gilltech

Ditto. This one has done stuff-all mileage, it's not museum quality restored, so ideal to hang on to as a hobby car until things improve economically. Flog your daily driver!

Check out Unique Cars and Just Cars monthly mags, Z cars are advertised in those most times.

I saw one with the same style body kit in Hawaii, looked OK from some angles, but thought that the headlamp shape change was done just for change's sake & rather spoilt it. But to each his own.

Thanks Alan, yes I had thought that the black wires were all earth. So dumb of me to plug these two together, & it caused a reaction somewhere in the system. I was just trying to make sense of the additional wires & plugs behind the console that aren't used on my early 260. Thanks for your follow-up advice!

Looks very nice - anybody know the car?

This particular vent panel with warning lights came with a misc pile of mostly interior parts I bought about 7 yrs ago from a bloke who had parted-out a rusty 2+2 (to turn it into a paddock-basher apparently). The dash was RHD. So perhaps the car was a late-edition Z used import ex Japan. That might explain the extra warning lights, the door cards had electric window switches, & there were under-dash electric mirror toggles. Otherwise all the controls & gauges were the same as on my NZ-new '74 except for the clock which was a more elaborate design.

No that's not quite correct - I have a vent fascia panel among my spare parts which has two red warning lights in it - 'fuel' & 'ext temp'. I don't know the origin of the car it came from. Console also has hazard warning switch.

Behind the circles of perforations in the rear ends of the interior trim panels at the back of the car, assuming you have got perforated panels?

I have Falcon mirrors, XA/XB/XC type, so the '70's period which is right timeframe. Nice shape, quite streamlined. Fitted well, only slight reshaping at the base req'd. They seem to give reasonable rear vision. See picture of my 260 adjacent. I've seen other Zeds with the same type used. (The same style but with remote adjuster - deluxe? - was also available for driver's side, possibly passenger's side also; but I didn't want to put a hole(s) in my door trim so just used the basic version). FWIW often seen for sale on eBay.

Ditto gav240z's reply. Going by my NZ-new 260, there should be a black-on-silver rivetted-on data plate on the inner fender forward of the RH strut tower which is stamped with the chassis no., hp rating, wheelbase, & original engine no. The chassis no. is stamped into the firewall near the brake booster. There would have been a silver sticker on the radiator support panel providing the body colour code. I don't think the interior colour was specified anywhere, nor was the transmission as far as I know (4sp, 5sp, auto). But for all I know some markets, like the USA, may have required more. I'm told that the later Australian-new Z cars had a ADR plate affixed as well, but others on the forum will be able to advise what that was all about & when.

The 3M strip disks don't generate much heat, the panels would get much hotter just sitting out in the sun. You can buy them with the spindle built-in so once the disk is worn down the whole thing is a throw-away, but by far the more economical is to buy the spindle separately & the strip disks in a pack - just fit them up to your drill like a sanding disk. And there are different thickness disks. I prefer the thinner ones which can flex more. If you happen to catch a raw metal edge you'll tear chunks off the edge of the disk. The trick is to work with the rotation of the disk when you get close to raw edges to minimise that. It's slow going if there are multiple layers to remove, but they remove bog & surface rust really well, & leave a clean slightly cross-hatched pattern on the metal surface. With a little practice you'll find they can last quite well. Just make sure you wear a mask & most particularly eye protection! Chunks of paint, bog, rust & strip disk will fly off in all directions, often right at you.

Cruel, very cruel. Had me fooled, had no reason to think otherwise, other than that the price must be a typo. Yes I'm sure the car would be missed by owner.

Quickest: get the shell & loose panels media blasted by someone who knows what they are doing, & who won't be tempted to rush the job (which can result in warped panels if too much pressure used) & immediately etch primed. If you want to save money & have the time available then use 3M strip disks to take it back to bare metal yourself, & prime. Slow but effective. Do one area & prime, before starting the next. Fiddly around seams & brackets, you just have to be patient. Exposed edges damage the strip disks so assume you will need plenty of them. Leaves a nice buffed finish to the metal for etch primer application. Personally I wouldn't use paint stripper.

Didn't the rear spoilers generally have a raised section for an emblem? Certainly mine has, & it was fitted prior to my buying my car back in 1984.

The issue is that tyre compounds continue to gradually harden over time & lose design performance & flexibility; that compromises safety if they are going to be driven hard. I think it's all very subjective as there are so many different designs of tyres. So best use your discretion. These days there are plenty of hobby cars out there that wouldn't do enough annual mileage to ever wear out their tyres so the owners should bear that in mind when driving on them. And obviously any tyre that starts to show the least sign of surface cracking should be discarded immediately. FWIW my old man - who was part of the generation that weathered the 1930's Great Depression followed by WW2 then post-WW2 material shortages - used to buy a set of new tyres (standard passenger car tyres, not performance tyres) & store them away for a year or two before having them fitted to his Holden or Ford sedan in the belief that he would get greater mileage out of them.

Yes I think you'll find that a 240 kit doesn't fit all that well around the rear strut towers as the 260s differed in shape & the later 260s differed again. Do you have the original old ones to use as a pattern?

