motorman7

Yes, most of the Concours events are just fantastic. That is what made the Dana Point show so nice was the view (and the excellent organization). Sitting on the golf course fairway, overlooking the ocean, enjoying the cars. It’s just perfect. Congrats on the third invite. Now that you have a first, you can just relax and enjoy the views and conversation. Best regards, Rich

Thanks Carl, it was really a nice shoot. It just scares me to death being in front of the camera though. The La Jolla Concours is one of the better Concours shows in SoCal. The Dana Point Concours is also top notch. There are several other ‘lesser’ Concours here in SoCal, with some being very disappointing. I say that NOT based on winning any trophies (I didn’t win a thing at the Dana Point show, but it is one of the best show events I have ever experienced). I say disappointing based on how the entrants of Japanese cars are treated and the shows lack of organization. As owners of Japanese cars we are sometimes treated as second class citizens. In some of these shows, there are not even categories where a Japanese sports car (roadster or Z) can be entered. In two of the ‘lesser’ shows I have been to, the Japanese cars are all the way in the back area. One show even had the Japanese cars over the side of a steep hill, so they were virtually unseen unless you went over to the edge of the hill. Jay and I were fuming at that one. I will never go there again. Anyway, that’s my take. Glad they have accepted me into the La Jolla show. Their show is very well run and very impressive. I am looking forward to a great event and will post pictures of the show here on the site. Best regards, Rich

I'm such a media whore.:classic: KUSI.com - KUSI News - San Diego CA - News, Weather, PPR - Video Landing Page

Looks nice from the one pic...Anymore views? Welcome to the club! I am sure there are lots of people that can help you out with the electrical and carbs. Congrats on the new purchase. Rich

What will you do with them once they are clean?? Once you have removed all of the zinc with the tumbling process you will be down to the bare steel. Anything not protected after this will rust unfortunately.

Starting to do some surfacing here in Pro-E. This has a lot of promise. Here is a quick hood model I made here at work

AAaaah, you missed the earlier post. The picture with the body, motor and Panasports is the combined models. INST3D is using one type of software and I am using SolidWorks. I was able import his model (the body) into my CADD program (motor and wheels) and assemble. Works well.

Honestly, I really must commend the ZCCA for upholding a very high standard. This is very key to our ‘hobby’/addiction and in line with what you would find at any Concours event. I truly have no complaints about the dirt mark down or any other items that were flagged during my cars inspection (other than the oil pan). They were all correct and the experience was highly educational for me, well worth the entry fee. If I had to do it again, I would. And, the judges are to be commended for their attention to details. This is very important to the collector. They found items that I had never seen before, even though I have had the car in my possession for almost 4 years now. I will use this info to correct some of the items, while others will remain as they are indefinitely. Again, it was truly a very nice event. Thanks again for the input. Best regards, Rich

OK, sent a letter our to the ZCCA director, Chris Karl. Will see how it goes. This is what I sent. It was great to meet you at ZCON 2012. It was my first ZCON and I really enjoyed the experience. As I live out here on the west coast, I am looking forward to ZCON 2014. Below in italics is the write-up on the ZCON 2012 judging that I posted to the classiczcars.com site. I think it is a very fair assessment, and as I noted, overall the judging was done very well. However, a number of members prompted me to bring the ‘welded oil pan’ deduction to your attention. My car is a low serial number 240Z, HLS30-02614. The stock oil pan for the early 240’s had a weld and metal insert to prevent cracking due to vibration (so I am told). For my car, this is the original factory oil pan that came with the car and it is completely stock. If it did NOT have a weld, points should have been deducted. However, I was deducted points for having the correct stock original oil pan. Just wanted to pass that on. As I was nowhere close to 270 points this really is not a big issue, but I did want to let you know. I did have one other issue with the event that was stated on the website: * However, the ZCCA recognizes that bringing a Gold level car to the convention should have some benefits. For 2012, the convention committee has agreed to honor these vehicles with a display area, a special award and a "Best Survivor" category on the People's Choice voting ballot. The reality here is that a gold medallion car is not going to be a ‘Best Survivor’. A ‘Best Survivor’ vehicle typically infers that less than 10% of the car has been improved or received replacement parts. This includes exterior condition, paint, interior and engine; the entire vehicle. I would venture to say that 95%, if not all of the gold medallion winners exceed the 10% improvement criteria. It would make more sense to judge the entire field of cars and judge based on least amount of restoration that a vehicle has seen and it’s condition. In this way, you would find more Z’s that have been minimally restored. ‘Gold Medallion’ and ‘Best Survivor’ are pretty much mutually exclusive terms. Anyway, just wanted to pass this on. Thanks again for all your work with the ZCCA.

With Panasports

Safari Gold

I should have put some color on the body, Safari Gold maybe? Would have taken all of maybe 30 seconds to do that. May post that a bit later. Of course red would look nice also :-)

model integration. Looks like we can combine models...very nice

Yes, I would agree too that the judging was very fair except for the write down on the oil pan weld and the lack of air cleaner decals. This is the way my low serial number car came out of the factory, so to be marked off for that is wrong. However, since I was nowhere close to 270 points, I won’t say much beyond this.

