Leaderboard

For reference, factory PS30 'Fairlady Z432'/PS30-SB 'Fairlady Z432-R' type coolant overflow bottle and mounting bracket:

Hello again, Been quite a while since I posted here. How’s this for an update? September 2006 Acquired my uncle’s 1976 2+2. He got it around 1980 or 81. Drove it from Houston, TX to Glendale, CA. It’s not in the best of shape. Has over 300,000 miles on it. October 2006 After getting my 76 2+2 that was originally my uncles checked out at a shop in Glendale, CA, it was evident that the car was a rusty mess. Too many years in east Texas rain. Began looking for a rolling shell. Engine/transmission OK, so are interior parts and other odds and ends. Gonna keep the rims too. 14” Western Mesh from who knows how long ago. June 2007 Not much luck finding a rolling shell, but did find a couple running cars from Bakersfield to near Sacramento. Decided to take a long day trip to check them all out on a Saturday. 1st up was Bakersfield; a 78 that ran strong, needs full interior, suspension work, but more rust than I’d like. 2nd was near Fresno. Another ok runner needs interior/ bumpers, all sorts of odds and ends. Last for the day was Auburn CA. Found original owner 75. This is the car I bought. 140,XXX miles, factory A/C. Needs brakes and paint, but the car is 100% intact. Most everything original. Never in an accident. Almost everything works, except an early 80’s radio (ended up being a fuse) and the washer fluid pump. Least amount of rust on a Z I’ve seen in person. So far as I can tell, just spotted rock chip rust hear and there. Floor boards are good, rails good, spare wheel area good. Put deposit down to pick up the next week. Had brakes worked on by the PO’s mechanic in Auburn during the week, and drove it back the next Saturday. The car hadn’t been on a long trip in a while but made it back no problems. June 2008 At a shop in Glendale, CA, got the 5-Speed swapped into the car and they stripped the rusty 76 of all salvageable parts. Put the 14” western rims on as well. July 2008 to August 2015 Life happens: Got laid off, found new job, got married, bought apt. in Burbank, CA. All the while, kept driving the car and doing fluid changes and what not, but that’s about it. September - October 2015 My brother moved to Lancaster briefly, so finally had a place to do some work on the car for a couple months, as much as time and budget allows. So began a serious tune-up and replaced the following; Rubber fuel hoses, Injectors, injector connectors, plugs and wires, distributor cap, rotor, fuel filter, air filter, fusible links and cap, fram fuel filter before fuel pump, new battery cables, battery hold down, new alternator, belts, oil change, coolant flush. January 2016 Back to Burbank now. I can work on the car in the underground garage, HOA is cool, as long as I don’t do fluid changes or jack up the car (can’t anyway as parking spot is on incline) and have to cleanup when done. No problem there. Installed battery cut off switch, and notice the 1st of the previous owner’s peculiarities after recently studying the electrical system in FSM. The fusible link between battery and EFI was replaced with two 20amp reg inline fuses. Replaced that with a properly crimped and insulated maxi-fuse. February 2016 Noticed a coolant leak. Had a shop replace the water pump and gasket. All good now. Began replacing all the vacuum lines. Started slow/ took my time, but got them all done except the brake booster hoses. Started the car, smoke everywhere. I went through FSM, and found in the process of replacing vacuum lines I knocked the other electrical connectors around. They are corroded and just about crumble when touched. June 2016 Finished replacing all the other electrical connectors, cleaned all the other electrical connections, and replaced bullet & butt connectors. Dyno Label maker with heat resistant labels made this so much easier. Replaced AFM Boots, PCV Valve and PCV Hose. Opened up the AFM to have a look, and it seems to have never been opened. Everything inside was shiny and original. I sealed it back up and re-installed. Read to many stories about jacked up AFM’s. Same with the TPS. Started the car for the first time in three and a half months. No problems. Fired right up and runs smooth, no smoke. July 2016 Installed re-built combo and turn signal switch. Installed famous headlight relays and parking light relays upgrade. They work great. Installed a set of Hella 500 driving lights under the front bumper. Wired it up with a proper relay. Had them laying around for when the “fog” lights go out in my 2005 Jeep Wrangler Unlimited (daily driver). If you’re gonna have ginormous bumpers may as well use them for something. Noticed the hazard lights don’t work. Don’t know when that stopped working, never had to use them. Turn signals worked no problem. Cleaned the switch, still no hazards. Ended up replacing the flasher. All good now. Getting to the flasher is something else though. Mine was original and still screwed down. Was able to get my hand up far enough to get the wired connector loose and place on new flasher unit. Zip-tied and velcroed down, all is good. Also noticed the other electrical connectors under the dash (those I can reach/see) are nice and shiny. August 2016 Replaced the side view mirror with a chrome 240z style aftermarket mirror. Old one would crumble and chip if looked at funny. September 2016 Went over everything done in the past year. Checked and re-checked. Found a couple things to tighten up, clean, etc… November 2016 Suspension needs refresh. Drives like a squishy bumper car. Who knows how many suspension parts are original. It’s next on the list, gonna keep stock. Gonna have to farm this work out. That’s where I’m at now. After the suspension is refreshed, I’m gonna work on the replacing all the cooling system hoses. and HVAC seals.

