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So here is where I'm currently at Most of the sealer is off the big surfaces. Still a lot of detail work to do! I just don't think I can get my shop up to temp and keep it there for painting. My shop is concrete filled block walls and floor. Totally uninsulated. There is an incredible amount of thermal mass to try to heat up and hold at temperature when it's 40dF outside. So I think for now I will switch gears and try to work on some other aspects of the car since it's too cold for me to paint. Possibly brakes, differential, drive train or other systems that I can bag up and keep clean while painting. This isn't my preferred method but it would allow some progress while it's cold outside... When I do get back to paint, I have some new blocks to try and some Mirka PSA paper

I’ve been retired since 2018 actually . I’m very lucky to get to play like this . Hope my body keeps up with my mind

Uh, BS indeed. I have a completely stock A/C system in my 260Z and I converted it to R134a before I put it back on the road 12 years ago. Stock compressor using Ester oil - Phoenix Arizona... Not that I've never recharged it - I have a couple of times when I pulled the engine - but it's not a "every two years cuz I lost refrigerant" type thing. (I'm also a journeyman plumber (former life) and understand flare tubing very well - so I don't have leaks in joints...) My Hitachi compressor has held up so far, but I have a Sanden on the shelf for when it doesn't. With the mods I've made to the duct system and my Kia blower. I'll put my A/C system up against any other S30, any day (especially in Phoenix).

I don’t think it’s unethical to allow vendors to charge whatever they want, this is capitalism. Competition drives prices down and incentivize vendors to become more efficient. People can choose not to buy from them and a free market will usually drive prices down unless you have the market locked up buy one or two vendors. What is unethical and when vendors coordinate together to run prices up. This is what OPEC and other organizations do to manipulate prices. We want Z parts vendors to be profitable, if they aren’t then you have less choices or no clouded and less choice = higher prices. We face this in the aviation industry, people complain about the cost of aviation parts. I used to be responsible for getting parts from manufactures to the operational units. We paid crazy amounts for parts. An example is a small APU (auxiliary power unit). These are small turbine engines to start aircraft motors or provide electrical power to an aircraft. We paid $465,000 each to refurbish them by Boeing. They were really worth maybe $50,000 but nobody makes them anymore and how do incentivize Boeing to rebuild 100 a year? You have to pay and make it worth their while or they’ll say “no thank you”. Then you have no aircraft to fly. So for example i need new window scrappers for my Z (ones that touche the glass when you roll up the window). A vendor like MSA might sell 120 a year? Maybe only 40 a year. How do you make it worth their while to find a company that will make these for them . They have to offer that supplier a profitable motive. When this happens I can get a nice replacement parts. Otherwise, I’m stuck with the hard broken ones I have. You see this is things like remanufactured starters or brake masters etc. Why do some many of these parts suck! Well, because we consumers tend to buy the cheaper of the options available, to compete companies have to find ways to do it cheaper and then you end up with crap! I remember from Econ 101 “The consumer sets the prices of good and services when the free market is working”. If it cost too much…don’t buy it. If you want it and feel the value to cost ratio is there then buy it.

That was a fun engine - but the 3.2 is almost brutal . Need to try and duplicate that chirp with the stroker

Well thank you.. May i ad the German language to... Ja? Sehr gut mein Freund! Ich habe gar keine ahnung wie wir von auswuchten auf das thema hunden zu sprechen kamen? 😂

Okay it gets to the Xs and Ys. Hermaphrodite dogs! Damn... https://www.petplace.com/article/dogs/pet-health/hermaphrodite-and-pseudohermaphrodite-in-dogs/ This thread went to the wild side. I'm sorry my Dutch friend but some lobe in my brain isn't in the right place.

They mentioned that some male reproductive organs don't show externally and they want to avoid any future misunderstanding. Personally, I think a Milk Bone Biscuit tattoo would be more appropriate than the straight line.

I missed the diesel torque also. I have a friend with a pre turbo 240D Mercedes sedan. It's the absolute most under powered car I've ever driven. On hills I have to go in the truck lane with flashers and the semi's pass me!

