I’m still looking for two (prefereable NOS) panels to complete the 240Z Chassis.
IF you have those parts and are willing to sell, or if you know somebody, please contact me by any possible way!! thanks in Advance.
1) The Front air Channel LH. Nissan Part No: 64151-E4100 superseded by 64151-N4501
2) The rear inner fender LH: 76713-E4150 Superseded by 76713-N3450
Ever since i installed the new optional / Mazdaspeed Roof spoiler, i wanted to grab my camera and take some nice pictures. Well it didn’t really happen until yesterday. I decided to give it a quick wash and checked out some locations.
Decided the local Quarrel was the perfect spot at sundown. I then selected three of the best pictures and made them a bit more clean and expressive, using my simple and very limited photoshop skills.
Here we go, i hope you enjoy them as much as i do 🙂
Before i return back to normal operation with more car related blog posts, i’d like to share the fourth and last installment of our Roadtrip. We start where the last post ended (in beautiful Montreux) and slowly move back homewards, with a few stopovers in between.
Our first stop was where we actually wanted to stop at Day 1 of our tour, but then changed plans (See last post). Gruyere:
Gruyere is a beautiful little village on top of a hill with an attached historic castle, surrounded by beautiful mountain scenery…
The world famous castle is extremely well preserved and definitely worth a visit:
Look at the incredible size of this fireplace:
Every room offers so much to see… with all the incredible details so well preserved or restored…
In one of the castle’s outside buildings there’s also the H.R. Giger museum (of Alien Movie design fame). Unfortunately i wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside. But if you Like H.R. Giger and the Alien movies. THIS is the place to go. It hosts world’s biggest collection of H.R. Giger Art including a lot of original movie set stuff. The only thing i could take a picture from is the “Birthmachine” Sculpture hung outside the Museum. On the other side there’s also a Giger Themed bar with incredible design, but it was still closed early in the morning…
We decided to eat brunch in gruyere. I mean it’s the place where world famous “gruyere” cheese comes from after all. So you defintely should get a cheese plate and a glass of local white wine, while here 🙂
We then hit the road again and stopped at Estavayer le lac. a small town at the Lake Neuchatel. It is famous for the street art exhibitions and you can get a free map at the tourist office, bringing you to all the cool art pieces and guiding you around the town (approx 1-2 hours). This piece was a huge beautifully made embroidery on a house wall…
This one was made of hundreds of handmade steel origimi birds..
And this piece was hand-carved into a wooden barn door…
After we’d seen all the beautiful art, we moved to our Goal for the day: Neuchatel. After checking in we wen’t directly to the hotels rooftop bar, which is probably one of the best rooftop bar views you can have in switzerland:
With the Yacht marina (one of them) and the Port directly below:
Later we went for a swim in the lake and a little walk in the sunset
Before we returned to the hotel for an incredible dinner with a beautiful breeze and view. Who needs the sea when you have this just two hours from home?
The next day we spent sight-seeing in Montreux.
I really love this place with the youthful vibe and lots of historic buildings, but also lot of hip places to go and tons of great food…
As you may realize now: Switzerland has historic castles in every damn corner 🙂
Like Estavayer, Neuchatel is also known for the street art to be seen everywhere, and i just love this stuff..
 
Unfortunately we had to return home then, because i had to go to management school on saturday. but not before enjoying the silence with a fancy drink at a nice, hidden little beach bar…
Thats it. hope you enjoyed the tour with us. Now let’s get back to the greasy and oily car wrenching posts again 🙂
This is the third installment of our tour through switzerland will show you a different area of switzerland. Rather than continueing through the mountain passes. we decided to go to the “Lake area” of the french speaking part of switzerland which i’ve never really explored before.. Well that was the plan at least. 
We decided to take the more comfortable wifey’s Mazda 3 (Aka Axela) this time.
We took the Autobahn directly to the area of Gruyere, where we wanted to visit the Caillier chocolate factory. Due to COVID-19 only the guestshop was open and the factory tours limited, so we decided to check out some other tourist attractions instead.
But there was heavy rain and lots of people. So we thought about continuing to our far goal for that day, Montreux, directly. but that would mean we already would be there quite early, with not much to do in the terrible weather. Luckily we took a wrong turn at some point, and when i saw the Sign “Jaunpass” I realized, we just found accidently a detour to Montreux through some places i know – via the famous “Jaunpass”. Well, the desicion was easy. off we go 🙂
The jaunpass is a less known, smaller mountain Pass between the Alps of Berne and Fribourg. But it’s a lovely road and not very crowded, especially on rainy days like this one was…
After going through the Simmental-valley (of simmental beef fame) direction Zweisimmen, we continued to the fancy “rich and famous” village of gstaad:
Where we stopped for a bit of sight-seeing and some nice coffee and cake
Before we went back to on the road direction Montreux at the lake of geneva.