Yup, it added about 15lbs, cost $145 total and is adjustable. This is djwarner's thread, not sure why my name is coming up.

Special thanks to@zKars for hooking me up with a few missing valance parts! What a stand up guy...

I made a mistake. The relay in the second picture is for the hazards. It's the other one. I took mine apart last night and cleaned the contacts. It works again (for now). I don't really trust it.

(excuse me stealing my post off my UK Zclub project thread, if anything doesn't make sense I'm sure I can clarify ) Well another weekend has passed and another update to follow. We managed to add another 170 miles to the tally this weekend, with a visit to see a good friend in Croydon, some late night b-road blasting, and a trip down to the South coast and back. All of which has come with experiences of their own. The friend is a big car guy but not really into his classics, he was suitably impressed with the car albeit we didn't get the chance to go for a brief spin. As usual the styling won hearts and minds as did the colour Having now been able to take the car and get a feel for its capabilities on some very familiar back roads as expected some serious flaws were shown up. The car can only be described as wafty when pushed along. There is lots of body roll present which I'm sure will be solved with the fitment of an uprated front ARB and addition of a rear ARB. The struts were unable to cope with the road surface on occasion bottoming out, leaving the car feeling unstable at various points. Certainly putting a suspension upgrade high up the list and debating the available options to find the most suitable solution. As mentioned elsewhere and to some of you, will be looking for a fast road setup with a bias towards comfort. I think I'm currently leaning towards eibachs and tockio illumias as it stands. The brakes were reasonable for the setup however I'm sure a change of brake pads would likely make a big difference, if not consideration to a mild setup later down the line. With that done on the Saturday both myself and my dad road tripped in the car down to the South coast, with him driving down and myself taking to the wheel in the evening. On the way down we stopped for various photos (mainly to get our insurance valuation sorted) however I couldn't resist with a few locations and light on route. We also met a couple of bikers who were very enthusiastic about the car and had a good look around, they seemed very happy at the opportunity to jump in the car and have a look themselves. Had some interesting bikes with some nice mods to discuss as well Once we got down to the coast I gave the car its first proper cleanse inside and out getting all of the carpets out to get all of the **** out. The air vents had obviously seen little use from the previous owner as crud kept flying out when they were first put into service by us covering the car in debris. Safe to say it cleans up really nicely, there's some stone chips here and there over the car as to be expected (not sure if it chips easily) however it cleans up really nicely. I even discovered the original luggage straps under the rear carpets which have now reappeared. With sun set looming it seemed mad to to go and get some pics of the car near the sea front with some unobstructed sunlight. Safe to say the results were stunning, I need to do a full download however they will be going up on my instagram page for those that are familiar with it, so check them out! @ 'm_woodrow94' I'll be uploading some in the coming weeks. Got a load of attention from several gents outside of the local sports bar by the curry house who were very complimentary and enthusiastic about seeing the car and its condition. One of them hadn't even seen one before, with all of them commenting what a rare sight they are these days. Both me and my dad grinning away proudly, talking merrily away about our new pride and joy Nice bit of dinner followed by a 60 mile drive back home through Sussex B-roads past Goodwood with Minimal traffic to contend with or dispatch all the way home :driving: A quick refuel revealed a reasonable 21.6mpg, so we're sure these more to come on a more relaxed cruise. We have concluded the car feels as though it needs a 5 speed and leaves you looking for another gear considering it merrily plods along in 4th from 30mph upwards. A 5 speed, diff change and LSD will therefore be on the cards along with the suspension as my two priorities. I'm sure some extra performance and economy will be exploited by these mods as well. I'm definitely feeling a lot more comfortable and at home with the car now, having originally being left feeling tired from my first major trip. I've not been at all bothered having done some decent miles in the car. Its different to drive to my other chariots, however its not taxing. I'm putting my original feeling of tiredness down to the amount of new factors I was having to concentrate on, and excitement/emotion of finally having acquired the car after so long waiting. Unfortunately blowing out the cobwebs did not come without its share of casualties, strangely the tachometer broke at about 4k rpm in 1st breaking out onto the A3 :eek: Only to find that having left the car around overnight and messed with some other electrics that it came back to life.... Very baffled by this The heater appears to be broken, so any tips with where to start looking would be much appreciated as with winter on the way it will become an essential piece for continued use for the front screen as well as comfort. Getting a passenger mirror is also becoming quite essential for driving to make the drivers life considerably easier. As while manageable without the drivers life could be made considerably easier. Having failed to find bullet mirrors that will actually be functional as well as aesthetically pleasing I think we may have found some round chrome mirrors on stalks that will fit the bill enough that we bite the bullet with them Finally the old man put his electrical skills to good use and after some messing around doing some investigation work we have the inspection light working again It turned out to be a blown bulb, and then and earthing issue was preventing the replacement from sparking into life, some soldering later and job done. We just need to find a 12v 8w bulb as we only had a 12v 6w available to get us going in the meantime. I'm sure we will be looking to upgrade the two interior lights to LED's to boost the interior lighting in due course. Some research needed on that front to brighten the place up. Enough rambling for now a a quick teaser pic from the Saturday and our fixed inspection light. However a new adventure well and truly embarked on :thumbs:

