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FYI: HS30 00004 is up for auction in the next 3 days (8th December). https://burnsandco.hibid.com/lot/224051982/1969-datsun-240z-build-no-4?ref=catalog There is some detailed photos in the listing.

I’ve been working on sound treatment on the Z and I’ve been planning from the start to hit the tail light area with sound absorbing foam. Reason is that due to the shape of the car, sound frequencies will accumulate there and project straight back out at the driver like a trumpet horn. Especially low level frequencies that contribute to droning. So I have cut out a piece of acoustic foam and stitched it onto the tail light cover panel with acoustically transparent fabric. The idea is that troublesome droning frequencies will be funneled down there by the shape of the cabin, pass through the fabric, and then get absorbed rather than project back out. I took it for a test run today and I swear it make a huge difference. Prior to adding the foam, the engine getting very woofy at around 4.5k rpm. Like it would go RrrraaaaaaaaaaWWWWHWHWHaaa. I know it’s not to do with the exhaust or engine cause the woofy sound isn’t there from the outside. Now with the foam it goes Rrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaa all the way up. Pics here of what I did, execution can be cleaner, I need to iron it and tighten it up but there it is.

weather will be good. I just saw a heap of trophies Gordon made for the day. (courtesy of GM push rods engine technolody)

Hello, Just continuing on from previous posts, I am also looking trying to track down a 1988 Prairie Breaker PRO for the Mrs (ideally small or medium sized frame). If anyone has one laying around they may want to part ways with please let me know. Thanks

240z @ 7:53

Hopefully Sunday remains dry(ish)

Complete 4 screw SU/Hitachi carburettor set up for 240/260z. Was taken off a L28 race motor setup. Surplus to my requirements. Everything in photos included. carburettors, E46 intake manifold, choke cables and handle, heat shield, air filter box and fuel rail. Missing one 1 air filter box bolt. $700 Also see my other listing for 240/260z vented bonnet Pick up Essendon Airport West Vic. Or shipping at cost. PM or email alking@internode.on.net 0409017228

Datsun 240z 260z MCP steel vented bonnet. SOLD

I suspect that pursuing your brother through the courts would end up costing you more than 240Z #48 was worth at the time he destroyed it. After all, to put it bluntly it wasn't as if #48 was even an assembled car, but rather a very battered looking shell and a big pile of unrestored parts. To a Z enthusiast they might have looked like gold but to the rest of the population probably just a pile of scrap metal. Not to mention all the effort and time you'd need to put into the process with no guarantee you'd be ultimately successful. And then there would be the problem of actually extracting $$$ compensation out of your brother if you were. So I agree with C.A.R. and 1600 Dave. Having had to deal with a toxic family member myself, my advice is to maintain the moral high ground and have nothing more to do with him - your brother will be the biggest loser in the long run as he's lost you. Best you put the loss of #48 down to one of life's drawbacks and move on, enjoying your other and complete usable 240Z. My 2c worth.

I'd heed Lurch's advice. Its gone, move on with your life. I very much doubt you'll ever get any compensation, no matter how much time and money you expend trying. If you do find a lawyer and get to court, by the sound of it your brother / his lawyers will just play the mental illness / not responsible for their actions card. And a general comment for all - take out laid up cover. My 1600 was on laid up cover at a cost of around $125 a year or thereabouts. They paid out $25K earlier this year, I got to keep the dead remains (they even arranged to have it transported from Albury to my home in Newcastle).

With the head back at LCR, it needed to be assembled. 240Z's came with an oil 'spray bar' that bolts to the side of the camshaft towers, that sprays oil onto the camshaft lobes. This is a poor design as the tiny tube and orifices' can easily block up with gunk and worse, the bar itself can fracture over time & fall into the cambox... Nissan fixed this later in the bigger 2.8ltr engine (L28) with an internally oiled camshaft. Thankfully Les had enough junk L28 heads in stock, so the cam towers from one were used on the E31 head, as they are a direct swap. Because the top and bottom head faces had been decked, a set of cam tower shims were installed to bring the camshaft 'wipe' back into the correct geometry. Next a suitable camshaft was fitted. As the engine is relatively stock, we didn't want to go to wild. The grind is from Clive Cams, and is a direct copy of a Wade 733a. It's very very mild with just a tad more lift and duration over a stock grind cam. Unfortunately the original valve springs were worn out so a good set of used L28 valve springs were installed, along with new thicker lash pads/caps and refaced rockers. It was all reassembled, checked and pronounced good to go - it's almost a shame to put the tappet cover back on! The tappet cover was also given the Hydro-blast treatment.

Nice. Sounds similar to the E31 head from HS30 00150 I sent to Les a few years ago. In terms of work required to repair it.

