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I haven't seen anyone mention it yet, but another option is the FYG or Fuyao glass. I ordered it from a local glass shop and they had it in a couple of days, probably came in from a regional warehouse. Carried it out the door for about $225. Glass looks nice quality, not wavy and no blue band across the top.

After having saved some of the budget on the crank, I thought I would have a go at the broken exhaust studs, ah a few more dollars saved! Also got some painting done today and added some bling to the engine block.

Made a bracket (from a Volvo dash support) to utilize the stock hanger point at the front end of the muffler reinforced to make sure it can't flex. The lip at the top tucks over the frame bracket muffler hanger attachment in place. Drilled an inboard hole in the stock welded bracket to positively locate the new bracket. With that figured out, I tack welded the hanger to the muffler Removed & finished the seam welds for the muffler inlet & tailpipe section. Just have to weld on the Redtail exhaust tip when it gets here.

I didn't recognize the hot nut at the time. thought maybe you'd sprung for a Malibu Barbie Easy Out.

I received this in early 2020. Here is a pic of the markings. There might be a date code in there.

At the pace I work!? I think you'll be fine... 😉

I really don't like dropping off a crankshaft to be polished, very few machinists do it in house anymore so they job it out to a 3rd party that doesn't deal with the public. Once they have it, it can sit on their floor for months before they get to it. So I thought I would have a go at it myself, I started with 1500 wet/dry paper, lots of WD40 and an old shoelace. Spent about 2 min per journal, then cleaned it off and made a long strip of an old T shirt and some Autosol polish, about 1 min per and I'm done.

I remove and install windshields exactly as you describe except now I use 3mm string trimmer (weed wacker) filament line instead of cord, I would never go back. The filament slides over the lip and rubber seal very easily with hardly any resistance which is especially good rounding the corners.

The second pic down I've welded a blob on top of the broken stud, 3rd pic I rest a nut on top of the blob and weld those together, quench it with WD40 and unscrew it. Most of the work is done by the heat.

Pretty good price for a 73. Minor modifications. $39,250. https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1973-datsun-240z-208/

You work in Arizona where it never gets cold. Did you or your son ever break a windshield? You said you replaced dozens but didn't say that you never broke one. My first experience removing a windshield was in a wrecking yard. The owner was gone and his wife told me and my friend that we should wait but I told her that we could do it. It was about 35 F. A small tendril of adhesive was still attached (GM used a rope of sticky tar-like adhesive for windshield installs. Nasty stuff) as we tried to lift it out and it cracked. We left, I didn't pay for it (cause I was a punk kid), and the owner started calling me "Easy Money" after that. In the long run I paid him back by giving him a 66 GTO (the same one that I was getting the windshield for) after I wrecked it, and his son a 55 Chevy pickup truck after the axle bearing went bad. The statement was, basically, that old windshields, especially those with chips, are more prone to cracking than new ones. Just because you guys were careful enough to get it done doesn't mean the statement is not true. Anybody who's watched a chip grow in to a crack and spread across the windshield should know. Tell some stories about how to get it done. Heating the adhesive helps, a warm day helps, make sure that every scrap of adhesive is cut free (a PO might have tried to seal a windshield leak in the past). Stuff like that. Interesting though that by the statement it broke during installation. So the BS calling ia about the wrong part as are my suggestions above.

Looks unavailable on the Amazon UK. I did find it online for about $300 USD

Agree 100% We have pulled (and re-installed) DOZENS of windshields. They're not glued in. The glass can be removed safely EVEN IF the gasket is hard. (And believe me, in the desert South West the rubber is always baked to a crisp!). One can cut the exterior of the gasket, remove the trim, and cut around the glass without chipping the glass in any way. The glass can be lifted out once the exterior of the gasket is removed from it. Then the rest of the gasket in the flange can be removed. With a new gasket, windshield reinstallation should be easier than getting it out. Hell, with a flexible gasket, we've removed the windshield with the gasket in place - and reinstalled it. Patience is the key to joy. Once we had a Z come in with small crack on the upper left tip (only in the top layer of the glass). No replacement windshield, so we had to pull and reinstall it with the crack. EDIT: I have a Pilkington warehouse nearby and with covid they changed their inventory system. So, when I stopped in they couldn't even find Z glass in their computer system or catalog. I spread that word - but - we have a retired glass guy that has provided us with glass for years before he retired. He just looked up the old part number, called the wholesaler and found that they had 4 in stock. They don't anymore... (but I didn't actually get the part number from him - my bad)

