HS30-H

I drilled the back plate of the R-Factory airbox and found a push-on hose fitting (actually a bulkhead fitting) that I could securely attach to it. Then just a short run of hose from the rocker cover, kind of replicating the factory plumbing. First of all I ran the crankcase breather hose into a catch can, and then I blocked the hose. Didn't seem to make much difference whichever way I ran it, although a hotter engine spec might behave differently.

I'm confused about the belts. Factory belts were THREE point, lap and shoulder sash. The shoulder belt runs from the quarter pillar and through the loop on the sill, then across your lap. The tunnel side belt meets half way on the lap. Are you going to fit aftermarket inertia reels and only use TWO points, or have I misunderstood...??? Doors were adjusted at the factory with specially shaped shims, as were the inspection flaps and tailgate. Factory parts list diagrams/schematics and factory service manuals tell you pretty much all you need to know about how to reassemble the door furniture and door glass, as well as how to adjust it all properly. Have you not got any factory literature? I consider it essential reading and reference. Skimping on the cowl locating tab bushes is a poor decision. They are The Right Part in The Right Location, cost next to nothing all things considered and do the job FAR better than bits of rubber hose. What are you thinking?! Maybe it's the heat that's making it worse, but you're starting to cut too many corners and your impatience and frustration is palpable. You have a BIG audience at your disposal via all the forums you are posting this vlog to and many of the people watching have done it all before you many times. Why not ask for advice/tips, do and don'ts, component checks and even scans from relevant factory literature BEFORE you embark on each section? When I was watching you messing around with the front brake calipers I almost spit my tea out at the screen in wanting to tell you that you were using 260Z hubs (and 260Z struts) not 240Z type, and that's why you were getting offset issues. A quick peep in the FSM or FPM would show you the difference between the hub types, and explain why the calipers were not fitting. Come on, ask us! And by the way, don't worry about your seat belts killing you. Your roll hoop will do that first...

We have the 'Z Police' for that. They stop you and count the spotwelds on your radiator support panel. God help you if you've got the wrong type of screws holding your cowl finisher down...

And the most important ingredient is good taste... Meanwhile, elsewhere.... Apparently 'Black Cloud Battalion LED rear lights' are *a thing*. Jesus wept:

People like you (and me!) who are willing to ask such questions will be shouted down, because $$$ talk. Once a hard core of these 'portfolio' type faux enthusiast investors and their acolytes say it's right, then it WILL be right. That's the way it goes. Happens in the art and antiques world all the time, so when values go up - truth goes out of the original 18th Century triple glazed UPVC window.

Supply of cars like that - which the vendor seems to be picking up, doing a bit of work on, and then putting on BaT - will soon dry up. I still think it costs far more to properly restore one of these cars than they are changing hands for, so the fuss over 50k USD for a nice, relatively early and relatively correct car seems a bit misplaced to me. Why weren't they worth more in the USA before now? I think we can guess why... But some of the self-congratulatory 'banter' in the Bring-a-Trailer comments section for that car is vomit-inducing. One of the under-bidders apparently has a 'portfolio' of over 80 cars and refers to his Ferraris as "4rEs". Jesus wept, what an utter COCK. The moderators at BaT seem to love these kind of people (guess why...) and it all starts to look like the wrong type of clique, with an echo-chamber of comments all supporting their own skewed views and any attempt at correction pre-moderated and deleted. MAN THE LIFEBOATS I say. It might be time to get off the boat.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, the narrative about BRE "discovering" the L24 crank harmonic problem - and helping the factory to fix it - doesn't really add up. Nissan was very well aware of the harmonic problem with the L24 crankshafts even before the end of 1969 (because they had been testing them....!), several months before Bob Sharp received his first 240Z - let alone BRE, who got their first car well after Sharp did. The lead-time involved in investigation of the problem, re-designing the crankshaft, machining and testing the new forgings and then putting them into full production, apparently took something like 12 weeks or so. BRE were relaying their findings back to "the factory" (wasn't that Katayama's job?) in good faith and "hearing nothing" when Nissan were in fact already hard at work rectifying the problem and putting the new parts into production. New Year 1969/70 got in the way, with Nissan's forging plant shut down for a week's holiday. Even after all these years stuff is still going to print and getting set in stone when it is either not the full story, or just plain wrong. No disrespect to the people involved, but it's only one side of the story. The Japanese side of the story is very often left untold.

Seller said: "I'm a huge vintage mustang /Ford collector and was drawn to this car, probably because it's a Pete Brock design." Amazing what some people believe.

