Mr Camouflage

Here's one for all the sparypainters out there. I'm stripping my 240 back to bare metal. Should I prime it with etch primer (you know the brown/red primer, that seems to be what it was painted with origionally), or should I use the normal grey primer?

Yes they do, and, In Japan. Spirit Garage 40000 yen = approx $340US at todays exchange rates http://s-garage.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gaisou3.htm other bits http://s-garage.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gaisou2.htm http://s-garage.hp.infoseek.co.jp/gaisou4.htm

Well, How willing is the owner to let you pull the car apart? Looking at the photos, you should undo the kick plates along top of the sill where the door closes and check how far the rust goes under them. also check the sills infront of the back wheels for rust. Lift the carpet and check for rust. and also jack the car up and check the floor where the frame rails join. look under the front seats too. Check under the battery for rust. Check the lower sills of the front wings for rust. If you can, undo the bolts that hold the lower wing in place and look at the chassis frame behind them. The body rusts there. The air tubes? I've never heard of them rusting myself, but i read a book once that said to check there. They are structural and if rusty can cause damage to the ridigity front of the chassis. If you run the back of you hand up the inside of the wing you will be able to feel along the top of the air tube frame. give it a good squeeze to check for rotten metal. Only really applicable to wet/snowy areas, where road slush gets thrown up there by the tires. If you want to take the wing off. you have to undo the headlight surround nuts that join it to the wing, under the wing near the headlight. undo the lower valance bolt that jolds it to the wing. undo the 2 screws under the scuttle top. undo the bolt near the top door hinge, and uno the bolts at the bottom of the wing under the sill. and unplug the headlight.

Yeah I have a 72 240z that i'm going to strip and rebuild, and have been wondering myself whether to keep it stock original, or modify. My descision is made all the more harder because these cars are very rare in Australia, and mine still has the original motor, and not much rust, and is in pretty good original condition to start with. Then you get members like nixcars, and Cuong Nguyen that arent afraid to cut up a 240z and modify them and put in silvia interiors, SR20 and RB26 engines and other various bits in. Check out their photo galleries. These guys are cars are great examples of modified cars. Nixcars photos http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=3241&thumb=1 Cuong's photos http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=1898&thumb=1

Scuttle top panel? The air intake grill (as Haynes manual calles it), the pannel between the bonnet and the windscreen?. Comes off pretty easy. Take off the wipers, then i think its just 2 screws in each corner next to the flip up thingo-s. Then the front lifts up and you pull it away from the windscreen. Wing removal is a lot more complicated, but you can feel all the way up under the wing to check for rust in the air tube section, and the rubber at the bottom of the inner guard thing can be pulled up, and you can feel into the frame for rust in the lower box section where the water drains onto. Wings are bolt on, but there are a lot of bolts to undo.

A bit off topic, but as i happen to have my emblems sitting on top of my computer monitor, here goes. Mine is a '72 240z though. 3 Pins. V type formation. Distance between the top 2 pins: 4cm. Distance between top pin and bottom pin 5.2cm Overall diameter of emblem 7cm. --O--4cm---- O ----\ -----\ ----5.2cm --------\ --------O

Well I finished my Wheel and it looks great. I used paint stripper on the plastic to remove the clear, which i feel is the best way to do it. Paint stripper wont damage the plastic. Just do the rim and spokes seperately. Sanding the plastic will remove the wood effect from the rim, only slighty if sand lightly, but sand it too much and you will end up with a brown plastic rim. Look at the grip knobs on the back of the rim, and you might see how the wood grain wears off. I used satin clear in a spray can (wattyl estapol for wood), gave it about 3 coats, let it dry and rubbed it smooth with wire wool, did the same again, then gave it a final 3 coats. The metal spokes I sanded with wet and dry, back to metal. Undercoated, then painted with matt black. Once dry I gave a light polish with car polish.

Ganador Mirrors were the ones i saw in a magasine on a GTR. They looked smaller than the ones on the celica pictures. http://www.rcdevelopments.com/manufacturers/ganador/ganador-mirrors.html http://www.whifbitz.co.uk/suprawingmirrors.htm I think they look too modern for a 240z.

Kyosho are good, but expensive. I have a die cast metal sunstar 240z. Was given it for my birthday, but believe it cost around $40 Oz. Its 1:18. http://www.diecast18.com/datsun240Z_1972.htm

Yeeeeee Ha. Now where'd I put my cowboy boots. Thats right. I had to stop wearing them around '92 when boot-scooting infected Australia, and people stopped saying cool boots, and started making wise cracks about line dancing.

Consider it revenge for inflicting Country & Western Music music on the world. :mad:

Alfa you have to remember that it was a US nissan dealer making those comments. They never got Skylines in the USA. The 300ZX twin turbo was the highest spec nissan they got. And it was a show about the Z, so he's not going to say Z's are good, but the GTR skyline can kick its arse. R33's are bland. the R32 has better, more agressive styling. It was funny when he said the Z going to be around for a long time. It was filmed in 1995, and the 300zx ceased production in 1998. We had to wait 5 years before it came back as the 350Z.

The point of using the snap off heads is to make your car harder to steal. If you have a car alarm, then using normal screws would be ok i guess. Since the only thing the lock really does is lock the steerimg wheel. If you want to get the car started you can pull the plug out of the back of the lock and hotwire it, or plug it into another igntion lock that you have a key for.

I expect so. Just like the mag wheels, rear louvers, and anything else the dealer wanted to put on the car to jack up the price.

They look too big for a zed. I saw them in a mag the other day. I'll look again and tell you the brand name. they are definately after market mirrors. I wouldn't want to mount any mirrors if it involved drilling through the stainless steel window frame.

Those datsun dealers were Butchers. Riveting on side stripes? Drilling holes in pristine just off the boat new datsuns. And those VW style overider tubular bars are just damn ugly. Glad Aussie Dealers had more sense.

If you are going to drill them out, use a centre punch first to mark the centre of the head so the drill doesn't slip all over the place.

Same number of coils both sides. I thought the best way to lower was to shorten the strut, not cut off some coils?

Haynes manual states that the free length (whatever that means) of the Left side strut is 14.1 inches, and the RH side is 15.1 inches. 260Z free length were equal at 15.5 inches. Probably the right side was longer so that when a driver was sitting in the (RHD) drivers seat the car sat level. The battery is on the left of the RHD cars. LHD drivers probably weren't condidered.

Ummm. Actually that was a Canadian that said that. Dennis Leary is Canadian. But funny song anyway. Was Number one on triple J hottest 100. Quote: "2 words, Nuclear F*%$ing weapons, OK"

Pod exhaust temp gauge

Front view.

Yeah Dont know whos car it is. Found the pic's ages ago on the net. Cant remember where. Some other mods the car has are motorbike style petrol filler, a pod mounted exhaust temp gauge on the A pillar, shaved bumpers, massive wheels, and a 280ZX turbo scoop thingo. Some more pics: