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Ewwwww. That all sounds messy. Hope anyone who was innocently caught up in that comes out OK. And I hope anyone not innocent is held accountable.

Well it's been over a year since my last post. During this time we did a major reno on our house so the car project was on the back burner, all good. I just had a chat with my body guy and looks like he will be able to get me scheduled in the fall so I'm looking forward to that. In the meantime I started sorting thru some old pictures and slides that I am scanning to do a photo timeline of my history with the car since 1978. Hard for me to believe that it has been 45 years. Here is a preview of some early pictures (scans of slides). July, 1978 as it was when I purchased it well used. Lol A few slalom pics, early eighties. Sears parking lot, before Sunday shopping was a thing. Lol Same slalom event, there was a good selection of cars, Here's one from 1984? shortly after I finished the first restoration. If you look close there are two of my 510's in the background.

My '72 had that J shaped heat riser coming off the exhaust manifold to the filter box. I put a msa header on and deleted the heat riser. It didn't actually connect to an exhaust manifold "hole" just rode of the manifold heat. I asked the forum what to with the air filter box opening and was advised to to leave it open as rodents storing nuts wouldn't be able to. They couldn't get over the hole to my carbs. Unless you're going to a car show I would leave the bottom hole open on the filter and Summer flap open. As stated above our carbs don't need any more heat than necessary. My carbs with the ceramic coated header are close to frosting in the winter and cool to the touch in summer.

Here is my attempt at restoring the radio faceplate on my 1977 datsun 280z. I used this same process for the climate control bezel. Not perfect, but better than before. Items Needed: SEM 39863: Plastic Adhesion Promoter SEM 38353: Plastic Prep SEM 15013: Landau Black- Color Coat 3M Scuff Pad Chrome Paint Marker https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B212M89Z?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details you can probably use any marker of this type, this one was just cheap and worked pretty well. Starting Peice. Chrome had faded, been scuffed off in areas. The sun had also caused fading in the black plastic and blotching as well. To Start I first washed the peice in the sink with dawn and scrubbed it. I then went at it with the 3M scuff pad and removed all the chrome, as well as roughed up the surface in preparation for SEM. I then washed it again. Next, I hung it outside and used the SEM plastic prep to clean it, and wiped it down again. After that just follow the directions for the SEM adhesion promoter, then I did about 3 coats of the Landau black with about 6mn in between each. Came out smooth and consistent. I then waiting a day for it to dry and came back at it with the chrome marker. Just spend your time going over the lines and it will turn out decent. The ink comes out a little fast though, so be careful to not hold it in one place too long. FInished Result I didn't clear coat the whole thing as it didn't occur to me until now. Would be nice to hopefully make the chrome paint a bit more durable for when you detail the car. Unfortunately the color coat is long past it's dry time so I am not sure if clear coat is an option now. If anyone has experience on this let me know.

I hear you, that's why I had such a hard time believing it was detonation but I went back through some of my pics of other engines that had a foreign object bouncing around and there is always a recognizable shape of the object imprinted repeatedly. Also, in this case the top edge of the craters is raised above the surface like an explosion whereas a nut or screw just makes an indentation with a very little edge. A heavy wire wheel is a great thing but I try to do passive cleaning as much as I can these days, you end up with less crap in the air. Now I stand the valves up in a bucket with enough industrial cleaner ( Lye - Sodium Hydroxide) to cover the deposits and leave them over night, the next day you can wipe most of it off with an old rag.

I had a college professor that had a Europa. It's an absolutely tiny and low car! I'm quite confident I wouldn't fit. Although that's probably true of most Lotuses 😁

The pics remind me of the cars all over Portland back in the seventies. Good memories.

I'm not sure I would trust loctite there, even the red stuff. If that nut comes loose, you could lose a wheel. Highly unlikely, but just not sure I would trust a loctite bond and ONLY a loctite bond. So I've done rear wheel bearings a couple times and I've switched over to the newer style of deformed thread nuts they used on the 280ZX cars. I'm not sure how the thickness of the newer ones compares to the older ones, but if it's thin enough and the deformed threads are down far enough, they could be a simple solution. The newer nut looks like this. Photo credit @ Blue:

A PO must have installed the early radio and face plate, have a look on ebay what those early radio & faceplates are going for, you could install an entire sound system for what they are worth.

This is the point of polishing it.

Interesting drama on BAT. Arizona retitling. https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1977-datsun-280z-98/#comments-anchor

@Zed Head, you are absolutely right, good call. I always thought detonation also need a relatively high compression ratio in addition to a lean condition, lesson learned. A friend just sent me some pics of his RB26 head and it is pretty convincing. Now I have to remove the peaks and try to smooth it out.

Windshield glass shouldn't be difficult to find. The question is, if you were paying someone to install it, and they broke it, why are you looking? It should fall on them to find another, at their expense.

Correct, the high/low beam switch on the turn signal stalk.

It's from the factory. If you crimp it properly, it can last for over 50 years. 😉

If the supplier doesn't know then they'll just keep disappointing customers. One of those weird ironies where exposing flaws helps the company. You've already said, in essence, that the Silvermine product(s) (undefined) has/have problems. Sorry, it's just the logic of the situation. Not sure that "on notice" is the correct term here. You might find that it really was you, not them. But, without the story it looks like them.