Warty

What kind of abuse do you need to give a car to get a rusty STEERING wheel?? On the plus side the Datsun emblem glued to the air cleaner box might be metal and worth something to a 1970 restorer. But back to 4858: looks like fun! Is it red or regular orange? Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Of course you could be right, there isn't a lot of information to go on. I think we need someone with actual knowledge of the situation. Linguistically, I don't know that there's anything conclusive. I did run it by a professional Japanese translators at work (I'm not a native speaker, and no longer translate professionally), and she basically said it was impossible to say. "古いマークで最近は使用されていないか、日本以外で付けられたか、公式なマークではないことが考えられますでしょうか。" So no luck there, so far. Whether the panels are "fire safe" or not doesn't matter: we know they were changed for 1973, to be compliant. Here are a couple more sources on that: "The "off-white" actually came in 73 - if you place the two side by side, you can see the difference. The reason the 73's are off-white is because Flame Retardant interior materials had to be used for cars sold in the US that model year. That new material was every so slightly - off white. Kind of in between white and light cream. The "white in the Z" wasn't a problem - they sold very well in 73. However at the begining of the model run we started getting PL510's - Orange with Green interiors... very ugly... That is when we found out that several colors were held up, due to the new Flame Retardant Materials regulations. Nissan actually suppled new Black interiors for several of the ugly PL510's that would not sell otherwise." http://www.blackdragonauto.com/zZxCatalog.htm 1973 Carburetors, manifolds and cylinder head changed for emissions requirements. Distributor changed to transistorized breakerless ignition system. Intermittent windshield wipers added as standard equipment. Tinted glass, 3 point adjustable seat belts, collapsible steering column and fire retardant interior introduced. Reclining seats added.

Yeah. Maybe consider not fully re-attaching that. Honestly, that thing was a seriously bad idea (from a safety point of view). having said that, now I want to go get the rest of one of those assemblies and hook it up on my car just to see how it works. I have the lever assembly, but not the cable assembly.

Oh, the panels definitely were changed "around" 1973 (not sure how far in advance) to be compliant. Doesn't mean that they, or anything else people were doing at the time were not still going to burn, it just means they complied with the regulation. Maybe added bromide to the mix, I dunno. If you search for FMVSS in this forum and others, you'll find some references. Zhome calls it out too. As far the term, I'm pretty confident that 難燃料、難燃性, etc., etc are all standard terms. And in our particular context, I'm not sure they are likely to be anything else. Other than maybe the first character of a factory name, but I didn't turn up anything likely there. As to why some panels have them, others don't, well, I would guess there was quite a bit of variety at the factories, but also, those panels would get swapped around at dealers quite a bit I imagine. Who knows what happened to our cars 40+ years ago? And, of course, it is possible Datsun was getting out ahead of the Jan 1, 1973 implementation date. I *think*, but am not sure, the regulations are born in a 1966 act of congress. So by 1970, they may have known pretty well what was coming. I think someone who knows a lot more than me about Datsun manufacturing history can probably give us a definitive answer.

The faded blue: you might trying retrobriting it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retr0bright I don't know what these panels are made of, so I can't say whether that would work or not, but I suspect it would. But read about retrobriting before doing it, and maybe test on a small sliver first. If it worked, it would completely change the color of those panels, back to the bright blue you see on the back.

Do you think these people who were retro installing the hand throttle were actually hooking it up? Or just putting it there for looks? Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Thanks. My trim pieces are all black, so I don't have anything to match against for the paint. Aside from the dogleg and I think the "rear trim" piece, I think I can still get blue trim pieces online. Dogleg probably needs a professional upholstery shop I would guess. My rear trim piece isn't from a 1970 240Z anyway, so if I find one, I think that's one I'll have to paint.

