motorman7

Epilogue: So the car is now officially sold to a local collector. Fortunately I had plenty of time to make the decision and am pretty happy with how things turned out. I was a little surprised by the response and interest in the car, more than I was expecting. I could have stayed with BAT and possibly eeked out a few thousand more, but I felt much better selling the car to an individual that I had met and had a similar mindset about the car as myself. The seller plans to keep the car stock, drive it, and take it to some of the local shows. Already it looks like he has registered the car for the La Jolla Concours which is one of my favorite shows. So, I am glad the car will be in the area and look forward to seeing it with the new owner in the future. OK, now back to work on my other projects.

Did some more pre-assembly work on the undercarriage parts. Got the passenger side strut cleaned and painted last weekend along with the caps. Put the springs in both the rear struts. Also installed the motor mounts and did a little pre-assembly on the rear suspension parts. Pics are below.

Well, looks like she's sold to a local buyer/collector. Gentleman dropped by last night and looked the car over and we eventually finalized a price (North of $40k). So, looks like we will miss out on the BAT action, but I like the buyer a lot and feel like the car is going to a good home. Also looks like I will have visitation rights. So, we will finalize the transaction over the next couple days. I am sure this is probably something I will regret but for now this makes a lot of sense for me. And, I am still hard pressed for storage space. Thanks for all of the complements and support everyone.

Thanks for the info, it is a big help. I am working with BAT now and looks like the auction will start in about a week or so. I am pleasantly surprised by all the interest in my car. I have received several calls and texts over the last couple days and I am pretty sure I could have sold this for $37K and the car would be gone today if I had stuck with the price. I appreciate the advice from the thread here. It seems the market is a little bit hotter than I anticipated. Anyway, we will see how this all turns out.

Wow, impressive. Looks like I will have to go with BAT......and take a lot more pictures.

The Just Dashes restoration was $1850 (paid for by previous owner). Personally, I would go with Vintagedashes at half the cost. The appearance is about the same, you just have to do the install yourself. The install is pretty easy.

Thanks for the comments everyone. I will probably leave it here for a couple weeks and after that move it over to BAT as mentioned if it does not sell on this site. I am not really in any rush and wife says I should wait till Spring to sell. I would probably go with a bit lower reserve, but we will see how that goes when we get there. $70/00 sounds pretty good. With all the labor I put into the cars, my wife often jokes that I work for about $0.25/hour. I need to look into this.

Now that I am back from ZCON (had a great time) , it's time to get started on the Blue car again. I cleaned and painted the motor mounts (rubber is in great shape) and some of the brake parts. I hit the brake parts and motor mount threads with some gloss clear so they stay that color. Also got the left rear strut cleaned up and painted and, attached a couple of the brackets. Nice to get moving on this again. I also dropped the bumpers off at the Chrome shop, Pacific Plating. They assured me that they would be able to fix the rear bumper which was nice to hear. Odd coincidence, they just relocated and are now just half a block from Miguel's paint shop. That's convenient! Here are a couple of pics of the cleaned up parts.

I have decided to sell my 918 Orange 1971 240Z. This is an original restoration with most of the work documented on this website link at: (Unfortunately some of the earlier work on this thread was accidentally deleted by the site admin due to some external spammers) I would consider the car a Category 2 restoration based on Hagerty's scale. This car placed 2nd in the Z car category at the 2016 JCCS which had nearly 50 entrants, arguably one of the most competitive Z car shows in the nation. The car runs great and all electronics work well including an original radio, antenna, wipers and clock (quartz mech) The car has also been featured in the 2018 Fall edition of the GQ style magazine and can be seen at this website: https://www.gq.com/story/datsun-240z-oral-history Many new and original parts on the car. Freshly chromed bumpers and 'Just dashes' dash just to name a few. Rims and hubcaps are epic (they were carefully stored for over 45 years) and are a bit hard to part with. While many parts of the car would be considered condition 1 by Hagerty's, I would consider the paint it's weak link and a category 2 ( I personally would give it a 7.5 or 8 out of 10). It is a beautiful high end single stage paint that could probably use a little more color sanding. On the flip side of this, I was praised by one Concours car show judge on how the paint replicates the original factory paint in its' appearance. Other minor issues would be a gap near at the drivers side door that is a bit wide and the original 47 year old exhaust that sounds a bit like a motorboat at low RPMs. I will also include a new aftermarket (motorsport) exhaust in the sale. Below are some recent pics. Will be listing on BAT soon Many more pictures available upon request Thanks, Rich

Yes, I think that is what I will do. Thanks for the confirmation.

