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Talk about a crazy market! A 914-6 like mine, painted an admittedly nice Toyota color (Voodoo Blue) just sold for $170K on BAT. I don’t dare tell my wife, or this will be gone!

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.

Mt. Fuji looked SO MUCH more beautiful before all those wires.

You won’t be able to change gear ratios by simply changing the ring gear only. The ring and pinion gears are always matched. It doesn’t matter what make or brand of differential. A gear set is machined to work together as a set. So if you have a 4:11 gear set, and a 3:90 gear set, the ring gear from one will not mesh with the pinion on the other. If you want to change gear ratios, the ring and pinion both have to change. Will a ring and pinion from a Subaru R180 fit in a Datsun R180 case? Maybe. But why take them out of a case and put them in another? It takes special tools to set up the pinion bearing preload, as well as training and skills rebuilding differentials, getting the bearings set and the gear wipe pattern correct. If you want an R180 with a given ratio, buy it and swap the whole unit out.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hamilton-appealing2.jpg Hahahaha!!!!

Got the center and glove box openings trimmed and ready to glue to the frame. I tried to generally match how the original dash was trimmed in the openings. Borrowed a friends solvent based Weldwood contact cement, hopefully it will hold good. I think these small dimples may be suggested cutting lines, I ended up cutting fairly close to them as I was trimming. Using stir sticks and clamps to hold overnight. I've got my 10mm 3/8" socket in the glove box button hole so dash is not getting deformed by the clamp. I ran out of clamps, so I'll finish the center tomorrow.

That would be a great use of that old roof skin The joint at the A pillar and B pillar are leaded. Be careful working with that. You can easily get lead exposure! I don't know if the joint was welded or brazed but we were told by Matsuo? that those areas were designed to flex some. So making them too rigid could be detrimental. So it wouldn't be surprising if those areas were brazed

That is a weird one. It's not really what was suggested, which was old parts being used up during the transition. That one has parts that are not supposed to be in use yet. Any chance somebody just wanted the "improved" parts and had them switched later?

A couple of pix of the 1/71 the unicorn I have in my shop

I agree with you. When they painted those strut housings, brake lines and all, that was when I concluded it was cut rate job.

Racer let me know if you can see this post ok? Another long day of drilling out spot welds on the roof skin. I can see why metal works are the most expensive part of restoring a car, it’s so time consuming. can anyone tell me about the joint between the rear quarter and roof skin? Mine seemed to be oxy welded or brazed together, is this factory? There was lead wiping which I burnt off, I ended up cutting the joint with a grinder but wondering if there’s a better way. I also found the front corners were welded in, there was no other way so I just cut joint and part of the skin with my 5 inch, I really must get so Roloc attachments and small cutting discs for my die grinder. I managed not to damage any structures underneath. i found the front and rear of the roof skin easy to unpick, the LHS was just cut as there was barely anything left, I found the RHS rain rail joint extremely difficult to unpick, I came close to just cutting it with a grinder on more than one occasion, but I persevered and I’m glad I did. There is just no room to work, I tried modifying my scraper blade so I could hammer it along as I went, but that wasn’t effective. In the end I used a sharpened flathead screwdriver to break the joints after drilling. there was a small amount of mangling which was unavoidable but overall very happy with how cleanly I was able to unpick the roof. I’m hoping to sell the skin to someone who needs to fill in their sunroof hole as the center of the skin is excellent. Was surprised to find the RHS to be very clean, some pitting at the rear quarter joint but overall a good result. the LHS is a $^!# show, as expected, it’s going to take a lot of work to rebuild the whole structure, rear quarter join is completely gone.

I think it’s one of the best bang for your buck mods, it made a huge difference to the rev speed. It’s nearly 10kg lighter than the stock flywheel, that’s a huge reduction in rotating mass!

You know, I bought my first Z in the 1980's while in my 20's, for $700 from a Dr. in Whittier CA, the car was probably 15 years old at the time, a good looking & running driver in green, but a bit aged of course, and it was quite common and i'm sure it still is, when your young and poor, to hit the self service junk yards for what you need on the weekends , and that being said, I recall going quite often and having a "list" of things I needed in my head but when you got to pick a part, and started walking around you might very well find a "new" Z in the lot with almost everything still on it and start "drooling" over what you could and did get. I might be going in for this or that but remember hey! my seat belt was frayed, and grab some new ones off the new Z in the yard...even though I was just looking for a grill or whatever that day...THIS might just be the case in Zspert's car...

A little searching and I found Tim on Gumtree. Still selling these kits. https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/gladstone/engine-engine-parts-transmission/vl-turbo-commodore-nissan-datsun-jatco-automatic-shift-kit-servic/1021151782 You are probably looking for datsun or nissan, but you might find more by looking for the VL commodore. If you want to know a little more about these transmissions, you could ask the guys on the justcommodores.com.au forum or seach their forum for more info.

