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.

[campbell]

Yes I am the owner of HS30 00016 and the seat belts are branded 1969. Many early 240z's came to Australia with no indicators in the guards. I believe 00016 came to Australia and than traveled to some pacific islands and possibly even PNG before ending up in New Zealand were I purchased it in 1994 (I think) This car has now been back in Australia since 1998 and is now under going a major rebuild.

 

Pete Campbell

[HS30-H]

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.

 

Hi Mike,

HS30-00026 & HS30-00025 were both part of a batch of works rally cars that were built specifically to take part in the 1970 RAC Rally here in the UK. The 1970 RAC Rally took place between 13th and 18th November, and the cars arrived in the UK ( coming off the transport ship from Japan in Belgium, and driven over to the UK on a normal car ferry by the Japanese mechanics ) during October. They were 'tested' a bit more here in the UK ( drivers and navigators for the most part never having seen them before! ) and fettled a little bit to driver / navigator preference, and were based at Old Woking Service Station.

 

Now, it's a little tricky to compare these works rally cars to normal road cars ( the bodyshells of the pre-72 season works 240Z rally cars were quite radically different to those of standard road cars ) but they were given body serial numbers from the standard road car sequence ( in this case, normal 'HS30' RHD export body serial number sequence ) and therefore we can compare rough build dates for the bodies, but not necessarily completed cars. I think it's likely that the bodies for this first batch of RHD works rally cars came off the production line in early 1970, and from there went to the competitions department at Oppama.   

 

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.

 

One of the things that's been messing up the story about the early RHD 'export' cars is the fact that sources in the USA were for many years putting out erroneous and negative data about them. These sources insisted that no RHD '240Z' had been built in 1969 ( even though the factory RHD export parts manuals contradict this ) and sadly this erroneous data stuck. It stuck to such an extent that we still have something of a battle on our hands to get certain people to accept that it is completely untrue.

 

Luckily we now know better, and the hard data comes from Nissan Shatai themselves - the people who actually built the cars. Their data tells us that HS30-00001 was the seventh S30-series Z to be given a body serial number ( the six in front of it were S30-00001, HLS30-00001, PS30-00001, HLS30-00002, S30-00002 & PS30-00002 ) and this all happened before the end of June 1969..........

 

As we know, during testing of the earliest cars it was found that a crankshaft harmonic problem existed in the L24 export engines. Obviously this was not a problem on the 'S30'-prefixed cars ( L20A engines ) or the 'PS30'-prefixed cars ( S20 twin cam engines ) so production for those models was not affected. However, production of LHD export cars was slowed right down just at the point when it was supposed to be getting into full swing, and it is fair to assume that it affected RHD export cars too. This was in September to December 1969.

 

There's no doubt that LHD export north American market cars were the primary volume market, but Nissan were taking RHD export markets seriously too. The fact that these RHD export markets required at least two different specs ( Australia/NZ market and UK market ) with differing needs / regulations will have affected things too. UK 'Type Approval' regulations were changed right at the end of 1969, and this caught Nissan slightly on the hop with regard to lighting. By all accounts, late 1969 and early 1970 was something of a crazy time at Nissan Shatai's Hiratsuka plant......

 

So, as Mike says, I think it is very likely that Nissan had built some HS30-prefixed RHD export cars before the crank harmonic problem was solved. They will certainly have built some complete cars, but there's also a very good chance that they part-built some cars and put them to one side until the new L24s with the re-designed cranks came on stream. From looking at cars we already know, it seems likely that this earliest batch of 'HS30'-prefixed cars might only have numbered around 20-something. There appears to have been a big gap whilst other matters were solved ( LHD export demand took Nissan Shatai by surprise...... ) and RHD export production never really got into its stride until late 1970.

 

So there were 'HS30'-prefixed cars made in 1969 and early 1970, but we have to look at the cars on a case-by-case basis to establish their likely 'production' date. We have to bear that gap in production in mind, and also expect to find the details of the cars differing slightly to what we might expect, as the specs were a little rubbery to begin with. Tricky isn't it?!

