gilltech

Well I'm sorry to tell you that 2K will go next to nowhere in this day & age. I mean, what can you buy for that? Even if you find a stripped shell it will be pretty far gone - very rusty and/or crashed - or it wouldn't have been stripped of it's parts. Certainly not a 2-seater either. So you have to fix the shell, only a limited number of 'patch' panels are available, so much fabrication is often required. Then you have to find all the missing parts, & the correct ones for the year of car, there were numerous running changes made across the years. Some parts are very hard to find new or used even in the USA. And look you'd need 2K just for the most basic materials for a paint job. FWIW a set of the interior rear plastic trim panels for a 240Z have just sold on eBay for somewhere north of 400 bucks, they were used parts not new. Take the experienced advice proffered above & buy a good complete running car with as little rust as possible, to start with.

Ditto what RLY240 says, I've compared them in the past & as he says with the aftermarket ones the folds at the base of the windscreen require re-work or you'll not get it to sit right which stuffs up the door gap width & the in/out positioning. So depending what you come up with it's likely you'll need a panel beater to correct it rather than a simple bolt-on & go.

Well the screen & internal trim plate would have had to be removed to write it there & write it facing outwards, so that's the clue isn't it?

A wild guess but I'd say it's been in a shop to have a new screen fitted. Could be a billing or ordering code used by the shop. What screen have you got, is there a marking on it? Original or Aus-made?

At least you have a reasonable budget. Many punters come on here & have no idea how much Zeds have appreciated in the past decade. If you see something suitable advertised then get to it ASAP; there are too few survivors remaining for the numbers of punters wanting them which is why prices keep heading north.

Yes it is.

The only way to answer Groundhog's question is for someone to dig up some original order forms used by Datsun dealers back in the day. There may still be a handful of original owners around, or subsequent owners who have been given all the original paperwork with their purchase. Hopefully some will chime in & can enlighten us. These cars weren't built/marketed/sold in the numbers and in the same manner as larger-quantity produced cars like say Mustangs and Camaros in the US, where the intending owner was handed a long list of factory specs & options, with the end result that in most cases each car was unique in specs. With Zeds the choices would have been very limited for those purchasers placing an order, with relatively low production numbers many first owners just took whatever turned up in the dealer's showroom & went from there.

Ditto the comment as to people taking what was offered in showroom or off the boat from what first owners of Zeds in NZ have told me. The dealers offered added extras like underseal, nudge bars, sun-roofs, alloy wheels, rubbing strips, better stereos etc as they made good money off them, just like with other cars. Some add-ons were Jap-made, others locally supplied. Lots of people ditched the steel rims & hubcaps straight up. IIRC it wasn't until late in '74 or '75 that the '260-style' factory alloys became available so until then the only real option in our part of the world was the after-market for alloys. I have a collection of original sales brochures here too, as per the period road tests the cars specs all look pretty standard. But the interiors did get upgraded a little over the years, like fabric seats instead of vinyl. I have a period 'AMCO' ad here for 240Z accessories, printed in California, which shows a front bumper guard (mounts to the over-riders) $24.95, arm rest (on console) $9.95, parcel bar (across load area, behind seats) $12.95, foot rest $12.95, walnut shift knob $3.75, rear bumper guard $29.95, & leather grained knob $4.95. Send Amco just $1 & they would send you their new 64 page colour catalog! Their parts were available either via one's 'nearest dealer' or to 'order direct by mail'. Must have been fun back then, optioning up one's Zed. The 'std' specs varied from market to market & year to year. Our NZ cars differed to your Aus cars. The JDM cars I've seen imported as used cars into NZ have for the most part been somewhat better spec'd than NZ ones, but without research it's difficult to know whether things like electric mirrors were actually factory or dealer-added or PO after-market-added. If you look in the Nissan workshop manuals you'll see different options for things like suspension spring rates, on the early 260s like mine there were several spring rate spec's, std vs sports etc, but I have no way of telling which my car came fitted with.

There were different AM and AM/FM radios & AM cassette decks fitted over time. I've got quite a collection of period road tests done in the USA, UK & Aus & really most of the visual differences between the cars were due to the local sales market or local regs & as the cars evolved from '70 through to '78. So what myths are you referring to?

great photo but I don't like the look of those conc encased beams above your car... I suspect it's early basic fire proofing encasement to the steel beams & has been crudely hacked away to provide more headroom above the hoist.

AK, AFAIK the front screens are the same, although I have seen different part numbers listed for the 2-seater & 2+2 windscreen rubber but don't know why, hopefully someone here can advise. But the 2+2 rear glass is a different size to the 2-seater glass. I had an Aus-made front screen fitted as an insurance claim after my original screen was stone damaged. It's basically clear but does have a slight greenish hue to it, I wouldn't really call it a 'tint' though I think it's just the natural colour of the glass. To be picky though the screen doesn't match the rest of the car's (original) glass which has a definite bluish tint to it. I have an original Nissan screen stashed away pending a future resto & that has the same bluish tint, as did the damaged one. So if you're wanting to replace your rear glass you'd be better finding a good 'blue' original to keep the match, I don't know if all the Aus-new 2+2 cars had the demister element though; I've seen some with & some without on various 240/260 2-seater cars.