Trouble is, this is one of 'those' topics. Everybody has a different answer which they think is the correct one. I've compared the colour sold by Classic Datsun Motorsports in the USA (I inherited three of their aerosols with one of my project cars) to some NOS Nissan-painted parts I have, and there was a very slight shade difference. Not one that I'd be too fussed about personally, but some "concourse" (sic) rivet-counters might not be able to sleep. I've also compared the British Standard colour I recommended, and it's just as good. I was going to have the original parts colour-matched, but the paint factors said I'd still see a difference due to the modern pigments vs old. They pointed out that - even if kept in the dark for 45+ years - my NOS parts will have colour-aged. I took their advice as I reckon they know what they are talking about. Comparing these colours in photos is a fool's game too. So, "You pays your money and you takes your choice..."

I don't think it had a half cage? From the photos I saw, it was fitted with a slightly out-of-place modern rear strut-tower bar. Which would have been easy to remove, and would have made the interior of the car a whole lot more suited to that auction.

Despite the optical illusion, the 'Fairlady' part is the same size in both versions. So you could - if you wanted - cut the 'FairladyZ' emblem to the shape of the 'Fairlady' emblem, file a slight bevel on the edges you have cut, touch it up with a bit of paint and be good to go. The '240Z' part is exactly the same as all export type 240Zs got.

Apologies for the background of the emblem photos. It was the cellar floor...

GREAT job. Really good! Nitpick: I'd want to see two-piece 'Fairlady 240Z' emblems on it, not the one-piece 'FairladyZ' emblems (which were for two litre cars). If you can't get hold of the correct 'Fairlady' emblems, you can carefully cut the 'Z' part off the existing emblems and pair them with the export type '240Z' emblems which are in ready supply. Apologies if you already know all that...

The wrong car in the wrong place? There are suggestions that the car isn't that good close-up, and was in a bit of a state before being 'refreshed' for sale in Japan. Even the auction sales blurb photos show up a list of faults as long as your arm. The first USA-based "collector" vendor didn't hang on to it very long, and doesn't appear to have made any effort to improve/correct it. To enter such a car in a high profile auction with such illustrious cars around it probably wasn't the best plan. Photos like this one give a clue to the real story: Couldn't even be bothered to find the proper RHD top half to the bonnet catch mechanism? Poor show.

Yes, the 'eyeball' lamp. You could point it to where the action was... Door glass defrost would be cool (hot...) but the catalogue illustration is just showing electric window-winding function on the Z-Posh. Bit of a challenge to show it in action, I guess.

They are not the mirrors it left the factory with. They are certainly a later retro-fit, and they may well indeed be the S31 type - the flashiest version of which had electric remote adjusters:

But isn't that just because the person/club being asked clearly didn't refer to the evidence that the cars themselves can provide? No personal disrespect intended to the people concerned, but if they had 'asked' the cars then the cars themselves would have given them a pretty good answer. As we have discussed so many times, component manufacturing and quality control 'Kensa' dates are all over the cars. The more references you put together, the clearer the jigsaw puzzle picture becomes. It's not rocket science, is it? You don't even need to look at the chassis number or engine number to get a pretty good idea of the production window. I reckon you could get to within a few weeks if you just looked at the dates on a few key components (wiring harness section labels, major instrument QC stamp inkans, mirror base inkan, fuel tank inkan etc). I think the plain truth is that much of this is still witchcraft to some. It really shouldn't be. And if a "Club Expert" really can't date a car better than "between January '71 and August '71" then the club in question really ought to try harder.

I reckon lashing them to a couple of oil drums and chucking them in the sea might work. They'll get there eventually...

I've got some classic Carl Beck quotes if anyone wants them. They have risen steadily in value over the years, but I can give a good discount for a bulk purchase.

For "1969 delivered" read "1969 built", as no actual commercial deliveries arrived in north America until 1970. Personally, I think it's important to understand that the heated rear glass was part of the original design, and that - for the Japanese market - it was offered in the 'Deluxe' models (so Fairlady Z-L and Fairlady Z432, then Fairlady 240Z-L and Fairlady 240ZG) and that the 'Standard' models (Fairlady Z and then Fairlady 240Z) didn't have it. It was an extra-cost option on those 'Standard' models. Much of Japan would find heated rear glass useful in winter, but if you bought a 'Standard' model and didn't pay the extra then you'd have to get out and start wiping or scraping... With the Export models, it seems it was a case of Nissan judging whether heated rear glass was really required or not for each market (it was certainly a great help here in the UK), mixed in with whether leaving it out would save some cost. Clearly the first cars delivered to north America had a relatively rubbery pared-down spec with no carpets and no HRW (probably to help keep costs down), but this was soon rectified. This kind of thing tends to cause confusion among north American enthusiasts, some of whom appear to believe that if it wasn't on their cars then it simply didn't exist. Did Nissan perhaps consider the whole of Australia (and NZ?) as being generally 'hot'...?

