inline6

Hi Katz, I see you purchased 2146 off of eBay - did I help you become aware of it?

Interested. 06/1971... Thanks for working on this.

For what it is worth, the nut you have on the rear engine lift hook looks to me like an original exhaust manifold to down pipe nut. I think they are made of some type of alloy - they are not plated. You could polish it a bit and see if it shines like a new penny. It is possible some of your hardware got moved around a bit from the factory locations. Most of it looks right, and I can't conclusively say, but the other pieces that look suspect to me are the stacked "B" washers at the engine lift hook location under that nut, and the thick "D" washer at the center top stud for the exhaust manifold to the head (6 required and you have 7). On your engine, "B" washers are in all the other locations that secure only the exhaust manifold to the head. So, it seems to me that the center top stud should have a "B" instead of a "D". I think the "D" washers are used only on the six locations that bridge from exhaust manifold to intake manifold.

Ok - thanks for that info! I seem to be missing that bolt for my car. I will have to attempt to find one in my spares. If you get a chance, I'd love to have the specs (e.g. yellow chromate hex head bolt - M8 X 1.25 - ?? (length in mm) under head, and ?? length in mm threaded.

Any numbers on the head of the longer of the two thermostat housing to cyl head bolts? *Edit: I tried zooming in on the pics you supplied above. I think I see something, but can't make it out. Does that long bolt that secures the thermostat housing to the head have these markings on the head? I have 5 of these. I thought they were all for holding the transmission bellhousing to the back of the engine, but maybe one of these is for the thermostat housing.

I was thinking about the fuel rail, and how it came into play, but didn't recall exactly where the brackets were. Thanks for the pic. If you have a chance to get the dims on the flat washers that go under those T R 7 bolts, please share those as well. I am updating my documentation of all my 240z's hardware which I shared once before in another thread. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Cmnw0F8N7B3VknCzNwGkfN2SGmIHdFJhDjARv3jkxNI/edit#gid=0 I have updated my Excel copy quite a bit as I have been going through all of the hardware that I got back from plating. I have been putting it back in the zip lock bags with my labels of where they go. Though slow, it is going very well. It's amazing how much of the hardware is unique to its location on the car. I will be updating the Google sheet for everyone after I have completed sorting and cataloging all of the hardware.

From you picture, I see that of the 6 T R 7 bolts, only numbers 1, 3, and 6 have flat washers. The other three didn't have a washer... of any kind? Do you know if your intake manifold has been taken off at any point? Out of all the hardware on the car, that used by the factory on the intake manifold is most unusual in my opinion.

Yes, that is helpful. What is the diameter and thickness of the flat washers used on the exhaust manifold only? Looks like 5 total - 1 front and 1 rear and 3 in the middle.

I'd like some further information about the factory hardware used to secure the exhaust manifold and intake manifolds to the head. Can anyone tell me what markings are on the heads of the 6 bolts which secure the top of the intake manifolds to the head? And, should there be flat as well as split lock washers used in conjunction with these bolts? To secure the exhaust manifold to the head (3 points), besides the hex nut and split lock washer, there is a flat washer used. What size OD and how thick?

Kinda looks like a fan blade on the radiator fan - odd pic.

