Leaderboard

Hi Carl , I love the story. In that case , did the dealership give some discount for the customer to compensate for displaying in a showroom? I am just curious about it. Now my question is, Nissan did numerous changes for S30 series not on late 1970 but early 1971. Seems it doesn’t relate to American ‘model year’ system . Was the change of S30 series considered normal for Nissan including other Nissan cars, or only for S30 series? I mean our S30 series cars , Nissan changed things when they thought they needed. Mr.Uemura wrote about the test report in US and Canada late 1969 . The test crew listed many things to be improved. I think the changes in early 1971 were originated by the test crew , and voice of customers all over the world , and by test groups in Nissan Japan. One of the issue which was not seemed easy for engineers was the vibration from the rear floor . I believe Nissan might want to fix it sooner and knew how to fix well before mid 1970 but the changes of propeller shaft and differential mounting , also had to make a new bracket (brackets for Z432) for the exhaust system under the floor would have needed more time . Or it could have taken more time to prove ‘no-problem’ of recessed the diff 35mm back still safe when the tail hit and the gas tank pushed forward. The new drive train was not available until late 1971 though. Here is a picture provided from Mr.Miyazaki , he was an engineer and a test crew in Japan . A lot of interesting stories he has , I am keeping in touch with him and listening as much as I can . Kats

A friend installed a Pertronix Ignitor I into his 240Z, and he contacted me for help since he could cruise fine at low RPM, but whenever he tried to get on the gas, it would stumble and cough. He thought it might be a coil impedance issue so he tried various coils but kept having the same issue (and sometimes even worse performance). Since he has been wrenching on Z cars since the mid 80s, I figured he had gone down the wrong rabbit hole at some point. I loaded up the rescue wagon and headed over to his place. The first thing I did was connect an oscilloscope to see if I could pick up an obvious miss. The scope left me with the impression that something wasn't happening right as higher RPMs. (I might recreate his problem on my 240Z and see if the scope shows the same thing. If it does, I'll make a video to help people with diagnostics.) I looked at the resistance to chassis ground at the distributor. The resistance was nearly zero, so it wasn't a grounding problem. From some old threads here, I thought the vacuum advance might be an issue. Unfortunately his hand pump would let me pump up enough vacuum to check, so that was tabled. Next was inspecting the distributor cap. The contacts were clean as was the rotor. So I moved to inspecting the posts where the wires land. The wire on the center post wasn't seated far enough down, so I pushed that in. Then I pulled off each wire one by one, starting with #3 and working clockwise. It was good, #5 was good, #1 was good, #4 was good, but #2 was not. The boot was almost off the wire. There was no way it was getting a good spark. I positioned the wire properly in the boot and re-seated it. Then I checked #6. It was good. I looked at the scope again. It looked better, but I didn't shoot video. After my friend fixed a fuel leak at the banjo fitting on the rear carb, (The fitting wouldn't seal, so he replaced it.) he took it for a spin. He said there was no hesitation, and it pulled hard past 5,500 RPM. The moral of the story is that when you can't figure out what's wrong, step back and go over everything from the beginning. Sometimes you have to eliminate each and every variable until you have the solution. I love getting another Z back on the road.

Somewhat as a follow-up to my earlier thread: I purchased an SMP S847 socket. I tested it out in my 240Z, and it seems to fit just fine.

Got the new nubbins. Looks like these will work. Take a look

Good news! It is fixed. I used 1000 grit sandpaper on the contacts and slightly bent the metal arm. Works as expected. I knew there had to be a way to fix it. Thanks for all the help guys. Keep knocking the finishing tasks off the list.

Hi Kats: The short answer to your question is NO - No discount, however because I was on active duty with the United States Air Force at the time (and Military Pay was very very low), the Dealer did not mark up the Retail Price. Dealers in the US had such demand for the 240Z's, mostly because the report of the 240Z published in "Road & Track Magazine" which hit the News-Stands Dec. 1, 1969 with the 240Z on the Cover!. (the Cover Car was one of the US Road Test 240Z's, that Nissan had given R&T early access to) So by March 1970 there were long waiting lists for 240Zs, especially in California and on the West Coast. Dealers were adding $1,000.00 to $2000.00 to the MSRP of $3526.00. Then adding more for additional accessories like Mag Wheels, Body Side Molding etc. Because there was a large Air Force Base in Spokane, and because military pay was low, the military personnel bought a lot of very affordable Datsuns locally. So the Dealer wanted to get the first Z's shown/seen on the Base. So I got the first one there... The Dealer I purchased my first Z from was Paul Jaremko. If you read John B. Rae's book; "NISSAN/DATSUN A History of Nissan Motor Corporation in U.S.A. 1960 to 1980" - you would see that Paul Jaremko won Datsun their first SCCA Regional Championships on the West Coast in 1964 driving a Datsun SPL 310 roadster to 14 successive victories. The Jaremko's were one of Mr. K's first 100 Datsun Dealers in the USA (they owned 3 Dealerships). Of course I did not know that when I met him. However I was driving a 1967 Porsche 911S at the time and we started talking about sports car and racing in general as I was test driving the 240Z with him. I had done some limited racing and rallying with the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Club so Paul and I hit it off right away. We are friends to this day.

