Parman

Meanwhile........I had found my missing pieces, 4 wheels and d-hubcaps found by a guy cleaning an attic in California. one year later............my hubcaps are speaking to me....... Well, We're waiting............

In a couple months, I had welded in all the repair panels myself. It was easy to blow right through some areas, like the toe boards. The rotisserie made it nice, just go to the other side, attack it from both sides. I replaced both frame rails, the tub, both outer rockers after cleaning inside them, doglegs, and fender bottoms, and hatch slam. It was time for me to go build roads and go logging. Spring break was up. The inside was painted, the engine bay, and bottom undercoated. Sometime that summer, I brought the lines down and installed them before the car was taken off the rotisserie.

The paint job was his responsibility, I wasn't interested in that part. I would pay him separate for that. stripping the car with aircraft stripper. There's me, gettin the rust out! Gotta love it.

I refinished the steering wheel meanwhile, I had dismantled the engine and found some rust in the cylinder closest to the firewall, damn! So off to the machinist it went. I bought this book, a must and ordered a master rebuild kit, but they were no longer available. I scrambled to find parts but by January of 2022, I had the engine done. I found out that a water pump failure had scored the timing cover water channel. I found a brand new cover assembly, front for the cost of a used one from NENGUN CO. LTD Fukuoka-shi, Japan. I didn't mess with the cylinder head since it had been rebuilt right before the car was forgotten. so, by spring of 2022, I had done everything I could. I needed help. My Nephew works at Napa in Kalispell, and said, "hey Rich! this guy just came in and all he does is restore 240-Z's. He's from California, just moved here. I said that's the guy I'm looking for. So, he came up with a cart and we discussed the car. I would pay him for the body work. He would teach me how to do it, and we would put it on a rotisserie. I tried to buy a rotisserie at this time, but covid had messed everything up. I had already ordered the repair panels from KlassicFab in Columbia or somewhere. I could get a part shipped from them in less time than it took from Colorado. So, here we go. Also not seen here is the hatch slam and the rockers.

Reading through the restorations on this site, I decided what would get powder coated, and in less than a week it was done. the price was $250 and I didn't have to clean them, but I did plug all the threaded holes with threaded plugs I made. I showed them what to tape off as far as bearing surfaces etc. They did a great job. I later added the brake backing plates, I liked the fact that brake fluid would not hurt them. First batch back from the platers. It was like jewelry! Now I'm getting excited. But some of the larger pieces were blistered. More plating damage seen on these throttle linkages, if I had to do it over, I wouldn't send those in. I sent those back and they re-plated them. I believe they were with the smaller parts and didn't quite work out. I also folded the long fuel, vent or brake lines like I read here, and made them fit into a 6' long box. Shipping was very expensive for those.

As far as repairing rusty panels on the car, I was lost. So I continued what I could, disassembly, and refinishing.

All right, where were we back in 2021........I started removing more parts, pulled the engine, dismantled as much as I could to get a batch ready for plating. I bead blasted the pieces, really nice for getting into the crevices on phillips head screws, bolts etc. It was a long tedious process, but I liked it. Then I wire wheeled each piece to give it smoothness and shine. It worked amazing. I bought a nice small paint gun, good automotive primer, activator, reducer and 2 gallons of high quality black paint, one was a gloss black, and one was flat. I could mix the 2 and get the desired sheen. Fortunately I had plumbed my shop correctly for eliminating moisture out of the air lines. My compressor is in the loft, the copper air line 15' off the floor slopes gradually down with drops that have valves for releasing water. Then the air line goes up, then drops to an outlet. It goes all the way around the shop this way, with water drop lines, then tees off for air. In the upper right corner of this phot, you see the air line leaving the loft above that Conoco Germ sign. The first tee down is a water drop. the second tee down is the air drop, which runs under the wall lights. and it continues above the door and same principle on the next one. It actually goes back into the loft and drops again, this is the one I used for painting. Never had an issue with water in the line. I built a small paint booth under the eave of my shop and proceeded to refinish parts that were not going to get powder coated. Such as the steering column, pedal assembly box, fan and heater box, any part that I could not find replacement original style bushings for. Here's the half shafts getting sprayed. The blast cabinet made it easy to clean parts.

