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I've been lurking in the community learning a lot of stuff over the couple of months, but this is my first post. I live west of Toronto, Ontario. I have an 04/71 240 that I bought back in 1994 (I'd had a couple of 240s and a 280ZX back in the '80s). The car came from Georgia, but I don't know much more history than that. I drove it summer and winter(!) for about five years, then garaged it when it started to get some visible body panel rust in the usual places. I managed to keep the car out of my mind until a few months ago when someone told me what was happening on BaT. I don't have any expectation that my car will ever be worth what some of those have gone for (and I can't imagine selling it), but just reading about Zs again got me re-addicted (Hi, I'm Dave and I have a problem). I started poking around at the car and was pleasantly surprised by what I found. I decided to carefully see if I could get it started after 20 years. Fortunately there are good threads in here to help avoid disasters. I'll spare you all the mundane details, but after several weeks of prep, I turned the key with the plugs in and connected and it came close to starting before flooding. So, here's my first question (I already have lots)! Where do Canadian Z owners source parts? I'm going to need lots over the next couple of years and I'm sure some of you guys can save me a lot of wasted time and money. At this point I need a valve cover gasket and carb rebuild kit. It's easy to find US suppliers of parts. Is that the best bet or are there Canadian (even Ontario) suppliers of some parts? I'm happy to take this conversation offline if it's not relevant to most members, but I figured I should introduce myself and say thanks to all the fine people in this forum who've been so generous with their knowledge, and their descriptions and pictures of their work. I'm no mechanic, but I think I can do a lot of the basic stuff to get this project going. I've loved Zs since 1984 when I sat in my first one. It feels a little bit like magic to me that I have one sitting in my garage!

15 Nov 2005 - Carbs and Hatch The news started early this past week. On Tuesday a box full of parts from Danny's Datsuns arrived. I had ordered a few parts for the upcoming carb installation from him - an air cleaner, heat shield, return springs and choke cable assembly. At first glance, it all looked good. But after closer inspection, the only parts that were acceptable were the return springs. The choke cable assembly was wrong, it was for a '72, not the earlier '70-71 that I needed. The heat shield had one mounting tab broken off, and a second one (there are four) was cracked. And the air cleaner looked OK from the outside, but inside the air horns and crankcase vent tube had all been cut off with a hacksaw. I called Danny to explain, and he was great to work with. He was certain that he could find an acceptable air cleaner and heat shield for me. Not as certain about the early choke cables, but he'd give it a shot. And since his shop is only 60 miles from me, I asked if I could drive down rather than ship the stuff to him. He agreed to that quickly, saying that by doing so, I can look over the parts and approve them there on-site. "Plus," he said, "you never know what else you might see while you're here that you just have to have." So we made an appointment for late Friday afternoon. Deanna and I drove down and easily found the shop. Dead Z's everywhere you looked. Kind of exciting (lots of parts) but sad (dead Z's) at the same time. Met Danny and he began to look for suitable replacements. As promised, the air cleaner was easy - he had a shelf full of them. He found a proper choke cable assembly in fairly short order, although the cables themselves were in bad shape. But he gave it to me and told me that between it and the one he sent originally, I should be able to make an early one that was good. The heat shield was tougher, none of the singles on the shelf were intact. So he proceeded to strip one off a recently acquired L24 on the floor of the shop. While he worked getting the heat shield off, Deanna and I wandered around just looking at all the stuff. And just as he predicted, we found something we "had to have." We found dozens of rear hatches leaning against a wall. Looking through them, we quickly found that three were the early hatches with vents that our car should have. The hatch was one of those parts we knew we'd have to find, but would be reluctant to buy sight unseen. So we picked one out and loaded it in the back seat for our trip home. Saturday morning found me moving the Z into the garage for the carb install. I was pretty sure that I had most everything I needed. Shouldn't be more than a "one or two trip" project (meaning trips in the middle of the job to get unforeseen parts). BEFORE Started by pulling the FI fuel pump and restoring the fuel lines near the tank to factory configuration. I had decided that while mounting the new pump up front isn't ideal, would be far cleaner, easier to work with, and much easier to wire. Then I capped off the coolant fittings to the injection manifold, as I won't be using that on the carbs. Stripped out all the wiring and the brain, then finally pulled the whole mess out of the car. THE MESS Started installing new stuff after lunch. Installation went fairly smoothly, only a couple of small bugs. After getting it all physically in place, the last three tasks were: mounting and plumbing the fuel pump; wiring the pump; and rewiring the ignition. Those tasks went well also. It turned out to be a "two trip" job, I finished late Saturday afternoon. AFTER It started rather easily, and runs surprisingly well, considering that the carbs are unchanged from however they were when I unpacked them from the shipping box. It is running rich, but it runs. A short drive showed that yes, it can run smoothly and not miss, so the results are encouraging. There is still much tuning to be done, but the main pieces are in place. Good news and bad news - the tach now works, but it is not accurate, reading quite low. Also, the engine continues to run after turning off the key, so there is still a wiring issue to be dealt with. These two problems are probably related, as the tach is much closer to correct when the engine is running with the ignition turned off. I will also need to shorten the choke cables at some point as well. Lastly, today I swapped the new-old hatch onto the car. It actually fits much better than the one that it had before. I suspect the other one had bent hinge mounts. Plus the color (cream now, originally orange) is much closer to yellow than the blue was. I think the glass will need to be replaced, but this hatch is actually in much better shape than the last one, and is "correct" as well.

