Thanks to the Covid-19 crisis my Bodyshop had to close for the time beeing, since he has trouble getting all the stuff he needs atm. Nevertheless i was able to visit him today, deliver a few small bits and pieces and test-fitted some parts.
This is how it looked a few days ago, before the shut-down:

And this today when i visited him. still a bit of work needed, but keeps on looking better and better. Frame-rail is welded on too, but forgot to take a picture.

Instead of bringing a whole seat i brought the bride seat rail which has the same pattern to test the bracket location (will be in original position). The brackets will need some touch-ups too. if you look closely, you can see the front one has some rust holes…

We also had a look at the new taillight surrounding panel brackets. We didn’t figure out yet how it is intended to paint those brakets or the area around them. Probably bend them up a bit?. but at least they fit perfectly and look good 🙂

We made a little mock-up with one of the taillight surrounding panels. The position is not correcti n the picture, but you get the idea 🙂

And the trunk is on there too. The damper and the rupper-pockets and spacers are missing at the top yet. but i brought them along today so he can adjust everything nicely and make sure are the panelgaps are straight and tight.

A few weeks ago my Bodyshop guy asked me if i could get him the now-missing taillight surroudning panel mounts, which he had to remove during repair of the rear-end. I researched a bit and found that JDM-Car-Parts makes them. They weren’t cheap but well…  Today they arrived in the mailbox.

And while shipping stuff anyway, i decided to add a few small bits and pieces to the order. Like the chain that holds the Fuel filler cap in place:

The rubber piece that goes behind the fuel filler cap:

And some headlight gaskets, since my original ones are completely toast:

A few weeks ago i saw a german guy named tim on facebook, showing some Choke lever adapter plates he designed and made for the Z. He made a few more and sold them. I guess he didn’t expect them to sell like hot cakes, so he produced a few more. And that’s how i got one in the mailbox today.

The plate is made from 3D Printed plastic, which is then hardenet to improve strenght a lot and make it thermally stable up to 120°C. He designed and made those in first case for himself, and told me a lot of testing went into it to get the process right:

The original choke lever is prone to be a bit “wiggly” which wasn’t the best design from Nissan. The plate will improve tha stability of the choke lever and also prevent the Center console from cracking it that area (which can happen due to the loose choke lever)

Once it’s installed it is completely invisible. In my opinion clearly an OEM Upgrade worth it, even with completely stock cars.

A while a go a i scored an (incomplete) set of old Nissan / Datsun Microfiches of the 240Z / S30 chassis in germany for almost nothing. I tried to scan them using a flatbet scanner as some suggested, but the results were terrible.
When i found out that my company (beeing a several hundred years old machinery company) has some of those standing around in the mechanical department, i asked if i could borrow one to check my microfiches. and today i brought one home:

Microfiches are like Dia’s, a kind of minimized drawings or part lists on a film type piece of plastic. The microfiche reader is more or less a projector. You insert one of the film cards, which is labelled for example with “S30 Chassis”:

And then you can zoom in. By moving around the card you can check the different sections.

and then zoom in more and more until you get the page you want:

Like for example the steering section:

The data in the microfiche is nothing special. it’s available in digital form (Nissan FAST or E-Fast software), printed form (Parts manual / R-Drive parts lists) or even as scanned versions of the Microfiches. However it’s fun to tinker around like they did back in the day and i will sure have my fun during the COVID-19 Lockdown time to go through the microfiches and check for some data i didn’t know yet.

Since those Microfiche readers are for sale cheap, im thinking of buying a second-hand unit just for fun and for having the parts fiches accessable directly in the workshop.

Good news. My Panelbeater is working hard on my car atm and there’s some progress, so i visited him (with 2 meters distance of course, because #Coronavirus).
So the passenger floor pans are in and will be completed soon:

Looking good in my opinion:

To get everything aligned was a bit of a headache, even with the best parts available, but looks good now.

So today i brought him the front fender. It needs the original edge line hammered back in, as some previous owner decided to hammer that flat.. terrible.. Luckily it’s the kind of job my panelbeater likes 🙂
Starts to look like a car again, doesn’t it? Allthough the rocker panel needs some adjustment.

View from the rear. Also brought him the hatch to adjust everything but we didn’t test fit it yet.

Still a few days of work to adjust the rocker panel, get the floorpans welded in completely and have the Seat rail mounts back in. But then it’s up to the other side. which is luckily in much better state and i have much bigger, better and OEM Panels ready. so i hope work will be faster. I say that, knowing that my panelbeater takes his time to get it done right..

My bodyshop guy promised me to work on my car until end of march. so i hope there is some progress. the first update he sent me was from  the area behind the passenger seat.

There was some rust do to the previous owner storing it without a sunroof installed, during swiss winter, so snow collected inside the car and we know Z’s dont like any kind of moisture. Now looks better than ever and is nicely protected.

Currently (ending tomorrow) is an Oil pan for sale on YAJ for the L6 engine from famous japanese company “Promodet”. I was first going to bid on it, just because i lake to stock fancy japanese (street) racing parts, with some kind of rarity and a bit of a historical significance, if you want to call it that.

The price went over my limit already the second day, so i didn’t even start to bid. Especially whith those “cheap” repairs (drain bolt and looks like the baffle pan had some bolts repaired as well) and the general pretty worn shape..

But I’m still curious to learn about it. Promodet is now a japanese tuner mostly famous for Porsche stuff, so i wonder what parts they made back in the days for the L-series or even the S30 chassis? I want to learn about it. I think i’ve seen this oil pan for sale before, but maybe it was just a similar one..  if anybody has an input on this, please let me know in the comments or by the contact form.
It looks like cast aluminum or something, but i guess it’s pretty heavy. But i like the overall design with the baffle plate and cooling fins. However i guess there are better and lighter designs available on the market, but didn’t really have a look into that topic.
please let me know for any input, old catalogue scans or something. would be great to know…

Well the last week have been pretty busy at work, and i’m still working on some details of the house. but everything is finally calming down now and i have plans to kickstart the Z-project again soon and get some long overdue work done over the next months.
So i got in touch with my Bodyshop guy to discuss a few details and then i just got an update from him from today. The old seat brackets got removed and sandblasted:

Primered:

And test fitted on the old cutout floorpan:

And theis is how they look on the new floorpan, ready to weld it all back together:

Nothing huge to show you, but i got another update from my Bodyshop guy. The area behind the passenger seat got formed out of a piece of sheetmetal and installed. ready to weld in all of that stuff, including the floorpan.