It seems like currently nice parts are looking for me, rather then i’m looking for them 🙂
But lets start at the beginning. The garage-build is coming along nicely, with temporary lighting now installed:

With the House-build as a first priority now, i don’t look for parts atm. But then (as with the mikuni’s i bought lately) something popped up for a great price which has been on my shopping list for quite a while: A NOS splash under guard panel, which arrived today:

I think now i have officially all the body panels together, including the “optional” parts, or parts that are, say, more functional than visible. This will prevent the engine bay from getting too dirty and wet. Since these panels are prone to stone chips, most of them are quite dented and rusty, or completely missing (as it was on both of my cars), so it’s rare to come along a nice piece like this one. And for a reasonable price that too..

The seller in Hungary was also nice enough to add a free set of what i assume are reproduction Datsun / Nissan colour code stickers. I need to investigate further on these. Paint is still far away in my project so i haven’t spent too much time investigating on all those small details like stickers. But i absolutely love them. Thanks a lot for those!

I haven’t got much to show you honestly. The House / Workshop / Garage build is coming along nicely and keeps me distracted from the car projects. And that for at least another 6 months. And the panelbeater is recovering from a broken nose and i’snt able to work at the moment.
However This saturday was a milestone in that: I went to check out some potential new garage lifts. The grey one is actually my favourite so far:

However i felt like i HAVE to do something for the cars every now and then. so i decided to take apart the FET intake manifold. so i can have the parts cleaned and replated with my next load. Before:

During

And after. It surely does look good in my opinion 🙂 Will be even better once it’s blasted, cleaned and all the parts are plated and back into position…

I randomly seem to stumble on nice stuff by accident. I always dreamed about triple Mikunis for my Z, but i thought that in the current situation with the house project, work and other things going strong, i save them for buying them later, even with rapidly rising prices. Then, lately, i came accross these nice carbs for sale on an Austrian ads website, when i was actually looking for something totally different.
A bit of negotiation back and forth, a payment and they arrived here today:

They are genuine japan made Mikuni (Solex) PHH40 S5 (5-screw) carbs. You might wonder why PHH40? I don’t plan to run any crazy numbers, so the PHH40 should be sufficient according to my calculations. we’ll see. I think i can swap them for PHH44 when i figure out that i was wrong. The deal was too god to say no. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

They have been beautifully restored. Probably will zinc plate all the bolts on the outside, but not sure yet:

It even gets better: They came with a free set of intake side gaskets and beautiful velocity stacks.

After all i’m very happy with my purchase and i think my engine setup comes along nicely with the FET Intake manifold and the Kakimoto valve cover. The whole engine side of things is still on a bit on hold, but when i find good parts like this, i just have to save them for the future 🙂

While having all the grille pieces disassembled, i thought i better take advantage of it and straighten all the pieces before i have them zinc-plated.
So i pulled out my best (nonexistant) panel-beater skills and hammered the parts as straight as i could. A few examples:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Before:

After:.

Upon closer inspection of the grille, i realized the already some rust has appeared at the places where matal rubs on metal:

So i decided to better have all the non-aluminum pieces completely disassembled and zinc plated. That’s why i remoced all the rivets

While doing so, i decided to redrill some of the rivet holes:

Will have to strip the primer, hammer a few small dents straight and then have it zinc plated with the next load of parts…

While strolling the webs for good parts deals i stumbled upon this:  A  Niles Cigarette lighter with a built-in Thermometer. It’s so useless and so japanese in a way, i couldn’t resist. It was only a few bucks and i found it in greece of all countries:

Btw: Niles is the company that made most of the electronic relays and switches in the 240Z and many other Datsuns / Nissans of that time. So while this item was never sold by Nissan, it somehow gives the whole thing a bit of a period correct OEM feel:

And to be honest, it’s so weird and odd, i just had to have it.

Today i got one of my ebay ad finds: The plastic radiator surrounding Panel / shroud. It’s a bit rough around the edges, has a lot of black paint stains, but overall it’s in great shape and the price was too good to not buy it. Another missing part of the puzzle in storage 🙂

And had to give it a clean immediately before i put it in storage 🙂

Much better already. Not sure if i will use it anyway, since i have the Koyo radiator. But it was only a few bucks and it’s good to know i have all the OEM Pieces to put it together back in original condition if i ever want to. Better get those items now before prices rise further 😉

So since i have all my parts for the grille now, i thought it’s time to puzzle them together. Here we got the single pieces:

First test fir assembly (works nice with a cushion below). Looks a bit out of shape:

I realized then, that the double-fin on top still has a major dent at where one of the vertical pieces attaches to it:

Tried my best hammering skills to get it sort-of straight again:

Second test-assembly. Starts to look nice. Need to sand the edges a bit on the vertacal pieces and then will replace all the rivets, before i put it all back together with new bolts and nuts 😉