Well, it came out very nice on your car. For the car I am restoring, I share your observations regarding the factory coating having a really heavy orange peel texture. Raptor liner (it is a truck bed liner), mixed per spec, and as sprayed from their application gun doesn't lay down quite as smoothly as the factory texture, but it is closer than other spray on liner protection coatings. I researched quite extensively before I decided to buy Raptor liner. Additionally, however, I have two videos to provide which I found very interesting and which provide information which may help to achieve a finish like the factory coating. Jump to 20:50 to see the resulting finish for the tintable stuff this guy achieved with the standard gun that comes with the kit and I think 60 psi at the regulator: It is still more textured that the factory stuff, but closer than any other bed liner I researched. That said, here is another video that I found where a guy using Raptor liner over dash parts and achieving a surface that literally allowed the original texture of the dash to show through. I question the use of this product on dash parts, but I plan to experiment with the same, cheap gun, drilled out nozzle, more reducer and less hardener, as well as different air pressures to attempt to get a lot closer to the original factory look. Jump to 11:48: He uses a cheap Harbor Freight HVLP gun with the nozzle drilled out to 2 mm. And he uses 20% reducer instead of 10% and half to three quarter of the amount of the hardener called for, so that the sprayed material doesn't set up as quickly. Finished dash is shown closer to the end of the video. Most of the coating on my car is still in good shape. There are many areas that were impacted at some point, however. My plan is to try to replicate the original texture in those spots as best I can, probably using the raptor gun and Raptor thinned to 20%. Hopefully, I can get a good result there, and then, I want to spray a very thin coating over the existing factory coating using the method in the second video. I hope the new coat won't add any texture, but that it will allow the factory texture to show in the new coat.

Can you share any pics of the underside? I've got Raptor waiting in a box. I hope to be able to apply it to the underside of the car I am restoring in a few weeks or so.

The rest of my parts have been plated - yay! The parts which are yellow are likely to be much more shiny than the finish from the factory. I think they came out quite nice though. Not sure why, but a couple of the hard lines got bent pretty significantly. I think I'll be able to straighten them out, but will likely have to wait until they are ready to go back on the car so I can see how they need to be bent to fix them.

I sanded for about 8 hours today. Most of the left side of the car is straight. The right side is not quite to the same quality just yet. I hope that 3 more coats of high build primer in the low spots will be enough to bring the surface up to where it needs to be. I feel like I am closing in on finishing the bodywork - which means I might only have another 50 hours to go! 🤣

And now the hood, which is very close to being done.

Bodywork is once again under way. In this video, I am checking for unwanted undulations in the surface of the outer panel of the door. With a large panel like this, it can be difficult to get it perfectly flat. I am finding that a suitably coarse grit of sandpaper has to be used (I am using 240 grit) and movement of the sanding block as the area is sanded must cross over from high point to high point "bridging" them. Sanding high points down, and filling low points (with more primer in my case) is how I will resolve the undesired distortion that can be seen in the lower half of this door panel.

I'm trying to achieve nearly "perfect panels" on the 240z I am restoring. I had many months where I couldn't move forward because the hardware was off to be plated. Recently, I received the fender bolts, washers, etc. So, I have mounted the fenders. I used close cell foam in the locations that the factory used foam strips on the inner fender support and backside of the fender. Interestingly, this weather stripping caused the flat expanse of the fender behind the front wheel wheel to bow out slightly. Something I have learned with these cars is that the sheet metal "moves" in various areas, either from foam supports behind, or from tightening down the fasteners. I absolutely do not recommend doing bodywork on the fenders or cowl panel while off the car. A couple of videos showing the latest progress:

Yes, it is some of the benefit from my car being from AZ originally and kept in a garage in CO for 28 years after that which allowed my clips to survive. Some clips are available in the aftermarket - just fyi as options: Ebay auction 6 for $32.95 and free shipping Vintage Rubber $35 for 12 of them if the page will load for you (it was not fully for me) Datsun Garage (or sub-vendor) $6 something each

Some actual assembly has occurred. It's been almost four years since I bought the car, and so much of my time has been spent tearing it down, stripping, sanding, etc., but I finally got to put something back on the car! Pics showing the repainted driver side inner fender support, rubber seal to seal against the inside of the fender, along with original clips to hold it in place, and pics of newly plated outer fender hardware: I I'm not sure why the factory put a flexible sealer along the top edge of the pinch weld on the inner fender area, but I replicated it as best I could. It is interesting to note that underneath the old material was bare metal. I scrapped it away and used wax and silicone remover to clean the area. I then used Eastwood Flexible Strip Caulk to replicate the original. I added as many strips as were needed and then hand formed them together in one solid mass to cover up the pinch weld area (third pic is the finished product): Interestingly, you can see that the original material got pushed downward where the clip is located (see third pic here): Something I did that is a bit different than factory - I added some double sided 3m tape so that the rubber seal would be more securely fastened than would be otherwise with just the little "s" clips. In the third pic, you can see the caulk was displaced in a similar way when I pushed the clip "home" into position. The seal doesn't do a particularly good job of sealing the "upper shelf" area from dirt and debris coming from in the wheel well area, but it helps. Maybe with this 3M product the sealing occurring here will be slightly improved. Pic of the product I used, and rubber seal installed.