That's the thing. Any of us (and that includes me) can make those little mistakes, often times not even realizing it happened. I've done things like try to start the car without the wire on the coil or with the rotor sitting on the fender. When it's not as obvious, it's easy to get frustrated and start loading the parts cannon to replace all of those bad parts that aren't really bad. In my friend's case, I could hear his frustration as he repeatedly swapped in parts with no success. That's why I went over to his place with the plan of getting a baseline and examining each part and correct each issue I encountered. This time, it was an easy solution.

Thanks Alan, I have learned new today . My FRP bonnet is shorter width, I am happy with it now . I am going to paint it with mat light grey just like the tail light exterior panels and G-nose . I think it will match nicely with 901 silver . I want to express my feelings about my Z432 which is oriented from my respect to Z432-R ,as well as to my original Z432 to be luxurious GT .Not going to paint black with orange . Kats

I bought my first 240Z 14 March 1970, in Spokane, Washington - HLS30 01777. Had to leave it on the Dealer's Showroom floor until May 1970 when they started to actually get their first "supply" of 4 240'z. (all of which had been pre-sold). Then the last guy on the list had to leave his there..for a while.

Great job Steve…..I changed points once and the car wouldn’t fire. Took me 20 minutes to figure out that there is a little piece of protective paper between the new point contacts……🤪

I don't think it has changed since a year ago.

Ha, yeah, I know the feeling! I've never done a Z dash before, and I'm not trying to pass myself off as an expert. Just showing what I'm doing and hopefully get a few tips along the way. 👍

Hi Bart , yes justdashes is my top list . I have heard recently price $2000 , need to wait a half year . Plus shipping from Japan returning from California will surely be painful. Someone wants a PZR look dash , send it to them and ask them not to cut out the side vents and the clock , glove box key cylinder. I want to have it fixed by my hand , it will be fun and yes a lot of money saving . And I want to remain its details as much as possible , every old originals are one and only! Kats

Well you were doing great until the part about bending the arm a little. The tension in that arm affects the accuracy of the gauges. Don't know if you bent it enough to cause things to be inaccurate ,but a working (but inaccurate) gauge is probably better than one that doesn't work at all, right? You see the little set-screw threaded into the regulator contact? That sets the pre-load on the contacts and is used to calibrate the regulator. Let's just hope yours is still good enough.

Again, I could be wrong about that, but this is the "bunny ear" position on cyl no.1 TDC compression stroke. I'm fairly certain cylinders 2-6 will do the same when they are at TDC on the compression stroke. Hopefully if I'm wrong, someone will chime in and say. Sorry my memory degrades as the beard gets whiter. Last time I checked valve lash I believe I just felt the compression as I turned the engine, but your leak down needs to be a bit more precise.

Some free 4cyl blocks, parts and head https://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/pts/d/lynnwood-free-datsun-nissan-motors/7535031653.html

I've got the new dash screwed to the frame. Glad it wasn't a 50 year old original dash pad, as much as you have to muscle it in place to get the holes aligned. New one has some flex to it. Got the holes drilled/cut for the hazard switch, lighter, dimmer, and odometer reset. Next is cutting. trimming, folding the edges, and gluing to frame, around the center and glove box opening. I assume that is what others do.

I screwed the vent panel in place and marked the edge, just so I know the top edge is forward enough to "hook" the top front edge of the dash pad when screwing pad to frame. Nice that the new dash has the same molded in place steel rails to screw into. There's 17 screws, here I've got finish nails sticking out of each hole. I should have ran a screw through each hole just to get a thread formed instead of waiting while trying to mount to frame. I also marked each hole with a marker which helped while positioning the dash over frame. I worked from the center outward.

Thanks CO, I agree on your comment about lighting, it does make any comparison somewhat subjective. I will try to find some Metallic Carbon Mist, I think you meant to say it's a Rust-Oleum Product. Adding confusion, I found that in Canada it has a different part number, 264656, not 261413. They carry 264656 up here at Home Depot, but the stores near me are currently out of stock. Here's the links to Carbon Mist in the US and Canada. https://www.rustoleum.com/product-catalog/consumer-brands/universal/universal-mist-metallic-spray-paint?ls=261413&lc=Metallic Carbon Mist https://www.rustoleum.ca/product-catalog/consumer-brands/universal/metallic?ls=264656&lc=Carbon Mist When I can get my hands on some and have a chance, I will do a test spray on the spare tail light finisher panel I first tested DC Dark Shadow Gray on and report back. Who knows maybe I will like it better and respray mine when I complete my resto. Cheers, Mike

The date on the Tennessee title is January 14th. Wow, I'm impressed. 26th wasn't titled until April 1970. 20th made it all the way to Tennessee, and titled, in such a short period of time.

