26th-Z

I have been reading along with you guys and want to comment. Carl brings up several valid points, the first of which cannot be overstated. These cars are assembly line cheap and the construction is by no means considered a crafted art. They were built quickly and economically. All sorts of things vary from one chassis to another. The seam between the roof and the quarter is lead filled and as such should not ever require any other filler. Lead IS the filler. I am doing a thorough job of "carcheology" as best I can as I take Her Majesty the 26th apart. I have a real original car, very unmolested (until now). What do you guys want pictures of? I have tons of pictures. Every time I get into one of these discussions, I learn something so shoot. I have a great example to talk about.

My thoughts would be to go with making an impression for the new filler material. Try a modelling clay or a urethane compound to cast a mold. The wrinkle black paint is also a good idea to get a consistent color and finish when all the patches have been made. Do a web search for people in the business of refinishing interiors and find out what they do. I have two consoles in such a state and this very project ahead of me. I figured I would repair both, select the one I want and sell the other. I plan to cast repair blocks in a urethane compund that cures to a rubbery latex material and is used like a stamp on the filler material. I suspect I will paint the consoles as well. I also plan to cast molds for replacement rubber and plastic pieces. At one point, I was planning to cast radio face plates and console control face plates with this nifty urethane stuff I found. As far as trying to find a complete clean console; just keep looking for what you want and "cheap" is going to be the price of the console at the time you want to buy it. Believe me, a similar console I bought a year ago for $75 is now for sale on eBay for $150 with the rest of the day to go. There are also people around making replacement consoles and I think Dashboard Restorations will cover a console for you.

Carl, If you are talking about my "mild" comment, I shouldn't have been misleading. Apologies. I wrote some more about expectations in my thread about the dash cap I have for sale. I suspect "expectations" are everything concerning restoration work and I have no fault with Dashboard Restorations at all. I think it is appropriate to say that if I do another DR dash, I will send the frame with it "expecting" that it might save me some time and skill to have someone better than me fit the dash pad back on the frame. We all sent our pads without the frames because we mistakenly thought it would save shipping costs. Shipping for a dash is a matter of size, not weight. Size matters! Because I am in Florida, shipping cost me over $250. Generally speaking, I am a satisfied customer and will consider doing my other series one dash as they are getting harder and harder to find and more valuable. The DR recovering is a very economical and thorough solution to the cracked and degraded dash problem. I'm still fitting the pad to the dash as I have high expectations and it is taking a lot of time to get it to my liking because I have never done this before. That's my only bitch

Lookls like a lot of work, thanks to David Colby who compiled that list! I wonder if the Miata will be as popular as the 240Z when I see this kind of information.

I got this blurb from Zcarz.com - Hope it helps. We also had another Black Pearl discussion about two weeks ago. In 1978 Nissan released a Black Pearl Edition 280Z, as a test market device to determine if the color black should be added to the Z-car model line colors. Some of these Black Pearl Editions came with a Sports Appearance Package which included the following options: Availability: Package Content: -2 Seater Coupe - Red & Silver Accent Stripes On: - Body-side - Hood - Deck-lid - Headlights -Black Pearl Metallic Paint -Rear Window Sunshade -Dual Racing Mirrors This all with a price tag of $8,287.00! The eBay car has the mirrors and the louvers (if they are original) meaning the car may have come with the appearance package originally. I got a kick out of the description; no real rust issues other than a frame rail replacement. At 112,000 miles, it sounds like a clapped out 280Z rather than a collector car. Might be worth saving if the price was right.

Craig, I refer you to this old discussion with respect to removal of the cam towers. http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=10076&highlight=cam+tower+shims Some of the thread may not apply to you, as this was about E31 heads, and I suggest you look at a couple of books and manuals about surfacing the deck and aligning the cam in the towers.

halz, If authenticity of color and texture is important, I would recommend Les Canaday at Classic Datsun or Mike McGinnis at Banzai for the most authentic material and texture. I bought a tan interior from Les some time ago and he was very attentive to color match and proper texture. Most of this material is aftermarket, now.

