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I have VIN 249. Open to outrageous offers. I am located at a sea port so shipping should be easy.

Hi All, I'm saying hello from rainy England, and hoping to tap into this forum as a great resource of information and people. I'll start by saying that I don't own a Z car and never have although its been my dream classic for quite some time now. Ever since I saw the below linked video on Petrolicious (a couple of years ago now) I decided that I had to have a 240Z. I'm heavily into my MR2's with a 1996 gen3 JDM Turbo model which I've spent the last couple of years transforming my car from stock into a fast road car, and have loved every moment of it (most of the time :-D). This car continues to be used on a daily basis however I've been wanting to get into the classic/vintage car scene for a while with something of an older generation. Ever since I was a kid petrol has flowed through my veins with both me and my dad attending all sorts of car events and meets throughout my life, eventually getting my own hands on my own cars of which I am the current custodian. My dad runs a 1962 Austin Healey 3000 mk2a which inevitably got me into classic cars, we've both enjoyed that car for the last eight years and continue to enjoy it to this day, but I've decided its my turn to join the party so to speak. The 240z seems to be everything I want from a classic sports car with stunning looks, strong performance (for its age), reliability, JDM design etc. I've been saving money as and when possible, however we realized with the way values have gone that I'd need a helping hand to make the dream a reality, so we've decided to make it a father son project and go half's on budget. So what am I looking for? I'm being quite fussy but knowing the time, effort and money that we plan to devote to this project I want to get it just right. We're looking at mainly project cars so we can spec it to our preference, however if the right car came up then I wouldn't say no. The plan is to restore a car as a period styled racer albeit it will be mainly used as a road car. My main 3 criteria are as follows: - Series 1 car, wither 1970 or 71 - Original matching No.'s engine - Colour (Color), factory 918 Orange I'm not sure how many cars would have been produced to this spec, or for that matter how many are left like that however that's my starting point. I can compromise on colour (color) assuming the car needs a full respray however I would really like to find a series one matching no.'s car. I'm looking at West Coast cars and I've got a budget of $30,000 to purchase and restore the car to my spec car before arranging to have the car shipped back to the UK. So question time now to you guys, the experts. - How optimistic am I being with my requirements? - Is my budget reasonable? - Are there any resources I should really be reading? (other than general internet articles) - Are there any contacts worth getting in touch with to help with my search? - Where should I be searching to find cars? I've been trying ebay, craigslist, zcartrader.com, hemmings albeit with limited success. Sorry for all the questions and info at once but would really appreciate all the help and info I can get! Cheers, Mark

One of the ugliest jobs I've done while stripping down an old 240Z has been removing the tar-like insulation that covers much of the interior floorboards and transmission tunnel. I have done it by using aircraft paint stripper, but this was a big mess. It softened up the tar, but made it flow into low spots. Once I had most of it removed with a paint scraper, I had to use a wire wheel and more paint stripper to get the last of it off. Some have suggested using heat, but I'd think this would also be a mess. There must be a better way. Actually, I found that with no chemicals at all, some of the insulation will come off quite easily. Just get the corner of a paint scraper under it and it flakes right up and breaks off. That's the good news. The bad news is that, unfortunately, these pieces come off easily because of what's underneath--rust! The insulation that covers clean metal doesn't want to budge. A few years ago, a fellow racer had said that dry ice was the best way to clean off this insulation. I saw it mentioned a couple of other places on the internet, but I couldn't find any articles about it. Armed with just a few instructions of how to do it, I decided to give it a try. I would try to use dry ice to remove the insulation tar in the rear hatch/ trunk area of the old 240Z. Getting the dry ice was easier than I thought. My local Kroger stocks it for 99-cents a pound. They broke open a ten pound bag to sell me 5 pounds. I brought it home and tried to break it up into as small chunks as I could. Then I simply spread it on top of the insulation tar. All the areas I treated were level. I don't know what is the best way to apply the dry ice to vertical areas like a transmission tunnel. I got a really good feeling about this process when, before I was finished spreading the dry ice, I could hear cracking sounds where the dry ice had been sitting for a few minutes. Due to the cold, the tar must have been shrinking faster than the metal and finally becoming separated from it! Once I had spread out the dry ice as best I could and broken it into as small chunks as seemed reasonable, I went inside to watch the finish of the Daytona 500 and to eat supper. I came out about two hours later. All the dry ice had melted (had become CO2 gas and sunk invisibly to the floor and out of the garage). I started attacking with my paint scraper. Now, with minimal effort, chucks of the insulation as big as 3-by-9-inchs broke right off. In just a couple of minutes I had removed almost all of the insulation tar. The bad news is that I found some really nasty rusty areas that I wasn't aware of. But they will be fairly easily repaired. I'm glad I know about them. I did not try one technique that I had read about elsewhere--to use a hammer to strike the insulation. It is supposed to just shatter like glass. I was afraid this would leave dents in the underlying metal. And, if I remember it correctly, you're supposed to strike it when it's still cold (and mine wasn't really dry-ice-cold when I tried to remove it). I didn't get every bit of the insulation. I think there were some spots where I didn't spread the dry ice thoroughly enough, so I guess the insulation didn't get cold enough. So it looks like I'll go back in a few days and repeat the process on those spots. This was an incredibly effective and simple process and I will highly recommend it to anyone who wants to remove this material from any type of vehicle. It didn't involve any nasty chemicals, and didn't leave anything to clean up. Obviously there are precautions to take--I used leather gloves to handle the ice. It gives off CO2 gas, so make sure you have some fresh air to breathe. Other precautions will usually be listed on the package of your dry ice. This post has been promoted to an article

