Now that I have found a source for those pesky little hold-down clips which slid into the 1970 Inspection lids, I'm asking for the lids themselves.

The 1970 lid does NOT have a metal clip attached to the underside of it ~ instead it has a channel into which a neoprene clip slides.

If you have even a SINGLE inspection lid from a 1970 car laying around, please contact me. You probably replaced it on your car with the upgraded metal clip lid anyway, can't find any neoprene replacement clips, and have no further use for the inspection lid now.

THANK YOU!!!

Frank@CTZCC.Com

Hmmmm, my 12/70 car has the lid model on the right with the newer style metal clip. Guess they did a mid-year change somewhere along the way. Lucky me not having to look for chicken teeth and nylon clips!

_________________
Jim Arnett
Richardson, Texas
HLS30-15320 12/1970 (original owner)
ZCON 2015 Gold Cup - Street Modified class

Jim ~

They changed about July 1970. I have seen some August carz with the neoprene clips, and some June cars with the metal clips (which their owners swear were original). So it's hard to tell exactly what date they changed.

Keep in mind also that the Datsun Quality Control dept held huge sway over what was allowed to leave the factory at that time, which could cause certain carz to be held back for months. That added to confusion.

Carz were assigned sequential VIN numbers as they entered the assembly line, so the VIN can tell you pretty accurately what month the car was assembled. HOWEVER ~

Once the car was complete, Quality Control had to pass it before it got shipped out of the factory. This must have been a very extensive and thorough process (they even drove the cars around on the rooftop of the huge factory to see how everything worked). If a car was found to have a defective "widget", it was pulled out of line and sent back to the Widget Shop to get a new one. However long it remained there determined when it was eventually released from the factory for shipping.

Once it passed QC, THEN the driver's door 'Build Plate' was stamped and attached, indicating the month/year and VIN of the car. The release date might have been months after the car left the assembly line, so we can find carz today with very early VINs, but which were released really late in 1970.

One of our member's cars has a VIN which clearly places the car as being built in June of 1970, but the build plate shows a 1971 release date, so the car was titled as a "1971 240Z".

So the bottom line is, "sometime in the summer of 1970" they stopped making these lids with the neoprene clips, and began issuing metal clips.
No doubt they used up however many earlier lids they still had left.

Frank

*(OH, and any Z car made after 30Sep70 was 'officially' a 1971 car in Datsun's eyes, since their production year ran from 01Oct69 to 30Sep70. The true 1970 VIN numbers ran up to slightly past 10,000 units. Many cars of that period were "fudged" as being either '70 cars or '71 cars, when in fact they were the other).

CANCEL this search! I have found two sources for these partz. Thanks to all who helped.

Frank

My HLS30-03833, built in the second week of May 1970 has the later metal clips on the inspection lids. And YES, they are original!

Hate to disagree here as it is a somewhat gray area, BUT according to Carl Beck, back in the day Datsun did NOT build cars on a model year basis, rather a CALENDAR year basis. It was up to the selling US dealers to title the car and most sold in September 1970 and later were sold and titled as 1971s.

So while approximately 18,000 or so series one cars were produced from October 1969 to January 1971, slightly fewer than 10,000 were actually titled as 1970 240Zs.

Check Carl's website at www.zhome.com for more detailed information. It is great!

My 2 centZ

_________________
John Taddonio
1970 240Z
1977 530Z
1984 300ZXT
zcarnut@hotmail.com
FB: Zccr zcarclubofrochester

John, your disagreement is always welcome here.

But if Datsun thought that way, why didn't they call their 1969 240Zs "1969 Zs"? They were made for the 1970 model year.

And you're right ~ it's a grey area, but it has some pretty clear markers along the trail.

I consider the beginning of the 1971 model year to be the FIRST 240Z with a perforated steering wheel. There were several other changes as you know, but that's probably the easiest and quickest visual indicator.

That should have happened Oct1970, which began the "1971 Model Year". At that time slightly more than 10,000 1970 Model Year 240Zs had been made.

I know this will start a battle. Bring it.

Let's ROCK!

First, as I stated earlier, US dealers selling cars in September or later routinely titled cars for the next model year as was the practice with US automakers. There were no 1969 build cars sold before 9/69 so most were sold and titled as 1970s. There were a very few that were titled as 1969s.

Several changes were initiated with the series two 240Z production when the changeover occurred in the month of January 1971. One of which was the perforated spoke steering wheel (whose purpose was to be more easily collapsible in an accident), BUT the most noticeable change was the relocation of the flow through fresh air vents from the hatch to the C pillar.

Datsun ran the series one parts bin dry before switching to the newer parts, thus the "mixed" version cars of early 1971.

I would love to have Carl Beck and Rick Morgan chime in here.

Gentlemen?

_________________
John Taddonio
1970 240Z
1977 530Z
1984 300ZXT
zcarnut@hotmail.com
FB: Zccr zcarclubofrochester

OK,

Let's start a fresh Thread about this in GENERAL Z DISCUSSION where it belongs, before this poor WANTED TO BUY thread gets over-run.

Frank