Arne

For obvious reasons (see my roof skin thread), I'm preparing to glue a headliner up in the near future. After looking at the underside of mine, I'd recommend that those of you who have one that is partially sagging go ahead and completely remove it first, then reapply it. Because you're never going to get good adhesion if you don't thoroughly clean and prep the metal that you are going to glue it onto. You'll want to get the old glue and foam remains off first. And you can't do that if the headliner is not completely removed. I have both the original headliner from my roof donor car, as well as a new replacement from MSA (just in case). The MSA is a nice looking piece. The foam even has a fabric liner on the inside that should help prevent excess glue from soaking into the foam, which could cause dimples when it was firmly applied to the roof. But -- while the grain of the vinyl is a reasonable match, the MSA headliner lacks the little perforations that are in the original, at least in the 240Zs. So it's not a perfect match for my car. Because of that, I will attempt to re-use the original that I removed from the donor, and if that works I'll re-sell the unused MSA kit.

It was a hard call to make. I didn't care for the sunroof from the beginning, to the point that I initially was going to pass on the car because of it. After thinking about it, I decided the rest of the car was too good to pass up, even with the sunroof. And my wife even kinda liked it. Since the sunroof was in good shape and didn't leak, I probably wouldn't have done this if the paint was OK. But my car -- while it looks great in pictures, or from 10 feet or more -- has 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. There was no question that I'd get it painted at some point. Now that the failed yellow car project is behind me, this was the time for paint. And obviously, if I was ever going to do something about the sunroof, this was also the time.

If the pedal slowly drops while you hold steady pressure on it, you either have a small fluid leak, or the master cylinder is "by-passing" - in other words, one of the seals inside the master cylinder is allowing the fluid pressure to leak back past the piston. Often, a by-passing master will feel fine with a hard, sharp application, but will fall to the floor with a soft, steady pressure. If you have a leak, you should have noticed a serious loss of fluid by now. If that hasn't happened, it's time for a replacement master cylinder.

Randy, I've never seen the chrome screw covers offered separately either. Nissan sells the grab handle as an assembly with the trim covers, and I think that's the only way to get them.

Yeah, they look like Revolutions to me, too.

Yup. Not painting under the hood as that is still great. Same with the interior. The painter is going to start with commercially available matches for 905 red, and then fine tune by matching the underside of the tool bin lids.

Delivered the car to my local painter this afternoon. Two to three weeks, he says.

Mike, my experience with the internals of Datsun transmissions is limited to the earlier Type A four speed. But I'm certain that the guts are similar enough to say that you can't just "peek" in there. The mainshaft nut is deep inside, you'll need to completely remove the gearset from the case to check it. If you have doubts about the bearings or synchros, sure, take it apart and deal with those, the bearings and correctly tighten the nuts when you're done. Otherwise I'd say let it be.

The pressure plate and release bearing collar need to be matched. There are no advantages to a stock 280Z clutch over a stock 240Z clutch. So I'd use the complete 240Z package you already have in your car, since you KNOW that setup works. Although, if it were me, I'd re-surface the flywheel and use a new disk and release bearing for sure, and probably a pressure plate as well. At 74k I think you'll find when you get it out that what you have now is significantly worn. The key if you do replace the pressure plate will be to verify that it is the same as the one in your car now. Some outfits may sell a later style as 'one-size-fits-all-Zs' which is not true.

Just got off the phone with my local painter, he's ready for the car earlier than I had expected. I deliver it late tomorrow afternoon!

Yes, but I think my 240Z is different stampings than your 280Z, Christian.

Pulled the buckets this past weekend, no gaskets, and no indication that the buckets had ever been removed before.

OK, so maybe only the early cars came with gaskets?

Day and a half, actually. After parting both the yellow car and the prior blue parts car, I'm getting darned good at taking these cars apart.Ron, there were no gaskets between the buckets and the fenders. And there is no evidence that the buckets had ever been removed since new, and several clues that make me believe that to be the case. Perhaps the gaskets were used on later cars that had metal buckets?

Can't stop now...

If it were me, I'd pull the pump and do it right. It's not that big of a job, I've done it on my yellow car for this very reason. Half hour job, no more.

Anyone need a sunroof?

OK, I'll keep that in mind.

That was (obviously) the idea. And yes, he did did the job I was hoping for. They aren't a matched set, the rears are a deeper offset than the front. Unless I can find something scrap to throw on it, they will go to the crusher with the remains of the shell later this Spring. The work was done at Evolution Auto Body, a one-man (Scott Daniels) shop in Salem, OR, basically next door to ZTherapy. I don't know how many S30 roofs he has re-skinned, but I do know that mine was not his first, probably more like his fifth or sixth. I could tell the first time we talked that he knew exactly what he was doing. And he is incredibly affordable. I supplied the donor roof, and the total was all of $450! He invoiced me 14 hours at $30/hr. That included a couple hours to do a touch of rust repair under the windshield seal on the donor roof. I dropped the car off Monday afternoon, and picked it up late Friday, so four days. I can't recommend him enough for this type of work. It's more than an itch. Now that the car is back home, I'm going to strip it the rest of the way down and deliver it to my local paint shop week after next. I would have let Scott do the whole re-paint, but he said he is so busy that he's not taking in any full repaints right now. But he said squeezing in a roof skin job was no problem. So I'll have the rest of the paint done locally. No problems, other than the above-mentioned rust repair on the donor roof prior to welding it together. The job is fairly straightforward. Drill out all the spot welds on the donor panel to remove it intact, cut the bad roof off the car and grind down (not drill) the spot welds on the car, and re-weld the new panel into place. I'm certain that any competent sheet metal guy could do it, but I'm glad I picked one who has done it on these cars before. Done. Scott cleaned and applied a nice glossy epoxy to the underside before he welded it on as part of the job. Perhaps it's not a stiffener, but it sure seems like it might be. On the trip back home (60 miles) the car seemed much quieter, even without any headliner.

Yeah, guidecoat. The real surface is near perfect.

I brought my red 240Z back home this afternoon, following the successful re-skinning of the roof to eliminate the sunroof. Here are some before and after pictures. I don't have pictures of the process itself just yet, we couldn't get his camera to download to my laptop (bad USB cable, I think), so I'll have to wait for him to e-mail them to me before I can post them. Soon, I hope.

Then I'd use the same type you have now. I still think that yours has been replaced at some time in the past, and the lines re-routed or replaced, but no matter now.

Gus, don't pay attention to the reservoirs alone, as those can be changed. Look on the side of the cylinder near where the lines connect and look for a cast marking of 'F' and 'R' to correctly identify which port does what on the cylinder that you have. Your replacement needs to have the same port config as the lines on the car.Your car certainly should have come with the early style, as mine (7/71) did. I believe that the style changed in 8/71 or 9/71 production.

Did you connect the two ballast resistor wires to each other? That is required.

The restored one you saw is at the very upper end of the price scale. But good working AM radios with un-cracked intact faceplates and the correct antenna switch often go for $200-300 on eBay. I packed mine up for safekeeping. You never know when I might want to go back to stock.