hotsho111

Haha ya, I considered it, but at nearly 800 bucks, and for the first time in more than 15 years decided to pay a local shop to do the work to save the time of doing it myself. They dipped, prepped the inside, and painted the outside and for 500 bucks I'd expect some quality work. I wasn't happy with the job they did and basically ended up redoing most of it myself anyway. In the end, would have save more money going with the S30.world tank Thanks @siteunseen ! Will take a read through that once I wrap up the tank

Thanks for the tips, I was using the choke. I need to give the carbs a once over in general, as it hasn't started right since I got it, I just had to deal with the gas tank first (which has taken forever) so haven't had a chance to get back to it, but slowly getting there

Awesome, thank you!

Hey, I have a '73 240Z which was switched to round top carbs, and getting close to wrapping up the tank rebuild and starting to look at the engine. I've only managed to drive the car a handful of times since I acquired it due to ongoing work on it, but In the past I would need to crank for like 30-60 seconds before it would start, and until it warmed up if I didn't give it a little gas to keep the revs up a bit it would just cut out. Once the car was warmed up though it ran fine so I'm slowly starting to give the engine a once over. I noticed that on both sides of the intakes there are open inlets which look like they should have a hose attached. It seems like they might have been connected to the coolant system. There is a hole near the thermostat that's plugged near the inlet towards the front of the engine The one towards the front of the engine appears to be just open, and the one in the back seems like there might be some kind of spring mechanism closing a plate or something. I was curious if anyone could provide a bit more info on these? Should these be capped off? I did double check the crankcase vent hose in the middle and that is in decent condition.

@Nils Ya, when you press the switch it's supposed to flip into the other position. It sounds like you have a similar issue to what I had originally: I could depress the toggle, it would temporarily switch to the other side, but once I released the switch it would reset back to the original position. Yours sounds a little worse as it isn't even able to temporarily switch. I forget which colors correspond to which, but power comes in through the center connection, and then goes out through the connections on the left or right - one for high beam, one for low beam. Ie, we'll just call the connections 1, 2, and 3, with 1 being high, 2 being the center, and 3 being low. 1-2 would trigger high beams, and 2-3 would trigger low beams. You can test that with continuity. You should never have continuity between 1 and 3. @fredrick that's a spring and a brass cap. It sits in a circular opening in a rocker inside the actual switch housing. The piece is held into the plastic via a roll-pin and is the only part I didn't remove when disassembling the whole thing (I didn't think there was a chance I get it out without it breaking. It's the second picture in the first post This whole setup is quite finicky and I've thought a few times about trying to engineer some kind of replacement, but not sure if the interest would justify it.

Circling back as I just wrapped this up. My air compressor was having some issues and wasn't very consistent, so I had to do some repair work on that. After getting that fixed, spraying a few more test shots it looked a lot better. Ended up taping up the underside of the car and plugged the frame rail fuel hose pass-through with a piece of fuel hose with some tape wrapped around it to block the holes. Ended up spraying 3 coats, waiting about 10 minutes between each coat and I'm very happy with the results. It ended up being quite close compared to what was there.

Ended up picking up some 3m Body Schutz and a cheap undercoating gun and did some test sprays and this isn't what was used, but I think its close enough. It dries much harder than what's currently on there, which feels quite rubbery.

Thanks Kickstand, and I still appreciate the video inline. The shortlist of products I've found are 3m Body Schutz 3M UnderSeal Rubberized Coating (8819) - this doesn't seem to be available in the states Wurth's Stone Guard Rusfre undercoating Domion Sure Seal Transtar Undercoating (4361) Sem undercoating KBS undercoating I'm sure there's a million more though. Going through my records I *did* manage to find the shop that did the restoration of my Datsun (in Spokane, WA, but I don't want to put them on blast). Unfortunately the shop owner retired in 2021 so I haven't been able to reach him.