That's correct, I started working on the car when I first got it, January of 2021. I took photos along the way, but never planned on doing what I did. I've restored a few gas pumps, but never anything like this. One thing led to another, then Covid hit. I had it in a body shop which took my money, but never finished the paint. It languished there for almost 18 months, and the car was held ransom for bogus "Storage Fees". It's called "body shop prison". I hope none of you ever go through it. Made me sick. Got the car back home fall of 2023. Time flies. Found another shop to finish it, and the restoration continued. I'll continue the progression with photos, but yes, the car is done. Here's a sneak peek.

The story goes a doctor had this green car, he wrecked it, then someone welded the back half of another car to it. he wrecked it again, then decided to make an electric Z. took most of the interior out of this one, and stuck it in his barn. Meanwhile the electric Z caught fire in his garage and burned his garage down. Along side this green car was this 65 Datsun pickup. I thought why not, Merry Christmas to me

meanwhile, while studying up on these cars, I realized most of this car was here! Except the 2 things that most of them are missing, the wheels and hubcaps and radio. About that time I get on Craigslist, "I never get on Craigslist" and did a local search for 240z. what? here's one for sale near Kalispell. Funny but sad story attached to it. So I notice it's a 1/70 car wrecked and wrecked again but it had topy wheels. I ask if there's a radio somewhere, he sends me a picture of a box of parts with a radio, I said I'll be right down. 60 miles later, this thing is actually 2 cars welded together, the front of a 1/70 and the rear of an 11/71 judging by the unused spare. But, a couple rims were dated 12/69 and 2 were 5/70 and it had a nice bullet tip antenna. I bought it for the radio. Got my money back selling the rims and got a complete engine too and many other parts. Now I think all I'm missing are the correct dated rims and D hubcaps.

Close up of passenger side floor I guess I gotta keep going.... Did you notice? Junkyard Jenny said it's wearing a 72 bumper. also 1 rear finisher clip is broken.

Engine bay: Carbs were done by Ztherapy in 8/2000 and cylinder head was done in 2002 The inside of the doors were a bit under the weather, the belt moulding rubber was toast, all the rubber on this car was past it's prime. I decided to treat the doors with POR.

This car had some moisture, condensation from sitting in the weather all these years. Hot summers, cold winters, all kinds of weather. It was at this time I got one of my favorite tools, a harbor freight blast cabinet which I upgraded to a foot pedal etc. More tools included a spot weld cutter bit, a welded for welding thin metal. I have welders, but they're for heavy logging equipment, not this. As I took the car apart, I carefully bagged up the parts in separate labeled bags. About this time, I started reading Motorman's "the Orange" and "Deja vu" threads. It really inspired me to think "hey, I can do that!" But then realized to get parts plated, I needed to throw everything into a box together. Now my memory isn't that good, and getting worse every year, so, I decided to measure and record everything. It took days. The thickness and diameters I measured with a micrometer, lengths in millimeters. I wasn't to familiar with metric....so if these can help anyone, here they are. I had a couple shipments to Sav-On plating and parts of another car in these. As far as clear zinc or yellow, in some cases I may have gotten it wrong as these things were powdery/rusty color. I think this car was pretty much unmolested. datsun invent 6 001.bmp

Fortunately, no wires were chewed under the dash or in that vicinity. They preferred the firewall pad, glove box liner, vents, jute, they had enough to nibble on....This is when I found Junkyard Jenny used parts, send me a heater box, fan, etc. About now was when I realized I'm looking at tarmat on the floor, not the floor....Went to town, got some dry ice, what a pain it was. Took 2 days to remove it. It wasn't too bad, the worst being passenger side footwell, which turned out to be much larger than I first saw. It's close proximity to the battery tray area.

Time to attack the interior a little more.......Okay Wow, the dash isn't even cracked! 🙄 Look at the sweat on the dash finisher. Time to remove the dash. Went to town and bought a bunch of labels for marking wires, as per suggestions on this site. oh, here's the interior as I found it. more evidence of mice Glad I pulled the dash, look at this! He wasn't kidding about the mice. I believe they got in through the fresh air vents, because later I found it stuffed with pine cones.

I looked at the book I got with the car "how to restore your Z-car" and said to myself, I am not doing that, way over my head. So I got some polish and my girls started helping me shine it up. That's when I started noticing some rust. I started reading more and more and learned how deceiving these cars can be.

After getting it in my shop, I started removing things, carpet, etc and at first glance, being naive as I was, Wow, this car has no rust! I didn't know that what I was looking at was painted tarmat at the time. But, it looked pretty good. Water continued to run down the passenger side floorboard for several days, where is this coming from? He had a homemade speaker box in the back and when I removed it and the spare tire and found what he was talking about, MICE!