Perfect. This one is 24 in the middle. That should settle it. Thanks!

here's a thread with some good information on installing the pan correctly and the 2 seal flanges are first up.

I made my own brackets for front and rear, so spacers weren't necessary. But like siteunseen, I didn't want anything rubbing directly on the paint, so I cut up a bike tire tube and used that on the rear on the bracket and side mounts.

A long time ago on another planet, I got “smart” and decided to weld a short 1” x 0.25 metal bar into the shell, then beat the shell out by bashing on the welded-in bar. It worked pretty well, took a good size hammer to knock them out. The welding heat helped too. It was tickatee boo until I discovered I had bent the ends of the control arms with my “gentle” persuasion.... Now I use a more civilized approach.... I can even press them out whole. When was the last time you saw a stock bushing in one piece fresh out of a control arm with no damage? Same tool presses them back in, using only the smaller die and a couple of washers on the other side. They go in MUCH easier than they come out.

Doubtful unless the linkage to the throttle opener system is binding up or something. Next time your idle hangs up, pop the hood and start pushing on different places on the linkage(s) and see if you can figure out where it's hanging.

Well, I hope this isn’t the case but “hope” has never been a course of action that produces results. Life is beginning to return to more normal where I live. People have come to the conclusion, right or wrong that this “destroy the economy” cure is worse than the disease. We’ve had 3 deaths in my county and all were in their late 70’s and 80’s and had other morbidity issues. We had 24 cases total and everyone else but 4 have recovered completely. People’s lives are at risk from loss of income. We had 9 beach drownings last year, 3x Covid-19 deaths and we didn’t close the city and county and people didn’t loose their jobs and businesses. People are demanding the state open back up. Sorry, this post is probably for the Covid-19 thread which I have stopped following. How many lives is our $20 Billion economy worth? It’s a morbid thought but it’s real. I’ve done several aviation mishap investigations and the airlines put a $$ on you’re life. Most deaths in airline accidents are due to smoke inhalation but to put non-toxic materials in the interior of passenger jets is too expensive. They chose to spend less knowing it will mean more lost lives. I’m an optimist and I’m planning for success. Humanity can do incredible things when pushed to the brink. A breakthrough is possible. I’m plan on going to ZCon until we are closer to Sept. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I paid $1,500 for a mattress 2 years ago. Comfort is important to me now. Mine are original cars from the '70s. Fun for a 30 minute rip around here but not road cars. But I might, and I mean a light might, drive my 280. I could park next to you and do that "better by comparison" thing and you'd get flogged with lookers while I sit back and drink beers.