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Kats, You will see two different versions of the 240Z USA debut 'unveiling' photo. The version in the Nissan 10-year report volumes is different than another version, as one has been 'edited' and the other has not. I have seen Nissan using both versions. They are clearly both exactly the same photo, but in the edited version the lady on the right has had her long hair airbrushed out to make it look shorter. My wife (and I believe her...) says that she thinks the 'long hair' version looks "wrong" for a classic Kimono-wearer in 1969. The lady on the left looks far more correct, with her hair up.

By the way , this book tells us unique but reliable source about how many Fairlady 240Z series ( 240Z / 240ZL / 240ZG ) car’s were registered in Japan . Maybe total 2600 only , that is a very few I think . And 240ZG would be more than half of it , or even 80 % ?? At that time over 2000 cc car got painful tax on it . An Interesting thing that I have heard is even though 240ZG was the most expensive one in the Fairlady 240Z series , people who was able to own those price range chose 240ZG . This tells us how well G-nose effect did for people and for car. Kats

Fresh inventory for PartZ R&R - S30 heat shields just back from plating, before and after pics. One for early 240Z without the heat riser, three regular 240Z, one 280Z. Coming soon: Fuel Rail Fiesta!

Steve, I figured out what/who (I hadn't checked my pm box in 4yrs) & have emailed them . Apologies in the open forum for my lapse in returning the part, remedies in the works. Len

And the big day has arrived. Dyno tuning completed. Big thank you to Jimmy Bailey and all the crew at VEX that made this day worthwhile.

Someone's watching...

Watch out for those acronyms, Kats. 'STD' might be 'Standard', but it's also 'Sexually Transmitted Disease'...! Nice YMO cover! I worked with them some years ago.

I just wanted to say "Thanks Mr K!" *Mr Soichi Kawazoe.

Wow! Kats, you look great at the Pierre! Alan, I never noticed the hair crop. But then consider that these were modern times and the models were modern Japanese women? Barbara Sato would smile. The men haven't lost their tradition! I have other pictures from Nissan USA quarterlies that show kimono clad models at Datsun / Nissan photo opps. Hair up, of course. I think this was a Mr. K thing; having the models in kimonos. I was at the National Gallery in Washington D.C. a couple of months ago. We saw an incredible show of Japanese art dealing with animals. Lovely kimonos on display. The crains were there.

Thank you so much Alan ! I didn't know there was a edited version. My mother used to be a Kimono craftsman , and also she used to help others to wear Kimono . Definitely short hair is STD we think (however I don't know about 1000 years ago ) . I can imagine that , if foreigners wear Kimono , it could be both (short and long ) . When I saw the long hair lady in the picture , I felt pretty much "it is a overseas style " . So, this 240Z with Kimono ladies was on the display at Beverly Hilton ? Or Pierre Hotel ? In the 80's , we still saw her hair up as a STD . A cover from Yellow Magic Orchestra (US version) . Kats

Honestly, I see more cars at shows north of $50,000 in restoration costs WITHOUT labour factored in, I'm not surprised anymore. It will always be cheaper to buy someone else's finished product than to do it yourself....

IMG_2433.mp4

In an effort to make the interior a little nicer, I ordered a real leather shift boot and parking brake boot off of Ebay. For $35 I was happy enough. Its meant for a stock shift setup but with the 280ZXT T5 transmission and Hurst Mustang 5.0 shifter, the shifter sits forward of its original location so the leather boot demonstrates the compromise. One day I will have a custom one made that looks more correct but for now, its much nicer to look at and still smells good!

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1970-datsun-240z-43/ This car is going north quickly. Wonder where the price will end up? Currently at $39,000....

Henry Hoover!

Adjusted the ride height to something more liveable. Added about 30mm of height to the coil overs. Left the preload the same and just adjusted ride height.

Here's another - hair edited - version in current use by Nissan Japan which shows more floor detail. Maybe a bit less airbrushing on this one?

Cranes!

I believe it is at the Pierre, Kats. You noted the difference in the flooring (Beverley Hilton Hotel carpet is quite distinctive in your colour photo) but something does not look 'right' in the B/W photos to me. I feel like they have been airbrushed/re-touched. I think editors would prefer a plain backdrop. The version in the Nissan 10-year report book looks especially as though it was edited to me. Floor area under the car and around the lady on the left looks especially suspicious to me, whilst I see more floor detail - and even some flash bounce? - on the short hair-edited version. I get the feeling that the Pierre Hotel event was not ideal for press photography...

How does this car compare to the care Captain Obvious posted about the other day?

I will try blowing air towards the gas tank and see what I hear. The engine compartment is like new, everything replaced or rebuild 2 yrs ago. Has about 300 miles on is since. I haven't done anything hose/fuel related from the engine compartment back to tank. "I've read on here where cars that sat needed fuel poured into the overflow bungs to get the floats moving up and down maybe unsticking the fuel valves? If you get the float chambers full of fuel at least it would run for a little longer than ether. " Where are the overflow bungs /float chambers? .

D a m n! I agree with you but WOW that's crazy money. bizarro world A world where everything is the exact opposite. Up is down, first is last, good is bad, wrong is right, white is black, logical is illogical, giving is taking, insanity is sane, liberty is tyranny, and vice versa. It's a place where literally, the sky is forest green and the trees are sky blue.

