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Yesterday the post officer brought a nice little package to my door: It contains a brand new (NOS) L6 Camshaft for the E88 Head. It is used widely in many L-series cars from what i understoud, but i still have to research all the details. It was for sale not far away and the price was ok, so i thought myself i better secure it... I love the beautiful wrapping with the Nissan wrapping paper, etc... It came with a (separetely sold) Set of Cam oiler blockoff plates and bolts for older externally oiled cams. I still have to check if i need those... It also came with a "Cam bracket machining procedure when replacing with new cam shaft" Manual: Here you see the typical "A" marking: I have a lot of parts on the way, but due to Covid, everytihng is pretty delayed...

I might be wrong, but i strongly believe the Square chrome mirrors are actually the standard door mirrors that where installed at the location of the japanese fender mirror. If by accident or not i do not know, but given the fact (what i've been told) that the cars where shipped without mirrors installed (to prevent damage to them), the importeurs might have installed them in strange locations on early cars without knowing where they should have been installed... In switzerland you often only see one door mirror installed and an elderly z-owner i talked to lately told me he once visited all the local datsun dealerships and collected a full bucket of passenger side mirrors that where never installed on customer cars. By law you do not need door mirrors / fender mirrors here as long as you have the inner mirror installed and as long as you have an uninterrupted view through the hatch glass

Thanks for the pictures.. It seems like it was one pre-production demo car that was shown around to the press and at the shows which had a few things that didn't make it into production... Regarding the "brussels car" i've seen another picture of it and wanted to show it here as soon as the other topic is closed. I think it has the door mirrors installed at where the japanese fender mirrors are. As far as i know the cars where shipped without themirrors installed (to prevent damage?) and the mirrors where then installed once they arrived at their destination country distributor. I could think that it was one of the first cars and the guys in belgium just installed the mirrors where the previously shown japanese cars had them on a mistake, since they're the mirrors that where most probalby thought to be door mirrors. but i might be wrong here. just guessing, since a knowledged elderly guy just recently told me the mirrors where not installed during shipment...

@240260280: Maybe my post was a bit misleading. The blanked frond lower corner valances and the Top blinkers are not the question here - these were normal on european 240Z's and both my cars came with a similar setup. I think the reason was that european cars had to have a minimum mounting height of blinkers and those that where standard equipment for the non-european markets where too low - so they came up with this solution. The big questions regarding my pictures are: - The car shows an european spec car, but with fender mirrors. and it appears to be some kind of an official show car - which is strange. european cars never had the fender mirrors - The car has some weird fender-top mount blinkers or indicators which never made it on any production cars as far as i know So the overall question is what this special (prototype?) car was about and when / where it was shown in the picture?

Can anybody tell me something about this car or where it was shown?? I found it in an Car related archive. All information was that ithe picture shows a Datsun 240Z from 1971. It looks like it was displayed at a booth at some car show, but honestly i have no clue where or when exactly. To me it looks like a prototype car or something similar. I don't think this weird combination of parts ever made it into production - It appears to be an early Euro spec car (LHD, no rear side markers, but additional blinkers in the front grille) - No "Euro" front spoiler - Fender mirrors - Additional Lights (Blinkers?) on top of the Fenders (i think i've only seen a picture of those once, before) - The "Datsun" sign in the back is a hint that it was shown at an export market show and not in Japan. Picture © www.zwischengas.com (All Automobil-Revue Catalogues can be checked out online on zwischengas.com)

