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Changed all the dash bulbs using this kit from Z Car Depot. I prefer a dash that's not so bright, where I don't need to wear sunglasses at night 😎. So, used old school incandescent bulbs. Bench tested all gauge lights to make sure they all work and have good grounds. I'm ready to put this dash back in the car.

My first Z was 114 brown with a butterscotch interior, sporting a half vinyl roof in black. IIRC...it was a faux alligator skin texture.

I kinda like it. Hard to tell from just that one angle, though. Also, FB Marketplace doesn't have an option for a 240z listing, so a lot of people list it under 240SX.

I like the door trim turn up at the rear tire. That's what got that alligator.

Not in a good way.

Here is my recent post on this topic, all new braided cover fuel hoses and valve cover breather hose - all from Belmetric. And yes... twin wire hose clamps were used for all the fuel lines. Agree, the very small ones are hard to find.

Hi Chris, I checked my collection. Fairlady Z parts catalogs never listed the vinyl top. But there was a letter for all the dealerships nationwide which indicates the vinyl top . You can see the date was January 21st 1970 . Datsun 240Z sports for US & CANADA , March 1970 parts catalog introduced the vinyl top that was for the first time shown in the parts catalog. Personally, I like it. But maybe for the second or third car , not for my best beloved car. Kats

I got most everything back from powdercoating and started assembling the struts. New bearings, seals, KYB inserts and brake hardware. I ran into two issues. 1. Powdercoater must have dropped one rear strut and dinged the threads for the stut gland nut. Should have left the old gland nuts in the struts. I played with it for a while and a friend was over that was headed to a machine shop to get something done, so I handed it to him to drop off. I hope it can be chased, because I have a lot of time in the rear bearings! 2. On one front strut the caliper was barely scrapping the rotor on the outer edge. I thought that I didnt seat a bearing race completely, so I tore all back apart and races were fine. I tried another caliper, and it is the same, so I am thinking the rotor (Centric) is a little too thick. I noticed the other rotor appears out of round. I may have them turned or try a different brand. It just barely scrapes. Both rotors measure very close to the same dimensions. Weird. I also hooked up with 240 rubber and got some goodies in the mail today. Glad it worked out as his stuff looks nice and only took a couple of weeks once we got the order settled. I saw on BAT where a very nicely restored 73 240 sold for $88,888, so that justifies a few orders for me 🙂.

I decided to create a new topic to continue the discussion regarding factory undercoating and whether primer / paint was used or not. I understand and it makes sense that the factory may have done different things over the years with regard to undercoating so all I can really present and comment on is my 5/72 240z. I would really like to see what @Carl Beck, @26th-Z, @bluezand others think about what I am seeing with my car, relative to what has been written and thought about the topic over the years. My car is a 5/72 240z. It has original 918 orange paint that is in excellent condition. The car shows approximately 24k miles and in every way that I can think of reflects that number. I am refreshing the car but am preserving the original exterior paint and pristine original interior. The car was stored for decades after having a blown head gasket. This probably saved the car and preserved it. I am refreshing everything else- engine, everything under the unibody, rubber, etc. I have refinished the engine bay and front unibody that the fenders, hood, valence, etc mount to. I am currently refinishing the floors and underbody behind the floors. My car has what I believe to be factory tar undercoating top coated with 918 orange (though thinly top coated). It is what 26th-Z describes as a "thicker textured paint finish". In my opinion this is a typical tar undercoating with lots of texture, top coated with the same paint used on the exterior- in my case 918 orange. My eyes and experience with stripping the undercoating tell me that what is beneath the tar undercoating is nothing but galvanized metal. I can remove the galvanization mechanically or with acid. This coating, to me, doesn't behave like a primer or paint and doesn't look like it either to my eye. It won't come off with aircraft paint remover. It only comes off with a wire wheel or acid. Here are some photos that I hope show what I am seeing. This is the floor before stripping. I used a heat gun and a putty knife to remove the "painted tar undercoating". The photo below shows what the painted undercoating looks like when removed. The painted side is painted. The tar undercoating portion is what I know tar undercoating to be. And, there is no primer or paint on the underside of the tar undercoating (the black side). It is just black tar undercoating. The photo below, to me, raises the most questions. To my eye, the left side shows what I now see all over my floors and tunnel- a mixture of bare metal and galvanized metal. Clearly the transmission brace is bare metal. The tunnel surrounding, to me, shows a galvanized / electroplated sort of coating. To me, this doesn't look like and it doesn't behave like a primer. Aircraft paint remover does nothing to it. The only way to remove it and make it look like the transmission braces is to either wire wheel it or treat it with acid. Am I seeing this wrong? Is it really some milky looking super thin primer? The right side shows the painted undercoating. What I see where the undercoating ends and metal begins is painted tar undercoating where my tool has, at the edges, scraped away some of the paint leaving only black tar undercoating. So, I am interested in what Carl, 26tth-z, bluez, and others think. Please let me know if I am wrong about what I am seeing. I truly want to know, and I want others to know, how at least the 1972 (or maybe just the 5/72) cars were delivered. I also have a 10/71 1972 240z in Silver. It is not at all close to the condition of this car....but have seen the same where I have removed some painted undercoating in the past.....though all of it has now been refinished to preserve the metal. Thanks all. J