Just got my bumper pieces back from chroming and wow they look great. New rubber also. I paid $650.00 to have it done. Not sure if its a good or bad price but maybe it can be a reference for anyone else thinking about it. it was local plating company and they have good references. I'll have to wait until this winter to shell out for the front.

I tried to find your old signature but didn't have any luck. I was hoping you might see this young man's thread.

Is there enough meat to open up the ones you have, or is the wall too thin? I have a lathe, but don't have CNC so curves are done semi-freehand. I can do simple stuff. PM me if you're entertaining modifying what you have.

Sure. Why not? It could also be bought as a period-themed resto-mod project or any other scenario from mild to wild. It is a relatively rare surviving example of a 1970 Fairlady Z-L, and it appeals to certain people because of that. I'd say it is probably worth more than a similar condition north American market model of the same age. We need to be accurate here. A 'Fairlady 240Z' would be an HS30-S 'Fairlady 240Z', HS30 'Fairlady 240Z-L' or HS30-H 'Fairlady 240ZG' with an HS30-prefixed chassis number, produced roughly from September 1971 through August 1973. The car in question is not a '240Z'.

"Appraised" by whom? I can only conclude that this person did not know what they were looking at. As stated above, I have a lower chassis numbered Fairlady Z-L myself and it was made in the second half of 1970. Nissan Shatai's production records and the records of the Japanese motor vehicle licensing agency contradict the claim that your car was built in 1969. If you look closely at all the manufacturing date codes and quality control stamps on the componentry of the car they will show a majority of June/July/August/September 1970 dates. And here's no "numbers matching" in the accepted sense for these cars, as the chassis tags on Japanese market cars did not record the original engine number in the way that north American market cars did. Sorry, but it's a 1970 car. You'll put yourself in a stronger position regarding the sale if you embrace that fact. Good luck. Alan T.

Well spotted, Mike. The page with the Showa dates in the wallet with the owners manual is the dealer warranty, and it shows the 'Shatai Bango' (body/chassis number) as '03814' and type as 'S30', so it is 'S30-03814', a 'Nissan Fairlady Z-L' built around July 1970. Japanese market cars didn't have door jamb tags, or dash-mounted chassis number tags either. I have a 1970 Fairlady Z-L too. It has the chassis number 'S30-03761', so just 53 apart in the same numbering sequence. The "Series 2 body with Series 1 hatch" type comments are fairly common when people look at early Japanese models. They are often being fooled by the shape and style of the solid, non-vented Japanese market rear quarter emblems. They were round in shape, non-vented and had a big letter 'Z' in them, so they get mistaken for the generic vented "series 2" quarter emblems shared by all models in all markets: