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I just read your story to my wife. I'm 70 and she's 65, and we lived through that era and watched the war on TV. My high school classmates (class of '69) went over, and some did not return. I'm glad your dad and your family made it out. He was clearly a remarkable and admirable gentleman.

A small amount escapes at idle. A towel along the edge is enough to catch it. Don't rev it with the cover off though (VOE), you'll spend the rest of the afternoon cleaning up the mess on the fender well.

Tell us more about this game.. ? Definitely interested in playing one involving a Z.

The pressure reading from the auxiliary gauge is the best test but I'd have started it up by now. Oil flow up to the head indicates the oil pump is pumping. On initial start-ups I normally leave the valve cover off to check the oil flow to each cam lobe and watch the pressure gauge.

Hi Dmuzial, I have a 78Z manual, and had this same problem about a year and a half ago....actually started a thread in the Engine and Drivetrain section since I originally ran across the problem when installing the diff...you can see it here: Lots of good responses to my questions by the forum members. Bottom line was that some of the drawings in the FSM were copied from previous year models and are incorrect. Like you, I initially installed the bar with the bushing cylinders aft of the mustache bar (per the FSM diagram) only to discover that I couldn't get the forward diff mount to line up correctly. It all worked out good once I reversed the bar so that the bushing cylinders were forward. Love this forum...never fails to get you back on track with whatever Z problem you're tackling at the moment!

So, the local Caffeine & Octane decided to feature Japanese cars among others in the main lot. (It's not unusual for 2500+ cars to show up monthly.) Several Z car owners signed up and parked in the lot. Afterward, we also did a group photo with the Z owners who stuck around.

I think the gauge has a bimetallic strip in the circuit that heats up with current flow and opens than closes as it cools, if you put it straight to ground with no sensor it with heat up quickly. Take Zed Head’s advice and check it with a mechanical gauge.

I don't know much about how, exactly, the gauge and sender work but I do know that at cranking RPM pressure will be very low (it will be low at idle speed also when you do get it running), and the gauge does not react quickly. So you have a slow moving needle, which is barely going to make it to 10 psi, maybe, once it starts moving. The best way to feel comfortable is to get a mechanical gauge and either install it temporarily or "T "it on to the port with the sender. But, if you decide to do that you'll need to either get a BSPT to NPT adapter or booger up the threads on the gauge to force it in to the hole. You're right, it's a common worry.

As a Marine Vietnam veteran(1966-1967) I honor your father. Peace to you my friend. Can't wait to see your restoration. Cheers, Mike

Thank you Pilgrim for the kind words. If you still keep in touch with your friend, please extend my deepest gratitude for his service and sacrifices. Deployment to Vietnam was no joke. Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

I think that some of the face covering refusal is just normal denial of something scary and uncontrollable. Without leadership showing bravery and giving guidance it's easier for some people to deny a problem exists than to deal with it mentally and emotionally. At this point the problem seems endless, no solution in sight, so people have no reason to delay what they see as inevitable. And the lack of leadership is not just the bright shiny guy at the top. The silence from Congress is probably fear-based also. No one there is sacrificing anything for their constituents, just trying to hang on to what they have. We'll probably see many members coming out from hiding if they make it through the next election cycle, pretending that they were working behind the scenes to solve the problems. It really seems like the guys that control the country see the bulk of the population as "work-force", here to produce goods for them to benefit from. Trying to starve them/us back out to go to work. And 200,000 dead / 328,000,000 is only 0.06%. A small cost to keep the money flowing. 1,000,000 / 328,000,000 is only 0.3%. Peanuts. And most of them old and not working anyway. Dead wood. That's how some of those guys see things. Just numbers.

A feeling of entitlement and a lack of empathy. The two sides of the same narcissistic coin. Perhaps the origin of the term "dead right".

Other vacuum hoses to check are the brake booster hose and the supply hose to the heater valve control bottle. And the hose to the emissions vapor canister and the distributor vacuum advance diaphragm. Just pull them off and block the port and see if idle drops. Some of those arte ported vacuum, so shouldn't affect idle, but they might be connected to the wrong place.