There are several routes, but we decided to take another mountain pass – The “Col du Pillon” 
The rain changed from heavy to medium and let us enjoy the beauty of haze in the mountains:
To be honest, this is one of the best driving roads i’ve ever been. Much less crowded then the Furka and grimsel pass and so much fun to drive… Since the scenery is a bit less stunning (but still incredible) it let’s you focus on driving, rather than enjoying the view. It’s just one of those perfect roads…
At the end of the pass you will arrive in Aigle. Check out the lizard of stone in the Serpentines where you drive down between the vinyards….
The lizard is the famous “aigle de murailles” white-wine brand symbol, coming from this area…
At the bottom you’ll find the beautiful “cheateaux d’aigle” castle
We just stopped for a few pictures before following the road along the lake of geneva direction Montreux:
As soon as we arrived, weather started to get a bit nicer so we were able to check out the City of montreux a bit. I just love it with all those historic hotels and houses along the beautiful green and flowery riviera, you can feel how glamorous this place once was, and still is…Â 
Montreux is probably most famous for the annual Montreux Jazz festival (where deep purple’s “smoke on the water” came to life as a fire in the nearby casino started while they were recording close to it)
But they also have a lot of public art installations
One of the most famous one probably beeing the Freddy mercury statue:
The next day we decided to check out the “Chaeteux du Pillon” castle which is incredible well preserved with an important influence in the swiss history…
After that, we took one of the restored old steamboats on lake geneva for a two hour roundtrip, which stopped at places like Villeneuve, Port-valais, Vevey, etc…
They served incredible nice food inside the beautiful boats cuisine:
After returning back on land, the clouds finally disappeared and we were able to enjoy sunny side of life at the riviera with some ice-cream, coffee, drinks, live music and views…
Since the jazz festival got cancelled this year, they had a free public art exhibition called “Silent shores” at the beach walk, which i personally really enjoyed..
After a few drinks we went back to the hotel to enjoy the attached famous restaurant with some great dinner 
And a great sunset from the terrace …
The next morning we got greeted with a clear blue sky, glowing mounain tops, and a great view of the valaisanne alps behind the lake of geneva.
After breakfast, we took some last views and breaths from our hotel balcony before packing up our things and continuing our roadtrip. Â 
See the last part of our trip here soon…
So for Part two of our journey we decided to take a slightly different route home and visit some nice places along the way.
After taking the train back from Zermatt to Täsch we re-united with the EK9 and started to drive back through the Valleys direction Furkapass.
After meeting these cool moped guys making a similar roadtrip on their Puch’s and Piaggo’s at a local Cheese-shop (I recommend buying some local cheese, which there are shops sprinkled and advertised along the roads)
We decided to fuel up before heading back into the Mountain tops…
But rather continuing back over the Furka-pass again. We took Another direction halfway up. This time: Welcom to the Grimsel Mounain pass:
See the serpentines..?
Along the way we had to stop to let the old Furka steam railway (which is now a tourist ride) pass, which was a nice view with all the waving happy tourists enjoying their holidays.
The drive was really fun, but since it’s a bit shorter than the Furka-pass you’ll have more bikers and caravans on this pass. Check out this video of me driving. Don’t expect any crazy maneuvres. it’s a public road after all, but the view, while pushing the honda through thin mountain air at quite a noise level is definitely worth a thing 🙂 (Watch with sound and wait for VTEC kickin’ in, yo!). It looks much slower in the video then it actually was 😛
It’s just great. especially when you arrive on top at one of the two restaurants.
Where you’d have an incredible view over the lakes on top of the world:
We stopped a bit further down to take some pictures with the grimsel dams in the background:
If you look close you can see the winding road down to the left…
A few hours later down the road (i decided to enjoy the drive instead of taking photos) we made a stop to check out the lovely Aareschlucht (Aare river canyon) which is a nice walk, especially with the hot summer weather we had: It is a several kilometer long walk on a wooden path in the canyon above the river and definitely worth a visit.
After that, we continued towards Meyringen / Interlaken and then went over the Brünig Mointain pass. it’s a short one with lots of traffic, trucks and other stuff you don’t want to have. but still it’s a fun and also a direct link towards home 🙂
I definitely recommend having a nice swiss plate at the top of the pass in this restaurant with a great view down the valley and the Brünig Pass.