Speaking of the transmission, I took some photos of my 1980 720 5-speed: And the case markings: The #1 indicates the following gear ratios should be in this case: 1 3.592 2 2.246 3 1.415 4 1.000 5 0.813 Same as the stock 4-speed plus an overdrive. Should offset my 3.9 LSD rear end for cruising.

Yeah, my dad is doing it for me. He’s close. We ran into some issues with the machinist we went to and our head all needing different problems solved, but we are on track to be done real soon. Soon enough that I need to get the transmission sorted for when the engine shows up.

https://www.zoo.com/quiz/car-engine-quiz?mkcpgn=i600013684&utm_source=gdn&utm_medium=paid&utm_term=m.tmz.com&utm_campaign=Zoo-Car-Engines(mobile)&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxrmJ0Kmy4QIVxhKBCh2Cqw6bEAEYASAAEgKHF_D_BwE

I've not heard of them but there's other options too. https://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/11-3001 Zcardepot.com has some but I can't find them for some reason. I rebuilt mine with the kit from ztherapy and just with basic knowledge it was easy and they turned out great. Took them apart and cleaned the exterior with aluminum polishing wad rebuilt the insides and am extremely happy with the results. The rebuild kit comes with a DVD that helped a ton, made it really easy with the rewind. I watched it a few times before I ever turned a screw. Another suggestion would be look in the classified section on here for some. If there's not any start a new thread about needing a good set. They're out there for sale ready to bolt on. Check ebay too. Goodluck!

There's quite a bit on the site about lightened flywheels and the Fidanza flywheel. The Fidanza is a light flywheel and it is drilled for either 225 or 240 mm clutches. Can't remember all of the people that have posted about the topic but @siteunseen and @EuroDat come to mind. Your cam is probably not as radical as you think it might be. No offense.

The only reason this is true is because it is a niche market. Again we have to look at profitability vs effort. What do you think the total market value is of all Datsun parts in one year globally is?. This number is tiny, tiny. I bet paperclips have a larger market value globally than vintage Datsun parts. Its market size/value that drives investors. A larger pie attracts more entrepreneurs. We want resources going to where there are large markets. It’s just the reality to the laws of economics. Let’s keep the folks we have incentivized to keep the parts flowing. There is one website that had tried to do what you are talking about. https://www.datsunpartz.com

Unfortunately or fortunately, Datsuns S30s attract a wide variety of owners. Some owner’s maintenance/repair budget is designed to just keep the vehicle on the road. Therefore they want the “cheapest” part available that is easily accessible….just a mouse click away on many websites. Some owners are interested in long term value of their vehicle and will “invest” in quality parts. This requires customer research on the quality and availability (we will probably face supply change issues at least until 2023) of a part. The parts market must try to balance both demands. Quality parts at a “fair” price are available, often requiring buyer research, ordering and returning mislabeled parts, and delays in project completion. I find it interesting that a potential Datsun S30 restoration buyer will research an auction listing, ask questions of the seller regarding type of paint and ask for photos of the restoration process and never ask for information about the parts (and materials and supplies) used. The recent 1971 Datsun 240Z Series I sale (https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1971-datsun-240z-209/) by CW240Z72 is a great example of providing a buyer a list of parts used in the rebuild. With the early S30s values exceeding $60k+ owners of these vehicles should demand quality parts and (most importantly) be willing to pay the price. Keith

1.25 million. Cool. I'm afraid I could NOT cover the deposit on that one. Edit: Deposit is only $500? OK, ok, i guess i could do that.

Okay, back to steering… All my original parts are clean and ready for paint. The Land Rover universal joint arrived last night, and new hardware is on its way. The next step is to mic the LR u-joint and make sure it’s a match. Then I’ll paint the shaft parts and get them ready to go back together. The u-joint is from FEBEST, which I have never heard of. Hopefully it’s not garbage. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ At least this isn’t going to spin a whole lot… Getting the old u-joint out was fun. Since I blew through the top of one of the caps I spent 4 hours and a million different tools to delicately get the remainder out. I dressed the inside of the yokes and got it pretty enough for reassembly. They’re a little bit ugly but not where it matters. I still need to mic them, but I am reasonably certain that I did not open up the holes and ruin the friction fitting.

