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Hello everyone and welcome to my 1977 280z project! I will be using this thread to document my journey with this car and all the little thing that will be done to it to ultimately restore and modify it to be my dream car. I bought the car last week at auction for the decent price of €20.500,- kind of on a whim as this has been my dream car ever since I first learned of there existence (thanks Wangan Midnight and the Devil Z, I know its cliché). Yes €20k is a lot of money but a mid-condition one sells for over €32k here in Europe nowadays. (You can see which side I tied up and which side my dad tied up 😂) What drew me to this car was the paint (absolutely not perfect and needs a repaint at some point but looks good enough for now), the goodies like new wheels and tires, new wooden steering wheel, factory 5 speed gearbox, R200 diff and the claim that the engine was rebuild 10 years ago. Although when picking up the car it turned out there was no documentation what so ever. The car runs and drives and is in fairly decent condition but currently has no valid inspection (called APK in the Netherlands) as the previous owner stats it’s because of the car running rich. Of course it has a cracked dashboard, some small surface rust forming and is missing bolts all over the car but these are all thing that can be fixed over time. For now my main goal is the fix some little stuff and get her on the road so I can start to enjoy the car. So naturally I placed the car on my Quick Jack lift and ordered a bunch of parts from Z-Services EU in France. There are a few thing I like to address before taking it in for inspection. The hood doesn’t open as the cable brackets are missing, the door hinges need rebuilding as the doors won’t close properly, some general maintenance and fixing some sweating oil seals around the car.

Came with four almost brand new tires and the original wheels on also pretty good tires. The original wheels good use a repaint tho.

Actually, it appears you can still buy kits! https://www.dkhardware.com/asp-a-16-105-auto-keying-kit-product-4838272.html?srsltid=AfmBOopXhi66Ub5objUsVLlPIOtGXJCK2Tf8aZSSusaSLkTvPvIAvVgg https://www.locksco.com/buy/product/New-keying-kit-for-Datsun/CLENC8ae41abfed476c50acd2d7916a7fb627 If neither of those are in stock or don't ship, Star Road sells a kit with blank tumblers and a file. https://jdm-car-parts.com/products/key-cylinder-re-key-kit-for-datsun-240z-260z-280z-make-matching-key-on-your-own

Original locks can be rekeyed, but I know at least in the US, there are very few locksmiths that still stock the tumblers. If you're lucky you could maybe find an old school locksmith, or if you're very lucky you could find an old kit. If not, you can always file your own tumblers out of some brass sheet. Here's a write-up on the process of rekeying Datsun locks. https://ratsun.net/topic/47412-how-to-dissasemble-datsun-510-ignition-switch-and-rekey/

Pretty cool https://www.seikowatches.com/us-en/products/prospex/special/datsun_limited/

Probably just fine. The polyurethane products were developed as a performance improvement. More precise steering, less wheel movement. The aftermarket will hype and sell whatever they can.

Actually it's rubber in the back, poly in the front. The front bushing takes the force under braking on the Z's, under compression, and is the one that you don't want compressing too much, making the steering squishy. But the poly should not have split. It does take a lot of side forces as the rod moves up and down with the suspension. But usually it causes the rod end to fatigue and break off. Seems like you got a bad batch of polyurethane. Bad chemistry, or a knockoff.