The 2+2 sill plates would be longer than the 240/260/280 2-seater ones due to the 2+2's longer doors. Glad to hear you've tracked some down OK, some stuff seems to be hard to get at present, probably due to the GFC & much reduced demand.

zcarparts.com - Motorsport Z - have a few 2+2 weatherstrip items such as windscreen mouldings which will help you but they also don't appear to have full stock anymore, dunno what's going on. Further to the above, FWIW I dug out some old (paper) parts catalogues (6 yrs old maybe?) for Motorsport Z and Black Dragon and they both listed 280Z 2+2 kits, as well as individual seals. So I don't know what's going on at present in 2+2 land; can only presume that there hasn't been much demand of late and one may have to wait until the manufacturer decides to do another run; I've struck this before with car resto parts supply. The Motorsport Z catalog notes that their 280Z kits are suitable for the earlier models, just that there will be some redundant seals (doors I think they must mean).

Early'74 260Z 2-seater - owned now for 27 1/2 yrs

Slide back the concertina dust covers at each end of the steering rack - once they are slid back out of the way you should find removable plugs to enable grease nipples to be screwed in for grease injection for the rack. Pump in grease until it begins to appear between rack & housing, then remove nipples & reinstall plugs, & slide dust covers back into place. AFAIK the 240 & 260 racks are slightly different in housing shape. My own car is a very very early 260 so whether it has the 240 or a 260 style rack I don't know, but the regreasing principle remains the same.

Ditto, my 260 has grease nipples on the universal joints to drive & 1/2 shafts, the steering rack, steering control arms & on underside of front suspension struts. Often you'll find that nipples aren't fitted so you'll have to do it yourself.

I'm surprised that MX5s can be had for 5K or less, when I last looked even the oldest ones still seem to be asking 7 or 8 or more; but you'd know better than me what they actually change hands for. I've driven a few older 1600 MX5s & think that they are great fun, well sorted & viable cars. If this intending first car buyer scrapes up say 9 grand then she should be able to find quite a decent tidy well maintained older model like yours (what year is yours?) then. Good option. Q. Is there much of a price premium expected for the optional clip-on hard-top; or one of the MX5 Limited edition colours (like the BRG or dark blue)? (Just curious). A bit off Z topic, but bear with me.

From what friends of mine in the business tell me my advice is just the same as that already given above - these are for their day high-tech cars, they are all getting on in age, there is an awful lot to go wrong with them & that can be very expensive to put right especially when compared to the value of the car. Unless a car is found with an impeccable pedigree as to scheduled maintenance, low mileage & immaculate condition (good luck! - almost all will have been driven hard & many very very hard), then drop that idea & find something she likes that is much more low tech - & cheaper to run, maintain & insure especially as a first car & daily driver - otherwise at some stage it's a given that it's all going to end in tears. There are nice MX5s around of that era - far more low tech as designed - but they are not cheap due to their popularity & they are also getting on a bit, although the MX5 club network makes them pretty viable for owner/maintainers. For a first car, presumably for a youngish owner, then IMHO a sporty-looking Corolla is hard to beat given the Corolla is one of Australia's best selling cars & for very good reasons. My 2c worth!

Tried Motorsport Z Auto in the USA? I've found for my 2-seater that the kits offered me here in Aus (unless they have improved in the past 3 yrs) are incomplete for a full resto in any case. From memory, I had to source door front upper edge seals, side window seals, (& perhaps the taillight seals?), separately in addition to a kit in any case; kits then were 600-650 or so. Just be sure that the front & rear screen seals you get are suitable to take the Z's stainless steel trims; some seals available are actually generic windscreen mouldings. My advice is to buy a good set, not a nasty budget set; otherwise doors may not close or seal properly, etc etc, you get the idea. Rubber parts always seem to cost more than they should! Hunt around, make a full list of all the seals you need, note that the later cars like yours had a few extra door seals added compared to earlier 260s. But I think you might need to budget closer to a grand for a totally complete all seals set for a late 260, of OEM quality or as close as is available. The Motorsport Z Auto web site's diagrams will help you build up your list of what you need with correct description, just remember that their equivalent to your car is a 280Z 2+2. And I have a sneaking suspicion, could be wrong, it may be that depending whether your car is a very early '77 Aus-new car it may not require all the door seals they list for their '77/78 US-spec 280 as I think that there was a change between '76 & '77 cars, so compare carefully their listing against what's on your own car. Hope that helps a little.

Slightly off-topic I know, but it would be handy if whoever makes the replacement sheet metal sections, guards etc for Zeds were to offer a 2-seater roof skin panel, there's obviously some demand for it. Aren't all those bits, like the Dynacorn Mustang re-bodies etc, stamped out in Thailand? The manufacturers could offer two options - 1) a full roof skin, or 2) a smaller section more than enough to cover the hole cut for a typical sunroof of the day (assuming a skilled body man available to carefully weld in & file up a section to fill the hole without mucking up the roof tension too much). The latter preferable to replacing the whole roof skin, which must be a mission judging by info posted on this site by those brave souls who have done just that. Personally, & this may invoke a howl of protest, I prefer my car which has a pop-up sun-roof to one which doesn't, less claustrophobic for a tall driver, & great ventilation for a non-A/C car; but if I ever want to restore mine then I concede that I would probably go for 'factory-correct' & remove it.