Whoa, I just went through your pics on viczcar, that is quite a project. You're right to be scared of the A pillar and roof rust, those are the most difficult areas to repair. The rest of the cars rust, although time consuming is repairable but the A pillars consist of 3-4 layers of tightly folded metal and there is just no room to work in there. You might seriously consider finding a complete rust free roof/A pillar State side and grafting on to your body. Any chance that there is an acid dipper in Perth, media blasting is great but will never get into the inner cavities of the subframe. Now I'm all for DIY rust repair, for me it is the process of the project that I enjoy but let me play devils advocate for a second. If you know you're going to spend 35-40k to get this car on the road then that same kind of money will buy you an awfully nice finished Z. Looking forward to your progress, this forum is great resource for any problems you run into during the rebuild. Will be interested to see what you think of the KlassicFab panels, they look great. Pricey but if they are as good as they look it will be worth it.

I understand, I have bought a number of datsun items out of Australia

I will try to get some more pictures for everyone this week. I think I might have located a 70 240Z donor car, and I have never driven this car, and don't plan on it until the rust/frame rail have been addressed.

Yes it wouldn't be too hard to clean it up, fix the rails and make some money on this car but the I think the rewards of owning and driving your Z will be greater and if you do decide to sell sometime in the future the car will only be worth more. Your Z would be perfect for a survivor treatment but I would be very careful with how hard you drive the car until the rails are repaired. That area just behind the T/C rod mount is a crucial to the structure of the car and although that area appears to be the only major rust you can be assured that there is more waiting for you. The structure of the car needs a full restoration or at least a through cleaning and inspection, everything above the floor pans can stay original if you choose to go that way. Finding original rails from an early car is ideal but there is a company in Florida that is making excellent reproductions that might be worth looking at, https://kfvintagejdm.com/product-category/datsun/

I already went down the road with a 260 donor for a 240....it will ruin the value of your car to anyone that’s a collector down the road. Too much is different on the front end. Wait for the right car.

It would be best to get a 70 or 71 donor and be as accurate as possible. This may eventually be a $20k difference.

My business involves me owning and operating a lot of work trucks. The guy who's shop we are doing this has been my diesel mechanic for going on 20 years. He has done a lot of car work but mostly on newer mustangs and old Ford Pickups. I talked him into helping me out with this car and now he has hired on some other guys to do some resto and body work in an open bay beside his diesel shop......now he's getting a paint booth after my car is done! I am pleased with the paint job. We still plan on buffing as far as I know unless they all are so tired of me at this point and ban me from the shop entirely! He's a good friend and I appreciate all the help so far even though he really doesn't have time for it. The car had a 905 red sticker on it when i bought it so I decided to go back with that color. At least I think I have that color. The place I sourced the paint from in town did have the code 905 Red in their system.....they just had 3 very different mixtures of 905 red?? Two of the three formulas were mostly orange so I picked the only one that actually had any red pigment and got a sample. It looked good to me but what the hell do I know....I've never seen a 905 red Zcar in person and there is very conflicting information on the Ultraweb. This is MY 905 Red and its cool with me.

This is what I didn't know....Those areas are definitly not the same as a 240! The original metal is there it is just covered up with other metal I can only assume was changed for some sort of crash rating law changes in 74-75? Of course the radiator support vertical panel is wildly different to go around all that mess. It is such a bonehead move on my part to spend so much time, money and effort trying to keep this thing as original as possible and restore this car back to normal. I really just picked the wrong car from the start. It looked good but I didn't know what I was looking at and the crap body work from the previous owners covered up a lot of problems. The interior was also in such good shape that I thought it was a good platform to start with. I'm sure people have done more with less and maybe its not so bad but the thought of me having cut a 260 front off and put on this car makes me want to throw up a little now! In hindsight I should have bought a better car but whats done is done and I aint starting over!