Thanks everybody, I appreciate the words of encouragement. I will post new pics later on. For now I have been reading the Haynes manual. I keep having to use the Brit to English dictionary to translate......"paraffin" instead of kerosene..come on! So far the manual makes a lot of sense. I had to do all kinds troubleshooting and basic work on my '97 Eclipse GST, so I think I will be ok...

Hahaha! Wait until Marc starts a discussion with Obsidian Pete Down Under ~ they'll need a translator! Bonnets, hoods, boots, wings, petrol, and Alu MINI um! (No offense Pete! you're cool, Mate!)

Frank

she looks real nice mate..
looks great as a start project. looks straight.
and its complete and running...wow!!!!!!!
and if u paid under 10grand for it your doing well..

I thought the land down under was of British decent, well, there prisoners. Hey Pete, is it true you'll see a 260z down there with feul injection? I guess they made the 260 until 78 from Japan.

Hey all,

I finally got to see the car in person for the first time. The car is complete, I have a stack of receipts and misc minor parts to go through. Here are pics of the underbelly of the car, plus the answer to one of Frank's open questions.











Does anybody recognize exactly what was sprayed on the undercarriage?

Also, I took a look under the cap and there is one long crack on an otherwise beautiful dash.

Cheers,
Marc

DUUUUUDE! You got a really nice car! I don't know what they sprayed under there, but whatever it was it looks like it did the job of preventing anything worse than surface rust (and there's not much of that either!).

Sometimes an undercoat can conceal rust damage but I don't see anything suspicious in your photos. Also undercoat can capture moisture and road dirt or oil under it if they didn't steam clean it before spraying ~ but I personally feel you probably just got a very good original survivor car.

Pull up the carpets on both sides and check the floorboards. Look at the many rubber plugs on the floors (they're several different sizes on the early cars) and see if they look like they have been removed alot. That's "SOMEtimes" an indicator of an owner trying to repeatedly drain water out of the interior (like a chronic dashboard rain leak or heater leak), but it can also just be a meticulous owner sweeping dirt out or exploring his car.

Your car #88,178 was delivered from the factory in June 72. Check the dashboard (between the steeringwheel and the windscreen) and the ID plate on the passenger side wheelwell inside the engine bay and confirm all three match up. As we discussed before, engine number doesn't really tell us much for the cars during the first 3 years, but I'lm sort of surprised a mid-72 California car still had the 4-screw roundtop SU Hitachi carbs on it. I will have to read a bit to see when they started changing them first to 3-screw roundtops, then to flat tops. I know the 70 & 71 cars had 4-screws, and by 74 they were all Emission-control flatops. That's when they started having afterboil and vaporlock problems and lost enough horsepower that the earlier cars could beat them, an embarrassment which led to the introduction of the 260Z.

OK! So now let's check the fuel, oil and water and get your new Z started!

Frank

Thanks Frank. Let me know what your research uncovers. I love a good mystery. In the meantime, I agree I have my work cut out for me!

ALRIGHT, ALREADY! It's been a month and I'm dying to know if you have this beauty on the road yet!! Don't keep us in suspenders ~ tell us what's going on with your Z!

And by the way, this is what I found on the carbs ~

The "4-screw round-top" SUs (the best you can get) were on the 69-70-71 cars. Either carb took the same rebuild kit.

The "3-screw round-top" SUs were on the 1972 exclusively. Either carb required a special rebuild kit (front/rear). They mounted on a unique manifold, which had added special hot water passages to aid start-up.

The infamous "flat top" SUs started in 1973. They added the SU equivalent of an accelerator pump plunger, hoping to improve sudden acceleration, but the result was not what was expected. They also required a totally new intake and throttle linkage design.

I remain unsure why/how your car came to wear the very early SUs, but since it was such a popular swap, I'm not surpriZed to see them. Keep them! Your car maybe came with the early Flat Tops, disappointed the owner, and got replaced by the best SUs Hitachi ever made. When those are tuned correctly, they'll pull like nothing else.

Frank T

Hey Frank,

The Z has been safely tucked away for the last month. I haven't touched it... That being said, I am gearing up to start working on it. In fact, I have been feverish searching through Haynes, "How to Rebuild Your Nissan/Dasun OHC engine", CTZCC.com and other websites researching headers, blocks, and trannis. I realize that I could just get the car started and deal with all of the in-depth stuff later...but then that wouldn't be any fun.

