RPMS

You've done a remarkable job! It must feel awesome to drive around in the car of your dreams.

I'm gobsmacked by how lovely that car is. It's nice to see someone giving one of these cars the top-notch treatment it deserves!

I know this isn't the answer you're looking for, but I think the best, fastest, and ultimately the cheapest solution to your problem is to go on eBay or Craigslist and buy one from someone with a parts car. As you've said, the hazard switch is far more than a simple switch, and substituting anything else might be more of a challenge than it's worth. Maybe another Datsun product would interchange? 210? 510? Truck? As someone wiser than I once said, "I don't have a solution for you, but I admire your problem!"

Are you looking for the outside door window squeegee or the foam part that glues above the window frame? Their description is a little ambiguous to me.

...or buy a brand new one for $40 from Car parts.com?

I saw those, but I have my doubts. With a little heat and some premium leather glue it might end up looking pretty good at first, but I'll bet my teeth that the stitching will start coming apart if it's exposed to sunlight over any period of time.

I'm about to find out for myself. My HID kit took a dump this week and stranded me at a gas station until the sun came up enough for me to drive to work. I used the time productively to order an LED kit off Amazon. I'm pretty sure I'll end up having to bump out the end of the headlight nacelle to make room for the fan, but considering how many HID kits I've burned through in the past five years, I'm more than willing to do a little fabrication in exchange for some reliability.

This is particularly timely information, since I was going to remove the blower this weekend anyway to pull out a dried leaf that steadfastly refuses to get chewed up and blown through the pipes. Thanks!

Man, he wasn't kidding when he said "immaculate". That thing's beautiful!

One of the first thing I did when I got the new car was replace every stinkin' incandescent bulb on the thing. The fuse that was previously hot enough to liquefy the fuse block is now cool as the proverbial cucumber. (Not to mention that HID bulbs in euro-spec Hella housings throw well-controlled light like you wouldn't believe!) Seriously. Go LED and never look back.

Howdy, Chubbs! Welcome to our crazy little corner of the universe. Seeing your new Z made me chuckle a bit, because it looks so much like mine, only blue instead of red. I bought mine a little over a month ago, and like you I'm working through the bugs. There have been surprisingly few so far, and they've been easy fixes. At first I wanted to give it a paint job, but I've grown fond of the "rat-rod" look. An ugly body with a heart of gold! I love the way your M3 hunches over the wheels like it's ready to pounce. That model is one of my favorites, and yours looks like a beauty. My "real" car is an e90 335i, but I'm selling it as soon as I can to free up space in the driveway. Trading a modern, fast, powerful, comfortable BMW for a 41 year old Datsun probably wasn't the most practical thing to do, but that's the way these cars are - they get under your skin. They're simple, reliable, involving cars that make you feel more special than if you were driving something far more expensive. Don't worry about being a noob to Zs! Most of the folks on here will be happy to help you through any difficulties. One of the great things about these cars, especially the early ones, is that they're simple as dirt and easy to fix, and the solution to any possible problem you might have will be very well documented by this point. If you can't figure something out, don't be afraid to ask questions. A word of warning: There are a few individuals on this site who will attempt to berate you for asking the "wrong" questions. Feel free to ignore them, because they're in the minority. Most of us are more than happy to help. Although these cars are mechanically simple, there are some simple issues which defy conventional solutions until you know the secret. I envy you, my friend, for the journey you're starting out on! I hope you find it as rewarding as I have.

Amen to that, brother. I've been shopping for a wheel/tire combo to replace the 14's on my car, and was thinking that 16's were as large as I wanted to go. Anything larger looks like wagon wheels, to me. But it's becoming increasingly apparent that if I don't want to spend a mountain of cash (or roll on bargain-basement tires) I'm going to have to change my outlook on things. 17's are apparently where it's at, these days.

Don't let US hold you back! Seriously - if they look good and the price is right, I'd love a set.

Skerry: How the heck do you survive in Baton Rouge without A/C?? I'd be a sweaty mess.

