Arne

I paid the shop a short visit today. Only took one picture, as I don't want to be a pest. But progress is being made.

Now that the roof was in primer, paint became a priority. So the very next day after I got it back from the roof re-skin, I began stripping it down for paint. Since the interior and engine compartment are great, those parts will not be painted. Door and hatch jambs will, of course. The color will start with a commercially available formula for 905 red, and then will be fine tuned by matching the underside of the tool compartment lids.

By far the biggest flaw (in my mind), was the aftermarket sunroof the original owner had installed in the late '70s. While it wasn't leaking (yet), I never liked it, even to the point of almost passing on this car because of it. In the end, I decided the rest of the car was too nice to pass up. But having the sunroof removed someday was always in the back of my mind. That happened late last month. I won't go into details here, they can be found in this other thread.

A few pictures to document my exterior refresh. The subject is my '71 240Z, #37705, 905 red. The car currently has just over 64,000 miles on it, and is rust free as it has been garaged its entire life, has seldom seen wet roads, no snow, and no road salt. Here are a couple of before pictures. Bear in mind that the car looks much better in pixels (or from 10 feet or more) than it did in person. It had many small flaws. A couple of scrapes to bare metal, lots of rock chips on the nose, and 37 years of very small door dings. Not to mention that the 905 red has faded so much that it really looks like 110, the later orangy-red.

No promises yet, but I may have a line on a few non-shaded windshields. Aftermarket, not Nissan. But non-shaded. Details as I get them...

The image and description in that auction were stolen verbatim from my (copyrighted) website. I have reported it to eBay.

Better now than in a few years, but best time would have been about 5 years ago.

Umm. That plug (as I of all people well know) as to adapt the ZX alternator to a 240Z, not the distributor. And yes, they are available from Dave directly. Info can be found at: http://www.classiczcars.com/reviews/showproduct.php?product=11&cat=7

Yes, dissing the Vintage Program and the resulting cars seems to be a fairly common thing among some 240Z enthusiasts, apparently because of the above mentioned 'resto-mod' approach that was taken. People tend to compare them to true 'restorations' when - in my mind - they should be thought of as a very special limited edition car. Face it folks, regardless of how 'original' you consider these cars to be, the investment and effort expended for a mere 38 (or so) cars may never be seen again. That alone makes these cars something special. Only a very historically significant model will get treatment like this. It will probably never happen again. About the only other manufacturer-backed projects that that even approach this in concept would be the British Motor Heritage replacement MG bodyshells. And even that is nowhere near the same, as all they did was provide the shells. The rest is/was up to the restorers.

All of those items are strictly emissions items. I don't believe that any of the current issues could damage the car. Back in the '70s had I owned one, I'd probably have disconnected all that stuff right away. These days - being both a bit more realistic, and more environmentally aware - I see no good reason not to have it all connected and functioning. The air injection system used on the 240Z has virtually no effect on performance, other than the parasitic drag of the belt-driven air pump (mounted below the distributor). That said, if your air pump is already disconnected, bad or missing, I see no reason to worry about this stuff. Assuming, of course, that the car is emissions-exempt in your state. If it were me, I would move the vacuum line to the distributor to the proper port on the front carb, on the remote chance that the amount of vacuum coming from the balance tube (where it is now connected) is not the same as that from the front carb. If you do this, make sure to cap the nipple on the balance tube where you move the line from.

The broken part is the check valve for the air injection. The two empty fittings should connect to each other. The vacuum line to the distributor needs to be relocated to a small nipple on the front carb. The two capped off fittings on the balance tube need to connect to the emissions devices as shown in my attached picture. This will be a good first step, but I don't think it will cure all your problems.

I wonder how many of the watchers are members of this forum, just interested in seeing what happens?

Gus, I believe the one you want should have a 90 degree bend at both ends, and the orientation of the two bends should also be at 90 degrees to each other. Between the bends it should be straight, no curves.

EDIT - I took too long composing this, you replied that the car isn't running well while I was typing. But I'll leave this post here anyway, as it may be relevant to someone else. I'm with Bruce on this one. Why mess with them if they're working? The float level is the primary mixture adjustment. If the car is running reasonably well, and the nozzle adjusters on the bottom aren't either bottomed or topped out, there should be no need to do anything with the floats. In many years of working with SUs (both British and now Datsuns), I've seen lots of decent running cars well and truly messed up because someone felt they needed to "re-adjust" the carbs. Fact is, once set, you shouldn't need to change them unless you tear them apart.

Yup, it's a complete car, not individual parts.

Since I last posted, I found this picture of Mike B's 110 red with black stripes. I now definitely prefer white on red. (Sorry, Mike.) But I don't know that I want white on mine since it has black interior, so I think I'll go without.

I don't think so, Tim. (Man, I sound like Al on Tool Time. )If you are swapping from a 4 speed to a 5 speed, it is very straightforward, other than the issues you ask below. (Swapping from an automatic is a somewhat different story.) You either need to cut the floor, or have a custom shift lever fabricated. The current four speed lever won't fit at all, and no later lever (4 or 5 speed) will work without floor cutting. I'd say that's a firm maybe. The lower boot might be able to accommodate a slightly larger hole, if it was cut as minimally as possible. But you may have to get creative with a different boot. Optional. Your slave cylinder needs to match the clutch fork that you use. It is my understanding that either the early style (adjustable slave and fork w/hole) or the later style (self-adjusting slave and fork w/o hole) can be used as long as the combo is matched. Take your pick.Other thoughts - if you are using your existing clutch, use your existing release bearing collar, not the collar that may come with the 5 speed. You will also nee to change the speedo gear in the 5 speed to match your axle ratio. You should be able to use the gear out of your current 4 speed for that.

I echo Steve's comments above. I'm currently looking for a new windshield for my car while it's being painted. Non-shaded are not available from Nissan, and my glass contacts are still hunting for non-shaded after-market. No luck so far.

No. You'll need to wire them. Might even need to change the sending units.

Had I completed my yellow car, I think I'd want a set of the black stripes on it. I've seen both black and white on red cars. I think white looks slightly better on red to me, but since my '71 has black interior, I think I'd want to stay with black stripes on it if I did them. Anyone got a picture of a red 240Z with black stripe kit on it?

Stock springs are not available from Black Dragon, nor MSA, nor any of the other normal vendor. Nissan discontinued them years ago. Courtesy Nissan had a batch of reproduction springs made a few years back, but they may be sold out. Might worth a call though.

Here's a thought - the 240Z came with different starters (and solenoids) for manual and automatic transmissions. I've always assumed that the difference was in the throw of the bendix drive. The later cars used the same starter regardless of transmission. So if you have swapped from automatic to manual transmission on your car, you may need a different starter.

Bumper shops can't do it, they are vacuum-plated plastic. There are places that can re-plate them, but the cost far exceeds buying a complete new grab handle from Nissan.

But are you also looking at the painted air dam below the bumper on those two examples? If so, those are aftermarket parts, not factory.

The old sunroof is already tentatively spoken for. If that changes I'll put an ad in the classifieds.