Hardway

I installed the Carter 60504 pump on my lime green '72 240z a few years ago. I ended up having to install a fuel pressure regulator as the pressure was at 4psi or slightly more and was pushing fuel out of the front of the carbs. I installed a Holley AFPR and dialed it down to 2.5psi and had no problems for the rest of the time I owned the car.

It is just okay in my book. The comment about the front looking like a CRZ is pretty accurate. It would be nice to see the Z back at affordable level pricing. If they could get a base model in to the $25K range that would be ideal. I currently have an FR-S 6MT and for $25K it is a lot of fun but for what it is, I think it was a bit much.

Those do look great as everyone else has said. For the price, I don't think they can be beat! I just wish FF or someone else would make these with a matching set of bumper guards. To me, the guards just belong as they add some dimension to the front styling of the car.

That is a lot of great progress! Good to hear things are moving forward and at a good pace I don't know if there is a real difference between early and later 240z hoods but if you look around on the Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio Craigslist one seems to pop up every few weeks.

Good job on the shifter! The blue on the car looks great. Was that under the plasti-dip stuff you told me about? If so, it is hard to figure out why anyone would cover that up. We look forward to more updates, more pics, and hopefully meeting up soon.

It is currently at $11K with one bid. There may be another person out there that thinks it is "amazing" besides the current owner and the single bidder but it will be a very tough sell. It also may not be street legal in some states due to the headlight setup. Its not my cup of tea either but kudos to the builder as it looks like it was done well.

I agree with Northernz. It has a few things that are not correct but they are not deal breakers as the car presents very well. The nice green paint, Panasports, and JDM headlight covers, it has curb appeal in spades! $29,500 is there asking price. For someone that seriously wanted it I am sure it could be had for around $27K. I would not be surprised if the seller is trying to get nearly 100% of their money back as I am sure that is probably what has been put in to it.

Speaking of looking outside your area, checking out this 280z in Dallas. http://dallas.craigslist.org/sdf/cto/4778017086.html There is no mention of rust but that does not mean it does not have any. Good thing is its close to a major airport so you could fly in, look at it, buy it, fly back, and make arrangements to ship it. Or as many people would say on here, drive it home! Another option would be to drive there with a truck and trailer and take it back. They are asking $4500 so I am sure if you waived $3800 - $4000 in front of them they would probably take it. http://huntsville.craigslist.org/cto/4755656657.html There is a 240z in Huntsville. For an asking price of $7K and it needs a clutch, they are way off the mark. However, its closer to you and again, cash talks. If you can accurately determine the clutch or something related to it is the only issue then you may be able to get it for a song. Right now the market is pretty tight but there are cars out there. As everyone else has said, be patient, the right car will come along. We all have stories where we were not patient and paid dearly for it in the end. Keep us posted on your search!

That is a great site! It is awesome to see owners taking the time to put together sites like yours and Blue's Atlantic Z site. This kind of information is what keeps our cars on the road and the repair bills down. Thank you for putting it together.

Thanks for the suggestion Hazmatt and Motive. When I take the bumper off again to have the car painted I will definitely do this. I kick myself for selling a set of pristine bumpers about 2 months before I found the car. Oh well, live, learn, and listen to Jay Leno, "never sell anything, ever!"

Welcome to the club Cron. My first classic Z was a '77 280z and I bought it for the same reasons you are looking at one now. I was also 26 or 27 when I bought it and it was a second car for me. The best overall advice I can tell you is to buy the best car you can afford. With so many 280z's made there are plenty still to choose from and many can be had for well under $6K. You should easily be able to find a no rust car that may need a seat recovered or a few other odds and ends done for between $4K and $5K. Since you have saved $6K I would try to spend no more than $5K if you can help it. Try to buy one that has been maintained but not modified. You will more than likely end up with a better car that you can enjoy starting from day one. At this age any 280z is going to need a suspension rebuild at the very least. Try to find one that has working A/C. If the A/C and heat work properly then the car can really be a daily driver. From a performance standpoint, many people start an engine build up with a 280z block but most do not retain the fuel injection. Getting an engine built up professionally can cost big bucks and could easily cost more than what you pay for your car. With that in mind and given your age and other things to think about in life, I would concentrate on just finding a really good car, driving it, enjoying it, and later down the road when you have some cash to burn, then look at modifying it. Many others will weigh in. In the mean time I highly recommend you reading everything around the net regarding classic Z ownership, buying, repairing, etc. Good luck with your search!

