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Aaacck. No more prizes for RedBird with that thing in there. Since you had AC before all you really need is a good compressor, and system cleaning and purging, I think, assuming that your evaporator is intact. I think a good AC shop could replace the seals to work with modern lubricants and you might be fine. Post #8 looks promising, with capable Sam. I see that I'm basically repeating what everyone has already suggested. Old Datsun is often better than new.

Over 200 Classic Japanese cars at Waterfront Marine Park North Vancouver, BC. Aug,28,2016 Photo's start on page 6. Some beautiful cars, trucks and Motorcycles: http://www.the510realm.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=28977&start=75#p255449

Wow! That restores my faith in humanity.....for a while, at least. Sound like you found the right guy for the job. Dennis

that's right I forgot it had an AC before. Ok since the aftermarket did not work for sure just get a new compressor, prob drier, and condenser. I have an extra condenser (long story) that I can make a good deal on for you if yours is bad and you end up needing a OE type. FYI the condenser is generally where you are going to get leaks as its in harms way at the front of the car. I just hope nothing irreversible was done to the existing evap and ducting as part of the attempt a the aftermarket (I can see the aftermarket stuff installed where the orig controls were).

I don't know about the u shape Looks flatter than that like in the above pic. What I'll be making will be very close to those. All the water jet will do is cut out my forms so that I can shape them to fit a headlight bucket and my tracing. By forms I mean hammerforms. That is how I will make them once the forms are completed. As for the asymmetric part all the blanks will be oversize, I'll simply trim to fit. One side high, one side low. Then finish (very slight roll)the edges. Look I get that you don't think I can do it. Do I care what you think? Not really. . Spread your negativity somewhere else please. If you had any experience in sheetmetal fab you would know this is not anywhere near impossible. Google "Cass Nawrocki" He did stuff that most considered impossible. Hell most Ferraris in the 50's and earl;y 60's were formed with little more than a stump, hammers and a helve hammer. Crude basic tools but in the hands of someone who knows what they are doing they created beauty. Will I replicate the shape exactly? Probably not. Will it be a very nice approximation? I definitely think so, and I think that is what people will want.

Dave WM I'm not sure about previous AC. I'm sure that Sam,the fellow who is working on RedBird is very capable and would rather rebuild an orig unit than try this exercise in futility again. Zed Head Sam got the unit in but the radio sticks out about 2" Also on the first trial run home the AC blew cold but started warming up until it was useless. I don't know the miles, duration or ambient temperature but I don't think it took very long to stop cooling. Also, just for the record, I don't know much about AC, so if I sound ignorant, I am. Jai should be reporting in soon. We'll know more then. No answer on the 78 AC in Seattle yet.

I am pretty sure it would, I don't thing there were any real changes until the ZX from the 74-78. Certainly easier than trying to engineer a after market unit into place. There can still be issues of course, like a good evap and TVX, but that's just the way it is working on 40 year old cars. Did redbirds car ever have AC in it? I don't recall the history.

Will a 78 AC unit work in the 76? There's an AC unit (I think is complete) on Seattle Craigslist post # 5746157056. Sent him an email. This may be the one that Jai @Redwing can use. $70.00 takes all. @Dave WM

IMHO Your best bet would be to look for a donor junker and get a complete factory indash unit, you can get by with non factory compressor/condenser/drier, but for inside the factory evap seems the way to go. Sorry the aftermarket one did not work out for you.

#248 in its current incarnation (photo shoot from a profile I wrote about the very same enthusiast now residing in AR). It is a beast - and a very beautiful beast at that!