" she complained ... that her feet couldn't touch the firewall " That's probably why there was that footrest thing available, was it a dealer option?

So, perhaps have 'original engine no.' and 'current engine no.' if the car still has an I6?

" Too many cars been parted out purely because of a hole in the roof..... " Well if that's the case then the sooner a manufacturer can produce a replacement roof skin the better, before any more disappear. Much as I enjoy my sunroof I'd buy a full skin to salt away for the future when I give my car the full resto treatment.

" @gilltech - if it's not too much trouble, could you please post a picture of that layout on yours? Just to triple check position. Also, what month/year is yours? Mine is 01/74. " Same as in the above photo, lower centre. But with the triangle symbol. IIRC mine sold new in NZ in 02/74. VIN #115.

Surely Year, Model, Chassis No, Original Colour Exterior, Original Colour Interior, would be sufficient? Not much point in recording Engine No. as so many would have been changed out by now. Country Sold New In, would be of interest, picking up NZ, UK, JDM, whatever, cars, unless you only want a database of remaining Aus-new cars & ignore the rest. Specs is a minefield, there's factory specs, there's dealer-added options, there's owner-added options (maybe a great many over what some 40 yrs...)...whereas the 'Country Sold New In' would provide the key data there, without clouding the issue with post-factory modifications which can change from owner to subsequent owner. 6 questions.

Also some markets got the side marker/indicator lights in the guards & some didn't. FWIW all the repro guards I've seen have had cut-outs for the lights. Similar deal with the lower front corner panels, I think most but not all markets had marker/indicator lights there but the UK for example differed. Centre panel between them had minor variations. Apron panels in engine bay differed between LHD & RHD.

Any progress with finding & adding a hazard switch? They're around the 90-100 bucks mark on eBay ex USA, plus postage.

I've heard from several friends that have lived there that the HK climate isn't that friendly with respect to vehicle longevity. Humidity, marine atmosphere, & much dampness with the cloud if you live in an elevated area, or so I've been told, so I would imagine that rust would be a major problem. In the '90's I once test-drove an ex-HK-origin '67 Mustang CV, RHD-converted, that had recently been imported into NZ. The car didn't have a road-worthy, probably because it was badly rusted underneath & in the wheel arches, as bad as many eastern-US-states cars, so I passed on that one. But same era I met the owner of a 240Z at an Auckland car show, he having brought the car back with him from HK, & which had been sold new there he thought. It looked pretty good, with all usual specs except one - it didn't have a full heater system like ours, just a blower/demister & no heating, so he explained. I've always wondered if that was factory or it had just been mucked about with by a PO. Wouldn't need a heater in HK, but a good demister I suspect.

The agony of 'delete the sunroof hole at all costs' continues. But fair enough. Whatever method is used it's important to absolutely minimize the amount of filler used, as the roof cops all that sun heat, & there's the risk you'll find yourself having to repaint the roof all over again down the track if or when the filler fails. Mind you, it's not that big an area. It's always good I think to try & keep as much of the original metal of a car at restoration time, so I'd lean towards filling in the hole too - subject to finding someone with the required wheeling & welding skills - rather than trying to source a whole replacement roof panel which is getting harder & harder to do anyway even in the USA. I won't know which way to jump when it finally comes time to restore my 2-seat, I find the car's black interior far less claustrophobic with the sunroof above.

The aqua one is correct for a 260, note it has square ports to match the square ports on your 260's flat-top carbs. On my NZ '74 260 the original airbox is orange; but I've seen both colours on 260s in NZ & here. Whether the colour signifies something in particular I don't know. And I've seen some variations in the 260 airbox 'plumbing' & cover across different cars, tweaks for different markets I guess. Anyway, you can fit the aqua one in the first picture for your flat-tops, but if you eventually run ex-240 round-tops you will need the orange style one with the round ports as in your second picture. The upper 'pipes' connect to the carbs, the lower pipe to the rocker cover vent IIRC? (Mine's packed away, haven't seen it in a while). The backing plate bolts to the carb flanges with 6 bolts, the lower 2 being a special type with a threaded female head to receive the wing nut bolts that hold the cover on, if that makes sense. Hopefully you have all those. FWIW, I have ex-240 round-tops & airbox on my 260, & the airbox has the same manual flapper, so must have been a colder-climate spec fitment.

I'd be checking the MC, suspecting an internal seal failure, seen it before.

I see brand new 120Y/Sunny fender-mounted orange turn indicator units on eBay, Brisbane seller, inexpensive. They look very similar to the S30 items, are they in fact the same?

As is mine, the symbol being further away. But they can be installed either way around, wiring length permitting. On much the same topic, does anyone reproduce those blanking plates? I'm missing the upper centre small one, there's a redundant aftermarket warning lamp in mine, bit annoying. Edit: I came across advice on this forum that on the Aus-new cars the hazard switch was an option.

Your demister lamp blue lens is missing. The wiring & lamp itself may still be there, perhaps laying underneath the console? Did the Aussie 260Zs not get the hazard warning switch? It would be centre bottom row.