So....I am actually thinking about selling this one. It is really a tough decision. The problem is that my wife and I have too many vehicles and not really enough space. Currently I own 8 cars and a camping trailer, yet I only have a 3 car garage and live in a cul-de-sac in the suburbs. To ease the situation, I have one car at the Petersen museum in LA, one at my mother in laws place, and one at the paint shop. Eventually the museum car and the one at the body shop will need to come back home so I need to make a little room. (Also, selling the Z will help pay for my wife's new toy, a 2018 Jeep Grand Cherokee Trailhawk. She puts up with all my cars so she really deserves it.) Anyway, trying to decide between BAT or eBay for the sale....or just keeping it and paying for storage. Tough choice. I will clean her up and take a bunch of pics this weekend and see how I still feel about selling.

Really had a great time at ZCON 2018. Unfortunately, I was only able to take in a couple days at the start of the event. Best part was meeting the guys here at classiczcars.com and putting faces to the names. It was great talking cars an was and awesome event. My thanks to the clubs that put on the event, thanks for all the hard work. Best regards, Rich PS: of course I had to bring the GQ mag for signatures ?

Yes, not sure how close I was. I think I had a score of 276. Also missed a couple easy points but it was a great learning experience. Sent from my C6902 using Classic Zcar Club mobile

I got marked off for that patch when they judged my 1970 car at ZCON 2013. Didn't find out about it until I received the judges sheet months later. Sent from my C6902 using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Wife and I will be at car show today around noonish. We will also be doing the brewery event tonight as well. Should be fun Sent from my C6902 using Classic Zcar Club mobile

No, just the dash. I will have to check to see if they do glove box doors. That would be convenient.

Yes, the VIN tag is part of the frame. The edge of the new cover tucks under it nicely.

Got the trip reset dial in, dash light dimmer, flashers,and cigarette lighter in. All were easy to install except for the cig lighter. There was some foam in the area that needed to be removed, otherwise it was all pretty straight forward. I also installed the super bright LED bulbs. We will see how those work. I figure with the dimmer switch we can always turn those down if they are a bit bright. Still haven't sent the clock out yet. We will go with the quartz mechanism on that as it is very accurate and reliable.

I like the fact that the engine has not been messed with (much) and the 77K miles is probably legit based on the engine pic. Also looks very original except for a few minor details. (Granted the over all body pics and underside pics are poor and would effect the value) This is exactly the type of car that I look for when doing a restoration. It would be worse if it had a cheap $1K paint job and looked pretty pretending to be a Category 2, hiding what is underneath. Too often this is what is sold in most cases. I rarely buy a pretty face. I want a complete, hardly touched package complete with warts. And Hagerty is so out of touch with the Z community. There are 1970 Z's selling for $100k and over among private parties. Let them value the US muscle cars; because they are a bit behind the times with the Japanese cars.

Now it is more reasonably priced, was $22K. The engine bay is pretty impressive on this one

https://sandiego.craigslist.org/nsd/cto/d/1970-original-240z/6720963532.html I think this is a steal.

Put the dash harness and instruments (minus the clock) into the 'Vintage Dashes' dash. The fit was very good. Now I need to get the clock fixed in addition to adding new holes for the flasher switch, cig lighter and dimmer. LED dash bulbs have been ordered and should be here in a day or two. Had a friend join me during the assembly. You don't see too many Praying Mantis's out here in CA.

Not a dumb move at all...you will probably have a few more that shear off. It is pretty typical of the older cars. And, I have had that exact same bolt shear off on me as well. The threads were totally disintegrated, so I had to drill and re-tap the hole. A good tap set is a very useful item on these. Keep up the good work.

I assembled the front shock struts today. Interesting thing about the '73 Z is that they have a rubber bellows assembly that goes over the strut, inside of the spring. I have not seen these before. The original bellows were toast so I ordered some new ones from Rock Auto. They are a bit hard to see since they are inside the spring, but they look real cool. Also got new lower ball joints and sprayed those with a clear coat along with the threaded studs at the top of the strut assembly.

Wow, that is very organized. I do not record things to that extent. Typically, when I take off a part, I will photograph the item with the fasteners. That way I know what fasteners hold which parts. As a last resort, I always have my '70 as a reference. Typically, since the plater will mix all the parts together, the only thing I take care to do (besides the pics) is to put the yellow zinc in one box and the silver zinc in another box. I do take quite a few pics of the disassembled parts with fasteners. I probably only post about one-tenth of all the pics I actually take.