Thanks to Covid-related home-office and the fact i save an hour of driving from and to my office everyday, it seems like i have too much free time to search for Datsun related stuff... Therefore i've collected a lot of cool documents lately. The first delivery consists of a lot of Colour sample charts, many marked as "For europe" unfortunately not Z-related, but the came for free with the rest and they're cool nontheless... Then i've got the L6 service Manual in German, which might come in handy for me, since it's my native language... That "Technical Training" Paper folder contains an empty Sample of a warranty report (from one dealership workshop to the Datsun switzerland headquarter) and a manual how to fill it correctly, as well as a few examples (most probably from a training at the swiss Distribution center): Also got this 1972 swiss service warranty booklet. I really like the style of it. Every service you rip out the page and cross all the jobs done, but on the small leftovers theres a stamp and a signature of the workshop who did it. One of the big green folders was empty, but three of them consist various technical bulletins for various cars in german / french, issued by Datsun Suisse SA / FMG. Written with a typewriter and nicely duplicated. Two are from the early seventies and include information for the 240Z. One is from the 80ies.. The fifth folder is a Warranty Flatrate time folder, which lists various warranty flatrate times and Warranty codes for the different cars including the 240Z and C10. It is required to fill the above mentioned warranty report. I usually don't collect stuff from other countries, but these American "Datsun News" Magazines from 1971 to 1974 were for sale for a nice lot-price, so i had to secure them. The december 1971 christmas special issue has a nice comic of with the 240Z: And a letter from "Mr. K" One issue shows a few pages of a japanese factory tour made with american dealers in 1973: Another one nicely shows how Datsun USA was organized back then. including the 10 (!) Car carrier ships that nissan used to operate back then: Then i got another few documents. which included a few catalogs (they came with the pricelists i've posted earlier on my blog already) But what is nice here is the 2002 Nissan Motorsports competition parts catalog (USA): The German book About the history of Nissan. (check the picture at the bottem left, how they used to load cars on the boat with ropes, before they had their own vessels...!) And probably the rarest document (also not Z-related): An 1969 Datsun Switzerland press release folder, issued for the Geneva International Motor Show 1969, including price lists, car descriptions and instructions how to get a Press car for testing... I have a few projects in the pipeline and I'm awaiting results soon, also awaiting a delivery with Parts and more Documents fom Japan, but thanks to Covid, everything is a bit delayed now. Looking forward to big news over the next weeks / months...

Today i got the delivery from the guys at Sandstrahlen-plus.ch which i can really recommend if you're in switzerland... They had my complete chassis blasted (except the roof and a few areas i will replace anyway) and primered. The job is very nice if you ask me and it looks so much better with all the car in one colour, rather than twelve different layers of primer, bondo, paint, rust protection, etc.. in various states... Remember, this is how it looked a few weeks ago... Luckily the process didnt' reveal any new problems, only the bad repairs of yesteryear and the rusty spots i already new and have replacement panels for... $ I also made this little "unboxing" gif whlie unwrapping the car and thought it was fun to share...

Indeed, also i don't have to pay the bodyshop for cleaning before he can do his actual magic now...

Slightly delayed because of holday season and the current COVID situation, but i just got some pictures from the blaster, and a note that the chassis is done. They blasted the whole car with non abrasive plastic media, which doesnt warp big thin surfaces. Where abrasives were needed, they added a bit of sand to remove rust and bondo (partially). The sticker underbody protecting-stuff was removed by dry-ice blasting... You can clearly see the many repairs on the inner front fender and Air channel and the ton of bondo remaining on the LH rear quarter. Luckily the engine bay looks nice at the first view, but i have to inspect closer once it's back at my place. This is the side that has already been finnished by the bodyshop (the brown stuff is remaining seam sealer...) this is the undone side. Luckily i have a NOS spare roof and rear quarter in stock to fix this. Meanwhile the chassis should also be primered with a weldable primer. In the next days they will return it to me and then i'll take some better pictures and a closer look at all the details... Just a little tip from my side. If you ever do a full restoration like this. start with cleaning the chassis. not like me who started with the bodywork just to blast the chassis when half of it was already done. well you learn new things all th e time - and that's what makes a project like this so much fun 🙂 More coming soon....

Ah thanks for the info. Funnily the information in the Nissan factory "BS110 (240RS) Competitoin tune-up Manual" (not FSM as i wrote above) looks exactly the same as in your scans (layout, drawings and text!).They must have simply copy & pasted the information from one to another manual.