We then decided to go back home to enjoy our national day with our friends and families. But instead of just taking the Autobahn we decided to take all the side-roads and continued a bit through germany over the “Küssaberg”, which is another short mountain pass and a shortcut towards home again. Well it’s more of a hill than a mountain but it’s a really nice road…
After the National Day, we hit the road again for Part two of the trip. Pead soon in part 3 and 4 of the story on this Blog here 🙂
Since our original vacation plans in norway got cancelled, we had to re-organize ourselves. Me and my wife decided to visit some places in switzerland that were on our bucket-list, and i conviced her to take the EK9 for the first part and include some mountain-passes which were on the way. She happily agreed. We divided our tour into two parts. the first one was more mountain oriented, the second one more lake-oriented. But the plans for part two changed (read that in a later post). Because of the many pictures i took, i decided to break the story into 4 parts. Welcome to Part one. Schaffhausen to Zermatt.
We packed our stuff into the EK9 and started at our Homebase in Schaffhausen towards Zürich and Lucerne on the A4 Autobahn.
Since the EK9 preferes curves, we decided to leave the Autobahn around Zug and take the “Axenstrasse” wich is an alternative route around the city of Zug with nice views of lakes (Lake Zug, Lake Lauerz and the Vierwaldstädtersee) and the upcoming mountains:
Once you start to see the Mountain pass signs, the climb upwards beginns…
The first mountain part was between Göschenen and Andermatt, which is a lovely road but often quite crowded, since it also leads towards the Gotthard pass and the city of Andermatt, which is a famous holiday destination.
Nevertheless, it’s a fun and beautiful road:
On the way there is a stop at the “Devils Bridge” (Teufelsbrücke). A bridge with a famous swiss Saga about locals winning over the devil, and a rich history in Wars and of connecting the south and north of the alps. You’ll also find a 30minute walk, which leads you through some WWII army bunker tunnels, which there are plenty of in this area and is surrounded by nice smelling alp flowers, wild herbs and a waterfall…
After the hillclimb to Andermatt, the Realp road starts with a valley…
Which then slowley gets steeper and steeper and leads you to the famous Furka pass road:
On the top, we had to take some pictures and enjoy the view:
This is what to expect on the road down 🙂
Just a few hundred meters down the road from the top viewpoint, there is another place you should definitely stop by. Belvedere. It’s an old, now defunct “belle epoque” hotel, where the rich and famous (some Sean Connery, etc.) used to stay. The area was also used to shoot parts of the 007 “Goldfinger” movie in 1964…
Because a look out the hotel-window, you used to see the Rhone glacier. Unfortunately due to climate warming it has melted and is now not visible anymore from the hotel. Still you can do a short walk from the parking lot to have a look at the remaining glacier and the lake. There’s also a cave in the glacier where you can walk around inside the ice. Pretty impressive.
There’s also a little restaurant on the other side. Don’t buy the pre-packed sandwich stuff. I recommend having a “Wiener” sausage pair and homemade potato sallade along this incredible view, for a little brake.
We also spotted a couple of historic Postal and transportation busses in the parking, which were used in the past to bring people and goods over exact this pass:
After our little lunch, the road went meandering back down on the other side of the mouintains
And through the valley of Goms, which is sprinkled with old mountain villages. Lovely… We drove on to the village of Täsch, were we had to leave our car in a covered parking lot…
Because we went to the famous skiing and hiking spot of Zermatt. Which is car-free and only accessible by a short train shuttle from Täsch. But it’s worth it all. Because you get greeted by one of switzerlands world famous views. The Matterhorn (aka the Toblerone Mountain :D)
We stayed two nights there and went sight-seeing and hiking. Interestingly there’s a strong connection between Zermatt and japanese mountaineers, as different signs showed:
The next day we took the famous Gornergrat cogwheel train, high up the Gornergrat mountain:
To have a lovely look at the Matterhorn, the many surrounding glaciers and everything around it.
The Flora and Fauna is amazing up there and while the matterhorn tip was cloudy when we were there, we had the luck to see the cotton grass bloom and see all those rare Mountain animals… (Marmots, Chamois, Capricorns, Valais Blacknose mountain sheeps,…)
And we also saw the “Air zermatt” (famous of netflix documentation “The horn”) doing some incredibly crazy manouvres. Those air-rescue and mountain transportation guys sure know how to fly a helicopter. Insane!!!
