240Z - Year of manufacture?

[Zedhead UK]

Hi You all from down-under. I'm a member of the UK Classic Z Register and am trying to establish the date of manufacture of my 240z which I bought from a UK specialist earlier this year. The car was originally registered in New Zealand on 10.01.1972, but I have been told that Z cars destined for NZ would have come from Japan to Australia. Our Club expert can only give a manufacture date of between Jan.'71 and Aug.71. The Chassis No. is HS 30 01401 and was originally Yellow. It was imported into the UK in 2001 and refurbished in 2004 to an excellent standard - there was apparently no sign of any 'tin-worm' in the shell at all. This would be a miracle in the UK, but you guys down-under are luckier than us! If anybody could get a bit nearer to its actual birthdate I'd be very interested.
                     Hopefully
                         ZedheadUK     

[chris240]

I just had a look at the WAZ register for you...
members cars no's 1428 and 1436 are dated as October 1971, given yours is 1401 , Id say October 71 is pretty much it. (or a very slight possibility it could be a september 71) 

[NZeder]

My old NZ New 240z was registered in Jan 72 but was build number 001256 (if I recall correctly) as it was NZ New it did not have the indicators in front guards like many I have seen and also had fender mirrors and I come up with the same dates sometime in Jan 71-Aug 71 is the build date, I would put it down towards the Aug 71 time so maybe Jun or July 71.

Also I don't believe the statement that NZ cars would have come from Japan to Australia then NZ - I say this as NZ New S30 (ie those imported by Nissan not private importers of the day) don't have ADR plates and are in fact a different specification. You see there was an Australia Spec but the NZ New cars are General RHD Export Spec ie no indicators in the front guards (seems to be common on UK and AU S30's that I have seen here in NZ), fender mirrors, and in the 260z range again (this was the case with my 260z 2 seater 1977, imported from a pacific island into NZ in 78) in general export RHD spec no indicators in the guards and fender mirrors (by different again)

Here is a pic of my 260z in original condition back in the early 80's - it is only the General RHD exports models that I have seen that don't have the indicators in the guards - all the UK and JDM imports I have seen here in NZ have them (and if I recall right most/all of the AU imported 260z have them for sure - please correct me if that is wrong and I will edit this post for errors).

[HS30-H]

Our Club expert can only give a manufacture date of between Jan.'71 and Aug.71. The Chassis No. is HS 30 01401 .....

No disrespect intended, but how come your club 'expert' is not able to pin down a production date to anything less than an eight month period?

The car itself will tell a more accurate story than that; There are manufacturing and quality control stamps all over the car, and the date codes are fairly easy to decipher. Compare enough of them and you can usually get a pretty accurate idea of the month and year of manufacture, if not even down to a couple of weeks or so. If you see see any '46' numbers then that's the Japanese 'Showa' year dating method ( Emperor 'Showa' - known as Hirohito outside Japan - ascended the Chrysanthemum throne in 1925, so 'Showa 46' is 1971 ) and these are used along with other dating styles depending on the habits of the particular component manufacturer. You'll see 1971 written as '71', just '1' or '46' depending on who stamped it, and on what.

First - and perhaps easiest place to look is the base of the interior mirror. Just pull off the mirror ( it's mounted with a spring as a safety feature ) and see if you can see a date stamp in white ink. Because it will have been hidden from the light for a long time it should still be legible. Your car will have been put together usually just a few weeks after the majority of its components were manufactured, so the very first date stamp you see should give you something more accurate than an eight month window......

And to back up chris240, from past experience of 'Export' spec HS30 chassis number sequences I'd say that an October 1971 manufacturing date seems very likely, but if you take a look all over your car ( wiring loom labels, reverse side of instrumentation, steering wheel hub, electrical relays etc etc ) you will likely see dates in August and September 1971.

Interested to hear how you get on with this.....     

[Zedman240]

Would a seatbelt tag be accurate? I've heard some components under the dash have date stamps too; though a little harder to access unless you are doing another restoration.