No I never did get the SummitRacing ordered windshield I got lucky here, another Datsun guy that specialized in 510's worked out a deal with a US Pilkington rep years ago and was having batches of 10 windshields for Z's and 510 brought up to a local glass shop. He has moved on and I have now taken up that function. I still have about 5 of each in stock for local users. I'm getting really good at doing Z and 510 windshields now. His information was that virtually ALL auto glass is now made in one of two Chinese factories. I have seen differences in thickness, and one windshield was noticeably undersized when I installed it, but that's about it. The factory codes on all the glass show it made in the same specific factory in China. BTW And I have NEVER EVER broken a front or back glass while removing it. I remove the weather stripping face first with a HB olfa blade (flat to the glass) then just tap and push until it comes free. I've had cases where I've thrown old windshields and hatch glass in a dumpster hoping for the big crash and been disappointed as it just landed flat and intact. I'm sure it was laughing at me. I have not been brave enough to attempt a removal of a windshield whose weatherstripping is new and soft enough to flex and remove. I know that is a technique, it just never has come up enough that I had to learn it. Someday.

The polymer adhesive layer probably loses flexibility over time. That could change the forces on the two glass layers. And besides the visible chips the whole surface of the glass is probably etched to a certain degree after years of road debris and acid rain and washings. A vast array of stress risers. As a whole, an old windshield would/should be more prone to cracking than a new one. One more opinion. Did @zKars ever get his windshield? He said he would post back in that other thread.

I call bs. Glass is a very stable material, able to endure millennia provided it is not changed in any way. From Wikipedia: “Generally speaking, emulsions/colloidal systems and glasses are metastable. The metastability of silica glass, for example, is characterized by lifetimes on the order of 1098 years (as compared with the lifetime of the universe, which is thought to be around 13.787 X 109 years).” Ten to the ninetyeighth power is a very long time. Glass will outlive any of the other materials a car is made from. Without any interference from, say vandalism, if a car is left to sit undisurbed, after the metals corrode to dust, the plastics and vinyls decay into crumbs, the glass will still be there, dirty and covered in whatever growth is common to the place it is. So yes, glass may become unstable over time. A very, very long time. There it is. The small chip results in a weak point in the glass structure. If it had not been damaged, the glass would have been fine, given proper care and handling. Even brand new glass will be weakened when nicked or chipped.

Painter's feedback pre removal was that glass gets brittle over time and "We are going to try to remove it, but given the age and a small chip its likely it may break. I will not warranty the glass so its up to you if you want to do it yourself or have us do it." It came out smoothly but didn't go back in as well. He is going to comp the labor for removal and install, but I am covering the materials.

Well, the good news -- maybe -- is that Pilkington (Britain-based, with manufacturing operations in several countries worldwide) has been owned by Nippon Sheet Glass in 2006 and now operates as a NSG subsidiary. Pilkington's website describes their automotive business as follows: " Operating as a single global organization serving the Original Equipment (OE) and Local Automotive Glass Replacement (AGR) Aftermarket sectors... The North American aftermarket operations supply laminated and tempered glass for the automotive glass replacement market. All products meet or exceed Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards. Products are shipped from its distribution centers in Columbus, Ohio and Phoenix, Arizona to external retailers and wholesale customers and its network of company-owned wholesale service centers throughout the US... Windshields, sidelites, backlites, accessories and specialty AGR products are included in the customer offering of Pilkington North America AGR". The British Pilkington website includes 'Pilkington Classics' products and lists hundreds of replacement items for older cars. That list includes both a 240Z windshield and backlight. It looks like they operate on a custom-order basis and no prices are shown. I suspect they wouldn't be interested in filling single-unit orders, but would be amenable to an order for 20+ from someone like MSA.

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.