We then hiked down an entire day back to zermatt, which i can not recommend if you have troubles with your back or knees. But you get rewarded with amazing views, clean air and the joy of hiking. I also definitely recommend to try a “Zermatt beer” in one of the intermediate train stations or small cottage restaurants along the way. And maybe some food like a “Wallisser Platte” (a cold plate full of local cured meat and mountain cheeses with some bread). Heaven
The next day we spent shopping, eating and checking out zermatt itself and the Famous “Ricola” (of coughing candy fame) herbs garden, which is definitely worth a little hike. There’s also a cable car, but despite the pain from the previous day, we still decided to walk. Excellent food, good (local) wine, lovely people and those small mountain cottages from the 17xx’s are just amazing…
This is it for pt. 1. stay tuned for pt. 2 where we hit the road again for some other mountain passes….
As usual, progress is slow but steady. So this week something arrived which i’ve ordered over two months ago, but was delayed due to COVID-19. I mainly bought it because it had a slight water-damage and was almost for free. and it’s still nice enough to work with in the workshop.
Just another piece of documentation ready. Looking forward to get back into the project soon.
Today this little panel arrived:
It’s there to protect the fuel filler neck that goes to the tank
And is installed in the RH wheel housing. Just a small little bit that was missing and another piece of the puzzle:
Yeah it has been a while since i worked on the car myself. but i decided it’s time to assemble all the small bits and pieces into “subassemblies” wherever possible.
Last week i worked on the moustache bar. So here we got the puzzle in single pieces:
The powdercoating company also coated the inside of the bushing shells, so i cleaned them with the dremel tool
Added som fresh Bushing grease:
And in with the new bushings
And all hardware combained. ready for installation.
It looks like a simple thing, but if you think what work went into it:
– Everything had to be disassembled from the car first
– The moustache Bar got sandblasted
– The bar got primered and powdercoated
– Old Hardware fasteners got cleaned (in the rattler), zinc plated and yellow passivated
– New OEM Nissan Locking nuts and washers ordered and added
– New Polyurethane Bushings with bushing grease
Hope to find some time for some other work again soon, it’s fun after all 🙂
Finding historic Information on the Nissan Motor corporation Japan and USA is relatively easy, since there are archives full of information and a lot of books around it. Finding specific information on smaller countries history regarding the “Datsun” Brand is a bit trickier… So when i found an old Swiss information document for sale on a local website, i had to get it.
From Todays point of view it’s fairly funky with it’s cut-off titles and different fonts used throughout the document. PS, full document for download at the end.
It is an information brochure to the new customers advertising the efforts and advantages of the relatively young Datsun (suisse) SA. I guess it must have been from around 1071 up to 1973 or something like that, Proudly stating that they’ve sold 5000 Cars in the countrly total over the last few years.
The first page is an introduction to the brand including a rendering of the (then beeing built) new car storage warehouse in Urdorf (Zürich area) and including a signature of the then-Director of Datsun (Suisse) SA, Ernst Pfister
Page two introduces the Japanese mother-company including some nice pictures of the Factory, test-tracks etc. Including some informatino about their (then) current efforts to develop a new Rotary engine, Electric cars (!) and a Steam-powered engine. Quite a bit funny. On Page three there are pictures from the (mentioned above) Storage warehouse in Urdorf under construction and the Headquarter at the Stauffacherstrasse 45 in Zürich. As well as the old spare-parts warehouse in Switzerland:
A quick Google streat view image shows that the building still exists and looks pretty similar with the windows and entrance-door position and shape.
The next few pages show the car lineup and their advantages (mostly the solid quality):
A dealer list, the motorsports-effort (Including Nissan R382, R280-II and East african Safari rallye cars) and press reviews follow on the next pages.
And also the (quite a bit hilarious in todays context) superb 12 Month / 20’000km warranty 🙂
On the back page you can see the slogan “DATSUN – Brings new values”
I really like this document. It has a lot of character and some nice information and photographs rarely seen otherwise and something that is a bit more specific compared to the information you find usually.
Oh and along the document above, there was also the swiss Datsun 1400 Dealer Windshield sales document that were put in the windscreen on the showroom floor for the Datsun 1400 aka Datsun 510 aka Nissan Bluebird. I have no useage for it, but will keep it of course and try to give it to a swiss 1400 owner who likes to have it 🙂
Click here to download the full Datsun (suisse) SA Document as a high-res pdf:
1972 Datsun Suisse Information Leaflet