Today i got a few interesting documents again. Let's start with the Z-specific stuff. An original Toolkit bag packing slip / Content slip: I will use it to make a nice replica for my original toolkit (which came with some missing tools and without the toolkit. The one above came from an original "final spec" European 240Z and is different to what i've seen for Sale in the USA. But it might be possible that the slip has changed over the years and that later spareparts came with a different slip. Picture below shows one for sale in america by zeddsaver.com: Then i got an original 1982 Datsun Switzerland catalog: Not really interesting for me, but it contains the 280ZX and some other nice cars and i will use it for my datsun suisse documentation (coming soon). I mainly got it because it came together with this nice piece: The March 1972 geneva automobil Salon "Newspaper" Called the Datsun "Red spot" It's of course all about the cars, but it also contains some nice figures and facts about datsun switzerland (more on that coming soon), Some of the cars, the racing efforts of Nissan / Datsun, The nissan switzerland / FMG Warehouse, etc.. And also advertising for some of the cool apparel you could order from them... A pretty nice piece of datsun switzerland memorabilia...

If anybody is wondering, i figured out that part of Alan's scans above are form the BS110 (RS240) FSM, Brake section. Since most of that information is not z-related i won't put it online here, to avoid more confusement. But if anybody is in search for said Information, you know where you can find it now.

I got hands on a rare 3N71A/B Automatic transmission Manual. While i don't have an Auto-tranny and don't really need this manual, there is a reason i couldn't resist. This particular manual is not a standard workshop manual, but a Training manual. On the first pages, the employee who got the training from Nissan People, wrote down the story of the training and how it went. If you look close on the Cover page, you see that the Name of the Company is "Fehlmann Motor AG", which is the predecessor of Datsun (Suisse) SA. The Instructions are written very detailed by the trainee in german and full of personal notes. Definitely a unique item. It also contains a few memos from later years where the company is already called Datsun Suisse, with names of the involved employees and information about upcoming technical bulletins they plan to write, and spare-parts they've ordered from Japan and the 3 weeks delivery time. Nothing really relevant to my project, but a pretty interesting piece of Datsun Switzerland history..

Maybe there were different versions? According to the seller he spent quite some time go get the location and orientation of the staples right. but nevertheless im quite happy with it 🙂 thanks for the reference pics!

Today i got a very accurate OEM Glovebox replica from Czech republic. Made by Privateer Pavel Dvorak. It's very close to the original regarding materials, shape and even location of the bostitches and little metal clamps. Excellent work, sir! Excellent work, sir. looks awesome. And then i got various vintage swiss Datsun stickers from various sticker collectors i found online. nice to have them to complete my collection. it appears that the round ones where made in two batches. one with the additional latch and one without. as not only the latch is different, but also the colours are slightly different...

I Just found an old article from Automobilrevue May 1972, where they tested the "final version" 240Z. Here seen with swiss (Zürich) number plates and all the spoilers, only one mirror, etc. I guess it was one of the first imported ones, used as a press and show-car from datsun switzerland. You can also see it has the hatch without vents. the original article from 1972 can be found in the historic database on zwischengas.ch and it has been re-released in the Automobilrevue issue March 2020 with these better pictures. The article is full of praise about the car from japan and they thoroughly tested it with lots of data (various acceleration tests etc) listed in the original article. Pictures with permission from Automobilrevue switzerland. Original article can be purchased here (5. March 2020 issue): https://automobilrevue.ch/epaper/

The Bolts that hold the footrest to the floorpans have custom specs, that do not fit into any DIN / EN / ISO norm, so it's not possible to purchase them at any standard hardware supplier. There are similar ones, but most of them have a too large head, that needs cutting to fit with the L-shaped "Feet" of the footrest). So i had a local milling shop (specialized in oldtimer-parts) make the bolts for the footrest according to the drawing i made (see below) in stainless steel, since the original ones where bent, and pretty worn. Original ones: New ones: Perfect tight fitment, as the factory ones. What might be interesting is that the bolts where added to the "feet" before painting the whole thing as one unit, from the factory. You can clearly see (not in these pictures), that there is rust and no paint on the area below the original boltheads. Here's the drawing if anyone ever needs to make those. I have a set leftover, since i ordered two. If anyone is interested, let me know. (since the "f" value is covered by my logo - it's also 4mm)

