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Nice car and lots of stuff to talk about, but I'll start with a quickie... If you drill a hole in the bumper shocks and drain the oil out, they should compress. But if you try to compress them with the (hard) rubber bumper accordion ends in place, you'll be trying to smash them down as well. Won't go easy or pretty. If you're going to push the bumper in, you need to remove the rubber ends first. And then you need to figure out something to cap the ends instead.

That's really cool. It's maybe a bit off-topc. but i got a few original Datsun UK Colour sample booklets, from various years, and the colour combinations (interieur / exterieur) that were sold in the UK. If you're interested, you can find them all here (for later cars i even have interieur fabric samples) as photos, but also high-resolution Pdf scans. https://www.jdmjunkies.ch/wordpress/2023-01-11/240z-various-datsun-z-zx-color-charts-brochures/ And some different versions (including 240Z) can be found here: https://www.jdmjunkies.ch/wordpress/2021-05-30/240z-datsun-colour-code-brochure/

This week I met two very important people for us. Mr.Miyazaki, a former member of vehicle test group for Europe and also did aero dynamics analysis for S30. And Mr. Uemura, a former member of Kaku - U team (test drive in US & Canada) and also he designed general layout of S30 chassis and suspension components. The picture is Mr. Miyazaki, he told me a lot of new things which we have never heard of before. One of them is, each our S30 can be tracked down by chassis number to see when it was made. Not only that, it can be tracked down by chassis number to see it was made in daylight time zone or midnight time zone. This story is like this, Mr.Miyazaki said to me, “ one day I visited Nissan Shatai around 2:00 a.m. midnight to see how workers were doing at the assembly line. Nissan got complaints from customers about insufficient looking of rear deck vinyl trim. It was not only a single complaint, one after another. AND ALL OF THEM WERE CARS MADE AT MIDNIGHT. I was surprised, a quite young girl was working and crawling and sitting in a rear deck to sticking the vinyl trims. She was an only worker who did the job at the assembly line. I felt sorry for her, I couldn’t say harsh words to her”. Then I asked Mr.Miyazaki how did you know it was happened at midnight, Mr.Miyazaki said “Nissan Shatai has the data, each car can be tracked down by the chassis number. In this case, interior trim section had three or four time zone, each time zone they recorded chassis number they worked” Can we see when our cars were served at the assembly line? Mr.Miyazaki said “they might still have the record, I think” I hope it too! Kats

Hello all! You may remember me from a few years back, I was mostly just lurking though. I finally got my S30! It's a 1978 280z, with a 5 speed, 69k miles, factory AC (still running R12!), dealer addon cruise control and bumper overriders. It's just about 100% stock, except for the louvers on the back. Here, let's see some more pics! As you can see, there's some damage on the air dam. It happened the day after I picked her up, a tire carcass suddenly appeared from under the car in front of me and I couldn't react in time. I think I was following too close... I was gonna get rid of the bumpers anyway, but IDK what to do that doesn't involve a whole lot of work on the back (more on that later). You may also notice a few dings all over the body. I don't mind them too much, it just means I can drive her without worrying about messing up perfect paint.

Great news they kept those records @kats Would be great to see the manufacturing process notes detailing how the 240Z was built and how long it took for each step. Hopefully they can give you access to the records and document the build for a 240Z. Always interesting to see the original overspray on parts of the car and work out how they put it together in sequence. I wonder if they kept any original photos with the build records.

Usually the exhaust system mounting plate is thin and doesn't seal when you use headers. The intake manifold should seal. You didn't really say if the intake was sealed with the new gasket or not. EuroDat mentioned the electronics and running lean. That problem is common. Might be worth trying the fuel tweak on the coolant temperature sensor circuit if there are no obvious intake system leaks. It's easy and it works. Make sure you fix that AFM though. http://www.atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/tempsensorpot/index.html

Nice car, someone took care of it, that original under coating is infamous for for hiding rust underneath it. The only way to be sure is scrape it off with a putty knife, great job for the winter. "Horsepower sweating" I like that. New seat covers are fairly cheap and is a DIY job, the engine bay looks very original right down to the air snorkel. Those 5 mile and hr bumper shocks are probably seized but you might get them moving by backing the car up to a big tree or building and compress them in reverse, use a 2x4" to spread the contact area. You might want to start replacing the the old rubber bushings with fresh rubber, it will really improve the feel and only use poly bushings on the steering rack. Unless you are planning on doing fast road or tracking the car you may find poly bushings in the other locations as pretty bone jarring. BTDT What are your plans for the car?

I have it bookmarked.

Hi sboy. Welcome to the club. Checking vacuum leaks, you could try what was called the yogurt cup test. The original thread "Purs like a kitten" is unfortunately long gone, but this one describes the procedure well enough. You basically block the afm and blow very low pressure air into the manifold and spraying soapy water on all the suspected areas. If it is tight and doesn't leak, you can move on. Zed head is right with the AFM. It's an hands off device, it's not tunable. In fact these old efi systems are not very turnable en this JECS variant of the Bosch L-jetronic does have some known issues with leaning out over time. Vacuum leaks and things like the AAR leaking air past the throttle body are your most likely issues. Mine 77 280Z was sucking air through the dip stick when I first got it. Changed hoses and even the injector seals before I found it with a simple yogurt cup test and soapy water.

