Today i got a long-awaited delivery from Japan. it constisted of three parts: 1) An OEM Adjustable factory competition suspension by KYB. I still need to investigate a bit. I’m not even 100% sure if this was intended for this specific version of car, and i know there were many different versions of adjustable suspension around. Especially this part (I assume it’s to adjust the push / pull pressure rate?),  ius not seen on all of these adjustable suspensions. As you can see it’s not in the best, but restorable condition and one spring is missing, so i got it quite cheap. that’s the reason i bought it. Mainly to…

Recently, at the bodyshop i got asked what piece of metal this is between the original floorpan and the repair patch they put over it. I had to admit that i don’t know if it was original or not, but the welds definitely looked like OEM Spotwelds. After asking on the Classic Z Forums, i got the information that this was a factory reinforcement plate for the floorpans. Unfortunately it was not listed in any of my parts books, so i guess, it was either added to the cars during the assembly process withohut proper documentation, or it was part of the original floor pan part and never sold separately.…

I have two dashboards hanging on my wall, both with the hand marked Japanese Su-i-su katakana characters (ス イ ス), for destination switzerland. We all know that those dashboards all crack sooner or later crack on the top and mine are no exception. So far there were these options: – Repair it yourself with some backyard-engineering. It will most probably crack at a different location soon, or look terrible – Have them repaired in the USA by Justdashes. Seems like a nice option but two-way shipping costs would be overboarding. – Find a NOS Nissan dashboard. I got offered some, but as expected the price is exorbitant, and who knows…

So i got a few cool British Datsun price lists from my Friend Daniel. It was nothing i was really looking for, but always nice to have some stuff like this in the collection. From left to right: October 1971, July 1976 and August 1978 Price lists by Datsun UK Ltd. I think the design was somehow foldable, why you will find half of the prints on one side upside-down.

In a recent discussion about safety measures, a friend pointed out that the Tension rods on the Z tend to snap, espepcially on lowered cars with hard bushings, as the tension gets too high. You can either switch to an adjustable tension rod kit, or as an alternative, use an Oldschool Bearing kit, which allows the T/C (Tension Compression Rod) to have a slight movement and therefore reduced tension. Today i got one of those kits. This kit is an vintage NOS item which was made by Kontrolle Automotive products in the USA. But i think they were made by different manufacturers and MSA still has them on sale new.…

Well it’s  holiday season. First i was away for two weeks enjoying the sea, now my bodyshop us running on low flame, so the recent progress is a bit slow. Also because they have to finish another nice project for another customer first. Here’s what happened in the last few weeks. The inner wheel tub has been repaired on the inside and outside visible part, as well as  LH inside trunk area which my previos bodyshop messed up a bit. The rusty swiss-cheese bit which you still see is the part from the rear quarter, which will be replaceed completely with the NOS piece in my posession soon. The main…

It has been a while since i got something new to read, related to the Z(X) topic. but a few days ago i found not-so-well advertized 280ZX Book for sale. The pictures didn’t give a lot of information about the book, but one photograph showed a Rallye 240Z and it was super cheap. That was enough to start my interested and buy it. And this is what i got today: It’s an english book about the 280ZX from 1978. A mix of brochure, Catalogue and information about the 280ZX. It shows how it was developed: But also how it is being built, tested and so on: It also doesn’t forget…

Soo. time for another update from the bodyshop. After the floor pans got prepared and made sure that everything fits: They got welded in and attached to the frame rails: Next then was the inner rocker panel: Along with the rear rocker extension the seatbelt mount and seat rails: And the rear section of the floor pansl. Looks really need. and completely differnt to the RH side, where we used the older type of floor pans and lots of homemade panels. What is missing now is the little factory reinforcement piece (see previous post from the bodyshop). and the outer rocker panel. there we currently have a little fitment problem…

So, i thought i’d pay the bodyshop another visit. i was a bit suprized to see the car looked more or less the same than last time on the first glance. But upon closer inspection i realized they have worked on a lot of details. They finished the welding of the front area. added some threads where they were missing on this version of the parts i had (some have minor differences to my original ones, since they might come from a different year version, despite being factory parts). Also the firewall area behind the pedals was completed. The floor pan and seat mounts were removed and the inner side…