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Went on a memorial cruise for a local car guy a few weeks ago and just found this photo posted. Nice photo of my car.

Late Wednesday afternoon, when the eye came ashore, I was thirty-five miles North of the center. The worst of the wind speed was just South of me. I don't know what wind speeds we actually saw, but it was pretty fierce. All the flooding and storm surge was South of me also. Carl and Jim Frederick are sixty miles North of me so I would think they made it through fine. We have lots and lots of wind damage. Trees, signs, awnings, traffic lights. all blown over. Some areas of town have no power, but I do. Cellular is spotty also. Most of the major roads are passable - full of tree trash. Two trees down on my street. Today's music will be Chainsaw Symphony.

Eons ago, I road raced British cars with SU's and learned a lot about tuning them for performance. Hitachi's are just the same and I would say if you wanted to play carburetor tuner, the Hitachi's would be fun and simple. Read some SU tuning books. You can get a lot out of a set of Hitachi's.

Lost power Wednesday afternoon. Came back on late last night. Still no Spectrum yet. Verizon just came back up this morning. My house is fine. Lost a fence and part of the aluminum roofing on the back of the shop itself. Overall not bad. Could have been a lot worse. Hope everyone is ok.

Put me into the "I want a dimmer" crowd too. I run my dash lights just bright enough that I can see them when I drive. I want the gauges to be visible if I need them, but not the main area of focus. LOL... In other words, I need my 50 year old headlights to be brighter than my new LED dash bulbs.

Easy answer, if the LEDs are that bright I may want to dim them down a little bit so as to not be too blinding while driving at night. Just wanted to make sure I have the option should I feel I need it.

They look pretty cool going around the Daytona race track at 200 MPH though.

Keep the SU’s…..this video of Eiji (triples) vs me with SU’s. Both are stroker motors, but Eiji with more motor, but still competitive. I love ny SU’s. IMG_2617.MOV

I'm about an hour north of Orlando. We dodged a major bullet for sure as we were in the projected path up until it decided to turn in at Ft Meyers. Hopefully everyone south of us made it through ok. Derek

That is a Dodge Charger Daytona. It came that way from the factory. Chrysler also produced the Plymouth Superbird. The cars were manufactured for homolgation so NASCAR teams could run the body style in NASCAR’s top level Cup series. Those cars sell for huge money these days.

Right you are: a '77 280Z that until this year, was still running, after 200k mi., on the original distributor (with orig. pick-up coil) without incident. But all good things must come to an end, and for the p-u coil, this resulted in ignition spasms that increased in occurence and duration of undrivable operation, until there was only a good idle with hellacious mis-firing (with much shake, rattle, and roll) at any revs above that. Like you, I never suspected the p-u coil's fault and spent much time and money looking for the source of the ugly behavior. When it came down to "I've tried everything else", I bought the first replacement coil, the installation of which resulted in the very same behavior, so I kept looking elsewhere. Three months later, I was back to "I've tried everything else" again, and I bought another replacement, thinking the crappy condition of the first upon receipt may have been more meaningful than I thought. Sadly, the second would not produce any spark at all. DOA. Mind you, all three passed the only test specified in the FSM, the check of resistance of the coil. In between the two, I had purchased a "rebuilt" distributor body, as a despirate extension of my earlier "throw fresher parts at the problem" that resulted in a replacement ECU and ICM (among other parts), all to no avail. It was this distributor body that brought the p-u coil that looked to be out of some other application, along with some other oddities. Finally, having little hair left to pull out in frustration after the utter failure of the second "new" p-u coil, I threw that puppy (the "rebuilt" distributor... (30Sep. edit)) in for lack of any other approaches to the problem. Lo and Behold, the engine got sweet once again! I was astounded. I moved the p-u coil to my own already rebuilt distributor (with its fresh cage and new bearing balls), and the engine is running fine once again. There is a larger moral to this tale of woe; as a result of the violent behavior during the first p-u coil's recurring spasms of slow failure, the crank nose drive gears began to shear their keys and spun the distributor/oil pump drive gear press-fit on the spindle shaft. Fortunately, we're only talking a few degrees, and with the deployment of a new spindle shaft, I have been able to dial in a usable ignition timing for the time being; tho I know that when time and opportunity permits, I will have to address the crank drive gears in a more meaningful manner. Thus, I urge you, Gentle Readers, to never take misfires lightly.

Have you tried connecting the electricals with the sensor removed? It's not clear that the switch itself isn't stuck. There's not much to it. The rod has a section cut out with a ramp. The ramp pushes the switch contact point closed when the rod moves. If the switch is good the only other reasonable possibility is that the rod is moving inside the fork. That would not be good.