Slightly blurred lines in Japan regarding the legality of removing/owning/selling identities in this way, but 100% illegal to pin it on another car. And correctly so. S30-series Zs were 'unibody' construction, and the identity of that body is not transferable. Nissan didn't sell unnumbered replacement bodyshells, so you cannot "re-shell" one of these cars in the way that you can with others. At some point - apart from the moral/legal issues - it becomes a philosophical argument. One aspect that the end use of the above 'kit' that tends to get forgotten is that the recipient would have also had it's own identity. What happened to that? Often - as has been pointed out by Cozza above - it's because it's in some way 'hot'. Not good. The reason I was so vocal about the supposed "ex-Works 240Z rally car" that was in the press recently was that it was NOT what it was being claimed to be. For many years it has been claimed that the car was "re-shelled", but that's simply not possible. The identity has been taken off of a particular car and pinned on another. Simple as that. I once read the thoughts of esteemed automotive historian Denis Jenkinson on the subject of originality and identity in racing cars, and even though they were written a long time ago they still pretty much ring true and can be applied to standard road cars too: Original: Almost impossible to find anything in this category. It would have had to have been put in store the moment it was completed. Possibly the Trossi-Monaco special in the Biscaretti Museum comes as close to an original racing car as it is possible to get. The old-car industry frequently uses degrees of originality, such as nearly original, almost original, even completely original, but all such descriptions are meaningless as they cannot be quantified. A racing car that has only had a new set of tyres or a change of sparking plugs since it was completed is no longer original. Many components have remained original, such as gearboxes, cylinder heads, axles and so on, and reproduction parts are made to original drawings and original material specification, but this does not make them original parts, nor does a complete car built from such components qualify as original, regardless of what the constructor or owner might think. Such a car is nothing more than a reproduction or facsimile. Genuine: This is a much more practical description for an old or historic car and can be applied to most racing cars that have had active and continuous lives, with no occasions when they disappeared into limbo or changed their character in any way. Most E.R.A.s come into this category as they have been raced continuously, which meant the replacing of numerous components as they wore out, but the car itself has never been lost from view, nor has its basic character and purpose been altered over the years. Even such a well-known E.R.A. as Romulus is not original, as it has been repainted, re-upholstered, new tyres have been fitted and new components have been used to rebuild the engine; it is unquestionably Genuine. Authentic: This term is used to describe a racing car that has led a chequered career, through no fault of its own , but has never disappeared from view. The entity, which is best described as the sum of the parts, has always been around in some form or other, but has now been put back to the specification that it was in, either when it was first built, or some subsequent known point in its history. An example would be an old Grand Prix car that was converted into a road-going sports car when its useful racing life was over, over the years having the racing engine replaced by a touring version, and eventually being allowed to deteriorate. It is then rescued and rebuilt as the Grand Prix car, with its racing engine replaced, but with new radiator, fuel tank and oil tank, new wheels made, new body-work, instrument panel , seat, upholstery and so on, all of which were missing. The entity that started life as the Grand Prix car never actually disappeared, so the end result of all the labours can justifiably be described as Authentic. There is no question of it being Original, and to describe it as Genuine would be unfair to its sister cars that remained Grand Prix cars all their lives, even though such things as radiator, fuel tank, seat and so on had to be replaced due to the ravages of time and use. Resurrection: Some racing cars, when they reached the end of their useful life, were abandoned and gradually dismantled as useful bits were taken off to use on other cars. Eventually insufficient of the car remained to form an acceptable entity, even though most of the components were still scattered about. There have been numerous cases were such components that still existed were gathered up to form the basis of a new car; a new chassis/frame and new body were required and, from the bare bones or the ashes of the original, another one appears. It cannot claim to be the original car, and certainly not a genuine car, nor an authentic car. At best it is a Resurrection from the dead, or from the graveyard. Re-construction: This can stem from a single original component, or a collection of components from a variety of cars, but usually there is very little left of the original racing car, except its history and its character. From these small particles a complete new car is built , its only connection with the original car being a few components and the last-known pile of rust left over when decomposition set in. Facsimile: Purely and simply a racing car that now exists when there was never an original. If a factory built four examples of a particular Grand Prix model, for instance, and here are now five in existence, then the fifth can only be a facsimile, fake, clone, copy