 

 

 

 

 

It's a pity the original poster on this thread didn't let us know how he got on with his car. It'd be interesting to know what he found.

 

Pete ( Campbell ),

HS30-00016 - great! Good to hear of another early HS30 still surviving. Congrats! I'm very envious.

 

Cheers,

Alan T.             

[NZeder]

Thanks for the detailed post Alan.

 

Pete good to hear from you. Will shoot you a PM

[Mr Camouflage]

Yes I am the owner of HS30 00016 and the seat belts are branded 1969. Many early 240z's came to Australia with no indicators in the guards.

 

Doesn't that just mean the seatbelts were made in 1969. Whats the original engine number of #16?

 

All Aussie 240Z's didn't have indicators in the guards. That was introduced with the 260Z.

[HS30-H]

Doesn't that just mean the seatbelts were made in 1969.

 

Yes, but it's only one of a whole host of clues that need to be added up and cross-referenced in order to give a more complete picture of the likely 'build date'.

 

Comparing the engine block number to the engine block numbers of other cars ( bearing in mind that engines were not necssarily fitted sequentially ) will also be a clue, but the engine could have been fitted some time later than the rest of the car was put together if it was one of the cars that was allegedly 'held up' by the crank re-design.

 

We then get into that philosophical question of the actual 'birth date' of the car: Is it the day that the car finally gets its 'OK' sticker on the window and is driven out of the factory, or is it some time earlier? I don't know how anyone else feels about it, but I can't help feeling that a car can exist with its own identity even some time before it is officially 'finished'. I'm imagining a small batch of cars that are without their engines, but otherwise complete, standing on their own in a corner of the Hiratsuka plant. They might even have been there for a couple of months.

 

If the cars were completed - except for the engine installation - in November 1969, but didn't get their 'OK' stickers until early February 1970, then are they 'November 1969' build date, or 'February 1970' build date......?

 

 

[zedrally]

Doesn't that just mean the seatbelts were made in 1969. Whats the original engine number of #16?

 

All Aussie 240Z's didn't have indicators in the guards. That was introduced with the 260Z.

 

What everyone seem's to forget is that the original seat belts where replaced with the ADR of the day, (In Australia), these where Australian made, not Japanese.

Whether there is a date on these, I have no idea, but it won't be a Japansese date.

Surprise no mention of 007 (?) has been made, seems to have gone to ground over the years?

[Mr Camouflage]

Yeah, I though that was the case with the seat belts. Maybe car hs30-00016 was never sold new in Australia, and therefore kept its original belts.

 

Also the 240Z didn't go on sale in Australia until September 1970. Which makes me wonder whether Nissan would have produced large numbers of LHD export cars when their export markets weren't ready for them yet?

 

 

 

[zedrally]

Reading back over this thread, it's becoming  evident that if 016 has the factory seat belts, it had not made it's way originally into Australia, unless a PO had retro fitted self retracting seat belts.

In which case they would have come off a 260, which really would throw a spanner in the build date!

 

So which belts does it have, factory  self retracting or lap sash aussie originals?

 

This is a vital piece of information which only occurred in Aussie imported zeds.

 

Once we have that info then we can speculate as to it's original port of entry. I know this question has been raised many times over the years, there was a thread in Classic Zcar if memory serves me right in which I listed the manufacturer (can't duck out to the 240 as it's being stripped prior to rebuild). I'm sure Alan & Craig (MrC) plus others contributed to it all those years ago. (or have I confused it with a Goertz thread)?

edit: grammer

[NZeder]

Good question I sold #16 some 14+ years ago so I can't recall but Peter might have the original belts. I know they looked as they had never been replaced aka what was either installed at the factory or the first country the car was sold in - either way the belts have 1969 stamped on them according to Peter. It would be good to get other info from the belts as it might give a clue to were the car was first sold if replaced ie if they have a OZ or NZ safety standard etc.

[zedrally]

Can you remember if they where self retracting?