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What a strange take. I just checked for a snapshot on how many auctions were active TODAY on bringatrailer.com and the number was 698. The lots range from fairly regular, accessible and low value to top-end rare and high value with everything between. Its a veritable microcosm of the automotive world. The demographics of the winning bidders will be pretty much the same demographic as that of the wider automotive world, as will the demographic of the sellers. I don't see anything particularly weird or suspicious about it. "Millionaires who like to burn money frivolously"? These are often the very same people who keep the artisan end of the classic car industry in business. If they are spending money in that sector, I'm happy. "Dealers hoping to make a profit"? And what's wrong with that? Farmers hoping their crops are successful, Doctors hoping to cure their patients. Whatever next? Yes, just like in any market there will occasionally be shenanigans. It's the way of the world. Bringatrailer.com is no better or worse than any other portal in that respect. But a 1971 PS30 Fairlady Z432 selling for a price that's pretty much in line with its market value and location seems to have caused some consternation due to the nature of one hammer-blow bid. I find the reaction to that bid more surprising than the bid itself.

Hello my fellow Z friends. Boy it has been way too long since we have caught up. I was always getting updates on Zs on BAT, those were amusing for a while. However, I had step away from BAT as it was becoming real distraction at work! I still have my 71 Z and my 68 Roadster. We bought a lake house almost 2 years ago, and our time and money have gone into a couple of boats, a 4 wheeler, and furniture. It was awesome to be on the water and enjoying life at a slower pace for a while. I got a promotion at work (well I got a new job, with 4x the work, but unfortunately, not more money). They made the Subsystem Manager for Propulsiton on the Artemis Crew module. It is more responsibility than I have ever had but it is good to be part of putting American Boots on the Moon again! 🙂 Okay Z cars. My poor Z went months without being driven. It had this nagging problem with the Mallory fuel pump I installed. It would just stop working if I did not turn it on once a week. I would have to take the impeller off and un-seize it and put it back together. I even went as far as to buy a new one and replace it thinking some how I wore it out. Low and behold, that was not the case. It stuck again. Each time this would lead to weeks of down time as I could not find time to work on it (as we were at the lake). This long down time had horrible ramifications to the Z. Turns out the pre-filter was shedding something into the impeller. It felt like oxidation of bare aluminum, but it was not really visible to the eye. But you could feel it. I cut my filter apart and it was powerery to the touch. This was one of those 200 dollar Holley cartridge filters as well. I was VERY disappointed to say the least. So I replaced it with another standard inline filter from JEGS and it has not done anything since. Sadly the damage was done. My car started to be nearly impossible to start and had zero performance off idle. It was like the accelerator circuit was completely non functional. I had to main issues. The junk from the filter made its way into the carbs. The needle and seats would stick open or closed. One would cause two cylinders to be non operational and the other would cause gas to sill out over my headers. I go tinto the routine of getting the car started and having ot use a rubber mallet to tap over the filter cover on teh webers to help unstick it. But it progressively got worse until the back carb needle and seat was permanently seized shut. MY 11 year old webers had met their match. I know what you are thinking though! Hey just replace needle and seats and all is well. As Vicinni said in 'The Princess Bride', YOU WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT WOULDNT YOU! All those times where the fuel pump would come on and the car would not run right or all the times I started the fuel pump just to keep it moving filling up the fuel bowls but never driving it, mean I had let the gas in the carb fill up and dry out about, oh 50 times. This had a devastating effect on my accelerator pump performance. As in it killed it. FEAR NOT though!!! This mean I got to completely take off my 11 year old Webers and finally rebuild them!! HUZZAH! What a great challenge. I took all three carbs apart. Down to the last screw. I scrubbed and cleaned. Everything was completely gunked up. Pistons in the accelerator pump were seized. Throttle shafts were slimy and would not fully return to closed. The crappy ethanol gas had done a number on these carbs. Fast forward 3 weeks. All the parts are separated and labeled into old fishing tackle bins. But scrubbing them was not going to be good enough to clean the bodies. Many many cans of carb cleaning spray later, parts still were not really clean. Internal passages were nearly impossible to get totally clean. So what else was there to do but buy a 2 gallon heated ultra sonic cleaner that I could fit an entire carb body into. I cleaned those first one by one. Then changed fluid to a brass cleaner and did all the internal bits one by one. Swapping fluid between each run. Things looks clean and felt clean. Okay lets get this done. NOT SO FAST said the carb gods. I did not want to ultra sonic clean carb with the throttle shaft bearings in place, so they had to come out. That meant I had to order new screws for the butterflies as those are peened when installed. Removing shafts from Webers is decidedly not a fun task. I ended up getting them all out after many many taps with a soft mallet and then escalating up to a very small sheet metal hammer. Two of the shafts were in fact bent. This may have been due to my tapping (Okay it probably was), and the threaded bit had mushroomed a tad from the tapping. New shafts were ordered and new screws to fit them. Now, getting butterflies reassembled back into a weber body perfectly is also NOT and easy task. IF they are even the tiniest bit off, they will not open or will be so tight you cannot acuate them. Worse yet, when you install them snug and tighten them a bit at a time, they can go from perfectly loose to frozen in a quarter turn. Long story not so long, I got the carbs back together after many volumes of foul language and adult beverages. Overall it took 3 months. When I put them back on the car and started it up it seemed okay. Idled fine. First drive and ALL the problems still persisted. Still no accelerator pump action (And I checked before I put them on that this was working). It was so bad, I could be driving at 30 mph in 3rd gear and floor it and the engine would go dead quiet and cease to run. You may think this is the end.... OH NO! In a fit of rage, I did what any rational Z person would do. I bought three BRAND NEW weber DCOE 40mm carbs and a new fancy inline filter to install AFTER my fuel pump. Yup, rage will make you spend money. I swapped out my chokes and my jets and low and behold the damn thing fired right up and ran like a champ. I removed my Hypojets from Keith Franke and installed regular weber jets as my transition from idle to mains was worse than it had been when things were running correctly. I think there is still some tiny passages clogged in there, so I am going to really clean the heck out of those in the sonic cleaner, that I had now bought for really no reason. May a well use it. (maybe cleaning gun brass or watches or something) So, after all that I had a Z that was running just about like I remember it should be running. Yeah! Except for one small thing. At idle I was at 11.5:1 AFR. It used to be 12.5:1 ish. Z's on triples like to run rich but not THAT rich. So about 2 weeks ago I decided to check all the tuning again and rebalance them taking my time. That has been interesting as a few more things have come up. Nothing major. I could very easily just stop messing around with it and drive it happily the way it is. But, what would be the fun in that 🙂 More to come....on the carb front. Humorous point. I also have had my Z long enough now to have worn out the clear plastic shifter bushings that I put in new back in 2012 when I installed my 5 speed. Seems like they should have lasted longer than that.