I think it is not so much pain as it is disappointment in what is considered important in judging. It’s the whole Pam Anderson debate: do you like the original or do you like the new modified version. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the ZCCA judging tends toward the later while I prefer the former. In the case of ZCON judging: 1. A seat with new upholstery with the wrong or modified pattern would score better than an original seat that sags in the middle 2. New carpet with the incorrect pile would score better than the original carpet that is faded. 3. An air cleaner that is painted an off color orange would score better than an original with a scratch. 4. An engine with fresh decals and a later model oil pan (no welds) would score better than an original (low serial number) car that had a welded oil pan and no decals on the air cleaner. That’s what is disappointing to me. Unfortunately, that is the way the cars are judged. There are no bonus points for having the original 40 year old parts on your car. Bring on the silicon implants and liposuction. Just my thoughts…Peace out

241 Total: -11 on exterior, -21 for engine, -27 interior. 40 year old carpet and seats didn't help the interior points.

I finally got the judging sheets in the mail for my car from the 2012 ZCON, which I think was about 4 months ago. Not sure why it took so long, but nice to finally see the sheets. In general, I am not too disappointed with the assessment. Most of the write downs can be attributed to the fact that the car is 40 years old, so point deductions for wear are a given. I thought I had the car pretty dog gone clean, but there were still some areas that were marked off for dirt. Will have to do a better job with the detailing. Should have had my daughter there, she details the car much better than I do. There definitely is a difference in judging standards among the three judges. The Exterior judge was quite generous. The Interior and engine judges were much more hard-line. The interior judge deducted points without even saying what was wrong on half the items. He did catch a couple small things (on the few that he did comment on) that I was not aware of, so that is good to know. The engine judge filled in all the comments and deducted a lot of points for dirt. Not much I can say about that, I thought the motor was pretty clean. He took off points for the original factory weld on the oil pan. I guess your supposed to trash your original factory oil pan and buy a newer one? Anyway, that's my only beef. Otherwise, good job guys!

Slow going. spent too much time making small updates. Got the oil pan nut on the wrong side. Need to fix that.

My bad....was speed reading

Looks like it has a buyer. I phoned owner and he said someone gave him a deposit for the car. I told him to give me a call if it falls through. Sounds like it was pretty original, with matching numbers motor. Oh well, hopefully it goes to a good owner.

UUuum...it's $9,500. Not 1K. It would be in my garage right now if it were 1K.

This one looks interesting CLASSIC 1970 DATSUN 240Z ORIGINAL CONDITION! SERIAL # 646!!

Hi Carl, Nice commentary on the plating. The only item that seemed off was the ‘dull silver’ of the plating and the yellow chromate making it shiny. In my plating experience, dull silver will result in dull chromate. If it’s not shiny coming out of the zinc plating bath, the chromate will not make it shinier. Additives to the zinc plating bath allow you to adjust the ‘shiny factor’. That’s the nice feature about doing this at home. Also, to get the ‘rainbow’ effect, I use a short 20-30 second dip in blue chromate before the 1-2 minute dip in the yellow chromate. Warm DI rinse after this and heat dry and you are good to go. A couple other comments on the whole bolt thing: 1. The easiest way to go about this is to order new nuts and bolts on line as a number of others have noted. Unless you are going for a ZCON gold medallion, very few people will notice that your bolt heads are off. Only the few of us anal retentive Z-junkies will notice. Just make sure they are quality parts. 2. If you do send your parts to a plating service, they will throw all of the parts in a big bucket and leave you to sort these out. Even with great pictures it will be difficult to get the correct bolt in the correct hole for final assembly. Just something to consider. If you install the wrong bolt in the wrong place and try it in several other places, now you have worn your plating off. a. Another issue with sending out to plate is you may not like the plate job. Parts could come back dull, too dark, etc. (That’s why I started doing my own) b. If you go this route, make sure you have all the parts you want to plate in that batch. Will cost time and money to go back for second and third plating batch. c. If you don’t do your own prep work, this gets expensive as you will pay by the hour for them to wire wheel/sand blast your parts. Also as stated here several times, GIGO, the parts have to look good and clean before they go to the plater. d. No guarantee you will get the parts back that you sent in. You may get some additional, may lose some. 3. If you do choose to do your own plating, it will cost about $500 for a decent set-up. I personally use the Caswell product with a B-K power supply. ‘Blue’ has a very good write-up on the whole plating process which would be good to read before moving in this direction. a. Only go in this direction if you plan on doing this on a number of cars, otherwise it is not very cost effective. b. The beauty of this is that you can plate whenever you want and get your parts done same day if needed. You can also make adjustments to the system to get the exact finish you are looking for. c. Also, I use the zip lock baggy method and label all parts in small batches. When I plate, I plate one baggy at a time and keep them organized. Makes assembly much simpler and saves time searching for parts. Zip-loc’s, one of the best tools in my tool box. Anyway, just my thoughts and good luck. Best regards, Rich

Yes, it will fit in well there. We took it for a drive today....very nice car. I am sure my Z would smoke it though.

It has the 1.8 litre motor but 2.3 muffler. PO said it wa a straight swap. Nice sounding motor and very nice ride. My son is just thrilled with it. I love the styling of the CRZ but was a bit bothered by the visibility. Ended up getting an Elantra that gets 40 MPG...uh oooops, 38 MPG highway. Nice lines as well. Didn't want to deal with the batteries. The original Honda CRX is epic.