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As promised here's a link to the very few images I took at the event, much smaller turnout by comparison to Donington. https://www.flickr.com/photos/148965131@N05/albums/72157680936590832 Also here's a picture of me and my dad at the event with our pride and joy (weather wasn't the best hence my dad wearing the flying jacket). Castle was very cool. DSC_0577 by Mark Woodrow, on Flickr

Thanks guys! Working on this car IS my therapy! If I could only get the army to pay for a "companion car" instead of a service dog.... I think my mental health would drastically improve

The steering wheel wrapping is underway. There's an upholsterer down in (I think) Mexico who goes by "cechaflo" that posts videos on YouTube. He does some pretty incredible work, and I watched his steering wheel videos a number of times, so all credit goes to him: https://www.youtube.com/user/Cechaflo The first step was deciding on the seams. I ultimately decided on four seams, because there's no sense in making the first time any easier than it needs to be. Actually, that decision was a combination of the direction of my leather piece and my own preference to avoid asymmetry in the wheel. I marked off the seam locations as best as I could (tougher than expected) and measured everything following the cechaflo tutorials. Then used Illustrator to lay out the templates and got to cutting. Everything marked on the back side to make sure I lined it up the same way. The last time I sewed anything was -- I believe -- in my 7th grade Home Economics class. So a bit of practicing and step-by-step instructions were in order. I don't have enough leather to screw this up. The four seams actually went on pretty well, and I have a leather band to show for it! The seams create bulges on the wheel. There are two ways of dealing with that. One is skiving the ends, another is cutting a groove in the wheel. I went that way, and it worked out pretty well. The next step is to trim everything down to size. The only hiccup I'm running into now is that the leather wrap is a little bigger than I think it should be. There's a bit of excess around the grip, which I thought would be taken up by the stretch around the circumference, but that hasn't happened. I'm pretty happy with the size of the wheel, so I don't want to pad it out too much, but another strip of cork around the outer side may be needed here, since cutting the leather would open the seams. Other than that, so far, pretty good.

Yayyy! Site, your idea with the WD-40 worked perfectly on the jammed seat belt. Only took about 2 minutes total, and no grease on the seat belt. I had to go buy a can, and corrected the seat belt in the parking lot. Now the seat belt just zooms out and in. You guys are sooo smart. I am having a ball with RedBird out running flying trucks, that I swear they hit the gas when they see me pulling out! Today one did that trick roaring at me, and I just floored RB. We were to 55 in nothing flat, and he was shrinking back in my dust!!! I'd imagine he never expected that. My sweet RB took it in stride, no changes, no huffing or puffing from her. I had that door to door grin again. Actually, it made my day. Snicker!!! Well that darned AC still is not putting out cool. It never did do a super job. I guess I'll just have to contact Sam who installed it to see what he will do. That is if he has recovered and is still working. He mentioned quitting, the abuse folks do to him has really annoyed him. Some people really try to take advantage when they can. "That's all folks..." Jai

Hello everyone. New owner of the #187 here. I don't have to tell you that I haven't received the car, but when I do, I'll go through it and document in detail with pictures so I can pick your collective brains on the best approach to refreshing/restoring this gal. I am a collector, so #187 will be with me for a long time to come. I am not new to owning s30. She will join her 5 siblings: 2 - 1970 Series 1, 1971, and 2-1972. She is a true survivor with some battle scars. However, I've seen worse, much worse.

You should be able to run stoich or even 15 to 1 at 3,000 rpm cruise with those carbs and proper tuning. Literally, a well tuned set of Webers can almost equal fuel injection curves. Keep tuning. Maybe invest in a AFR gauge to mount permanently in car. Gotta get the emulsion tubes bang on though...

Man that's a sharp car! That could be a 70's movie star. Looking forward for the pictures. EDIT: Here's the one I had and sold. He had it painted and shined up the aluminium slots. It's the #110 red, kinda orangish red to me where your's is RED. Anyway, I liked it but didn't have room for 3 Zs.

I've seen a 432 rhd drift car the Yakuza had and last night he threw a guy off the rooftop onto a Datsun Honeybee. Kinda neat writing for an adult cartoon I enjoy watching.

Restored inspection light with the open slot on one mounting foot and 12V 8W stamp on the top of the case. Newly replated (yellow zinc) case and switch nut / washer. No dings or scratches on the case. New lens and rubber gasket from 240ZRubberParts, new grommet for wiring port. Switch disassembled, cleaned, lubed with dielectric grease. Includes buyer's choice of replated sheet metal screws (suitable for 240Z fender mount) or hex bolts for other vehicles. $85 includes shipping within CONUS, payment via PayPal.

Reminds me of the Seinfeld episode where they didn't have his reservation for a nice car. Gave him a Pinto or something and asked if he wanted the insurance, "yes, I'm going to destroy that car"

It was 1991 and I didn't have much money, but there was an ad in the Sacramento paper for a 1976 280Z for $900. Seemed affordable. It had been from Nevada and well sand blasted, the alternator didn't work, and it needed fluids. I drove it home, 120 miles on the battery. The previous owner had engine work done and two months later I swapped the motor with a used engine. That car got me through college and was a daily driver for years until I allowed the head to crack, totally my fault. Sat for another few years as a yard ornament till my daughter needed a car in high school. Seemed like a fun father daughter project. Rebuilt motor, new interior, bushings, suspension, tires, stereo, etc. That became her high school car for a couple years. She went to college and I got my car back to being a daily driver. Good times! Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

You planning to wreck the rental??? Be sure to sign up for the optional insurance!