Thanks a lot for sharing this information again. 1) I'm currently working on a bigger story about the development of the "Final Euro Spec" cars where Mr. Miyazaki was involved. but it's hard to find a lot of information about it, especially from serious sources. 2) It would be lovely to find the exact records of ones car's production. Like how did the specify the trim / marked specific details for the production workers, etc. and especialyl which day (and even what time of the day!) the car was completed in each production step. It's a bit sad that Nissan doesn't share a lot of records with the public in the matters of old cars. When you think about Porsche, Mercedes, etc. they all have specialized "classic cars" departments, that help the vintage cars customers to find all this data and details about your car. I even think about it as a paid service. Want to get some details about your car? You spend for the time they research, but then get officially approved information from the factory. I'm not sure but i don't think such a service exists, and i have tried to reach out to nissan via various channels to get data about my cars confirmed. but didn't even get an answer.

Interior is in great shape (Certified Great Shape® by Capital Z of Texas club members). There's a tear on the driver seat, and the dash is cracked. My first drive home! Did I mention Z branded floormats? (It's a little dirty ) Engine bay is pristine!

So.... I got some work done on the rear suspension & CV conversion. First, I started to assemble the rear struts only to find the spring was waaayy to short - then I figured out I put the rears on the front - I'm used to cars where the front spring is typ[ically longer than the rear, and I just assembled it that way. SO, I had to remove both front struts, remove the .002 springs & put the .001's on instead, then assemble the rears with the 002's. The fronts (Eibachs) are so short that the upper seat is loose at full drop. Didn't get many pics today, it was so f'ing hot I was dripping all over everything. Only got the right side in. Checked the right axle & stub against the 300ZX T right axle (#NI8442), overall the later axle is longer when fully extended. With it installed (with outer CV now at it's inner end of travel), I had about 1/8 - 3/16" slack between the flange & CV, so no bind will occur. I was going to change the axle seals in the diff, but the ones I got off RockAuto are the wrong dimensions - with the axle inner stub out, I got the numbers off the seal R15 35 55 11 The seal I have is clearly too small (when measured). I went back with the dimensions I now have off the seal & figured out the National 711070 matches the 35/55/11mm dimensions. I have no obvious leaks from the seals, but I really wanted to do them now. The way these axles are installed with studs on the flanges, the hub spindle bolt has to be removed to get the axle out right axle in the diff, located in the outer flange clearance at full drop clearance at normal ride height - not very scientific, and it's unclear form the pics, however there is much more play as the axle lifts getting the clevis pin back in was fun - I had to double-nut the spindle & work it back & forth on it's axis to get the pin to drop, then I also had to knock the spindle fore/aft to get it to fully seat in the housing

I spent a few hrs today getting all the measuring done, as you can see it's pretty consistent as you would expect from a freshly rebuild engine, the piston to bore clearance is suppose to be between .0010 and .0018", my clearance is working out to be about .0020 so I'm good with that. I noticed that all the scuffing on the sides of the piston and cylinder wall are on the carb side of the engine so that's making me think the gasoline flooding is what washed the lubrication away and caused the scuffing

It wasn't too much of a disaster, Mori san was happy to supply a single piston (and the bore cleaned up ok with the flexi hone).

So gang mine arrived today via Amazon - happy to report the Innovate one seems to be genuine!

Took care of the clutch slave hose & fork boot today New boot in place line attached, slave attached bled by putting bleeder line into fluid, then make sure reservoir is full & just stroke the pedal about 10 times, done

Bad weather last 3 weeks, battery was flat. Time to start today and drive some.. Saw the return hose dripping, replaced all the rubber fuel lines and oem filter. I did have some fuel smell in the cabin with the windows down, thats gone now, so it was that. 😴

To follow up on this, here's the above-pictured cooler as it survives today. 50 year gap between photos:

Now this isn't anywhere near a proper port n polish but I thought I would smooth out the combustion chamber since the seats are coming out anyway, opened up the exhaust runners a bit so at least the ports match better. Still have to grind down the fresh air pipes in the manifold. Also clearenced the cylinder walls for the new intake valves. This car surprises me again and again how pristine most of the parts are, once you get the crud and minor rust off.

Thanks, yes I will take 6 of your exhaust valves and the same of intake valves if you have them. I'm trying to send you a PM with my address but it doesn't seem to working, did that function change while I wasn't looking? Those detonation marks have lots of room from the fire ring. Just a few shots of the block assembly, 3rd pic down is the #6 piston going back in, next to it is the knuckle cutter, also know as a ring compressor. I hated throwing all the duplicated SU parts in to the plating bucket but I had to or it would cost twice as much, here's my map to sort them out afterwards. Plating is going in on Monday.

I have been looking for original color for my blue 240Z, color “Universal Blue 903”. I finally got to know the manufacturer DAI NIPPON TORYO (DNT) and they made a sample for me for free of charge. We know Nissan used TANABE KAGAKU for the metallic paint, and there are mixing ratio of colors, this information can be seen only in Fairlady Z service manual. I have never came up to see those instructions in any other manuals. That means there is no information for Universal Blue 903 because it wasn’t available for Fairlady Z series. And seemed no Nissan domestic cars were sold in blue 903.(maybe I might be wrong). But I tried to ask a local paint shop which is very helpful for me and they found TANABE KAGAKU was merged into DNT. DNT replied they still have data of Nissan metallic 903 and 901 which they were originally provided by TANABE KAGAKU. Unfortunately, today’s paint isn’t the same like 1969 acrylic enamel paint. But I am happy that I think the paint has DNA of original 903/901. Please see the samples, I think it looks little bit lighter than my original 903 around the spare tire area, I have to decide to go with 903 or put a little bit arrange with this 903. Also, I really love 901 silver. I realized that my Z432 has much brighter silver, so back to 901 will be on my to-do list too. Kats