No, you could separate the halves of the glove box door and install it like the factory did

Post it in Google Photos as an album, share the album, and post a link to the album. Then I can make it into a PDF.

@240dkw Nice manual! Maybe you could put a copy of that book here on the service manual listing? (Under Resources/knowledge Base in top of this site.) Guess you have to contact Mike about that..

I'd bet he's being sarcastic with the Hagerty value? but I don't even know what "aficionados" means. I've always thought that was someone that knows all about, say cars, but doesn't know a spark plug from an O2 sensor.

This is the best I found for silver, the radio. They use a chrome coating on some interior pieces too. The interior emblems that I painted on the horn pad and console were this "silver" oil based Sharpie I found a hobby shop. Thank you @psdenno for the proper direction you laid on me.

best thing since sliced bread, bronze bushings instead of plastic. http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/shifterbushing/index.html

Artemis mission, super cool!!! We would love a lake house but Im not sure we'd make time to enjoy it. Just too many other things taking time

Not wishing to take your thread off track - if you were ever in any doubt about the price v quality of your Quaife, have a read of this: https://forums.hybridz.org/topic/57834-obx-vs-quaife-with-pixors/

Yes the fancy long skinny sock is a Holley ”hydramat” fuel sucker sponge thingy. This is my strategy to make it slosh and low fuel proof for the EFI application. I don’t intend to use the stock float and sender, I have a top mounted aftermarket unit to install next to the pump. I think you would have to create a new arm shape for the stock float to meander around the new pump and sender hardware, but it could work just fine I think.

I think you hit the nail on the head. That is what the site has evolved into since COVID and now that everyone knows about it. I lost a bid on a 280Z on BaT a few years back, but I don't think I would bid on a car there now. I would be curious to know the demographics of the winning bidders. How many are car people who want a hobby car, serious car collectors, millionaires who like to burn money frivolously, and/or dealers hoping to make a profit? We will probably never know, because BaT may not collect that information, or if they have it make it public. Still, I do enjoy browsing and looking at the cars up for auction, for a car lover like me it is like automotive porn.