Yeah, cars are great...until they're not. After you get through fixing up the mechanical issues on the other cars, maybe you should buy yourself a shiny little trinket for the Z as a reward to yourself. Billet license plate frame, new lug nuts, something like that. 'Cause, you been good, right?

Ooh, that might make a difference. The ventilation stack in a 240 is taller than it is in a 280, leaving less room at the top of the radio cavity. Also, since the fuse block is located just about where my equalizer was, it will be a challenge to fit everything in there. I didn't worry about losing warning lights for functions that didn't work anyway, but you might miss having a fuse block. You always have the single DIN motorized screen option, though. Good luck! I'm interested to see what genius workaround you come up with!

I found some on an old backup CD! I'm ashamed of the poor quality, but that was the state of the art back then. https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzuapJojIimzQ3h5TE45ZlBQQWluLUEtSEhzQWlETU1sanBn/edit?usp=docslist_api https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzuapJojIimzb0tvRDMwSGljWGxqdDNvU3BYUTU1SFJrUUtN/edit?usp=docslist_api I hope that works. I've never tried posting pics with this phone. Let me know if you can't access them. The stereo in the pics is a full sized Kenwood CD / MP3 unit instead of the old Nak. The way I figured it, once the supporting structure around the lower warning lights (defog, warning, etc.) Was cleared out, there was plenty of room for a full-width radio down there. The side "wings" on either side of the radio will probably obscure the outermost sides of the radio bezel by 1/8" or so (remember, I'm working from memory here) but you should have access to all the controls. Good luck!

When I bought an AutoMeter gauge, I flipped the stock sender so it would read "correctly". It never quite worked right. The highest the gauge would read was 3/4 full, and it stayed there until the tank was 1/4 full. Then the gauge raced to 1/8 and stayed there until I was on vapors. It was a cheap solution, but not a good one.

That's fantastic! Thanks for doing the legwork on this.

Oddly enough, I can't find anything that really shows the stereo. I might have some pics on my old laptop from when I sold the car. I'll look tonight. When I still had the car, I made a dummy radio that was about 7-1/8 wide x 4-1/8 tall x 7-1/4 deep, and it fit snugly.

Which Z are you talking about? I found a few double-DIN radios that will fit in an early 260z dash, once original radio and warning lights are removed. There was room in there for a Nakamichi TD-100 and a Blaupunkt BEA-80 stacked one atop the other.

Yeah, the defrost grids are usually the problem. The only real solution I know of is to buy new glass which, in Atlanta, runs $320 installed. Welcome to the wonderful world of Z's! They're amazing cars, and I hope you come to love yours as much as I have loved mine. *Edit* I looked at the Frost Fighter website, and although their solution looks like an effective (and less expensive) alternative to replacing the glass, I don't see how their defroster lines could line up with the factory grid. You'd have twice as many wires to see through. Too bad there's no way to get rid of the factory defrost lines.

I have to admit, the design of these perplexes me. How could it work, with the emitters on the side? Seems like it would be difficult to get a good beam pattern unless the lamp reflectors were specifically designed to bounce the light out to the world.

I think I have the answer. This diagram shows a 240 bumper, and it's just using shims between the bumper and body (part 11). http://www.carpartsmanual.com/datsuns30/DatsunZIndex/Body240Z/RadiatorGrilleBumper/tabid/1749/Default.aspx THIS diagram shows an early 260 bumper, and part 17 is the stand-off I am remembering: http://www.carpartsmanual.com/datsuns30/DatsunZIndex/Body260Z280Z/2Seater/RadiatorGrilleBumper/ToAug-74/tabid/1773/Default.aspx I wonder if whoever made your fiberglass bumper used a 260 bumper to make their mold?

You know, you're absolutely right. I've been looking at other early Z bumpers online, and may have been mistaken. I know for a fact that the 260 bumpers were offset, but now I'm not so sure about the 240s. I see some, and they're snug to the body. I see others, and they're about an inch away. The factory bumpers are so flexible that I can imagine an owner hard-mounting them to the body after the rubber mount rots away. I've been trying to reference a diagram, but I'm having difficulty finding one online. The MSA catalog used to have an exploded diagram, but it's not online...