I guess I have taken a pretty long break. Looking back over the last couple of months, the progress has been little and the updates few. I have, however, been waiting on some hardware to be plated, and quite bit of it showed up on Saturday! I spent many hours on my living room floor hunting down fasteners using my spreadsheet and ruler, and putting them back into their respective zip lock bags with labels which identify where they go on the car. I have many hours to go! None of the larger parts have come back yet, but I was in desperate need of the fasteners for the hood, hood hinge plates, fenders, inner fender supports, cowl, inspection doors, and hatch hinges. Especially for the inner fender supports and the fenders, I am proceeding with my plan to do final assembly before paint, meaning these parts will not be coming off the car when it goes to the booth for paint - nor after. Final primer coats, sanding, etc. will be done with all fasteners torqued to spec. The inner fender supports and foam rubber seals push on the fenders when the fenders are bolted in place. The fender panels, therefore, "move" a little when bolted down. To get them as straight as possible, I need them fully secured when doing final sanding. So, here are a few pics. I am pleased with how most everything I have received looks. Part of what is special about this car is how little rust it had. That carries over to the fasteners as well. For me, there is substantial value here when it comes to the fasteners because they haven't suffered the rust pitting that many do. The olive drab doesn't match the factory color well, but it looks pretty nice as the only reasonable alternative I think. I didn't send anything else to get that color - I missed including a couple small brackets, but those look ok as original anyway. Only a small number of bolts do not look as shiny as I would prefer. And for some reason, hex nuts came out exceedingly shiny. I am hopeful that the large parts will come out nice.

Nice - I like that you got the matching plate in place there too.

Haha!!! And here is another point that I would like to add to this discussion. I knew about the repro mirrors. I absolutely intend on buying one within the next 4-8 months. Getting back to this another point, however... Who else who would like to have one, but doesn't know they are available? If everyone who would like to have one knew of their availability, and could raise their hands to identify them as such, would the decision to invest in reproducing them have been easier? Would the cost of them come down? I contend that the efficiency of the market isn't what it should be. Pricing is too varied. And information is more imperfect than it should be. At this point in the history of the internet, it should be far easier to find out what is available, and to determine what is a good price for it.

Thanks. It is similar to my favorite toy from my childhood - a Remote Control car I had when I was 12: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1j8jiEC7IjXTNtWj_4ekyiU77dE3rFqWe/view?usp=sharing

It's been too long since I provided an update! Well, I have worked on the car very little in the last month. I was sick for a couple of weeks with a cold (or Covid19 - who knows) and also injured my wrist in a soccer game (I'm a keeper 😛), and it has been pretty dang cold, so I haven't been spending many hours in the garage. I also was busy (and stressed) with the process of buying another car to add to my collection, however it is not a Datsun, so it might not be interesting to y'all. Its a P car, so if you have interest: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11TKy03xPCheKGSkzxDvpRYW0BNLmyCSn?usp=sharing Steve at Precision ran into some equipment issues, so plating the parts has suffered a delay. Hope that the parts are being plated soon. With warmer weather arriving and delivery of plated parts imminent, progress should resume soon.

I thought so. I commented about one that was on ebay a month or two back - I think it sold for around $19k (not running). $50k for the one above is not a bargain. But, if you want a rare 240z, it is rare.