I got the new bumper guard strips installed and got the bumper back on the car. In the grand scheme of things the strips are a small piece but in my opinion they have a very high impact as they help complete the front of the car and give it a correct look. I know a lot of people don’t like the bumper guards but I have always been a fan of them and glad they are now looking good on my Z. That is all for now. With the holidays upon us I don’t see me doing much else to the car. Depending on how things go I may start looking in to getting it painted in the spring. For now, I am just happy to have it and enjoy it. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

After a few shots of PB blaster the old bumper guard strip nuts came off. With the bumper on the table I decided to put a little elbow grease in to it using some Mothers Billet polish to try and make the chrome look a little better. This stuff is a bit expensive but the results never cease to amaze.

With the car still on jack stands I wanted to tackle something that has been bothering me for awhile. When I bought the car it had an Acco over rider bar on it. I have never been a fan of them and it was interfering with the hood when it was opened so I removed it. Of course when I did this it revealed the cut away bumper guard strips. I had managed to track down a new set of bumper guard strips but have been reluctant to install them since the left side has been NLA for quite awhile with no sign of any new ones coming on the market. Unfortunately the cut down strips look pretty bad and at car shows they really let the car down as a whole. Enough is enough, I am going to install them. I got mine from Vintage Rubber and for some reason only the right came in its Nissan package. Before diving in I wanted to make sure I enough mounting nuts for them in case the originals were too rusty to use. This brought up an interesting observation. The left strip uses 10-32 nuts and the right strip uses M5-0.8. I double checked them with a thread gauge and sure enough they are different. No big deal in my opinion as no one will see them once installed. Removing the bumper was no big deal and once on my padded card table I had a chance to give it a good inspection. Overall the bumper is in really good shape with only some minor breakdown in the chrome finish, a very small ding off to the right, and some black paint over spray on one of the bumper guards. Using one of the boxes that a tie rod came in, some wood, and a clamp I gently secured it to the table to work on it. On the inside of the bumper and one of the bumper guards there was some writing and a stamp. The writing looked like 5 FHC 3 and the stamp is too hard to decipher. Anyone know what these might mean?

A quick trial fit of the rack boot revealed that the hole for the threaded portion of the rack to go through was too small. Using my step drill bit and the molding line around the hole as a guide I enlarged the hole in a matter of minutes. Sure enough the fit is perfect once installed. The small hole fits tightly around the threaded end of the rack while the other end fits in the groove of the rack and is secured with an included tie-wrap. With some anti-seize applied to the threads, a few turns of the tie rod, some tightening with the wrenches, and the passenger side is done. The driver side was simply a repeat of the passenger side keeping in mind things are reverse threaded on this side.

I had lunch the other day with my buddy and fellow Z owner Mike W. Since the sun was shining and I had nothing else to do I decided to tackle some small stuff on the Z. After buying the car getting under it I noticed the passenger side steering rack boot/bellow and outer tie rod boot was shot. I knew exactly the amount of effort this was going to take as I had done it on my old ’72 240z when I had it. The passenger side was not in much better shape so both sides needed to be done. I also remember and still read how the rack boots you buy on Rock Auto and other places that are supposed to be for our cars do not fit properly. The main problem being the inner side of the boot is too big to fit snuggly on the rack. Then I came across a post somewhere that an owner used some boots that are for a VW and were made by EMPI part# 88-1509-K. I found them on Amazon and purchased my Moog outer tie rods there as well since they seem to have the best price. I started on the passenger side and disassembly is very straight forward. A few tips and things to remember. Tip 1 - The passenger side threads on normally, aka clockwise aka, righty-tighty, left-loosy. The driver side is reverse threaded so to remove it you twist the tie rod off in a clock-wise fashion. Tip 2 - Break the jamb nuts loose first, again following the info in tip #1. Tip 3 - Once you have the new rack boot on take a wire brush and clean the threads of the rack. This will make installing the new jamb nut and tie rod much easier. Tip 4 – Do not rely on the number of turns of the old tie rod to get you close. Due to variations in from one manufacturer to another you need to measure from a fixed point to the center of the joint of the tie rod. In my case this was 23.5cm on each side. The whole job was done with very little drama and only one minor injury, a decent size scrape on the top of my bald head. Tip 5 – Always wear a hat when working under a car! With the passenger side tie rod and jamb nut off the rack boot was literally falling apart as I pulled it off. Compared to the new one it looks like a very good match.