Been calling around looking for another Maxima 47 head for a project I’m doing for a customer . I called a a junk yard that showed one available . I asked the guy if he really had one . He said “ I have 6” . I about dropped my phone . I said , “ I’ll take 4 ! “ I also picked up a 4 speed auto from the Maxima . Might as well fill the pallet !

Hello Kats, For me, the mid to late 1960's and very early 1970's was the peak of car design in Japan, with great looking models and performance (even those with less performance still looked great). The S30 family is no exception, but I hark more to the rarer/less produced models within the range. Ahh, the late model RS30Q....! Silvia, it's going fine, though slowly. Your statement (I quoted above) can easily fit into it with finding spares for a production run only about 100 more than the Z432. I had been looking for a pair of seats for about 12 years, and finally I brought with a small fortune considering they were for restoration only.

So, if you take what we know from the mechanics readings and we know 4th is 1:1....take 1 divided by the 4th gear ratio that he had (.710) and you get 1.408. Take that 1.408 and mutiply it by the rest of the ratios he gave me...and it lines up pretty well... 1st- 33 Main 19 Counter=2.357-this one doesn't work because his math is wrong, but even if you correct that, it doesn't work out, he must have mis-counted the teeth. 2nd- 28 Main 19 Counter=1.473 x 1.408= 2.075 3rd- 26 Main 28 Counter=.928 x 1.408= 1.307 4th- 22 Main 31 Counter=.710 x 1.408 = .998 5th- 19 Main 31 Counter=.613 x 1.408= .863 Compare that to the wide ratio and it pretty much is dead on: 2010-N3030 3.321 2.077 1.308 1.000 0.864 (wide ratio) Thanks for your help and answers, I think we've gotten somewhere here. So a stock turbo/2+2 clutch should hold the power? Any issues with going to that light of a flywheel and having as large of a cam as I do for idle and low speed driving? Seems now going to a 280x 5 speed and a 3.90 will do exactly what I want compared to what I have. Raise the gearing slighting for 1st and 2nd so they are closer to 3rd and make 5th a bit taller for high speed cruising.

You're forever a good to go Z god from the video of 3rd gear chirp.

And some photos highlighting the differences between the cases for the 5-speed (shiny) and my (possibly not) original 4-speed (filthy with red tie down straps):

I don't know but that makes more sense although they did offer me some prosthetic balls for Buddy. He also got a small tatoo as a marker that he'd been neutured, Smoothe as a horses nose down there and they gave him the green mark. WTF?

Spraying soap thingy. You are way above me. I can only read English, you can do Dutch and English. Party on! Oh yeah, spaying is what we do to female animals to keep them from getting pregnant. It's way better than males, we cut their testicles off. My boy dog doesn't have anything to lick and when I was a kid we were so poor if I didn't have testicles I wouldn't have had anything to play with.

Found the parts that I needed at 240zrubberparts.com

It is called proxy bidding. You place a bid for more than the current bid, and go about your day. You choose an amount higher than needed to be the current highest bidder, but it only bumps up should someone come along and bid while you’re out drinking beer or something. The amount you choose is usually the highest you would pay. If someone else comes along and outbids your proxy bid, you get a notification that you’ve been outbid. You can then go back and up your bid, if you wish to, and the auction isn’t done.

Started cleaning up that steering shaft. The first bit was easy, but I didn’t cut enough of the staking off the last cap and I ended up punching through it. It took 11 times as long to do the last one as it took for the first three. I wanted to be very careful to not ruin anything, so it was a very delicate process of tapping various punches with the brass hammer. In the end I got it apart. Now I just have to wait for the new u-joint. Next step is that wire wheel again, followed by paint. This was black originally, but I’m thinking of going with silver for the respray

Boss is a d***

MN factory is working after long delays and worker walk-outs :-0

I have decided to go with 10W-40. I have used it in my 69 Cadillac with a 472 block and flat cams and it has given me great results last 7 years. https://drivenracingoil.com/i-30497806-hr5-10w-40-conventional-hot-rod-oil.html

The MN heads are going further down the production line finally . Worked all the ports except for the last head in which I had to remove liners because of damage . The pic is just a exhaust with some work done . Off to get vapor honed and then on to the machine shop for valves and machining . Then back here for assembly

Straight vinegar . The pump helped by keeping things stirred .

maxima vinegar soup

Missed the diesel torque question. Dennis