One of the commenters used the Hagerty Insurance Valuation Tool. It was just a puzzle I wanted to solve. I think the buyer contacted the seller, asked what the reserve was, and set his starting bid there. Nobody else was interested at that level. They had nine days to ponder. The buyer's tastes seem undiscernible. A 1934 Packard Sedan and a 1971 Nissan sports car don't have much in common. I'll be following just to see what's next on his list. BAT is good entertainment.

My grocery store puts sails on their buggies. I can park across the street and come out to find an empty one against my car.

Remember, OSHA safety white socks... LOLOL...

Good to hear from you! I learned a lot from your post, working on that 240 with socks on. 😄

You park it way out but when you return there's almost always another car, usually a beater, parked next to you!!!

This worked for mine.

As my glove box door is currently taken apart here is a reference picture showing the emblem with the pins and retaining clips intact, as it was originally assembled.

Progress on the EFI pump conversion this week, after a busy holiday season that saw more kitchen renovation than I cared to do. Decided to create a 1.25” deep flat recess to mount the Holley 12-168 pump and hanger and the new level sender. The opening is roughly 8 inches wide and 10 inches long. The tray I built is 8.1x10.2 and has 1.5” bent up edges. Much grinding and fitting and hammering to get close fits all around. More pics tomorrow after I finish welding and mounting stuff

I like these chrome ink pens that I got from Amazon. I got a 1mm and 4mm. The ink lasts well, I’ve had them for a couple of years and they keep working every time I go to use them.

Hihi, eh.. no, they used 2 pins on the back.. they have broken off so now you need to be creative.. 😉

Personal experience comment on ZAPS. In 1977 I was working as a mechanic at the DC Datsun franchise. Originally a Ford dealership built in the 50s or so. The east side of the shop had an almost wall of windows with tons of natural light. The west side was built into a hill so in the summer there was a modest amount of natural cooling. We were always busy. We got 1 ZAPS car which just sat on the showroom floor. Finally the GM got the bright idea to give it to the service manager to use as his demo which allowed it to be seen around town. Finally after about 4 weeks it sold. When we later got our single Black Pearl car it was on the showroom floor for no more than 2 weeks before it was snatched up. My new Service Manager

So the pins broke off the back of the emblem. I wouldn't use super glue. I would probably use epoxy if I wasn't going to try to find an emblem that's not damaged

So I switched gears, patience was gone on that one So I started putting freshly plated headlights back together with Steve Nixon's parts Then I hit a snag. The buckets are different. I was trying to figure out how the headlight seals from precision went on. Then I realized that one set of buckets didn't have the 4 little holes like the one at my thumb. The seals have for posts that pull through these holes So I had to reselect my buckets so I had 2 that both had the 4 little post holes Then I tried to figure out a way to feed the wires through the new wire jacket I got from Steve. I took the terminals out of this plug but even staggering them they weren't going to go through the jacket. So I tried to uncrimp this one but that wasn't happening and then I remembered that I had some new Vintage connections terminals. So I cut them off I still couldn't get them to feed through the jacket. So I had to feed a different single wire through the jacket from the other end and use it as a pull wire to pull the wires back into the jacket I got one bucket all the way redone! I love clean new parts!!!

So a couple of weeks ago, I worked on the trim for the windshield. I had a couple of sets to choose from, but not all of them were perfect So I buffed this corner but you can still see some light scratching in it. So I sanded at 1000 grit and rebuffed Now they look like this Original condition, I first cleaned with lacquer thinner I had this damage from disassembly. It got distorted trying to pull it out of the old seal So some light dolly, hammer and punch work. Then block sand and buff After my first try, I went back and used a little courser grit, worked my way up and rebuffed So I had this dent to deal with. Started with dollies and punches Gets you to here Then block sanding. A little piece of wood square block. I started with 600 grit. Then 800, 1000, 1200, 1500 Then jeweler's rouge This is where I ended up. It all looks good unless you get really close

edit: I believe the slot you are pointing to is for cabin air to escape though the hatch. The slot above is sealed to the hatch to drain water. The flaps on the hatch interior panel stops exhaust fumes from entering the cabin while letting air exit. I hope I got that right. On my 7/70 there was no jute in this area. The vinyl was glued directly to the painted steel.

Here are the new grills They included barrel clips This would match what I found on disassembly. I believe this was the original method for mounting the vents. I think it was revised later to use a spring nut in the vent to hold the emblem stud I blacked out some areas. I didn't try to be neat and I blacked more than the factory did. The hatch vents definitely have some warpage. I gently heated them tonight and propped them up with paper. Haven't made any pictures yet What do you think this slot is for? Also do you just glue the interior trim to this vertical panel? Do you use jute here?