Well time for a major update, the car has finally arrived into our possession! We went down to Fourways Engineering on Friday afternoon to collect the car with all of the works being completed. We are really pleased with how the repairs to the front of the car have come out in particular. We decided to contrast the front end and a Euro looking front chin spoiler was acquired from MJP to replace the damaged orange spook spoiler. Amongst other bits, a new brake servo was fitted (big thanks to Ryan at Zcar depot), new headlining, new chassis rail fabricated and welded in, MOT light conversion, fuel sender etc. A big thanks to them for their continued efforts :thumbs: By Saturday afternoon we had racked up 140 miles before having to put her to bed in the lockup due to family commitments. Its safe to say its been a roller coaster ride all of the way and quite an experience having now been able to pick up the car. Having never driven a classic car with no power assistance or driver aids before it was a bit of a shock to the system, in particular the lack of power steering was entertaining to start with however I'm already getting well used to it now. The brakes seem positive albeit they currently pull to the left and are slightly lack luster compared to the setups I'm acclimatized to using, that being said its all part of the experience. I've been told before by my dad that driving the Healey requires concentration is genuinely a tiring experience, and I must admit I've never really fully appreciated what he meant before getting behind the wheel of the Datsun and must confess to have felt very tired having done 90 odd miles on the Saturday. I will in part attribute this to getting used to driving a LHD car as well learning about road positioning and spacing along with all of the other factors, so call me a wimp if you will but I'm leaping into a different world of motoring from all of the 90's cars I've owned! :driving: The thing that has amazed me most though more than anything is the attention the car gets wherever it goes! :eek: I know its an unusual orange classic sports car however everywhere we have stopped people have come and talked to us, complimented the car, taken photos. The amount of turned heads as it cruises on by is hilarious, I'm convinced I stopped most of the commuters coming off of the Friday evening train picking my sister up from Surbiton station in the evening. Its something I'm loving, I just hadn't realised how much attention it would draw. There will certainly never be such thing as a below the radar drive in this car! :lol: The soundtrack of a 2.6 straight six is also to die for :bow: I can't get enough of working the car up the gears and dropping back down them for tunnels. I can imagine how good some of the sounds tracks on these cars can be even when mildly tweaked. Its everything I'd hoped it would be in that respect. Unsurprisingly the low down torque is fantastic with the car pulling well in 4th even below 1k rpm, certainly a lazy car to drive if you want it to be. Most remarkably as well even with some very spirited driving the car comfortably returned 20 mpg much to my surprise, and the smiles per galloon were just off the chart! :coolgleam: We took the car down to Rawles Motorsports open day on the Saturday where I met a friend who also has a 240z and compared notes, and did back to back drives to see how the cars compared. Different setups certainly having their pro's and cons. I also met another owner who is local with an ex Nissan press