Will continue to post some updates as I continue through this as people sometimes PM about random threads. I did some test sprays on the spray can rubberized undercoating from SEM I got and while I like the finish, it's not nearly as close to the existing undercoating. SEM has instructions for a "textured" and "smooth" finish (really based on how far you spray a final light coat) and I tried both approaches. Here's a test piece I shot next to the existing undercoating. It doesn't come across quite so well in this picture, but the spray coating on the test piece is basically as thick as a coat of paint, where the undercoating on the car is significantly more thick. - like 1/16-1/8 of an inch in a few places. I have a feeling this was undercoated using an undercoating gun like this https://www.amazon.com/Astro-4538-Economy-Air-Undercoat I don't think it was 3m Schutz, and it seems to look close to 3M UnderSeal Rubberized Coating (8819) but I that might not be available in the states. I do have receipts from some of the body shops that worked on the vehicle during it's restoration, so I tried reaching out to any of them to see if they might know Otherwise, I might try and see if I can find an undercoating and try spraying it through and undercoating gun instead of a spray can.

This isn't the best picture, but here's one of the undercoating in the rear wheel arch corner. I'm not sure it's the same stuff that's used on the flat surfaces.

Thanks! Circling back as I'm finally (jeeze) getting back to this. I ended up picking up some of the SEM rubberized undercoating (the regular and low VOC) versions but neither look particularly close: they are quite glossy and don't have much texture to them. The stuff on my car has a fairly pronounced texture, is pretty matte with a fairly grey hue (this could just be from time though) and doesn't seem to be completely dry to the touch. In the wheel arches there is dirt and such embedded in it I wonder if that's just gonna be challenging to match with a spray can.

@HusseinHolland The ones on my car are actually spade connectors with a rubber boot over them

That hose that's cracked was the same one causing my issues. I've got a slightly different plan for routing the hoses (basically bending them), but haven't gotten around to that yet. I will post pictures once that's done though I dropped the tank off at a shop to get refinished, and I'm not happy with the results so I'm going to be refinishing it myself, but the paint I want is out of stock. I think the difficulty with dropping the tank, or getting access to that hose in the back, kinda depends on how much slack you have in your lines. For me, the top/front hose with the odd bend in it made it so I couldn't drop the tank at all, and had to cut it (you can see it still attached in the earlier picture I posted).

Hey folks, I'm doing some work restoring the gas tank and have access to the area that would be blocked by the tank. The car was previously restored, and looks like they did an epoxy layer and then some rubberized undercoating. I want to do a few bits of minor repair and follow the same approach. I've been trying to see if I can match the rubberized undercoating but I'm not quite sure what was used. I don't think it's bed liner as it's not rock hard. I know it's a bit of a longshot, but figured I'd post a picture to see if anyone recognizes it. I thought it might have been 3m Schutz but after getting a closer look at how that lays down, I'm not sure it's that. I might pick up some Transtar 4363-F and 3m 08883 rubberized undercoating and see if one of those is close

Figured I'd continue posting pictures on this journey. Took the time to adjust the fuel sending unit while I had slightly easier access to it: It actually works very similar to a toilet bowl float valve. There's an electromechanical connection, that moves up and down a set of progressive longer to shorter wires which adjusts the resistance, which is then used to determine the fuel level. There are 3 levels of adjustment: bending the float rod itself, bending the high/low tab stops, and unscrewing and adjusting the contact pad location. I ended up needing to adjust the tab stops (to allow a little more travel) and the contact. I tried adjusting the rod a bit, but not sure I actually made any difference. The tab stops: The eletromechanical slider with it's adjustment screw: Just gotta be mindful that you don't want it reading "Empty" when there's literally no fuel left. You want a little head room there. I had a janky setup with my webcam attached to my phone so I could see the fuel gauge while adjusting the sender, but it ended up working out extremely well. This was basically the setup I had: And the view from the camera: It looks like the tank was sealed in the past, but it looks a little questionable inside the tank, so I'm just going to refinish it.