The Suncoast Z car Club is meeting in Tampa, Saturday, January 10th. http://www.suncoastzcarclub.homestead.com/ January 10th - (Sat) - Z Fever Grand Opening Celebration - Z Fever will be hosting a large Nissan-Infiniti meet to celebrate our Move to their new location. This meet is primarily for all Z cars, 240sx's, and G35s, however is open to anyone. Their New location at 4607 A N. Lois Ave, will have parking for roughly 50-60 cars. They will also be showcasing many of their project, customer, and shop cars inside their large new shop. They have some interesting projects in the works, so should be fun. They will also have some give-aways, a BBQ, and discounts for those who attend. Should be a good turnout, and I look forward to seeing everyone there! Date: January 10th @ 12PM - ? Where: Z Fever, 4607-A N. Lois Ave, Tampa FL 33614 Phone: 813 877 7600 (Ask for Charles for questions reguarding this event)

He says it is ready to get in as a daily driver but then says the headlights don't work and the speedometer doesn't work. He also says a rubber kit and a carpet kit are included making me wonder why he doesn't fix this stuff before he sells the car. I think the $4600 is pretty high for a 32 year old used car that needs work.

The S30 was designed in the late sixties when air flow around a car was not given thorough consideration. Contemporary styling at the time did not take into account air flow modeling the way it affects design today. Air tunnel testing was performed on the S30 chassis, but remember that air tunnel technology was not what it is today. Coupled with the light weight of the car, it is no surprise that top speed is limited by air flow stability. I remember driving through the Ocala National Forest one morning on my way down to Daytona. It was cool and calm. I noticed a great deal of front end drift at an indicated 120 mph - enough to awaken my better judgement and convince me to back off a bit. We also complain about exhaust gasses coming back into the car because of the pressure differentials off the tail of the car. Another air flow fault. The S30 sure is beautiful with classic flowing lines, but for all it's grace and beauty, it flies like a turkey and smells like turkey farts! Later versions of the S30 included modifications to suppress some of the early faults. A small spoiler was added to the front valance and then the valance was lowered. Interior venting changed almost immediately. Later version weigh more as well.

Hi Burt! I went down to Cape Coral and looked at the 280z for Tom yesterday. Nice, sound car.

You guys are getting "Zanal". You saw the car, Smokey. It is what it is as best you can tell anything about a used car. Some people don't keep records like we would. My father has the receipt for gas he bought at Brown Deer Airport for his airplane in 1949. I just don't keep all that clutter. It's a fire hazard. Did I tell you about the Black Pearl I saw in Hemmings? 33,000 miles $16,900. I say step up to the plate and feast your pallette on Black Pearl of Z!

Hello B_A, Interesting set of options. I would say that any 30 year old lemon has already been squeezed and I don't agree with your British Columbia / minimal rust statement at all. The car with new floors and the other car with "all met red (redone?) are rust statement cars. All that work has been performed because of rust. They all seem pretty expensive, too. The 240 - 260 - 280 is known as the S30 chassis and all of them suffer from rust issues. Cars from the desert suffer the least. Rust is the major issue and one we discuss here frequently. I think anyone here will advise you to shy away from the rust issue cars. There isn't much difference between the '72 model year and '73. The '74 is a 260 - quite different drive train - and watch out for those carburetors. It sounds like a better deal, depending on how well the engine conversion was done on the '73. A 5 speed would be nice, but the '73 sounds like it has been run a little harder than the 260. If it were my money, I would spend $6500 on a rust free car before I would spend $6000 on a new floor board car. The $8000 car would have to be pretty darn nice. There's my two cents. Happy New Year!

Smokey, Try Tower Paint http://www.towerpaint.com/ I noticed in the latestest Hemmings Motor News an add for a Black Pearl. 33,000 miles $16,900

That's way cool, Smokey.

Would this make a great clubhouse for our club? Mike! Wow. We could park all our cars on the hanger deck, ride the elevator up to the flight deck and race around, shoot parts cars off the cat, and use all our old oil to power the thing. COOL!!!!

