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We will be loading the car tomorrow AM and heading for Branson. Here are some final pics of the car. Yes, and a few photos of @jayhawk and @motorman7 in the background. Looking forward to an awesome event. Thanks to everyone for the help, input and support.

Motorman7 is more than a Datsun expert, he is the Fountain of Youth, who made me 24 years old again! (with key work by Datsun paint expert Miguel). I am incredibly grateful to him for enabling me to recreate that wonderful feeling getting a brand new 240Z - the car I knew even in 1973 that I would keep forever. This is not a car to be sold, but to be enjoyed and driven. Although we will try to show it off for a while, so everyone can see how a heavily used Z can be made new again by a knowledgeable and dedicated lover of Datsuns. Thanks Motorman7! Now for a road trip!

Interesting. If you look at the consumer-driven stats for the auto industry's products (J.D. Power, Consumer Reports, etc), you find that vehicle reliability has been on a steady and significant improving trend over the past 30 years. Here's an irony for you to consider: Back in the 1960's and 1970's, your vehicle's structure would basically disintegrate after about 5 - 10 years, leaving you with a bunch of perfectly good parts and sub-assemblies attached to an undriveable vehicle. In 2019, the parts and sub-assemblies crap out at the 5 - 10 year point, leaving you with a perfectly good structure that isn't worth keeping because of the uncertain cost and frequency of parts replacements. The vehicle manufacturers are under intense scrutiny over vehicle reliability. For that reason, the vehicle OEM's put their attendant OE systems and parts suppliers under a similar amount of scrutiny. However, the aftermarket parts suppliers are under no scrutiny whatsoever. The only people who tend to know whether a particular repair part (or part manufacturer) is unreliable are the service professionals (who will talk) and the parts supply wholesalers/retailers (who probably won't talk). This because they see such a high volume of incidents. As individual car owner/consumers, we're not in a good position to avoid buying bad stuff. Although it's not a guarantee, I think that the best practice is to stick to well-known brands, even if they cost more (and they almost certainly will). Although many of these manufacturers now have factories in China (and Vietnam, Taiwan, the Philippines, and South Korea), I'm inclined to think that they exercise a higher level of quality control at those plants than would be the case at the generic manufacturers' facilities. Electronics are a special subset of this issue. You can hide a lot of bad quality in 'black box' device without it being evident at the time of installation. Name-brand manufacturers have QA/QC programs and add the cost into their pricing. Generic manufacturers, I suspect, have no such programs.

Just a tiny tiny bit, but so do I. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's a ways off, but if you can make it and I can make it, maybe we could hook up with SteveJ and the Georgia gang somewhere around Chattanooga'ish and have us a caravan. I'm sure we'll all be carrying enough spare parts to build a whole car if need be.?‍♂️

Thank you @240260280

Yes, you are correct sir.

Only in California.

Here's the link: https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1972-datsun-240z-93/

That will be another interesting one to watch. There is a nice clean 73 and a decent looking looking 76 survivor on there right now too

Thanks , sounds logical - I did have to replace my old pump did it with a used one so that could be my problem, although in the service manual it reflects a "T" valve which connects the pump hose and then the left and right headlight washer hoses, could this valve be my problem or is this just an open "T" valve???

You're forgetting...CO has a touch of OCD.

I ordered the sealed power seals as well, and as far as I can tell, it's the same part number for both intake and exhaust. I have a set of ITM engine componets seals that came with an entire gasket set at home, and all 12 valve stem seals look to have the same dimensions. Sent from my Coolpad 3310A using Tapatalk

Thanks guys. I (think I) just nabbed the last 24 off rockauto. I need 12 for this engine, and 12 for my P79 when I get back onto that. So, now that it may be too late.... Same part number for both intake and exhaust?

Sunlight causes cancer too, is California going to put signs on the backside of doors for every public building. Morons over there. I’m embarrassed to tell people I grew up there. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Excellent advice! I disconnected the linkage from the cable up in the transmission tunnel and the cable easily slid into the "jackets" at the wheel ends after that. Tomorrow I'll try to get it all adjusted properly. Thank you all for the help.

Just to make sure, did you check the EFI connection by the battery? It splits off the positive terminal. That connection can get overlooked connection wise and or become corroded. There is also a fusible like there that you could check. top picture, upper right hand corner.