Here's a link to the ones I've been using for many years. They last outside in Texas a couple years, though they do have the 5 year warranty and will replace it so for the price you could get two if the first one does not last at least 5 years (as is the case for me). These fit pretty good and other than just not standing up to the Texas sun for more than a couple years I've had not issues with them. https://www.ebay.com/itm/324313657809?var=513384273040&hash=item4b8299b1d1:g:8TUAAOSw4hlbdHqf&amdata=enc%3AAQAHAAABAEc7YsKl%2FB4AHtIrP1FVTpSgZfIl7wNL7Slf%2BT0PgqvqgtH%2FdzVocttkdW1R2arJt6Bd8fza7ZVReZravGawoDpdm7cLnpB41%2BQPPirwrqeBslIOyV%2BPX0GeZazgK%2Fdt6gFZdMp6iFBm%2F4DdwWEsWsQN5wKZM7qZl0vMJGN3VyH635hE%2BALenRx0xJnzcX4evi8On7ht6d0jBSS6m6EpczGlr1hs%2FBxP3srsgAtUg1UW%2FY0anPf3mB7%2B0kY2xL6hdmrTL6xWFGzNAE%2FgXX1Hgwlse44wcBogw3Xi%2B%2Bzxp77bzReqBQc8tasWROLKGJ1R0w8B5c0TgoCXdsMgcu7tscs%3D|tkp%3ABk9SR_rjlt71YA

Take your pick of anywhere from WalMart to to your local auto parts store. Google is your friend in doing an on-line search for a wide selection of car covers. The brand I sold was Covercraft. They've been around for decades and make a good product. Have fun shopping and picking the one that works best for you!

Too bad about the sunroof.

Here's an interesting 1970 for sale in Canada. Interesting hood...... https://www.facebook.com/commerce/listing/1310944736381977/?media_id=0&ref=share_attachment

A garage. I parked my 280 outside for a few monthes with a cheap cover then a tarp then another cover. 3 huge bungee cords, front middle and rear. The bottom was still open to moisture so my rotors got flash rust and without covering the bottom with a tarp you can spend all you have on a cover but still not any good. Those air filled bouncy house looking garsges are what I'll do next if I have to but other than that a monthly storage building is best. They have temp controlled ones that would not have any moisture/humidity but there aren't cheap. Find a real estae agent with an empty house with a garage and pay them. Those real estate folks will do anything for money.