Here's a photo that I took when I was getting my hatch vents ready for installation. Self-explanatory, I hope... The factory gasketing for the plastic vent plenums was pooched, so I made replacements from soft, closed-cell foam (it's actually foam strip used for sill walls during building construction). You need to use something that's pretty compliant, because you'll need a lot of 'squishability' (technical term) to be able to push the clip into place... I used the same foam to create a new gasket for the interior trim panel... During final installation, I used strips of wiring loom tape (non-adhesive) overlaid by a hotel key card to protect the paint as I was sliding the clip into place. The key card is pulled free after the clip is in place. Then the tape is pulled away (the section of tape immediately under the clip can be left in place -- no one will see it and the plastic push-pin will penetrate easily when the chrome vent is pressed in place...

So I worked on jute some more the car. I ordered the jute from "The Roadster Factory" per @Zup. It was not quite enough to do the whole car. I am short one section for under a front floor mats. I also cut and buffed the hatch. That was a disappointing because I believe I have sanding scratches in the base coat. No getting them out now... 😞

I'm quietly laughing and sobbing to myself a little bit as I contemplate the reality that the supply of Americans who need to or bother to get their license will dwindle with each passing generation. But even before that, Americans who can drive a manual are becoming an endangered species.

What I think many North American's fail to appreciate is that the supply of good LHD cars won't last forever. Therefore automatics, less desirable colours etc.. will all rise in value eventually. We in Australia got a fraction of the cars supplied to North American shores, so in effect we are 20 years ahead of you in terms of the limited supply and pricing of parts/cars/shells etc.. the UK was probably 15 years ahead of us, thanks to their wet weather depleting the cars faster but also their limited supply in the first place. To swap an automatic car to manual is so incredibly simple in these cars it always makes me laugh when a clean rust free (as rust free as these cars can be) comes up for sale and people say to me, oh yeah, but it's an auto.. 🙂 It's far less work to convert to manual than fix a rusty manual car.

It happened recently. A Z car was offered on BAT, bids were made, then some gal comes along and says it was her father’s car, and the guy offering it for sale had obtained the car under false pretenses, and somehow had gotten a title.

Some background character referencing: Here's a comment that - apparently - didn't last long before being deleted from the Bring A Trailer thread in question: There is a new comment on the post "1972 Datsun 240Z G-Nose Conversion 5-Speed". https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1972-datsun-240z-287/ Author: Rodeo Comment: Here's a fun fact. <a href="https://bringatrailer.com/member/the240zguild/" rel="ugc">@The240zGuild</a> is owned and operated by a convicted felon. In his prior life, he was ripping off Volvo enthusiasts "selling" them non-existent custom parts. He got a multi-year a suspended sentence that he is still serving to this day. The victims never got their money back. Now he's ripping off the 240Z crowd. I know because he ripped me off. That's when I found out he has hundreds of thousands of dollars of judgments against him, some years and years old. So if he rips you off, get in a very long line. You'll never get paid. This is a public service announcement. If you are suspicious email me at srodio at rodiobrown dot com and I'll send you the info. See all comments on this post here: https://bringatrailer.com/listing/1972-datsun-240z-287/#comments

I think the pattern was that Safari cars had 240 km/h speedos, probably because some pretty high sustained speeds were possible on certain sections and the was no legal speed limit. Monte and RAC cars would tend to see lower sustained stage speeds, and would have to conform to local speed limits on the road sections which linked the special stages. Yes, an accurate speedo would be of use to the driver when being required to maintain a certain speed on the road sections, but the navigator had the Haldas and Heuers to help with that too. It was the navigator's job to make sure that they checked in - and out - of time controls, service points and Parc Ferme on time. Navigator is the boss!

After the repair areas were finish sanded, I scuff sanded the rest of the dash with 220 grit paper and cleaned the surface with SEM plastic/leather prep. After that, I sprayed the complete dash with SEM's texture coating. I followed the directions on the can. I kept the spray nozzle approximately 20 inches from the surface and when the coating was finger dry, I knocked down the texture with scotch-brite. I let the dash dry for 24 hours and then lightly scuffed the complete surface. I cleaned again with the plastic/leather prep and then applied two wet coats of SEM's Trim Black for my finish coat. Here's some pictures of the finished product, it isn't perfect but it exceeded my expectations. I don't think I would have attempted this repair if the dash was in the car. Total cost was approximately $60 and maybe five hours of labor total. Bruce