If it's built after April '87, then maybe it has an LSD. That plus a 5 speed. I just spent $200 on valve train parts/shims for my P79. Here we go again. Sent from my Coolpad 3310A using Tapatalk

I think that you might be measuring power at the injectors incorrectly. Looks like you're probing across the pins in each connector instead of from a single pin to a ground point. The fact that your tach doesn't move and it starts with fluid implies that the Pin 1 circuit from the coil to the ECU is broken. Check Pin 1 continuity to the coil Or you have a funky ignition system like a an MSD or Crane. They don't work well with the 280Z EFI.

I am new and learning how to decipher the postings. When someone says SU, most of the time they mean SU-H (roundtops) Not SU-HIF (flattops) with Integrated Float, also the flattops have a "Anti-stall fuel rich mechanism" that keeps this from being a problem.

After the final align & drive session I made a quick video to show the progress and current state of the car. Still need to do some carb tuning as I am getting some inconsistent spitting and popping but it does run and if you lay down the accelerator in second, it absolutely screams. I plan to work on the carbs throughout the week as time allows. The next big project is raising the rear a little using some 280z strut insulators, install the RT mount I have, and change the gear oil in the diff. Stay tuned!

Thank you Carl , Enrique I have learned new thing, they came with a screw, that is great. However the square style knobs which came from Nissan part dept.several years ago, they did not come with screws. I have a 6 feet long R/C , The F-16 (with Jet,made by BVM Florida) is still in progress, yes they use lots of tiny screws. kats

So the older I get the more of a crumudgeon I become. I need to rant about first world problems. So today I experience yet ANOTHER failure of a relatively new car part. Back in 2014 I bought a variety of distributors, including the 123 Dizzy for both the Z and the 510. We now know the issue with the crappy caps on those dizzy's that came up, that left me and others stranded. This is another dizzy failure story, for the 510. A friend with a roadster put me on to a guy in the US that was building EI distributors for various inline 4 Datsun engines including the Roadsters and as it turns out the L4 as well. It is a rebuilt body with in this case a Pertronix ignitor in it. Best thing since sliced bread for points plaqued Datsun owners. I bought one, actually before the 123 craze hit me. It sat around with other Nissan E12-80 style dizzy's that the 80's trucks came with. Being running that style mostly, after my Z 123 dizzy cap issue, I never did use the 123 for the 510. I sold it. Well I recently have been converting my 510 to EFI (a WHOLE 'nother story) and again for reasons not to be discussed here, I had to go back to a regular dizzy for a while, so found and grabbed that nice new Pertronix based dizzy from the "pile" and plopped it in. Ran great. That was 6 weeks ago, put on about 2000 km since. Not a hiccup. Today while coming back from Invermere BC with it, guess what. One minute I'm blasting along at warp 9, the next, WHAMMM... Spark goes bye bye in a heart beat. Coast to the side of the road. No spark. DOSOR. (Dead on side of road). Not wiring, power to the coil and dizzy, cap is fine, dead module. I had a spare in the trunk, (E12-80 style) with GM HEI module, put it in, spark came back. Magic. Ok, just what is a guy supposed to do? I am SO FREAKING TIRED of NEW parts crapping out WAY TOO EARLY in their life. Dizzy's alternators, starters, fuel pumps, the list goes on and on and on. It's starting to take the fun out of driving these old pieces of crap. I drive in fear now instead of joy. What's next? Do I swap to a modern engine and stop trying to keep an old one running? Get into counselling and calm down? Just carry more spares and tools? Anybody else losing their edge?

And, since no car good project goes along without complication, I've found another PO caused issue with my N47 head. I had known for some time that a couple of my valve cover bolt holes were stripped out. Not the end of the world. And I also already knew that on one of them, my PO had tried to drill out the old bolt and missed. Hole was off center, half the steel bolt still stuck in there, crappy threads... The usual. Well, I decided that since I had the head on the workbench, I was going to do something about it. Mistake. I'm looking at the whole situation, and noticed that there is a chunk of brass way down in the bottom of the off center chewed up hole. I have no idea what that's all about, but I don't want it in there. So I start drilling it out. Figured out what was going on there... When he drilled (half) the old bolt out, he drilled too deep, and actually punctured through into the water jacket below. AAARRRRRRGH!!!!! That chunk of brass was some sort of plug he stuffed down into there to seal the bottom of the hole back up. So now I'm going to spend the next bunch of hours working on trying to fix that crap.