There’s a good source for braided hoses, BelMetric in Ma. All different sizes. https://belmetric.com/m5x10-braided-flennor-multifuel-hose-rhm5braid/

When I had a vacation in Hawaii, I saw a blue car with white vinyl top in a wreck yard. That was almost 20 years ago. I believe many of you remember this 240ZG , this car is my favorite, super rare example. Maybe the original owner was a rich man, ZG with a factory A/C , Automatic transmission, and the vinyl top. The total payment was absolutely more than the price of Z432. Kats

986 used the early-style mud flap system. I received a set of period-correct mud flaps with the car in 2014, but no mounting hardware. So I set about scouring period photos for some details on how they were assembled. The setup I went with was my best guess, given the information at hand. Thankfully, the job was made easier by the simple fact that the mounting holes were clearly visible, making locating the flaps a breeze. I chose 5/8" galvanized strap material for my outer brackets. This strap appeared to be roughly the right thickness - it was wide enough to drill a 7mm hole through, which was a ballpark guess as to the approximate size of hardware used. For the inner bracket, I chose a 1/8" thick steel bracket from Ace Hardware, which I bent into shape, making sure to leave the "Ace" stamp outward, for all to see! These materials were clearly not original, as I'd expect the real brackets to be made out of metric stock, but it served it's purpose for showing the car with the mud flaps in their approximate positions. I'll likely go over the choice of materials again during restoration, as I think I made the rear outer "spring-strap" slightly too short, giving it a "too straight" appearance. Also note that the right-side photo appears to have an extra hole by the bumper mount - my early assessment is that this is potentially just a random bumper mounting hole (or otherwise a hole used for other purposes, given it's size relative to the other bracket holes), as there is no corresponding hole on the left side. So I did not use it to mount the outer bracket. Instead, I hung the outer brackets by drilling a larger diameter hole in the strap, and affixed it between the bumper and body using the existing bumper bolt. I'm not yet 100% certain that this is the correct method, but it was close enough to make the flaps hang properly, so I went with it for the time being.

Me too. It's my favorite house plant.

It is a sweet, pungent scent. The first time I encountered it I was barely 12 years old. I still like the fragrance of it.

"De onderste steen boven halen" is that saying in dutch.. translation would be: Get the bottom stone out! I can't think of a difficult to understand (translated) saying on the spot now.. Thanks! CO for the explanation!

Just an FYI, in case you didn’t see them in the Datsun Showroom at the time: That image and another was printed on one half of a Showroom Poster - each image was about 3w’x2h’. So the total size of the Poster was about 3’ wide by 4’ high. The images were printed head to head, or top to top. The Poster was then folded in half - and hung over a support wire that ran wall to wall across the center of the showroom. There were two or maybe three different Posters - that featured the EAS Rally 240Z’s and the Monte Carlo 240Z's.

You might be disagreeing about two different situations/cases. In Mr. Uemura’s book he tells us why the Datsun 240Z’s were not undercoated at the factory as regular production began, and that the Dealers were advised to undercoat the 240Z's on Delivery. https://www.lulu.com/search?adult_audience_rating=00&page=1&pageSize=10&q=Datsun+240Z By the 1972 model year (and perhaps some time before) Nissan was using more galvanized sheet metal in the floors, firewalls and hood bracing. So you have to be specific about which model years you are talking about when it comes to undercoatings/paint etc. Big Difference between 70/71 and 72/73. 72/73's were undercoated at the factory. To get primer/paint to stick to galvanized sheetmetal, the sheetmetal had to neutralized (cleaned/cleared of zinc hydroxide) in order to get the primers to adhere to the metal. Nonetheless over longer periods of time the primers/paint would start to peel off as the galvanized metal continued to oxidize under it. If you see a lot of 72/73 240Z’s that haven’t already been repainted etc - you will usually see the paint peeling off - on the firewall and front hood braces. When the original primer peels off the metal, it takes the paint with it. So you see bare usually grayed bare metal. When you see the factory applied undercoating peel or flake off exposing bare metal - it is because the primer/paint under the undercoating is peeling off the galvanized metal - not because the undercoating was applied directly to the metal.

Some motor porn.