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Good guess on Mt St. Helen's but it was actually 3 years earlier! The car sat in a back yard for 42 years. I'm in Nebraska. It still had Centennial plates on it from 1976! The floors eventually rusted out, the car sank and I believe woodchucks made it there lodge. It was a huge mess to clean out! Every lock was locked and rusted shut so I had to cut out all the locks to be able to pry open the doors and start to shovel out the dirt. After I removed the dash I cut out the backside of the glove box and found a set of bicentennial coins still in the package! so there is hope for ya av8ferg! I got a fair amount of parts out of it like the Datsun 8 track and the whole dash is in great shape believe it or not!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my "Diseazed" friends and those I haven't met yet!! Have fun, be safe and enjoy your family.

Just to complete and correct the information here. I did further research and found the car is a 1972 version. The Member Kats San provided the following information.

Hello All, I have recently completed a project that seems relevant to this thread. My objective for my z432 tribute project was to as closely as possible replicate the z432 driving experience in a LHD configuration. I started with a '72 chassis which underwent a full rotisserie restoration. For the drive train I backdated a RB20det motor with Triple Mikuni's and dyno-tuned to 209 fwhp @ 8250rpm w/ 193 ft lb tq. The motor was mated to the RB20 5 speed and a R192 4.44 LSD. Brakes were changed to the MK63 calipers in the front. The most challenging part of the project was getting the 10k RPM tachometer to work with the electronic ignition system. When the weather improves I'll post more pictures. Danny

So the old original passenger fender yielded no surprises. Good condition under the paint and bondo and should be an easy prep and prime later on!

Yeah, I shot single stage. I tried wet sanding but it didn't seem to help a whole lot and I was worried about going through too much of the paint. Oh well. I did the hatch this afternoon. Before -> 1500 -> 2000 -> 3000 -> M105 -> M205 I have to share the hangups, too. Turns out the hatch edges had less paint on them than my fender I practiced on. I should have been more careful with wet sanding and I have a couple areas where the sealer is peeking through. Those will be my reminders to tape up the edges everywhere else. And the paint's definitely not perfect. I can get a pretty nice shot if I let the camera focus on the reflection, but the flaws are there with manual. So it doesn't hold up to intense scrutiny, but does look plenty nice sitting here in my office, and I think I'm as likely to make things worse as I am better if I mess with it much more. I'll look at it in the sun tomorrow before moving on for good. Meanwhile, the amount of all the other stuff still left to do is coming into focus. Over the weekend, I fixed one of the door hinges, cleaned them all up a bit, along with the hood torsion rods, and painted everything with a bit of Rustoleum so they look nicer. (Side note: I love my little Harbor Freight detail gun that came in the two pack!) I got the rods and hood hinges installed. That's also something I hope not to have to do again. Boy, the unpainted bits really stand out now. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Anyone know how to pick a glove box lock? I tried all my various Datsun keys and screw drivers to no avail. I ended up removing it but would like to get it unlocked so I can at least use it! I don't have the original keys as this came from a parts car I took apart.

I recently purchase a nice set of " Western" slotted mag wheels , but no center caps. Yea, I know not everyone likes the retro style, but it works for me. Making it short I spent many hrs on the web looking for caps. Seems that the most popular is the 2.75 inch push on caps and the ones I was looking for didn't exist. I finally looked at the MSA cat and found they had the 3.183 inch caps.Taking nothing to chance I took a wheel with me to verify that the caps would fit. WELL, they didn't. I purchased one cap with the idea that I could make it fit. What I've discovered is that the caps have a range of interference fit and most of what I was finding, with new caps, was this interference fit was 0.055 inch. This fit would not work with my wheels and I suspect with others. Anything more that 0.045 in and the fit was so tight you couldn't remove the cap by hand. I suspect that over the years the injection mold tolerance and thickness of copper /chrome plate have grown. However, with the use of my magic grinder I took off 0.006 in and NOW it fits very nicely. So if your looking to replace or need center caps keep interference dimension fit in mind. Ron

Every sensor anyone has built, or will ever build, to read any physical property, does not read 'perfectly' with no errors in accuracy or precision. They almost all, regardless of what they measure or how they do it, as based on a scientific response models that connect, for example, how resistance changes occur with varying temperature. It ain't perfect. They are designed to deliver a specified accuracy and repeatability. We as consumers do not see this data when we buy a gauge. They are however, calibrated to internationally accepted standards (which also have errors, but much smaller ones) that everyone who builds this type of sensor is required to calibrate their sensors to, so that they can be responsible and accountable engineering businesses. Some comply, some don't. Companies that buy these sensors tend to buy from trusted sources. You can't as GM or Nissan, afford to buy whatever sensors you like from the cheapest vendor when they lay at the heart of how the engine runs. Nothing you build at home will even remotely approach the precision, accuracy and repeatability or response time of what commecial O2 sensors and their related electronics now provide. It is a wonderful experience to try to do better, you will learn a great deal while you do it.