With a beautiful Sunday in front of me last weekend I decided to do a fluid change on the transmission since it had developed a whine going out to the car show a few weeks ago. I had heard and read lots of good things about Redline’s MT90 transmission fluid so after a few clicks on Amazon I had 3 quarts on my door step within a few days. In addition I bought a transmission drain plug socket set off of Ebay. I remembered not being able to get the drain plug off the transmission of my old ’72 lime green/yellow 240z and figured this would help. Even though a half inch drive kind of fits inside the drain plug, it is not the correct tool and usually just ends up galling the inside of the drain plug. The CORRECT tool is a 13mm square head socket that you use with a half inch drive ratchet. Even though I only used one bit out of the set for about 3 minutes, it was worth every penny of its $38 price tag. I made sure I could remove the fill plug before draining anything. Once that was confirmed I removed the drain plug. At first only a teaspoon of fluid came out so I decided to remove the fill plug to give it some air. Once I did that the fluid stopped. Perplexed and a little disturbed I put my finger up in the drain hole only to discover the gearbox was empty. My heart literally stopped. I was so shaken up by it that I had to walk away from the car for a few minutes and get some water. As I came back and stared at the drain pan knowing I had driven the car well over 100 miles since buying it, most at highway speed, I knew this could end up very bad. A quick inspection of the magnet on the drain plug revealed only a little metal fuzz so I was a little hopeful. I figured at this point my only option is to put the drain plug back in and fill it up. I have a fluid pump but since I already had some clear tubing I decided to fill it from the engine bay by snaking the tubing up against the transmission. Ladies and gentleman, this is the way to do it! It was super easy and quick. I had my wife keep an eye on the fill hole while I poured the fluid down. Once it started dripping out I stopped and reinstalled the fill plug. After some gentle laps around town the whine went away completely except for 5th gear which still has a very subtle whine. I figure once I get some highway time on it this may go away too. To be on the safe side I may drain and refill it after a couple weeks just to make sure there is nothing is floating around. All in all I am shocked and feel very lucky. I dodged a bullet for sure!

I have been hammering out some odds and ends on the Z over the past few weekends. On a recent trip to a local car show a few weeks ago pecan and walnut debris started shooting out of the passenger side fresh air vent. When I was installing all the new blower motor components I vacuumed the opening out several times but once I reached 70mph it started shooting out. The image below is probably a familiar site to anyone that has owned a classic automotive that has spent time outside. [url=http://s87.photobucket.com/user/camaroguy1969/media/1971%20240z/Nov%202014%20Work/Pecans02.jpg.html] I popped off the cowl panel expecting to find more shells and debris but to my surprise everything was now very clean. I managed to vacuum up a few leaves of other things but that was it. With the inside vac'd as well I crossed it off the list. A quick project done!

I will weigh in with just a few thoughts. Despite the article and other comments I think the 240z is gaining more and more fans, from all sides of the hobby. In fact, just yesterday at Starbucks a gentleman had his 1951 MG parked outside. I spotted him with a british hat on and we started talking shop. Once I mentioned I had a 240z he lit up even more as we swapped stories about them. These are drivers cars that everyone can relate to and at some point in almost everyone's life a Z has been there in one way or another. As far as the money and value question, there will always be flippers buying and selling cars, art, homes, antiques, on and on and on. If it is has value or preceived value, someone is flipping it, they always have been. In the grand scheme of things, I would just watch but not worry as there is nothing we can do about it. If our cars go up in value, cool, if not, that's fine too. Another car to look at is all stock Honda CRX Si hatchbacks. Go find a nice one for a reasonable price, you will find they are not as reasonable as one would think. Same goes for a nice stock 87-92 Z28 or Trans Am. Buyers and sellers in the collector car market value stock and originality and will pay a premium for it. Will our cars ever get priced out of what could be considered an affordable market? Probably not. Sure there will be super well done $30K+ cars but with so many Z's out there in varying degrees of condition and modification, there will always be something out there for everyone that wants one, as long as they are willing to be patient.

Welcome to the club MotiveAlloy. Mike gave you a good run down of the Z club here in Austin. Maybe once the holidays pass and you get the cooling issues taken care of we can all do a breakfast meet nearby up north. As JFA sais above, we love pictures!

Thank you MotiveAlloy. I see you are in the Austin area. I am up north in Pflugerville. If you need a hand with anything just let me know.

I find it interesting that this car and the one that was just on Ebay below with a BIN of $65K, went up to $38K is only 41 cars apart in their VIN numbers. Both cars seem to be restored to the same level and probably have close to the same value. I believe the one on Ebay has a higher quality paint job but both cars are very nice in their own right. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Datsun-240Z-Series-I-Totally-Restored-1970-Low-VIN-/231389268988?pt=US_Cars_Trucks&forcerrptr=true&hash=item35dfe00bfc&item=231389268988&nma=true&si=cTtpx%252FEY2j3p49sD7fCc7T0Jjyc%253D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

Congrats on the new ride! Sounds like you got a great car. We can't wait to see some pictures of it once you get to feeling better. I will PM you about the bumpers.

That is unbelievable! A record for sure! You were putting in pans at the beginning of October and now it is painted, assembled, and running. Great job Tom!

Very nice! Congrats 240dkw.