Ah, so the hairy stuff is the famous jute. I've looked around on the web, I can't find anyone selling something that looks like that. Same name, jute, but seems lighter and not really "natural fiber" like from what I can see. It's too bad the carpet had been glued to it, when I removed it, it removed about half the jute on the tunnel. Of course, the jute had been long gone other places already. Hmm. Would be nice to go with something that at least looked original. If the tarry stuff under the jute is the original Nissan sound deadener/anti-vibration layer, I think I'll just leave it as is. From some photos I found on the web (see from BAT 1970 240Z auction #1), it looks to me like the jute for the rear deck, and passenger/driver floor pans was not glue down at all. Just laying there, and carpet laying on it loose as well. Is that right? I don't know what I'm going to install, but if I could avoid glueing the whole thing down, that would be my choice. Just so the next person doesn't have to scrape it all off. Tunnel will need glue though I think. tar>pad>vinyl. Sorry to hear about the fire! thanks for the advice. I'll try the RTV thing. There's a little whole in the driver pan, near where your left foot would go. I'll take a pic of that and ask if I need to do something more. It's very small, but all the way through. Weird about the blue vinyl. Could the dealer have installed the shag carpet before even selling the car, as a markup? I went through all the records again last night, and I can "see" the main exterior restoration, and the main interior restoration. But nothing that jumps out at me as the shag carpet.

I have a 1970 240z, and I think it came originally with blue vinyl. From your pictures, I *think* that car has black plastic trim. (maybe just dark and/or dirty though?). Can you confirm the trim piece colors for the rear deck etc.? Trying to figure out if I need to acquire blue trim pieces or not. I know they exist, but maybe only for later cars? Or maybe that owner replaced his at some point. The doglegs look blue in this car though. In my car, those are black too (currently anyway). If you part it out (and that look really unrestorable, now that I look at it ;-), I'm interested in a few things!

Ok, I think I might have it now. The 1973 FMVSS 302 standards set standards related to flammability of interior materials (after a crash). (This is also the 5 mph bumper regulation, and other stuff). You can read this section of the standard online. It seems like the goal is to have interior materials, specifically including trim panels, burn at a certain rate or slower. I think the 難 in this case is short for something like 難燃材料 (fire-retardant material or maybe flame resistant material?) https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/難燃材料 I'm still just guessing at this point, but I think it makes sense. Maybe in the 1970, maybe 1971 years, they didn't use the same plastic, and after they started preparing for the 1973 year FMVSS, they changed the manufacturing materials, and started putting the stickers on so it was clear which was which. They probably were able to stop doing that once all the old stock was gone. With standards, in general, you know about them years before you have to implement them, so I don't know if they did that in 1972, or maybe earlier. It would be interesting to see when it started in Zs. One thing it means for me and my 12/70 240Z is that probably, none of my interior panels are original. Which I was starting to suspect for a different reason, but...

The kensa sticker referenced there would be 検, short for 検査.

I took off all my interior panels today, and I think all but 1 had a sticker with 難 ("difficult"). Was that the first character in the place name of some Nissan assembly plant? Maybe first character in the name of a sub-contractor that did the plastic? Did it mean this piece was subject to high failure rates? Anybody know? Kats?

