Zetsaz

This is honestly tragic. I was considering them mostly for the front and rear control arms. I don't want to burn through tires waiting to correct rear toe in particular. Their control arm designs, especially for the rear are preferable to me over the T3 offerings. May just hold off and see if they figure things out, someone else fills the void, or T3 comes out with an offering closer to the Apex rear arms.

Agreed on both points. Lots of people commenting that it has a square opening just like the s30, but the S30 had the bumper to break things up. What's funny is the grill even has two distinct looking areas top and bottom, almost like the 240z grill that didn't cover below the bumper. Saw a very minor edit with a body colored line between the two sections of the grill and it actually cleaned things up a lot and broke up the giant mouth look on the front. Not a perfect solution, but hopefully they break things up a bit. I know on the early cars, bumperless is very popular right now, but I always thought it looked incomplete, and the same is true for the new one.

Small progress this weekend despite all the smoke. Fitted the single piece outter seal. Some small things I missed arrived from home and I put the seal on the filler neck as well. Can't seem to get the upper edge of either of the hatch seals to seat properly. Soooo frustrating, but it's closer than before. My turn signals are intermittent right now. Might be the flasher or my hazard switch is being finicky. Going to take apart all of it and maybe talk to... Dave Williams? Who does the rebuilds and headlight relay upgrades. Lives about a half hour from where I am. Lastly, I bought the sound deadening I need. Last big purchase for right now will probably be the bumpers. Need to check on backorders.

I'm only worried about it looking like it "belongs" in that it's well positioned and doesn't look like the hole's been hacked out. It's under the carpet, so oem appearance isn't much of a concern. I'd need to make a lip if I went with the OEM tool doors. I do have some extras on the parts car in Utah still and they'd work great, but it'd be raised up if I didn't make some kind of lowered lip on the edges for the door to sit on just like the original tool doors have. I think an 8"x8" door from tanks inc. might work well, but I've only spent about 2 minutes on a google search looking at anything premade.

Yeah I'm almost tempted to find a premade door for like $20-$30 with the magnetic push latches to keep everything really flush under the carpet. We'll see what I can find. In the meantime I've ordered a cover plate for the spare tire well, and a single piece outer hatch seal. I was disappointed that some water leaked in last time I went through a touchless car wash. Also lucked out on some of the correct seatbelts on ebay for the year that mount on the pillars instead of the strut towers.

If you notice the bottom left of your picture, the original brace goes across almost at the very bottom of the drop mounts. The T3 has it set much higher, basically right against the mustache bar, with slightly better clearance if you also get their bar. My bar is skimming the brace, which I'm not sure is ideal, but it hasn't been an issue in 2k miles of driving. No shaved fins. The cover is completely original.

The pickup/pump mount has adjustable height, it's about at the floor of the tank. I just mean that even though the assembly is low profile it's still slightly taller than the original pads that were on the fuel tank by about 1/4". O Ring plate would make it more like 1/2" because I didn't cut and reweld to make the top of the pump assembly sit flush with the original top of the tank. However... Right now that means every time I try to set the pump in, if it's not perfectly aligned (and I mean perfectly) the friction from the bolt threads pushes down on the ring inside the tank that it clamps to. With the optional O ring plate you already have two rings sandwiching the tank's metal and there's no issue wiggling the pump into place or even tapping it. See the pics for what I'm referring to. Second pic doesn't have the inner ring installed since it was just for test fit, but picture the mounting bolts attaching to the black plate inside instead of the red O ring plate. Foam seal isn't enough to hold the inner ring in place with any more than a few pounds of pressure pushing down on it if the threads catch the pump even slightly off center

