking at do work with the stock components. Are there people on here running Apex components (except the track attack kits) and what is your opinion on them. *note: this is a copy of my threat on HybrideZ

The first two pics are some 510 4 door outer door/window trim pieces. The second two are 510 2 door outer door/window trim pieces. The rubber looks to be the same shape to me for each of them. The next two pics show the groove on the inside top edge of the door where the inner rubber w/s goes. It is a simple u channel. The last three pictures are of NOS inner rubber weather strips for the 2 door. The front and rear doors of the wagon should use the same inner and outer w/s from a design standpoint, right?

Let me take a look. I only have a 2 door, not a wagon. I have some NOS outer stainless strips. And I may have the inner strips as well. I will try to get some pictures for you.

toolman on Hybridz says that they'll be at SEMA Las Vegas in two weeks. Thought he had an account on CZCC but there are several toolmans listed here. They show what looks like a scrapped/stripped 240Z on a road in the desert. Facing the wrong way if it's meant to be in the States. On a road with odd yellow and white center striping. Combined with that Youtube short above with the cringey rap music, the whole enterprise seems strange. If anybody trys to buy a part from them don't forget about the tariffs. 57% now, could be 155% soon. If anybody is really interested it might be worthwhile to browse other car forums. They have an odd assortment of models shown. Here's one - https://www.carbody.com/product/classic-car/ford-parts/bronco-19661977-parts/ HybridZA COMPLETE EARLY MODEL 240Z BODY may be available soonA Chinese Metal Fabrication Company is planning to unveil a Brand New complete Early Model 240Z body at the 2025 SEMA SHOW in Las Vegas on Nov 4-7. They are looking for Distributors in North America.

Sorry, but... a new set of exterior panels does not solve your 'slightly rusty' Z problem.

Looks like I have mostly parts candidates in the hoard. None of then work smoothly.

Here is how this one was wired: Main GND (B) is a male spade that pushes into a female held in that little box. Red/Black (RB) is the GND from the door switches. Red/Blue (RL) is +12V from the fuse box. And they're both female spades. You'll notice that the main GND can be interrupted by the switch and that the RB GND from the doors is independent of the dome switch. Now. To refurbish this one AND try putting it back together - so that it still works...

Weird - it's a turn-y switch - it rotates into or out of contact by pressing the button. That little black disc (brass contacts on the bottom side that I didn't take a pic of...) gets turned by the shaft above it. So, it needs to turn freely, have an undamaged top side (the little ramp, triangle thingy's), and the entire mechanism needs to slide / move freely, and all the contact brass needs to be clean. I didn't notice any old grease or lubricant in this one. I was surprised that the "top" was just held on by a couple of clips on either side. Everything is PLASTIC and we don't have very good luck with PLASTIC here in the DESERT, so I was a little nervous. I heated the whole thing up a bit and used an extremely small screwdriver to pry one side at a time. First side was pretty easy - the second was quite a bit harder but eventually the "top" came off and revealed the underlying surprise. The switch is indeed simple and you can test continuity straight through on the rivets both sides or the brass the rivets tie down. Also check continuity through to the bulb holders to make sure corrosion hasn't killed the circuit between the switch and the bulb.

I don't see anything unusual other than it has two possible grounds - one that can be provided by the dome switch and/or one that can be provided by the door switches. No one of them interferes with the operation of the other(s). All can be providing (or removing) ground in any combination of the three. The dome light switch itself looks fairly simple.

Weak chatbot? Where are the emojis?

How many/much replacement parts before it becomes not-a-Z? Is it weight or number or volume or area? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus And, how should the new thing be described? As a restored Z or a replica Z or just a Z, caveat emptor? Somebody needs to "Get A Quote". At least it's made of steel, apparently.

Hold on now people. Let's be positive. We all know that todays body work to repair a rusted z car can take a ton, no..two tons of time and dollars. So let wait and see.

Thanks for information!

Yeah, that's fair. It's real Ship of Theseus situation.

For the BEST rubber in your Datsun door..... simply use.. Rubbers - S30 World

That is true, but it could have been converted from auto. I'm just throwing out bread crumbs. Something is drawing too much current. Find the thing.

The pic shows a stick shift in the console so I assume it’s manual. Possibly a chaffed cable touching metal.

There are sources for the OEM gripper strips and I bought 25 feet of it on Amazon (nice stuff, BTW, and I used some of this channel, in white, around my interior roof line) before I got my Precision weatherstrip kit and saw the gripper integrated into the door seal. If anyone wants it, let me know and we'll work a deal.

I can attest to the fact that the Kia Sportage weatherstrip requires no adhesive (even at the top rear corner of the window) to conform to the shape of the window opening. That's because it uses a more modern design, wherein integrated metal Z-coils replace the need for adhesive or a separate gripper strip. The Kia design also uses a 'lipped bellows' design that provides a more effective seal than the Z's old-fashioned (sorry) cantilevered-lip design. The recent arrival of Z Store's retro-design weatherstripping (i.e. cantilevered-lip design) presents a bit of a dilemma to restorers, because they (apparently?) don't also offer a repro of the gripper strip. If I've got this right, it means that you have to use an adhesive to make the weatherstrip not only conform to the window shape, but also stay that way for some reasonable period of time. If your definition of 'reasonable period of time' is 20+ years, then use just use epoxy and be done with it. Otherwise, I think that 3M's 'old-fashioned' weatherstrip adhesive will do just fine (provided that you read and follow the instructions). It will also offer some forgiveness if you happen to; a) screw up during the installation, or; b) decide, a few years later on, to try something 'more better'.

IIRC, there may be something funky about the the cabin light's wiring and switching logic (even one of the terminals is 'different') that requires a special testing procedure. I'm thinking about how the lamp is controlled not just by its integral switch, but also by the door P/B's (wherein toggling the integral switch can override Door Open/Closed). Bottom line: You may not have a problem at all (emphasis, however, on the word, 'may') Perhaps we should ask CZCC's designated electrical expert (Steve ____? ) for some guidance before you add yet another cabin light to your collection.

Just posted today on eBay. Make an offer? eBayDatsun 240Z 3 Screw Round-top Carburetors, W/ E46 Manifol...Nissan Datsun 240Z Hitachi 3 Screw Round Top Carburetors, E46 Manifold, with Air cleaner. This set up was removed from a wrecked 240Z. These partshave been sitting unused for a while so will obviously

Hmmm, that's one switch that I've never taken apart... Now you have me curious. I think I'll see if I have a spare and drill out the rivets.