(I tried to start this from the mobile app, but auto-correct didn't help, and something went wrong with the photos, so starting over with a better thread title). I have a 12/70 240Z. Exterior is blue 803. Interior is black. (although, there is a question about what it originally was). The interior has had I think 2 refresh passes at it in the past, with POs. It looks like it maybe first got some brown shag carpet, then later, black carpet. The seats are series 2 seats (I think): they have the lever that allows seat tilt; they do not have the twist mechanism; they have wire, not webbing below. The original stereo is gone of course, there is a Blaupunck that powers up, but isn't connected to an amp or speakers, so no sound. There is an aftermarket radio antenna, but I haven't hooked it up yet to see if it is manually controlled or automatically controlled. There is a partial dashcap. The seat belts are newer, but not retractable, and the shoulder belts are missing. Cargo/luggage belts also missing. Rust-wise, it's surprisingly good, from what I can see. I think it has also not been slaughtered, bodywise. The damage mostly seems to be limited to all the screw holes that the shag carpet installer put in. Sometime in I think the late 80s or 90s, it had an everything-out rotisserie repaint (but not, I think, sand blast to bare metal). And at some point in the past x years, mice were in it. My goal: Restore interior to be comfortable, quieter, and more stock than currently. Not for concours, but as a fun weekend driver. I've never worked on a car before, so I'm going to ask lots of annoying questions, so apologies in advance. I do try to research online first of course. I also have a couple books, but not a field service manual yet. This weekend, I removed the panels, console, seats, ripped out all the carpet and got rid of most of the foam, that helps with the smell quite a lot. Not sure if the seats are salvageable. (the metal sure, but...) First questions: What did the original tunnel insulation look like? I see it in the line drawings, but what was it? On this car, I see a kind of tar-like layer over the metal, then some brown hairy stuff that reminds me of buffalo hide, then vinyl (almost all removed), then carpet. What is that brown hairy stuff, and is it original? The panels in this car are black. The current vinyl (only in place in the rear deck) is black. But in removing the old carpet, I found blue vinyl underneath the brown shag in numerous places. mostly just little circles of it, like they cut around it when they removed the shag to put in the black carpet. You can see it especially in the hand brake mechanism, which appears to sit on a bit patch of it. I really can't tell... does that mean this car would have been blue/blue when purchased? If so, in 1970, would the interior panels also have been blue? Or did the blue panels only show up later? Something like 20 screws were used to hold the shag carpet down. I have removed them all, but that leaves little holes everywhere. This car is very unlikely to ever see a wet road as long as I own it... But do I need to do something about those holes? Fill them? Is there any way to tell if vinyl is original or replacement? Trying to figure out if the Vinyl in back came with the car or not.

Forget to mention: the seats are not original. They have the later bar that will allow tilt mechanism, and they have wire underneath, not webbing. I had a chance to drive a 2016 vette this past weekend. Nice seats, they kept me in place on the corners. I'll check out 300zx seats. The Porsche ones seem to be expensive in my neck of the woods. The shape is pretty close, I never realized that. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Thanks everyone! I read all these, went away and thought a bit, and decided to replace the black carpet with black vinyl, bring it back closer to stock. I got a new head unit, speakers, and Derek's kick panels. I finally had a clear day to work on it today. In the meantime, I had discovered another problem: when I first got the car, there was a very strong gas smell. Overpowering. Mechanic fixed up the carbs, and the gas smell went away... replaced by MOUSE smell. Argh. So this morning, before doing anything with the speakers, I start tearing out the carpet, vacuuming up mouse droppings, etc. I take a break at lunch, and start putting new black vinyl in my shopping cart at MSA, but hold off on ordering. Maybe a good thing... While scraping off the foam (well, not original, but old at this point), and the brown hairy stuff from the tunnel, I found 2 little mysteries: The car had black carpet when I got it. Pretty standard stuff. But it looks like at some point before, it had some kind of brown carpet. And I think it was screwed down. All that's left is a bit around each screw (see pic). Do I need to keep these screws? I presume they aren't original at all. Should I plug the holes they made in the metal if I remove them? Around the handbrake, something interesting showed up. With all the brown stuff, I didn't realize what it was at first, but it appears to be the diamond-pattern blue vinyl. It's still behind the hand brake mechanism. Does that mean what I think? This car had blue vinyl originally? If so, would it have had blue panels too? Or in 1970, was the blue just limited to the vinyl? I was also going to ask if there is a way to know if Vinyl is original or not. The stuff in the back is in good shape...

https://eauclaire.craigslist.org/cto/6210843238.html No shots of the interior. "Body is ok. Has some rust but not horrendous.". I've certainly seen worse looking rust (from what you can see from the 4 photos) for more money.