Like this

So... as much as I prefer the retrofitted in tank pump assembly for longevity down the road, this thing is a huge PITA to service without some sort of access door in the car. Mostly since I'm not using the O ring adapter to mount it, but I need the clearance since I didn't make a cutout in the tank to lower the pump assembly. It took 3 hours but I fixed my pressure loss issue. The hose provided with the kit I used was poor quality and ruptured. I replaced it along with the clamps with one from NAPA of the same inner diameter that felt MUCH stiffer and was noticeable thicker. Hopefully I don't have to drop the fuel tank again any time soon. Currently I'm rethinking what my priorities are next. The evenings are already getting cooler here and I rarely have any reason to drive in the hottest part of the day. The lizard skin is good enough to not roast inside the car unless I'm not moving for a long stretch. I might be prioritizing getting some rear control arms first so I don't have to buy tires too soon from excessive toe in wearing them down. In the meantime, enjoy some pictures of my post-repair cruise through Chuckanut drive. I'll have to get some better pics near the water sometime.

I messaged him almost two years ago when putting my suspension together and getting the new diff with finned cover mounted. Doesn't make them anymore (might be again, but wasn't at the time). I went with the T3 kit and I'm happy with it. The mustache bar Nelsonian posted isn't necessary on a 280z, but the clearance is really close without it and I might swap to it down the road anyway if I don't go a completely different direction with suspension . This is all I used: https://technotoytuning.com/nissan/280z/drop-mounts-and-dogbone-combo-240z-260z-and-280z

Ran into my first big hiccup. Car won't start. No fuel pressure. No leaks anywhere. Fuel pump priming. After reconsidering how clean the tank is and the new hoses and the effort I made to get any dust out of the vapor tank, I think it's just a clamp on the hose in the in-tank pump that came loose or the hose burst. Dropping the tank tomorrow. Will be a good opportunity to do a manual calibration on my fuel gauge as well. Also washed my Infiniti after neglecting it for the last maybe 4 months and it's really left me wanting a quieter cabin and more speed. So comfortable and quick and reliable, but to really make any big purchases on the Datsun now I'd have to sell it. Guess I'll spend the next year thinking about it and maybe making a decision haha.

Drive back to Washington went without a hitch... mostly. I had a somewhat unfortunate run in with a whole lot of tumbleweed near Twin Falls, and extreme winds on top of 80mph speed limits blew off my driver side windshield wiper. Fortunately no damage to the fresh paint aside from some a few very tiny nicks in the air dam that I'll get some touch up paint on asap. First purchases soon will be protective coating for the front and the vintage air unit. Would love to be able to keep the windows up at higher speeds to avoid the excessive wind noise on longer drives.

I'm unfortunately not near you anymore @jpndave but I'd happily get in on an order if we got one going again.

Used to have one but on the old efi, junky seals, and rotting body it made no difference. Right now I don't even have the MSA tip on, but I'll be putting it on when I get to Washington as well as adding a resonator. City driving is annoying due to the cabin drone. Lizard skin can only do so much All new hoses on it now. Old ones definitely get super hard. Was pretty hard to even get them to come off. I don't think the tank is particularly heavy in mine. At least not heavy enough to justify dealing with vapor and tank pressure issues.

Never have I had such a simple job be so time consuming between having to lower the fuel tank, pull the quarter panel, and cut hoses to length. Some one of the thicker hoses are slightly kinked, but I'll live with it for now. Little victories though. Bottom end of the filler neck is finally actually bottomed out and clamped down, and I have the vapor/expansion tank in. Should hopefully fix a little bit of the fuel smells while I get the other taillight gasket and start sealing up the rear better.

Door switch stopped working entirely yesterday on the way to a quick socially distant meetup with @Jboogsthethug Got a chance to tear it apart and you can see the scorched contacts from years of use and abuse. Also slipped while bending the tabs back and stabbed my finger with the screwdriver... oops. If you happen to do this repair for yourself, absolutely DO NOT lose the spring and ball bearing in the small housing underneath the switch/contact board (and definitely don't stab yourself with whatever tool you're using to bend the tabs) Here you can see the 3 tabs you'll need to bend to access the "seesaw" that grounds the left or right signals (again... don't stab yourself) DO. NOT. LOSE. THE SPRING AND BALL BEARING. If you ever refurbish the hazard switch, it functions nearly identically and also has the ball bearing(but just on/off vs 3 position). When I rebuilt mine I made the mistake of working on it on my patio table and though for sure I'd lost the ball bearing. Fingers for scale. I was very lucky to find it. Here you can see the bottoms side of that board from the first pic. The pivot point is ground and the two contacts determine which side is being grounded. The spring and ball bearing are on a sliding assembly that gets moved by the turn signal arm/handle/whatever you want to call it and assure that it's pressed properly against the contact... which does exactly nothing if it's had 45+ years of dust and gunk accumulated. I scrubbed mine with a green scotch pad, then used a q tip with rubbing alcohol to clean them and the brass underneath was still great. A bit of 3 in 1 oil or wd-40 on the rotating parts and the switch feels great!