I don't think so. Seems to me that point of view is based on one's perspective and possibly one's opinion, not facts.

With the caveat that "the truth" can depend on your point of view... The article has a lot of the usual shibboleths (Katayama "banished", Katayama lobbying for the 510 and S30 as though they wouldn't have happened without him "needing" them etc etc) but in the other thread where the article was mentioned - can't remember what thread it was now - I was particularly interested in the L24 crank harmonic/breakage story. Brock's article makes it sound as though the BRE team were directly responsible for discovering, diagnosing and curing the L24's initial crankshaft problems, when in fact Nissan's engineers in Japan were fully aware of the problem and were working on a remedy (eventually a re-designed crank forging) well before BRE had even received their first 240Z. These days the lines of communication are so much more direct that it's hard to imagine the same scenario.

Apologies for misleading you. I have the same data as supplied to you by Kats, but - I can only guess - must have made a mistake when noting your chassis number. Glad you have the correct information to hand now.

We could discuss it, but if you already think it's a "great article" I might struggle to convince you to take some of its claims with a large pinch of salt... Thing is, I have a huge amount of respect for Pete Brock and many of the people who worked with him. These days, people seem to take any questioning of details and the presentation of a different viewpoint as some kind of attack. The 'Twitter Effect', perhaps. Or maybe the 'Katayama Effect'...?

Lucky my Beetle is no longer yellow and my 911 is Signal Orange ?

Lots of people? How about every modern car manufacturer. Its what passes emission standards and gives you modern gas mileage values. Because it works.

CO...thanks. I can’t wait to try this techique out. I appreciate the offer to open the lock...might take you up on it. Having Thanksgiving at my Mom’s house where the car is, I might just sneak out for a bit and check it out.

There is scheduled testing in Missouri!!!

Ouch!!! That makes Porsche maintenance look cheap! ?

.... as I stalk the streets of Bowral with the Google street camera car image bank looking for signs of a blue 240, yellow bug and tangerine Porsche...! ?

A little bit of a step backwards since the last update. I moved the fenders inside to make room in the garage and when one of them caught the light I saw a flat spot/dent on a headlight bucket that I (somehow!) managed to overlook all this time. Uugghhh. Thought (okay, hoped) I might get lucky and be able to hammer it back into shape. Nope. Thought (with less hope) maybe it wouldn't be too obvious installed on the car with the hood. Also nope. I've put too much into it so far to cut corners now, so I had to fix it. The body work was easy enough, but advice about blending paint seemed to range from "it might work if you have the all the right materials and really know what you're doing, but probably not even then" to "bet on the Browns to win the Super Bowl first." But I gave it a shot (two shots, actually) anyway. The first attempt I tried to blend it in and ended up with a halo. Second attempt I just laid it on, which left an obvious edge that wouldn't sand out. So both failed, and I've come to accept that I just need to sand the whole fender and re-shoot it. So that's a bummer --I just want to be done painting-- but I'm making some lemonade: now I have a test panel I can use to practice color sanding and buffing. I've used 1500, 2000, and 3000 and Meguiars M105 and M205. It does seem like I'll need to go all the way up to 3000 to get out the scratches, since the polisher is less aggressive than I thought it would be. I'm more confident that I won't screw things up terribly now, which will definitely won't regret thinking in a couple weeks. I'm making a real effort to keep my expectations reasonable here and not compare my paint job to that of the show cars I saw last week. For even a quick job, it looks pretty good at standing distance; I should be happy with that.

All depends on what you mean "handle". The only thing that can go wrong is (since you will be operating in a lower "average" length of cartridge extension) you run an increased risk of bottoming out the strut cartridge . However, if you install lowering springs that are stiffer than stock, you can compensate for the reduced amount of travel. Not sure I said that right.... I'm not a suspension guy. Haha!

Tokyo'70

Have you tried rotating the distributor to a new spot? Your picture of the distributor shows the trigger wheel in a position that will give retarded ignition timing. If the timing mark is on zero then it's going to be very retarded for starting and running. Turn the distributor body clockwise and that should advance your timing. By the time the damper mark is on zero the spike on the star should have already passed the spike on ring.

I'm on the same page with you guys. My brother is an accomplished mechanic, but new to the Z world. We'll crack it open over this holiday period and I'll report back. Thanks again for everyone who helped out.

I don't. That's what I was going to do. Then realized it didn't matter for my plans. I only have to pass emissions every two years and my engine is unmodified.

Mr. Shigeru Nagata, was the interpreter assigned to assist Mr. Goertz when Mr. Goertz arrived at Nissan in Japan. Among many other noteworthy accomplishments, he was assigned to build a new Design Center in the USA. Nissan Design International was founded in 1979 and held its Ground Breaking ceremony in 1981. The project was finished in 1983. See: http://zhome.com/History/ShigeruNagata/SNagata.htm