[gav240z]

The car itself will tell a more accurate story than that; There are manufacturing and quality control stamps all over the car, and the date codes are fairly easy to decipher. Compare enough of them and you can usually get a pretty accurate idea of the month and year of manufacture, if not even down to a couple of weeks or so. If you see see any '46' numbers then that's the Japanese 'Showa' year dating method ( Emperor 'Showa' - known as Hirohito outside Japan - ascended the Chrysanthemum throne in 1925, so 'Showa 46' is 1971 ) and these are used along with other dating styles depending on the habits of the particular component manufacturer. You'll see 1971 written as '71', just '1' or '46' depending on who stamped it, and on what.    

That's great information. I never even thought of any of this to be honest when dating a car. I always looked for model differences to try and help me determine the year.

Would a seatbelt tag be accurate? I've heard some components under the dash have date stamps too; though a little harder to access unless you are doing another restoration.

I'm not sure because in Australia the 'lap belts' found in our Zeds (240z's anyway) appear to be of Australian origin (can't recall brand name off the top of my head), but they were unique to our market and fitted for ADR standards compliance. So that would give you an idea of when the car was imported I'd say but not neccessarily manufactured.

Disclaimer: I could be wrong, very wrong

[NZeder]

First - and perhaps easiest place to look is the base of the interior mirror. Just pull off the mirror ( it's mounted with a spring as a safety feature ) and see if you can see a date stamp in white ink. Because it will have been hidden from the light for a long time it should still be legible. Your car will have been put together usually just a few weeks after the majority of its components were manufactured, so the very first date stamp you see should give you something more accurate than an eight month window......

If I recall that is how I check HS30-00016 and most of the dates I found were 1970, seat belts, behind the dash, even the ignition leads, some had 1969 so I put HS30-00016 as Jan/Feb 70.

Let us know how it make out - and now that I am getting close to reassembling my RS30 I think I will check the parts as I put them back in and see if I can find any numbers too

[V8Datto]

Ok I've got one for you, This is the only stamp I could find after removing everything from my Z


Any idears?

[HS30-H]

Ok I've got one for you, This is the only stamp I could find after removing everything from my Z

Any idears?

Quality control date for that component is 24th January 1977 ( Showa 52 ), and manufacturer's name is 'Daiwa'.

What component did you find it on, and are you sure that it is original to your car?

[V8Datto]

ahhh... definitely not original.

It's an early 240z, and the stamp was on top of the fuel tank.

Thanks for the info

[Zedman240]

This thread got my going through my collection of zed stuff and found this tacho with this stamp;
It doesn't add up? Unless there is no date to it..

[HS30-H]

This thread got my going through my collection of zed stuff and found this tacho with this stamp;
It doesn't add up? Unless there is no date to it..

That's 29th March 1972. Manufacturer is Kanto Seiki.

[sexual_sushi]

i love this thread. HS30-H you are now the official AusZCar chronographer

[Zedman240]

Thanks again for that!

i love this thread. HS30-H you are now the official AusZCar chronographer

+1 for that!

[NZeder]

About a week ago I was going over some books I have now I am not 100% sure if the info is correct but I am sure Alan (HS30-H) could confirm. Anyway it talked about the works cars HS30-00026 and HS30-00025 that were build for the last part of the 1969 rally series. So if this is true this will make my old car that I sold to Peter Campbell a 1969 and not 1970 as I stated above. It was some 14 years ago that I owned HS30-00016 and I know there were some dates on that car with 1970, however I have now had it confirmed it was not the seat belts so I know it had 1970 dated plug leads. I hate getting old my memory is starting to fail like the rest of the body lol

EDIT: Ok did come checking on this site and looks like HS30-H has post a bit of info here
http://www.viczcar.com/forum/index.php/topic,5612.msg48093.html#msg48093
So it looks like the very early HS30-000xx cars might have well be build in 1969 but might not have been actually sold until after the L24 cranks were fixed. Looking over some other internet based info (which you can't always or shouldn't trust) looks like the engine numbers in the early cars might be 1970 based not 1969. If this is true then it tie in with the L24 harmonic issue putting a hold on the export HS30 (ie RHD) cars. So the whole bodies could have been complete, interior, etc and just the engine removed or not installed while the issue was sorted.