I've owned my '71 240Z (12/70 build, HLS30 16896) for about 15 years, but it has mostly been in storage. I'm starting the process to get it on the road as a safe driver so I can attend a few meets, etc.. I finally took the time to read through the bag of paperwork that came with my car and along with the original owners manual I discovered that my car was purchased in March of '71 at Morris Motors (changed to Morris Nissan and now known as Charleston Nissan) in Charleston, SC, by A US Naval Academy graduate who became a nuclear submarine captain and he had the Z shipped with him as his command changed. It was shipped to Scotland and Hawaii and finally, to Washington State where he was the Commanding Officer at the Bangor submarine base. As far as I can tell, he (or his widow) sold the car to an artist who lived in a small, central Washington community and then it was sold again to a couple here in Bellingham, WA who I ended up buying it from. I found it interesting that my car has travelled around the world and thought I'd start a thread for others who may be fortunate enough to know the history of their cars and may also have an interesting, unique story of the history of their cars.

Aha! I think I have it! The location of that switch hole tells me that’s a 4 speed bell housing, assuming the right of the picture is toward the engine (front). I see the ramp and flat spot on the rod in the first video, and they are forward of the hole. If the hole were ahead 1.25 I think, it would be in the right spot. Now as to why that trans has a four speed bell housing, this is normally done when the five speed came from a later Datsun truck/car with the engine vertical, so the bell housing clocking is wrong, so you have to get a Z bell housing and what do you have on hand but a 4 speed…. Didn’t I just do a thread on how I modify that shift rod to move the ramp in line with the 4 speed hole? Just grind down the rod and make a new ramp further back in line with the rev switch. Simple, right….

Looks like the correct hole. The switch button would sit right next to the ramp edge. Just a tiny movement moves the button. Before you start filing away at the button you could just thread the switch in to the hole partially. You could use a meter to see when the contacts close then back it off a thread. Then put the transmission in reverse and see if it works correctly. If it does then a washer or some filing should get you there. This is what you should see in the hole when it's in reverse and not.

Might be down to a switch with the “right” plunger length and the point at which switch turns “on” as you depress the switch. Take one of your functioning switches and start filing off a bit of the tip so it’s shorter. Keep removing a bit at a time until it works?

Is it possible the switch is screwed in too far? My first thought is wrapping the threads in PTFE tape to encourage sealing and prevent the switch from screwing in quite as deep.

Also, when you drive the car daily.. those cars with the tripple webers are a pita when cold they always seem to run very bad .. Lots of fuel is needed to keep them running.. I also took a look at a set of webers, dell orto's or better (More original) micuni's but they make not a lot of power extra and are expensive. A extra is those SU's ( THEY ARE HITACHI"S !!!!! DAMN IT!! Not gonna say this AGAIN! 🤬 oeps...sorry...) Are SO EASY to balance and tune! 👍

Those are both really strong numbers for a 300ZX!

We are expected to get a good bit of rain and possibly some relatively high winds but shouldn't be too bad. I'll know more Saturday or Sunday

Not sure how interesting it is, but one of my old Z's was a '72 that I had to sell back in 2003 when I was moving. The new owner had it a few years and put a lot of money into it before he was forced by his wife to sell it. The next buyer got a job transfer to France and he took the Z with him to Paris. I lost track of him a while back, but it was cool to see my old Z with European plates in his yard. @Lazeum was a member here, but I'm not sure if he still has the car or is active on this site.

yes, the dimmer does work

Don't know how interesting this is, but I got my 280Z back in 2013, car had 337k miles on it, the story was the original owner was an air force pilot who drove the car constantly from California to Florida. 1975 280Z California model. Currently has 352k on the clock.

Have you seen this new release from Nissan? https://global.nissannews.com/en/pages/all-news-archive Lots of Nissan News publications dating back to 1963. Some cool stuff in there. Here are some samples......

Take a look at the headlines during Years 1963 - 1970. Those were heady times for Nissan and the Japanese auto industry. New models introduced. New assembly plants started around the world. New car transporter ships being launched and new harbour facilities built to service them. New headquarters building constructed. Motorsports entries and victories. New sales records set.

Thanks, now I feel OK with keeping the SUs and not dropping another $750 into the engine.

I had the dual Webers on my 240Z when I first bought it. Andy Craig suggested I convert to SUs when I went to him to rebuild the engine 27 years ago. I agreed and never looked back. I think I sold the Webers about 18 years ago. When you consider a member over at Zcar.com got a Z into the 12 second range on SUs (https://www.zcar.com/members/norm-the-12-sec-dual-su-dude.1912/), I don't think the SUs are holding you back too much if they are in good shape and balanced properly.

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.

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.

My ZX was bought at University Datsun in Seattle by a man who at least went to one Blizzard of Oz concert judging by the tickets found under one of the seats. He divorced his wife in 2003, she ended up with the car, commuted to her work at a local grocery store until the rear wheel bearings made too much racket. She then parked it in a garage, over time piling boxes and old VHS tapes on it. I found it when I worked for an appliance installation company when we replaced her garage freezer. She sold it to me for $200. I drove it home that day. It wasn't happy about it.