I think the shifter kit was originally design for the holden commodore VL with the 3.0litre inline six. Well the Holden guys were the ones that started playing with them, more than the Skyline guys. The 280ZX has the Jatco 3N71B and the VL commodoe had the RB30 and RB30ET with the 4N71B. The kit is basically a spring kit to replace the pressure modulator spring in valve body and therefore incease fluid pressure. You will also ned to drill some ports to accomidate the extra flow to aid the faster change over. Repco use to sell the springs back in the day and I can still remember a detailed write up in a magazine called "Street Machine Magazine" based in Sydney. The couple people I helped do back in the nineties were definitely happy with the "sporty" improvement. The transmission changes quicker with little slip in the change over phase. It can feel harsh if you are use to the original style it changed gear. The bands and clutches tend to wear less after the change. This is most probably due to the limited slip time in gear change. Less slip, less wear. There is a guy on youtube "VLTim" that made these kits. Not sure if he still does. He does not show drilling out the port in the video, but I'm sure there is a video somewhere on youtube. I might have some old photos somewhere. The kits made a noticable difference in the commodores. A lot of aftermarket companies use to make them in the nineties.

If its posted on the internet it will be on hybrid Z. They reverse engineer many things

I will check a couple of the distributor mounted matchbox modules when I get a chance. I've got a couple tossed in a box that came from who-knows-where. I'm sure some of them work. Probably. Maybe? At least at room temperature.

you are welcome. I couldnt figure out why I didnt have my usual 100 pictures, then I remembered I used that thread as my guide. Post up some pictures of your restoration......misery loves company 🙂

That is the ONE...! Thanks a million, Ernest...

Here is a good thread I used

The fact that the engineers must have designed algorithms that converted degrees to time (very small intervals of time) in to the ignition system has been in the back of my brain since I started learning about them. I wonder how accurate it could actually be. And it must be more accurate at low RPM. I wonder if weird stuff happens if you use the retard setting at high RPM. It would be interesting to compare high PRM timing between the two modules. I've always read that the GM HEI module used a positive crossing trigger. The rising edge. But, another thing that's been in the back of my mind is that silicon transistors switch at 0.7 volts, apparently (not a semiconductor expert). People use the GM HEI module in place if the "ignitor" on the 280ZX Turbo ECCS ignition systems. Which should never go negative, it should just have a zero to 5 volt square wave. Maybe the HEI module has circuitry that works on a zero transition though. Not my field. If it has to cross zero it should not work in the ZX ECCS system. Anyway, it was fun to learn something new about these two modules. Lots of interesting stuff about the GM HEI modules in the Megasquirt world. http://www.megamanual.com/ms2/GM_7pinHEI.htm

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.

Yeah, I put some more on order from Amazon after I confirmed the fit. Looking into it more, I looked on Rockauto for the fitment of the S847 and looked at the socket part numbers for those cars. It looks like there are some alternative part numbers for the 1156 and 1157 style sockets.

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

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.

OK Zed Head, etc, here's the unicorn you asked about. I have a 1/71 in my shop - VIN 18437 - getting a well deserved rehabilitation after years of neglect. It has later seat belts with 6 & 7/71 production dates. It has the early visors and a Redwing interior mirror. Want to touch on a subject Carl Beck brushed up against regarding the early years of selling imported cars. In those pre 1970 days import dealers, the exception being VW, were strictly Mon & Pop operations. They often started out as used car lots or service operations that sold imports as almost a sideline. My first dealer sold BMW, Saab and NSU before picking up Datsun in mid 1970. The showroom could accommodate 3 cars and there were 5 service bays. A good month saw 3-5 cars being sold. Dad was the sales dept, son ran service and Mom kept the books. Their necks were stuck way out and it showed. They started in the car business at a smaller facility as a VW and Porsche repair shop. So, you're a Fiat, Renault or NSU dealer in 1966 with 4 cars left on the lot and it's Dec. You know those machines aren't going anywhere soon so what to do. You apply to the MVA and change the titles to 1967. Now you have 4 67s - a very common practice in those days. This all changed with the Japanese invasion of the early 70s. Now you're moving lots and lots of cars, as many as you could get per month. We didn't need a larger showroom as the Datsuns were sold before they had a chance to display them. Dad wasn't a salesman any more, he was an order taker.

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.

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

This is BMW locking gas cap. Unlocked. Tab at 2 oclock is retracted. Locked. Tab at 2 oclock is extended. Some fuel filler rings with color choices The back side with the welded on blob at the right spot to give the locking cap tab a place to lock behind The rubber flaps that I can supply. 1/32" thick new rubber.