Yes, and several others found out that you can not drive a 240Z over the concrete parking stops at the shopping mall or grocery store. (without getting hung up or damaging the frame rails).

They were titled as whatever the Dealer put on the original application for a new title at the local DMV, in any of the 50 States. In the 50's, 60's and even into 1970 many Import Car Dealers held their Model Year consistent with whatever was common practice in the country of origin. Many of the early Datsun Dealers were already Import Car Dealers when they took on the Datsun Brand. So they followed their normal practice when applying for a new car Title. VW for example held their model year consistent with the calendar year, as did Porsche and Jaguar as I recall. So if a VW was produced on say 31 Dec. 1960 it was titled as a 1960 VW no matter when it was sold, if the VW was produced on 3 Jan 1961 it was titled as a 1961 VW (even though there was no real difference between them). At that time, part of the reasons given to buy a VW Bug, was that there was no "Planned Obsolescence” due to changing the model completely every year as was done by the American Mfg.s. in the 50’s and 60’s. If you drove a Bug it always looked like a new one! The downside to holding the model year consistent with the Calendar Year for the Import Car Dealers, was that their “new models” arrived at the US Dealerships about three months after the First of the Year. That was 5 or 6 months after the New Models from the American Manufactures went on sale. Model Years also affected Resale Values later in the market - as cars depreciated year by year - a car tilted as a 1960 VW was worth less in the resale market than one titled as a 1961 model. (in the eyes of the banks that loaned the money - as well as the customers buying them). Over time, with increased competition and new laws/regulations from the Federal Government; Domestic and Import Car Sales practices started to normalize. Nonetheless today looking back 40 or 50 years everything looks abnormal.

Well when typing in a small phone with big fingers and “auto correct” turned on mistakes are made. I🤓

When I was 16 years old (33 years ago) with my first Z, I was guilty of this.

@katshttps://www.justdashes.com/ These guys restore dashes, i came across it when Jay Leno featured it. Some must have known before, the owner started out with Datsun z dash... If you can do it yourself offcourse that will save a lot of money

Hi Kats, I think every PZR bonnet I have ever seen has that same gap difference in comparison with the factory steel bonnet, including the period race cars. You can see the fender mounting bolts and rubber pads. So it is 'correct' for PZR and I don't think it is down to shrinkage or distortion. The aftermarket FRP bonnets on two of my cars have the same feature, so I would *guess* this is possibly a feature of construction and the process of making the moulds/molds? Maybe it is somehow inevitable when using an original steel panel to make the moulds/molds? I see some variation in the interior structure details of the factory mouldings, so I would again *guess* that this would be down to a process of evolution and/or natural variance of hand-made parts produced in relatively small batches across a period of months and years? In that period I don't think anyone truly expected an FRP panel to fit as a closely as a factory steel one would.

Perhaps tellingly, and certainly interestingly, Chief Engineer Suitsu san's original plan from April 1967 aimed at shipments starting in August 1969. They were slightly late!

Thanks Kats

In my never ending quest to find parts that no one seems to be looking for, I finally found what seems to be a good replacement for the single filament (1156 style) bulb sockets for the tail lights and reverse lights. The Dorman 84808 fits snugly in the tail light housing. You can find them on Amazon and Rockauto. I'm going to get a Dorman S847 to see if it's a suitable replacement for the 1157 sockets.

LOL.

Yeah, run 2 short hoses from the bleeders up into the reservoirs and pump away.

So, here it is. The bleeder is tapped and drilled at an angle. It enters the wheel cylinder NEAR the top... The brake line feed is drilled perpendicular and enters at the center of the cylinder. I think Cap has it with his excellent Fluid Dynamics instruction.

Sorry but if that is not clear to you, you better leave that brake job to a qualified mechanic.. oeps..

I'm about ready to give up on you kids. It's a 30+ yr old sports car. Show some respect for what it was. It was built with floor mats for carpet, it had 14" wheels not 20's; The car has a light weight frame and body that was never ment for 600 hp twin turbo what evers. Sure you can mod it but to what end. I see these ridiculous posts about slamming it to the ground and dropping in motor so you can do around 200 mph all based on a car that someone got for 400 bucks. A total rust bucket on top of that. And then you wonder why your hacked up idea of the ultimate street racer will only get you 5 grand on Ebay, if that, when you have 25 g's in it. You know why a 64 Ferrari is worth $200,000 , it's because the owner kept it as a 64 Ferrari and didn't try to build in into an Enzo. I saw an early Ferrari on Ebay not to long ago and the Bozo who owned it had a SBC in it, everything else was nice on the car. He wanted around 20 grand for it and it was not bringing bids. Tell you anything. If you have to build it, do a proper build. If you want a race car then build a race car for the race track. I would like to see these cars start to become real collector cars, but it's not going to happen if the car isn't treated as a real collector car. Sorry for that rant, must have been a bad week to read posts on the boards.