Hey Robert! This guy wants $32,000 for the ZG and Alan is saying he is seeing original cars go in the $40,000 range. I use this currency conversion site http://www.xe.com/ucc/ One of the reasons the price seems so high is because of the strength of the Yen at the moment. Now is not a good time to go overseas and buy with American dollars.

Oops! The only one missing!?!?//*#

You might find it here. http://www.utdallas.edu/~perdue/paintcodes.html

I don't think those are original seats, Gavin. Notice the oil filter is remote and the engine is fitted with a lot of St. Steel braided lines, suspension options, etc. From the way I hear Alan describe the cars in Japan, it is common - as it is in America - to find modifications and upgrades.

Hey Brian! Through your link, I just surfed S30 cars and S30 parts on the Japanese Yahoo. All the times I have tried before were in Japanese and I couldn't read them. It looks like you could find a nice car there if you were so inclined. Expensive, but not out of hand. I saw a 72 for $2,600 and RHD dash brand new. Thanks. It was fun surfing.

I had to laugh; "My old clapped out junk will beat your old clapped out junk...". Yea, yea, the TR6 guys should stick to their "ruggedly handsome body" and "beautiful engine". Everyone knows. I don't like the suggestion of milling the head, but all the others are good for getting extra horsepower. Head work can get real complicated. For instance, milling the head will put the cam out of proper height and you have to shim the cam towers up. Just balance the engine, perhaps a mild cam, and headers. Spend the bucks on bigger carburetors if you wish, but consider suspension tuning as part of the horsepower discussion. One of the reasons a Z is so fast is it's weight.

No real hijack - just a diversion. Zhome has a real good explanation of the limited production American models and they are mostly the 280 Z series of the S30. The Black Pearl and Zzap editions, for example. Our American 240Z came in one flavor and we consider different variants that were actually dealer add-ons after the car was imported. In other parts of the world and especially Japan, the S30 came in several different flavors. There was a basic Fairlady, a luxury Fairlady, a high performance Fairlady and a racing version of the high performance Fairlady. There were versions with different body work (Alan has a beautiful example) and different engines. And because so many military Americans were in Japan, there was a version for them to buy in Japan and take home with them. Some of those cars were actually limited productions and some were low production volume. Brian Long gives a great description of all the S30 versions in his book; "Datsun Z, Fairlady to 280". Check it out!

Smokey, That's a Black Pearl and you can get some info about them from Zhome for starters. I thought there was supposed to be a commemorative plaque on the console, but I could be wrong. The Black Pearl is a limited edition model of the 280Z and quite collectable. You could expect that car to increase in value as an original example - strictly original. From the looks of it, you would have very little to do to return it to original, but some things, making it a fun and easy project / collector car to own. It looks to be in very good shape. I would just have the rocker fixed and blend the paint. I don't have the slightest idea how hard it would be to find a stripe kit for it, but I wouldn't if I didn't have to. At 50,000 miles, that car has reached it's tolerance of miles for a collector car. Any more miles - substantial miles - would lessen the value of it. If you drove it on outings and to events only, maybe no more than 500 miles a year, it would be a fun car to have. But if you plan on driving it frequently, forget the collector car routine. You will wear it out and loose the value. I liked the reference to the Zzap add, thanks. That's another collector car at the same point in it's collector car career. Time to retire to the garage. This is a good time to start finding cars like this. They still have relatively low miles and exist in original condition or can be returned to original economically. The paint is original, the stripes are original, the interior is original, even the cad plating still gleams. They will be the ones most sought after in the future. I don't know what to tell you on the price. You need to do some homework and find out what they have been selling for. Incidently, that ebay $33,000 Factory Restoration car with 50,000 miles was reduced to $25,000 and sold without meeting the reserve. That will give you an idea of what is happening in the collector car world. If that car does trade, it will be above $25,000. If I had $10k for a garage toy, I would call him up and make arrangements to see the car.