car, albeit his car wasn't present due to ongoing bodywork. Lots of other classics to peruse over (predominantly Healeys due to the specialist), it was nice to have two cars together though. After all of the positive news there had to be some negatives to balance everything out We've had some developments on the insurance claim with CFR, who after much chasing with unexplained several week delays (both myself and dad work within the insurance industry and cannot understand this when they had all of the required documentation) agreed to settle our claim per our repair quote minus the policy excess ($500). We agreed this with the insurance company however felt the need at this point to remind CFR of their negligence and rightly requested that they reimburse us for the policy excess which we were having to pay. This email request was then ignored for several days (having previously had daily responses to our emails). In light of this my dad decided to make a phone call to pursue the matter with the very helpful CFR claims manager. Having explained the situation to him, our contact turned from his usual extremely helpful self to completely turning his back up at us. He tried to stipulate that it was only by his grace that our claim was processed, and even tried turning the tables on us that our claim was weak despite all of the evidence and photographs. To cut a long story short he went on to say in as few words, and without directly saying it, if you wish to claim the excess from us then you will have to sue us. Its safe to say we were both completely shocked to have had this sudden transformation in customer service! Despite being well aware of our right to pursue the excess claim (in our view) and considering the morality of being fobbed off we have decided it isn't worth the stress and hassle of pursuing the matter further. With the above in mind we signed the release and requested the insurance payment was made by bank transfer (for which they added a $50 charge), as if to add insult to injury we were sent a response to the completed release stating that the payment request would take between 30-45 days! :banghead: We were left speechless at this point and with no avenue to protest the ridiculous timescales suggested. Currently as it stands we are still awaiting the settlement payment despite having picked up the repair bill, and I can only summarise this by saying we have only been left with a bitter sentiment towards CFR having previously received fantastic customer service up until this point. They have fallen seriously short in our estimations on just the last hurdle. Both our experiences with the damage not being reported or observed, and then the handling of the claim has left us with low estimations of the company. I know various people have used this company over the years and received good service and had no issues, however I felt the need to share this so that others are forewarned of our experience before choosing a shipping company to use. We're planning on taking her out tomorrow for a cruise down to the South coast to get better acquainted as the next stage of the adventure. Anyway there's loads more positive things I could say, however that's enough for now. Here's a few pics for you all to look at, I'm sure there will be lots more to follow as things develop and we get more experience with the car :driving: :thumbs: Some of the remnants of our chassis rail (Usual rust free 240Z) Pickup at Fourways Rawles Motorsport with company

THE Original STIG?????