Hi Everybody! First off I have to say, what a great site this is and thank you to all who contribute to it. I stumbled upon this car in January of 2021 while logging my neighbors property about 1/2 mile away. The owner, who moved here in 2003 to help his aging parents on their small ranch, brought this with him from the Seattle area. He offloaded it here in the woods, and it remained there until he showed it to me. He kept mentioning something about the darn squirrels and mice getting in a car, and he was kind of sad about it. "What kind of car is it?" I ask. Oh, "It's a Zcar". Hmmm, I remember those in high School in the late 70's, my friend had one. Let's go look at it! So off through the forest we go, and wow! this is cool! I opened the hood and was immediately in awe. Then, when I opened the inspection lids, This is really cool. He started talking about side draft carburetors and I was lost, but he thought they were amazing. Life on the ranch became overwhelming and time just got away from the gentleman, he is now in his mid 70's and it's been 18 years since he parked it. He tells me he found it on Vashon Island completely buried in blackberry bushes, along with an old VW, back in the late 1990's. So he rescued it, got it running, and his wife drove it for 2 years before it ended up here. I went home, did some research on 240z's and couldn't sleep. I had to save this car! I went back the next day to work and made a deal with him, brought it home. What did I just do? Along with the car, he had a few things, books and a few parts. Back in 1999, you could go to a Nissan dealer and pretty much still order anything you want for these cars.

Good you got your money back. It's weird they have no phone number available. 🤔 As soon as I saw this letter wanting me to cancel my PayPal dispute, and THEN they will refund me was a huge red flag. I immediately called PayPal and escalated my case.

Yup! Same thing happened with me. I ordered a downpipe January 7th, assuming it was in stock. They emailed me the next day, saying it's been backordered, and it will be 2-4 weeks. OK, fine. 6 weeks go by, nothing. I email them about the status. My email is ignored. Another week goes by, I email them again, this time I get the 7 to 10 days time frame. A few more weeks go by. I get the run around. Now just about 3 months have gone by, I check with JDM CAR PARTS. They have them in stock and actually make the downpipe here in the U.S. wait, aren't both these places in California? Why doesn't Datsun Garage go to JDM and get my part and mail it to me. So, I file a PayPal dispute. Here's is a letter I just received from Datsun Garage.

Went out to the shop, decided to swap hinges on the high side, had a couple extra. Closed the hatch and it was waaay better, to within half a millimeter. Oh wait....I removed the weatherstrip in the corner to remove the hinge. I put the weatherstrip back on and right back where I was, 2 millimeters high. 🤣 Why didn't I do that to begin with? It's the &%$#@$%& aftermarket piece of crap weatherstrip they sell. Let me tell you something, I restored this entire car, sure I had struggles, but nothing compared to the struggle with these aftermarket hatch weatherstrips. Attempt #1: I carefully cleaned the weatherstrip of all residue, even scuffed up the area to be glued and cleaned again. Followed the instructions on that 3M super weatherstrip adhesive, did the corners first, taped it down. Next day, did the straight sections, taped it all down. Waited a couple days. All good right? I was doing something and happened to bump the corner, and it came off. It didn't stick! What? I gently lifted on the a section and it just basically fell off. That's where a 2 day nightmare started. Removing the 3M super weatherstrip adhesive, ☹️ It won't stick to this aftermarket weatherstrip at all, none, but have you ever tried to remove it from paint? Without damaging the paint? It took me 18 hours to get that black nightmare off. The hatch wouldn't close anyway. Every piece of aftermarket rubber I installed on this car with that 3M stuff didn't stick at all. So I cut sections of it up, and tried different adhesives. The best I found was goop. It's clear and it sticks way better. So, I ordered another hatch seal from a different place. Unfortunately it looked the same as the first, with spliced in "thicker bulkier" corner sections. That's the problem, I think, these spliced in sections. And that's where I am today. It really sucks. An old timer once told me, "it's made to sell, not to use".

Thank you for that. Here's a photo of the car when I got it, so I know it can be flush. There are some rub marks on the hinge, like it's hitting something down in there, "interference". I did replace the boots.....

It looks like it's 2mm high. Is that is good as it gets? If it is the weatherstrip that's holding it up, why does the other side fit? Those captured nuts seem to be hitting a curved edge and when I tighten the bolts, they move up? I don't know but it's really a puzzler. I guess a guy could enlarge the holes upward on the hinge but would that even do it?