I have a 1/1970 240Z that I recently bought. The car had 3 previous owners, first two being the long-term owners. These folks did a lot of work to the car over the time they owned it. The first owner had the car re-upholstered around 1980 (hmm, that didn't last long!). The second owner had the car up on a rotisserie for restore/repainting. Which is great, because they seem to have done a great job on rust. Also, the headliner is nice and firm. But there are some unoriginal elements to this car: rebuilt, non-matching L24 most of the original vinyl is gone, replaced by carpet (even on the tunnel). all/most of the original jute material is gone. sometimes, replaced by foam, sometimes by nothing really. dashcap luggage straps removed original wheels gone etc etc etc I use the car as a weekend+ driver. I don't want to restore to concours or anything. My goal is to have an enjoyable Z that I don't feel bad about driving; and also I want to "do no harm". I might want to see the car in a few years, we'll see how it goes. I'd love to hear some recommendations about what to do, and NOT do, with the interior of this car. Some ideas I'm kicking around (not married to any of them): Strip down, do dynamat and/or thermal protection (foam over the muffler cooked!) (lots of good stuff on this forum about that) Do squeal/squeak deadening on the interior panels (lots of good stuff on this forum about that) Maybe replace seats with something non-Z like that would be more comfortable. Corbeau GTS II from MSA perhaps? Swap for blue interior (this year 903 blue cars apparently could come in black or blue interior; blue-on-blue seems like it might be weird and fun and have super SEVENTIES power). Would this damage re-sale value of car though? It looks like parts are available, maybe $1500-2000 range for the materials). Opinions and advice from the community would be great to hear.

ZZZap! Don't forget the branded video game! https://www.tapatalk.com/topic/1127852-bangshift-com/4f189e862f7f26356eab0083248a2ce9-the-tale-of-the-datsun-280z-zap-the-first-car-video-game-cross-promotion http://jalopnik.com/datsun-was-the-first-car-maker-to-officially-brand-a-vi-1652829922 http://www.datsunclassifieds.com/autos/datsun/1977-datsun-280z-zap-edition-yellow-original-80k-1977-000-000-000-00-3968.html I hope you are able to preserve those stripes. They may not be full on 1970s orange/brown/yellow goodness (, , but they're pretty awesomely 70s!

Beautiful car! Engine bay shot? Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Just a flesh wound. I've had worse.

Thanks guys, that's very helpful. I had a brain-fart in there somewhere, but I finally get how the wesco roadster belts work. They're a lot like the mid 70s camaro belts: 1 retractor at the shoulder point, and you adjust for waist by sliding the buckle up/down the shared retractor belt. Makes perfect sense now. I started out thinking we'd have to fabricate 2 mounting points, but ended up knowing we don't need to fabricate ANY. Which is awesome, from a keeping-alive point of view.

For some reason i thought the three point belt wasn't introduced until 1971. But that's great news for me: that should mean I can just hook up to it and trust it. We thought someone had put that mount point in and then some other PO had abandoned it for the lapbelt that is currently in the car. It's not original, and neither is the mounting hardware it's using, but it is using the standard mount points. This cars interior has a lot of slightly different to it. If you don't mind I would love a shot of that window mount just to make sure that's what I'm working with. Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

I'm not familiar with a third seat belt mount point on a 1970 240z. Can you show me where that third point is? The roadster belt instructions call for a third point either on the wheel well, or under the window. They provide a plate you install to distribute the force across a bigger area. Looks like it's about 1.5 " x 3 ". Is there a better way to install a third point so one can use a shoulder belt? Sent from my iPhone using Classic Zcar Club mobile

Wesco sells a roadster seatbelt, and a standard roof seatbelt. Here, and in another thread, people have recommended the roadster belt for early 240Zs. Mine appears to have already been modified at some point, with a mount point above the window. Similar in location to this one: from : Any reason I couldn't use the standard seatbelt from Wesco, given that upper mount point already exists?

Thanks. I should have mentioned that I did look at the MSA one, but I'm already sick of fishing the flopping console-side belt out of the gap between the seat and the console, so I'm looking for one with either a rigid sheath, or a rigid stalk on that side. In case it helps anyone in the future, here are 2 more links: http://www.ssnake-oyl.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=Ssnake-Oyl&Product_Code=WSCH201P&Category_Code=3PRLS http://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/40-7490