The Bolts that hold the footrest to the floorpans have custom specs, that do not fit into any DIN / EN / ISO norm, so it's not possible to purchase them at any standard hardware supplier. There are similar ones, but most of them have a too large head, that needs cutting to fit with the L-shaped "Feet" of the footrest). So i had a local milling shop (specialized in oldtimer-parts) make the bolts for the footrest according to the drawing i made (see below) in stainless steel, since the original ones where bent, and pretty worn. Original ones: New ones: Perfect tight fitment, as the factory ones. What might be interesting is that the bolts where added to the "feet" before painting the whole thing as one unit, from the factory. You can clearly see (not in these pictures), that there is rust and no paint on the area below the original boltheads. Here's the drawing if anyone ever needs to make those. I have a set leftover, since i ordered two. If anyone is interested, let me know. (since the "f" value is covered by my logo - it's also 4mm)

Haha yeah, in the more rural areas where there are more snow and mountains, 4x4 Pickups are more common, especially for industry service and construction companies that have to move heavy stuff. All the others mostly prefer small commercial buses or trucks, since they're enclosed, have a lower loading height, and generally more space and many options like shelving, high-top roof, lifts, etc.. available from factory or third-party suppliers.

Finally, something that i've really should have done first, happens now after many years. I decided to have the complete chassis blasted. Not sand-blasted but blasted with various media, depending on the area. Mostly Plastic-blasting and dry-ice blasting. I thought i'd take a few "before" shots. so here we go. I hope in one or two weeks all old paint and underbody coating and rust is gone... Some panels like the roof and the LH Rear quarter will only be blasted partially, because they'll bee replaced anyway or have already been replaced with new panels. So last week they came to pick it up and the car headed east two hours. It arrived safely at the sandblaster, but is now waiting in the queue to get blasted. Due to holiday-season, COVID measurements and the fact that they're not exactly around my corner, i wasnt able yet to check out their place and discuss a few details. but i still hope they can start the work soon...

A while a go i made a CAD drawing of what the manual calls "Felt", but are actually rubber pieces, that work as dampers between the fuel tank and the chassis. Then took the drawing and sample to the local rubber shop and they cut them to spec for me: Left new, right old (with some dirt): Had them make two sets, in case if they mess up something. but the second set is already sold to a local owner... Oh and since NOS A-type 5-speed manual transmission parts are a bit rare, i just had to get this bearing when it popped up for sale. Also love the genuine oldschool Datsun (Suisse) SA Bag, it must have been in storage for quite some time...

While browsing through some online classifieds, i stumbled on this Datsun price list. Issued on 14. March 1977 and including cars like the 260Z, the 2+2 and the 240K-GT, Cherry coupe, sunny etc... There isn't any evedince that it's from datsun Suisse SA, but it's in german and french so it seems to make sense. I got it from france, but the seller stated that it came originally from switzerland. There's also no currency for the prices, but i assume it must be Swiss franks (CHF). While my 240Z is not directly listed, it's another nice piece of Datsun Suisse memorabilia and some reference prices to talk about.. Click here to download the full high-res scan of the price list: 1977 Datsun (Suisse) Price list I also got a vintage Datsun sticker, which was a give-away by swiss datsun dealers at one point. This is not a replica, but (according to the seller) a genuine marketing item from the seventies. It is a bit worn and yellowed from the years in storage, so i assume it's the real deal. And it was merly the price of posting an envelope, so i just had to get it 🙂 Oh, and while googling for some other information, i stumbled upon this random file from the swiss Matchstick museum, which shows different "Gulf" branded matchstick box variants, with various Car dealerships, service stations, gas stations, etc.. Some of them beeing swiss datsun dealers. This just as a total random discovery 🙂

It may be a bit off topic, but on the note of "European versions" i just got this March 1977 Datsun dealer price list from Datsun switzerland, which includes prices for the 260Z (incl. 2+2) and others: there is no currency, but i highly assume that it's swiss francs (CHF). I'm currently in touch with a few old nissan / Datsun dealerships and trying to obtain more 240Z specific documents and promotional material. allthoug most of it has been scrapped over the years.