The first key decision that I made is to NOT go for the V8 upgrade, nor the L28 upgrade. I am going to stick with the L24. That being said I am trying to figure out if I should:

A.) Swap the current engine for a rebuilt L24 (E31 Block) with a E31 head that I can get my hands on.

B.) Pull the current engine and try to rebuild it myself.

The issue in my mind is that I want to start to restore the car to a condition where it has good power, reliability and it is fun to drive. Given that the car has 165K miles on it and the level of servicing (fair to middling) that the car received I want to do some up front work like sorting the engine.

You might have another direction that you would pursue first, which I would love to hear about, but this is where my head is right now.

Also I am trying to figure out if my current transmission will work with the E31 block? I believe that my car has the F4W71A trans so that should work out great if I did go with the rebuilt E31 block right? Exactly when were the F4W71Bs used with S30s? The Haynes guide makes it seem like only 260z's used the F4W71B. One of your posts here seems to contradict this. Finally how worried should I be about my current trans? Does it make sense to rebuild it now too?

Thanks for checking in. How are things with your ride?

My ride will be on the road as a daily driver this summer, thanks.

Before making any decisions about your car, please read as much of (our member) Bryan Little's DATSUN Z GARAGE website as you have time for. He addresses some stuff which you simply wouldn't even consider on your own. You can find his link on our Homepage, left margin.

Unless you're made of money and have that new baby's college already paid for, I would not recommend pulling the engine down until you first got it running and heard what it sounds like. You might have 165,000 on the odometer, but the engine may have already been rebuilt at some point, so you could (could) have only a few thousand miles on it. Yeah, it looks a bit dirty under the hood but that doesn't necessarily mean much. Just the fact that you have earlier carburetors on it indicates that someone has worked on the engine with better performance in mind.

I forgot to ask you to check to see which cylinder head you have on the car. On the passenger side of the head, close to the front you'll find an Alpha-numeric designator, such as E-31, E-88, P-90, etc. Each type head had different performance and was made during a certain era. By knowing which head you have we may be able to determine if the engine was rebuilt for performance, or even if the whole engine has been replaced.

Sorry to run on at the mouth, but your car has sat silently in the back of my busy mind for several weeks.

Good to "hear your voice" again.

Frank

*(PS ~ forgot to mention the transmission. Your car should (should) have the 71B g'box. I have the gear ratios for that box somewhere. The original box (71A) had shifter problems so they redesigned it. If you ever get up under the car again I can tell you what to look for to determine which kind you have.

Either box will bolt right up to the L24. But the interior center console moved the shifter hole slightly to accommodate the 71B shifter, so a slight cosmetic modification is usually needed inside the car if you swap one style box for the other. BUT AGAIN ~ if it ain't broke, why fix it? You really want to get it running and see what feels "broke" before swapping stuff out. The P.O. might have already done a lot of good work on the car for you ~ if you go pulling it out you might be throwing away stuff you want to keep. The older carbs already tell you the engine isn't completely stock ~ but you don't know how "unstock" he could afford to make it. I wouldn't recommend changing anything until you know what you actually have).

Hey Frank,

I agree with you. I will wait till I get the car running before I start thinking about ripping stuff out. That is great common sense advice that I will take. I am always saying if it ain't broke don't fix it.

I dug pretty deep into the Bryan Little's site. What a great resource to have.

The P.O kept service records back to June of '76. At 125K miles the carbs were replaced as part of what appears to be recommended maintenance and not any kind of engine upgrades. But we will see when I look at the headers, tranny, etc. Who knows what work was done between '72 and '76 right?

The P.O did say that the engine was never rebuilt, but I will visually verify. At 145K the tranny was rebuilt. At 151K (3/1992) the anti-rust treatment was applied. At 163K a new clutch. I have a long list.

I do have to pay for college...so far it looks like the kid is going to be a righty so there goes that fat baseball contract....

Hey, he might turn out ambidexterous! You could still be in the money!

As soon as it warms up some more, I will have to come check your car out. It looks very good in the pics and you def have to have it on the road this summer!

Evil Z is the man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He is that!

And he's been bitten hard by the Z bug. I don't think he's very far from you, either, and he's getting a TON of experience with his 'stable' of early Zs.

Heck, you might even talk him into babysitting for you!

Frank