I will add my experience to conversation so others are aware. Back in March I sold my 1988 Mercedes Benz 560SEC on BAT. I had already taken a lot of pictures and made videos based on my review other successful auctions. When I submitted my info I asked for a reserve of $10K and they accepted it from the beginning. I think it only took them a day or two to assign an auction team member to me. We did two rounds of reviews for the text and they accommodated my go-live date since I suddenly had to go out of town and wanted to be available to answer questions during the auction. The reserve was met and the buyer turned out to be a fellow MB owner and was familiar with the W126 cars. He chose to pay via a bank wire transfer and had the car picked up by a transporter a few days later. Once he paid I over-nighted the title to him. It went to Jamestown NY and I have not heard anything from the seller so I assume he is happy. Overall I had a good experience with BAT and would recommend it as long as you know what you need to do as a seller and to properly set your expectations. https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1988-mercedes-benz-560sec-12/ The big thing you have to keep in mind is, BAT is in the business to SELL vehicles and related parts. They know their buyer demographic, what sells, what doesn't, and what people click on. They want to create the highest probability a car or part will sell so that is why they come back with low reserves or no reserves. My brother went through this with his supercharged Acura coupe. They did not want any type of reserve and will not speak to him on setting one.

My friend paid a shop to restore his 260Z over the course of 5 years. He sent cheques every month and paid for the work by the hour.... In the end his car was north of $140,000 Cdn, mostly for the hourly work. He paid $30,000 for the engine alone. This is not a hobby for the faint of heart.... or shallow of pocket.

Ohhhhh ok that makes alot more sense. I thought those nuts were part of the bolt cuz I could NOT get them off lol Thanks!

Working on my 280zxt Cas signal, so I can do full sequential. I got a very nice 280zxt distributor without a cas from a fellow Datsun nerd. I then found a basically new fully Nissan Cas from a 1998 Nissan Quest. Which has the correct trigger wheel. Pretty neat. Dizzy is getting vapor blasted today and I should have it all installed by the weekend. Pretty excited!

Nice! Hope the classifieds are working ok for you... let me know. Mike

so you put the head back on without fixing the broken head bolt? IF I understand that then as CO mentioned zero chance of it working right, yes oil/water leaks since clamping force is the only thing that keeps them apart.

Steve, I just saw this post and wanted to clarify/or ask what parts you are referring to? I'm not aware of borrowing any parts and not returning.... If so, and I owe somebody something, please let me know so I can correct this. I know I loaned out some known working stock ECUs to a few people so they could verify if theirs was good/bad so I do recall some items being shipped around, but don't remember have a loaner of someone elses. Do you know what the part was? Was this something of yours? Len

I can't help but wonder whether this situation would respond better to big heat and big torque. As in, welding a nut onto the top of the stud and then putting a wrench on it. IIRC, @grannyknottalked about this in another thread a couple of years ago when the topic was extracting a snapped-off manifold stud out of the cylinder head. Something about the merits of using an oxyacetylene torch rather than a MIG? The difference here is that we have a large-diameter stud (bolt shank) that's seized inside a cast-iron engine block (vs. a small-diameter stud seized inside an aluminum head). Whereas it's the galvanic action of dissimilar materials that typically creates problems with steel fasteners getting stuck in alloy castings, for a head bolt it's steel-in-iron so I would think that the causes for the locked threads would be simple air (oxygen)-generated corrosion (unless the block has a micro-crack and coolant (water) has leached into the stud threads -- but let's not talk about that). In my (limited) experience of removing cylinder heads from high-mileage L24's, the head bolts take a lot of torque to break free and some of them really pop when they give way. Looking at the threads after the bolts came out, they appeared 'sooty' but not really crusty-rusty. I think that part of the problem with these head bolts getting stuck in the block is that they were installed at the factory without any lubrication so as to get accurate torque readings during tightening. Having said all that, I will repeat another story that I wrote about previously. In my area of the world (on the fringes of a 7-million pop. Canadian city), I discovered a contractor who provides the new-car retail industry with specialist services for extracting frozen fasteners from customer cars. That's all he does. He told me that there a certain model years for certain higher-end car brands where a key fastener (e.g. suspension mount) is chronically frozen, hard to get at, and often snaps off during attempted removal. That's where he makes his money. I hired him to get the snapped-off studs out of my Z's cylinder head (still mounted on the engine, in the car) and it was one of the best $120 I ever spent. He came to my house, rolled a tool caddy out of his truck, sized things up, and had the job done (without using any heat) in 10 minutes tops. Cheating? Maybe. Depends on your threshold for potentially-painful outcomes. You might consider looking for a comparable specialist in your area. The service managers at your local Benz, BMW, Audi and Volvo dealers might be able to help you find one.

Regarding ZCON, the ZCCA Stock category is a brutally difficult class as Zup and many others have learned. The changes you listed might be difficult to undo and there will possibly be other items that need attention. There is no other stock class available, cars with up to 15 modifications typically compete in the Street Modified class where it is not so much WHAT you did but rather HOW WELL you did it. Your car would likely do very well in this class.

Thanks, Zup ! It's been a long time restoration. Roberts Automotive Antique Car Restoration division did a great job. And really great people to work with. We really worked together on this - I did lots of the research. Then bought lots of items that I decided not to use - too cheap looking. Like carpet. I stayed with the original carpet and just had it cleaned by a fire restoration company. If a fire restoration company can't get stink out of things, no one can! One thing I messed up on is the valve cover. after months of frustration trying to learn how to restore the finish, I finally powder coated it. I learned at the 50th Anniversary International ZCon last month in Branson that I cannot enter into the pure stock category. Only purists (like all of us Z owners) would know the difference. Items that I would have been penalized on include: 1. Powder coated valve cover. 2. Powder coated intake manifold. 3. Powder coated transmission bell housing. 4. Dealer installed pin striping. 5. Dealer installed side moulding (installed with rivets). If I pull off the pin striping and the side moulding, I would see a paint color difference, requiring a complete re-paint. I have original paint, still. As far as the powder coating, tons more work to redo the intake manifold and bell housing. That's down the road a bit, now. I hope to enter it into a slightly lower "stock" category at next year's Branson ZCon and Nashville.