or reproduction. If the fifth car was built by the same people or factory who built the four original cars, then at best it could be a Replica of the four genuine cars, but such a situation is unlikely. There are many reasons for building a facsimile , from sheer enthusiasm for a particular model to simple avarice, and it is remarkable how many facsimiles have been given a small piece of genuine history in order to try to authenticate the fake, and thus raise its value. Facsimiles have been built of just about everything from Austin to Wolseley, some being so well made that it is difficult to tell them from originals. Some owners have been known to remain strangely silent about the origins of their cars when they have been mistaken for the real thing. Other facsimiles have been declared openly and honestly by the constructors such as the facsimile that has been built of an A/B-type E.R.A., or the series of facsimiles of 250F Maseratis that have been built. The trouble usually starts when the cars are sold to less scrupulous owners, who first convince themselves they have bought a genuine car, and then try to convince the rest of the sporting world. The disease is very prevalent in the world of museums, on the assumption that the paying public are gullible. Duplication: This is a disease which started many years ago within the ranks of the lovers of Bugatti cars. Unscrupulous people dismantled a Grand Prix Bugatti into its component parts and with the right hand sold an incomplete car as a basket case and with the left hand sold another incomplete car as a box of bits.The two buyers eventually found suitable second-hand components to replace the missing parts, or had new bits made, and we ended up with two Grand Prix Bugattis where there had only been one. Naturally each owner claims authenticity for his completed car. The Bugatti Owners Club and the majority of its members strongly disapprove of this practice. Unfortunately the disease has spread to many other makes, especially those that were built in large numbers. At best this whole business borders on fraud. Special: This name applies to one-off cars that are the product of the fertile brain of the constructor. It is probably true to say that no special has ever been finished! It may be sufficiently finished to allow it to race, but inevitably the constructor will be planning further modifications while he is racing it. If the special builder ever says his car is finished, it will usually indicate that it is now obsolete and he is starting a new one. The rebuilding or restoring of a special to use as an Historic racing car, by someone who is not the original constructor, can mean either that the car is rebuilt to a known point in time that appeals to the new owner, or he can continue the process of development where the originator left off. The nice thing about specials is that they are a law into themselves and do not need to be put into any sort or category. A special can be totally accepted as Genuine, authentic, reconstructed or facsimile. Converted: There have been examples of a Type A model being converted by the factory into a Type B and then into a Type C. The particular car as an entity never disappeared, though it might be difficult to recognize that the Type C was once a Type A. It is virtually impossible to re-convert such a car back to a Type A, no matter how desirable it may be. The perfect example is the E.R.A. that started life as R4B in 1936, was converted to R4C in 1937, and then into R4D in 1938 and was much modified again in 1948. The car still exists as R4D, with a well documented continuous history, and is as genuine as they come, but it can never revert back to R4B. Destroyed: A simple enough word that applies to a racing car that has been involved in an accident or fire in which no tangible components are left in recognizable shape or form. Scrapped: This usually applies to a car that is taken out of service by a factory team and either deliberately destroyed so that nothing is left, or useful components are removed and put into store and the rest is thrown on the scrap heap for crushing or melting down. There have been cases of a chassis frame being rescued from the scrap heap an used to re-create a new car. In no way can the new car be described as genuine. If the factory scrapped a car and removed its number from their records, then that car has gone forever, and the nebulous collection of old and new components can hardly justify the claiming of the scrapped number. Broken up: Similarly, if a factory records that a car has been broken up, it should mean exactly that. It has gone for good.

They were standard equipment on all sorts of Imperial Japanese Navy ('I.J.N.') aircraft from around 1943. Manufacturer was 'Seikosha'.

They were not generally listed in the actual Race/Sports Option catalogues, but Nissan Sports listed the 45DCOE-9 as a Race Option part for the S20 engine in their yellow 'Race & Rally Manual' preparation booklets. The 45DCOE-9 had the part number 16010-A0220 and could be ordered through one of the Nissan Sports-affiliated dealerships in Japan. Apparently the characteristics of the Weber accelerator pump system (the rod-operated downward-pushing piston) was favoured for the S20 in tuned form. Nissan's works teams used them on their race cars just before they went to sliding throttle mechanical injection. I don't think I've ever seen Webers listed by Nissan for the L6-engined cars.

I've got a couple of 'old Seikos'. Here's one of them. Might qualify as a dashboard clock. Probably for the wrong type of 'Rally' though...

I winced when I saw it hanging off the front of a fork lift truck. Back half seemed to be on the spring shackles, but no idea what the other end was sitting on...