No Blue, I am not the owner of 248 Believe me--- I would love to have had your car's littermate! Brian Holmberg---a good friend in Rogers, AR and formerly a regular poster on HybridZ----found the car in Texas a number of years ago. To my horror (and that of several others), he did a extremely nice, highly modified conversion. Brian completed the project and drove it for a short while but then his station in life changed with marriage, children, occupation, etc. and he put the car up for sale. It was purchased by a very knowledgeable Z enthusiast and now resides (with a small herd of other truly nice Z cars) in climate controlled splendor here in Northwest Arkansas. Brian literally gave me many parts from #248---with an original tire, steel wheel and that valve stem cap I gave Charlie Osborne among them.

Well I thought it was about time I updated all of you, given how helpful you've been! With that in mind I can now announce that the car has finally arrived to the UK, and I've seen it for the first time! I went down to Fourways Engineering (A well known Datsun 240Z specialist in the UK) on Monday afternoon to await the cars arrival, after a nice tour around the treasure trove of a workshop, and a small wait it arrived. On first sight being backed down the driveway, it looked stunning in 918 orange. Within seconds it had several of us crawling all over it to have a look at what I had bought with my dad based on photos several thousand miles away. Unfortunately to all of our disappointment the car has clearly sustained damaged in transit from the US. the front end had been impacted denting the bonnet, chipping the paint, and most frustratingly left a dent in a fairly immaculate original looking chrome bumper. Damage also extended to the chin spoiler which had numerous cracks across it. There were also chips of paint missing from the door where it had clearly been knocked, potentially following been driven into the container. To top things off the head liner was hanging down with very sticky glue having failed to do its job. Safe to say, there's a fair bit of work that needs to be done to right these issues, and an email has been fired off to the shipping company to make an insurance claim. With that out of the way, the car was taken off of the trailer to have a look around and see what I'd got. Safe to say first impressions were very good, the respray looks fairly good, the interior is in very nice shape and looks to be very complete (minus the head lining issue). The car appears to even have its original spare wheel along with a lot of correct features for a car of its age. Next to try and start it up, absolutely nothing.... Some investigation later the battery looking very suspect and its out and a temporary replacement found. Still nothing, after coercing the starter motor, still no luck. Next job, rolled into the work shop and time for further investigation, up she goes to reveal whats underneath. A very clean looking engine, which had been tarted up, along with lots of shot rubber bushes and some interesting brake lines. Safe to say those are all on the to do list. The arches appear to have had a few plates welded in, however look very solid and clean with no rust visible. Further discovery however unfortunately lead to some investigation of a suspect looking chassis rail on the passenger side. With permission to get digging given, and the reasonably solid looking chassis rail begins coming off in chunks, revealing the rusty remains of the original rails. Safe to say more digging will need to be done, however some serious welding will be required to make the area solid again. Once I'd composed myself again and we'd looked around some more generally speaking it was good news via a few details here and there. Car was dropped back down again to see if the guys could get her heart beating again, a temporary starter motor was magic'd up and after some quick testing was installed in the car. The moment of truth came again and the started motor started clicking over, and over. A bit of fettling later, some gas and more perseverance and finally she roared into life! Relief does not come close to describing how good it felt to hear that car scream into life, safe to say I was grinning like a four year old child on Christmas day. Via a slight rattle that will need some investigation and she was sounding glorious, at that moment I knew this project was going somewhere and after months of emails, phone calls, sleepless nights and concerns vanished. There are going to be numerous bits of work to be done, and the above doesn't really come close to describing my rather Roller Coaster afternoon. However we have on the face of it a very good car, it needs some TLC in areas, some damage repaired and then it should be an extremely good (fairly rust fee) example that can have its wheels driven off and enjoyed for years to come. This brings me on to giving a big shout of to Fourways Engineering who have been extremely welcoming, knowledgeable and helpful this afternoon :bow: The whole team was on hand to check the car over for me to see what we've got, it was very clear that there is a team of people who are all Zed lovers, and complete Petrolheads. They were determined not to let me leave before hearing her roar into life, finally making the project very real :thumbs: Which after some disappointing discoveries, meant I left on a high note. The car unfortunately won't be making it to Goodwood Revival this year given that there is lots to do, and I don't want anything rushed for the sake of making one event. Hopefully over the next few weeks it will slowly have its niggles sorted so that we can get it onto the road and enjoy it, before the winter hits home hard. I have attached a few photos below, albeit I'm sorry to say it was so focused on taking photos of the damage (for insurance claim) I only took one very poor photo of it on the ramps. I promise once its out and about I will get some good photos of the whole car and share on here. Its safe to say, after getting home I felt completely drained however I'm looking forward as to how the next few weeks progress and will share as and when things develop. A few pics for you all below as I know you love them. More to follow shortly. The Dreaded Damage What Was lurking underneath A souvenir from the underside