By now you might have noticed a major component is missing...? When the Z was delivered to us originally, the matching number L24 engine was barley secured in the engine bay - a couple of bolts and an occy strap! When we extracted it and I had a good look at what we had: Matching numbers L24 but the head was only secured with a couple of bolts, so I lifted it off. Everything 'looked' ok, but when I discussed the engine with Les at Les Collins Racing, he asked what the casting number was? 'E88' I said: 'That's a 260Z head' says Les. 'It should have the higher comp early E31 casting' Blast...! Another thing that was wrong and that I'd have rectify. The early E31 heads are REALLY hard to come by now, but undeterred I starting calling and emailing around - without much luck Then I called Paul Wolfe in QLD: "Yes I have one here, but it'll need a rebuild. And I could freight it down to you in a week or so if you want?" Yes! It arrived a week or so later expertly wrapped in carpet! Now I'm not stupid enough to think a 60yo aluminum Datsun cylinder is going to be ready to bolt on to an engine, I took it into Les Collins Racing and Les sent it off to Head Stud Developments to have it stripped, tanked, inspected & reported on. It wasn't good: the casting was soft, it had lots of water jacket corrosion, it was warped (typical), guides were shot, valve seats were shot, damaged threads... But it wasn't cracked anywhere, so that was tiny bit of good news. The quote to fix it from HSD was BIG dollars, but Les suggested that if I weld up the corrosion myself using his 3-Phase TIG, I'd save a lot of labour cost for Tony. So that's what I did - I spent a solid half day on the TIG welder in at LCR, welding up the coolant galleries and damaged thread bosses, heating the head back up with the Oxy/Act as required. Once finished, Les helped me Peen the welds down while the head still had temperature in it. But we weren't done yet! "Are you wanting to put a small cam grind in this?" Asked Les. I guess so? "OK, come with me - we have some porting to do." (!) Onto Les's porting table and he set about showing me how to basically port a cylinder head. Les ported an inlet & exhaust to show me, then left me to do the others(!) It was late when I finished... I'm still hugely appreciative of Les for allowing me to do this, because it's uncommon for him to show a non-engine builder how to port a head! The head then went back down to HSD for them to weave their magic: It was re-heat treated back to the required hardness, straightened, new hardend valve seats, new valves, new valve guides, threads repaired, new core plugs, coolant passages indexed and milled in, decked then hydrojet blasted. It was then returned to LCR to be reassembled: As close to a new head as we could get!

Whilst not as low a VIN number, the car in this advert looks to be in a similar state and sets a price point that any assessor/court etc. would refer to : https://www.gumtree.com.au/s-ad/dubbo/cars-vans-utes/1970-datsun-240z-sports-5-sp-manual-2d-coupe-all-others/1328600847

That looks great, after all this work and time.

Join the club, but I also think our summers are hotter now than 20 years ago and I find it pretty intense in a Z in summer days. Definitely a +1 for aircon.

Anyone have a single 240z defroster duct see no 40 will pay

Time for an update! By September we'd checked fitment of all the parts on the 240Z so the 'dry build' was complete, so there was nothing left to do but pull it all apart and prep it for high-build primer. Annoyingly my painter decided to take a month off from Mid-September to Mid-October, so the project stalled for four weeks, but once he was back we could begin. My painter cast his critical eye over the whole thing, then once he was happy the WHOLE car was dry sanded inside and out with 240g soft pads, prep-solved, masked up and tinted high build primer was shot at the body & panels. With all that done and the primer dry, the body shell and front guards was back-taped, so the underside could have stone chip applied. We spent a LOT of time on the underside of the Z to dress any of our welding repairs and also fix any of the average work done by the little Japanese man on the production line in Yokohama... As we wanted to do a 'better than factory' job of it, the underside frame rails are also masked off so no stone chip is applied to them - this makes for a more atheistically pleasing look. The seams are then seam sealed, then the paintable stone chip is applied: And the inside of the guards: This whole process of masking, then de-masking takes bloody ages... But it's all worth it, because next the ACTUAL colour is applied!!! When I first received the Z it had been media blasted and all remnants of the original colour were gone - along with any paint code sticker. However not EVERYTHING had been removed and Epoxy'd over - there was the remnants of an original grommet for the fuel tank vent pipe - still holding on for dear life - and when I carefully peeled it back... YES!!! I consulted the factory colours for 1970 and there it was: Nissan 907 Green! So that's what it is being returned to. The body shell was then prep-solved, seam sealed, primed and Direct Gloss colour was applied (wet on wet) to the underside of the body over the stone chip, then the engine bay and cabin. All I can say is that it looks bloody amazing - even straight off the gun in DG! Needless to say my painter is a legend. I'm stoked and Tony the owner is over the moon to see colour on it finally! Now we start bolting the driveline in to make it mobile...

Yeah my quarters look something like this but I probably won’t put foam in my doors though, due to potential for it getting wet and growing mould. I’ll load them up with butyl rubber only.

Yep, it is time consuming. For the doors, I cut a strip for the panel area above the stiffening rail and then a larger one for the area below. Getting it lined up before starting to remove the plastic covering the adhesive is vital.The doors now sound much more 'solid' when closed. The rear quarters were a jigsaw of pieces to suit.

Datsun 240Z 260Z rust repair panels: Left & right dog leg panels... $195 each Left & right outer sills... $295 each Left & right floors & rails... $395 each Pick up Forster or can meet along the way to Kiama on the 7th/8th of Dec

Possibly! Much of the body is in primer right now but might bring it anyway. And yeah I’ll be treating the doors too, giving myself a whole weekend to do doors cause I got no clue what I’m doing. There’s a bunch of other stuff I need to do in there like rubber. I got a bunch of other plans to kill resonance inside the car, like using sound foam in the roof, and acoustic fabric rather than normal roof liner, so sound waves can pass into the foam and get absorbed rather than bounce off it. And make a bass trap of some sort at the tail light area, my plastic interior tail light cover is all cracked up so I have no issues butchering it into something that absorbs sound.

2024 Christmas BBQ ?

Looking good :-) Yep, this is the only way to go to minimise the road noise and 'hear' the engine (and music) better. I also used the self adhesive Carbuilders closed cell foam on the inside of the door panels and on the rear quarters.

Very nice man! Glad you've still got it!