Thanks!

Actually Zedy is a rocket scientist... no BS or leg pulling! He is a smart fellow and has beautiful Datsuns.

You get out of my head you evil man! On a really cool note. I took the time to mess with my air correctors this weekend. I swapped out my thermostat and while the engine was warm I had a chance to try out my sync tool. All of them were close to flowing the same volume of air. However cylinders number 2 and number 6 were flowing a tad bit less air. Having never touched my air correctors since the 40's were new, I gave it a shot to see what I could do. I lightly backed off the jam nut and opened up the screw. The air flow quickly came up to match cylinders 1 and 5 and now all 6 cylinders are dead nuts even at idle. And speaking of idle, the engine smoothed out even more than it was and it seems to be snappier off idle now. I guess I am a believer in the air corrector adjustment.

Woody, I love your thread and pics, and your story is enthralling. A rolling restoration is always fun, as you get to experience the little improvements as you go. Keep your nose to the grindstone and keep pressing forward. Take the small victories to get you through the hard times. You may make me buy a set of 16" wheels.

Thanks Andreas, I quite like her as well It's a full fiberglass valance replacement which has been sprayed to blend in with the body work and giving the OEM Euro/JDM style. I had looked to source an orginal rubber front splitter to bolt onto the original valance however they're really hard to come by these days unfortunately. Cheers, Mark

If I remember, its the one where the blonde female character is discovered to have been drift competing with Yakuza. Something to do with the Irish mob in there too?

This may help you with your understanding of relays: https://fiddlingwithzcars.wordpress.com/2012/12/22/relays-simplified/

A cat house with a Viagra gumball machine would put a nice shine on my golden years. 8^)

Nope. True car fans will have to ride the creeper for a peeker....

Mark, you will be one of those guys at car shows who bring mirrors with them so everyone can see how pretty the bottom of the car is That's a lot of work but is going to look great.

I'm going to make sure the home I put him in when the time comes has a female staff. Should cover it. Hopefully he won't notice when I steel all his tools.

by all means, please go and have a look.. im sure you will be quite disappointed as i was.

@Takhli that's pretty clever, hope Matt's paying you well for your work

Thank you! I was thoroughly surprised myself to see her up for sale. After many years of collecting 240z, I resigned to the idea that I would be content with a sub-500 through 1000 vin# car. They have come up but were often too rusty or "Frankensteined" with non-JDM engines components and body kits. I'm not knocking the tweeners and modifiers as these cars were made for them. To each his own I say. With that said, I personally don't want to pay for another man's vision. So when she popped up on BAT, I couldn't believe it. In fact I'm still beside myself. I'm as giddy as a kid in a candy store. [emoji2] As for the speedometer, the poster's comment below is correct. One of the unique characteristic of a Series 1 is that the speedometer starts at 20mph. I just find it "badass" that she doesn't even let you know how fast, or in this case how slow, until you reach 21mph. It's like I don't want to be bothered until grandpa gets up to speed. Hopefully the 50th anniversary edition could pay homage to these early birds by having the speedometer start at "24.0"mph. Now that's badass! [emoji41] Sent from my SCH-I535 using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Andrew, I am in the process of a full restoration. For the electrical, I found Dave Irwin in Washington State. https://www.datsun-240z-upgrades.net/ He may not be able to remove the dash, but he is an absolute Datsun Electrical Wizard. I ended up sending him my dash harness, engine harness, and body harness and he went through and tested each connection and replaced the ones that needed to be replaced. He refurbished the gauges including upgarding to LED back lights. He refurbished the turn signal/head light assembly, converting all the side markers to LED and other things. He was great to work with and responsive to requests and had great suggestions. He even converted a hazard switch to an A/C switch so that I could put that in the open spot on the dash next to the hazard switch. He really was great and his prices were very fair, possibly undercharging what he is worth. I cannot recommend him high enough!! Good luck, Jon

Lol, you all seem trust worthy. I think I found the issue. The car had an aftermarket alarm and there is a mess under the steering column. There is an aftermarket installed relay that when unplugged the starter won't crank and I can replicate the issue or keep it running by wiggling the wires that go to the relay. I'll get the fsm and fix the mess the previous owner left behind. Thank you all for the help. I'll post back once I fix the wires and confirm the fix.

Zedy - Dave Rebello is finishing up dyno'n my engine this week that he built for me (hopefully it will ship the end of next week after the dyno). I did step up to Mikuni 44's (Custom ported 38's venturi's from Dave) with a bigger header primary, and moving to a larger exhaust as well. Really excited wiht the complete increase airflow and horsepower. Come on now........you know you want to do it!

This is the setup I used to run to achieve 420 hp on a daily driven 1986 Camaro. Could pull 25 mpg on Highway and set record times at Hillclimb. Aircare ( emissions testing ) came out as clean as specs for an FI engine. Fairly mild cam, good HP figures and broad Torque band. Engine went to 7,200 at Hillclimbs. https://www.facebook.com/TMPCarbs/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tKBwAruqXU

"(caps lock is stuck on my ancient work computer)" looks like another dollar sign to add to my list......anyone asking about brightness or fadeing let me assurre you that i work equiping police and government vehicels and all the emergency lights are going to led for their brightness and long life spans...not to mention most of them only pull milliamps...in general led turn/stopp /marker lights will last years longer than the car they are in...unless you happin to get a bad batch