That would be my dad's 5.0. He's going nuts with that thing. Last we talked he just finished fabricating a K-member and front fenders to move his engine back multiple inches, rebuilt his carb to sit sideways to eliminate fuel starvation in corners, and fabricated a baffled oil pan with wings to bring his capacity way up. He's in Arizona, so his oil situation has to be just so. In other news, I bought an Exedy clutch kit that can with an FX flywheel off eBay. Hoping this is as good as I have read and won't regret getting a separate flywheel that's a little nicer. I decided not to get a lightened one in order to keep rotating mass near stock to keep inertia up at idle and reduce the tendency to lug down the engine from stop, even though I expect higher-than-stock torque numbers. I also just bought a set of brand new OEM rocker arms. Let me tell you about my little rocker-arm-research saga… first I was about to go insane and buy a set of Kameari rocker arms off RHD for over $600. Then I looked into it and found a couple of places where people recommend that the rocker arm be softer than the cam in order to reduce cam wear. This sounds logical at first, but then I realized there is a reason Nissan brazed on different metal. The three pieces in question (lifter, cam, and arm) are all different hardnesses and there is some intention in having different metallurgy for each contact point. So the ZCC CNCed ones are a no go from the start and the Kameari don't provide enough information to verify that they are or are not going to match with this design intention. I had been reading that the OEM arms are super hard to find, so I looked into sending the 36 arms I have from my three heads in to have them done at Rocker Arms Unlimited, which Madkaw had recommended as superior on another forum. This would cost me $350 or so including USPS Priority Mail in two directions. Just having 12 done would be $217. After a little research I found new OEM arms at Z Car Depot for 36.99. This came to $460 after shipping and seemed like a pretty good price until I realized that if they can get them brand new on a regular basis, they are probably available from Nissan. I really like the guys over there, but every time I go to buy something from them I either find it for less somewhere else, or the shipping expense pushes me toward something else. I dug around a little more and finally found a few part numbers (13257-W0300,13258-21002, and 13257-21000) on the Nissan parts site. A quick google search and, lo and behold!, Courtesy Nissan has them for $29.13. The little secret is that they came on 1984 Maximas and have not been discontinued yet. All told $363.53 shipped. I chose to go the route of 12 brand new OEM rocker arms from Courtesy Nissan for about 50% more than the junk on eBay or having the ones I have reground, and $100 less than Z Car Depot. I still have my pile of 36 arms that I can send to Rocker Arms Unlimited if I want to have spares or sell them, and I don't have to worry about whether or not I got a good grind for my initial application.

I know you've had the "DO A GOOGLE SEARCH" lectures a few times in the past. Look what I found when I did a Google search for "fix gas tank leaks" - this and about 500 additional suggestions. I'm fairly certain you could have done that, too. Time to put on your Big Boy Z Fixer coveralls and do a little research on the problems you encounter. On the other hand, you could sell the car to someone willing to tackle routine maintenance projects and simplify your life and mine. Dennis Dennis

ZDC-2 - Zinc cover A2=Aluminum cover For the 260Z's cars with the Zinc covers were recalled - and they were replaced with Aluminum covers. Bad reactions with US fuel additives and Zinc as I recall.. FWIW, Carl B.