1600dave

Seems to be a deceased estate. Having been in a similar situation with my father's estate (which included a collection of vintage bikes), in most cases its not worth messing around to get a few extra bucks for something like this. Datsun nuts are freaking out about the opportunity to get a zed, but to the seller its probably just one more thing amongst a pile of other stuff, house, etc that needs to be sold up quickly with the least hassle possible. "Best offer on the day" will sort that for them.

There seems to be a difference between "what its worth" and "what Hayden thinks its worth". "What its worth" is whatever a buyer and seller agree on, an auction type scenario will work out its true worth pretty quickly and accurately.

So would about 147 other people.

They are British ones.

Ha, I got a compressor for my 21st. Still going strong many resprays and 35 years later - only thing I got for my 21st that I still have. Are the frame rails very complicated ? Never seen 280ZX rails, but most Datsuns I've messed around with have relatively straight forward rails that could be made pretty easily, particularly if you're not fussed with 100% originality

Yep, definitely wait till after things settle down Covid-19 wise. I'm organising an MX5 Club motorkhana this Sunday and some of the changes we've had to make to get the event approved and running have been challenging to say the least. What would have been our next driver training day at Pheasant Wood in a few weeks has become an ordinary track day as no passengers / trainers are allowed at the moment. For the motorkhana this weekend we couldn't even get approval for parents to be in the car to supervise their kids so have had a couple of juniors pull out. If you've done the SDC skids nights, we've probably met - I've been Clerk of Course for the last couple.

The various Datsun clubs in Sydney tend to not run motorsport events themselves. Sydney Datsun Club puts on the odd weekday evening motorkhana on the wet skidpan at Eastern creek (although they tend to be more "random skids in the wet" than "proper motorkhana"). We don't have any planned at the moment, last one was scheduled for May but was cancelled due to Covid-19. If you're interested, my "other" club (NSW MX5 Club) runs quite a few events a year on either the South Circuit at Eastern Creek, at Wakefield Park or at Pheasant Wood (Marulan). Most events include dedicated sessions for newcomers, with in-car instruction from experienced drivers for the first of those sessions at EC or WP, or full day driver training days at Pheasant Wood. Details of future events are on their website, all you need is to be a member of a CAMS-affilliated club and hold a CAMS licence (some events have on offer a single-day "Come and Try" licence to avoid the need to fork out the $120-odd for an annual licence), members of other clubs are welcome.

Glad you got there in the end. I restored a few cars back in the day for a bit of spending money and more recently paint stripped my car inside, outside, underneath, basically removed every bit of paint off it. Another possibility for the dents is to braze a washer (on its edge) right into the deepest bit of the dent and use a slide hammer or similar to hook thru the hole in the washer and "pull" it out. Then melt or grind the washer off. Bit like the dodgy brothers version of the modern spot welded dent puller system. Or smack them down with a hammer so they're not proud of the bonnet line and bog them up...............

Scratch the paint surface with really coarse sandpaper first (40 grit or similar), to give the stripper something to "bite" into. Lather the stripper on, then cover with plastic. The cheap plastic dropcloths from the paint section at Bunnings are perfect. Leave for a while, then attack it with a scraper, try to sort-of "chisel" the soft paint off. Repeat if necessary, will depend on what paint is on it, may take a few goes. Seems to work better for me if I chisel the paint off straight away, can start to harden up a little if you leave it for long. The yellow could be something like epoxy primer which in my experience is rather hard to get off...... You should be able to get pretty much all the paint off, only needing to resort to cleaning up a few remaining spots with the wire wheel or orbital sander. Only damage is if you get it too hot and buckle it, but you seem aware of that. To fix the dent, if you can't get in behind to knock it out, perhaps cut or drill a hole in whatever is blocking access behind and use a punch or similar to knock the dent out. Then patch the rear, or just use a grommet if you can get away with a smallish hole for access and you don't think it'll look out of place. I'd be wary of cutting the top skin of the bonnet.

Yeah, that's not cold gal paint on the post. I used the gal paint on some handrails made from gal pipe I welded up for my old man's place, just around the welds. After 5-6 years the cold gal was starting to show a little rust coming thru (and yes, I gave it a few coats). In my experience, your best bet is a good epoxy primer on visible painted surfaces (or POR15 / KBS if you're keen, I've used them on both car and trailer with reaonablt succes, admittedly the car hasn't left the shed since.....), and a good dose of something like fish oil / cavity wax in all cavities. My personal "special mix" used to be a combination of Tectyl rustproofing and a bit of fish oil to thin it down and get it penetrating into all nooks and crannies.

Thanks, sounds close-ish to what I'm after. I'll await pics, will probably take them if they are suitable. Most interested in pics of dome to get an idea if they are suitable for use with the particular head / combustion chamber shape I'll be running.

Few questions around the pistons : Domed / Dished / Flat top ? Standard compresion height ? New / 2nd hand (condition ?) / rings / gudgeon pins ?

Looking to the US for specialist stuff can make sense, but for common things like brake seals and other mechanical parts you're probably better of just going down to your local brake place or an Australian online site. Don't take the part number in the link below as gospel (I'm not a 280ZX expert, and don't know if there are differences between year models, etc), but its an example for a repair kit for rear calipers for a 280ZX from one of the places I get stuff from. $50 and you'll have them in a day or two. http://eziautoparts.com.au/clutch-and-brake/index.php?target=products&mode=search&subcats=Y&type=extended&avail=Y&pshort=Y&pname=Y&pkeywords=Y&match=all&cid=0&q=210E0200&x=7&y=12

I did the lines different - I used the 5-way splitter from a 180B and ditched both the original 1600 brass ones. Shouldn't make any difference though. Its been 15 years or more since I messed with original calipers, but from memory the mounting pin for the caliper on the strut is "shouldered" and you just do the castle nut up till its tight and chuck the split pin in. The spring under the nut then applies the correct pressure to allow the caliper to slide. If everything looks to be hooked up OK, only other things I can think or are whether any of the brake lines are kinked (ie pinched so fluid is slow to return), a port on the master or one of the lines has some sort of blockage, one of the pistons in the master is a bit sticky (unlikely if its new), or the pistons in the calipers are sticking. Other than that, I'm running out of ideas. One more question - is it both front wheels or just one ?

I was just curious how the "plumbing" had been done - it would have originally had a single brake pipe from the master cylinder to a little brass 3-way splitter on the firewall (one to each front wheel, single line to the rear of the car). To use a dual circuit master would require completely re-doing a lot of the lines, was wondering if something was amiss there, whether the 5-way splitter / brake warning light switch had been used, etc. If its a new build, might be something as simple as wrong plumbing ? My understanding of the pressure release valve is that there are two types, one for disc and one for drum. Drum type holds more pressure and is what needs to be removed if you're doing a rear disc conversion, otherwise shouldn;t need to be touched. Is the pushrod from pedal to master correct length / correctly aligned ? I vaguely recall having to mess around with this when I fitted a 240K master to mine (replacing the single master).