Two small but very important fixes today: -The rod between the latch and the door handle handle for the passenger side never turned up... But luckily I still have 4 junky old doors hanging out in/on my old shell that I was able to salvage from. I'm not liking the action right now, but at least it opens. Might just toy with it more later. -My locks on both sides didn't seem to work no matter what I did. Totally stuck. Turned out to be an incredibly easy fix. The countersunk screws that hold the door latch in place are different sizes. Longer one should go on top. Shop just didn't check clearance while assembling. Stuck my phone in the door to get a better view and it became obvious. Trying to find the second window frame upper seal before I put stuff back together so I can call the door seals done.

I love the stock body lines. If I had the budget I would have gone wide body, but all in metal shaped to the cars original lines like MZR is doing with their 50th anniversary cars. For my goals and power this is fine though. I have it at a very comfortable daily driver height and don't even have rolled fenders right now. They were in such great shape I chose to leave them alone. Would have loved to say hi! When I first started the project I wasn't a fan of the brown, but it grew on me and now I'm all in on the brown interior. Fully committed to it when I upholster or replace the interior panels and I'll probably even go with a light tan carpet against darker upholstery.

It had a quick buff but more was done after those pics. The color is Lexus ultrasonic blue 2.0! Not an exact match since it isn't factory of course, but it turned out exactly as I envisioned. Was sort of matching whatever colors were in the sky on the drive home finished late after a long day so I didn't get a ton of pics, but here are a few. It's niece approved! And finally, this is literally the first time I've washed my project. Waxed it after it was put back together. I bought these emblems with some other stuff when Black dragon auto was going out of business and I told myself I wouldn't cover that vent hole with them until the car got paint. Was slightly surreal seeing them in place and driving it home. Still lots to go though! Some door stuff is being finicky, the door seals are... Not ideal haha, and the Hatch seal or some of the new rubber pieces need adjustment. Passenger side looks raised as you get to the bottom. Will probably order bumpers before AC. As great as the car looks, I've always felt the front end especially looks unfinished without them.

Yeah, it's in SLC! Fine... You get some progress pics haha. Most of these don't show the not as nice areas, but you can see the area under the windshield that didn't get color. That one's on me... When sprayed the engine bay in black, I had a pretty defined line there, so the painter kept the line, and I didn't specify that all that area I did want in color. I should have specified since when the cowl is off it just bleeds into the engine bay which wasn't being done. We're gonna paint that area, or at least get a tiny patch with a line that aligns with the fender tomorrow. Other than that, you can also see I swapped over to an oem 240z mirror Never liked the later plastic ones, and all the aftermarket ones I actually enjoyed were way too much, so I had the original holes patched to clean it up for the early style mirror.

Update: wasn't able to finish reassembly today Not a ton more to go, but a few hiccups came up. The tight spots that got missed are being sprayed first thing the morning. That's the smallest issue. Need to pickup some more hardware for the front turn signals the went missing. The biggest issue right now: one of the painter's past employees that's no longer there wasn't responding and supposedly doesn't know where one of the rods for the driver door is that connects the handle to the actual latch to open it. I've been helping reassemble and put on new weatherstripping that was never there when I dropped it off so it all gets put in the right place, but the painter had to call up the past employee and couldn't get a response of how he organized the door parts. 😕 Hoping it turns up tomorrow. Regardless, I am ever the optimist and most of it is looking soooo nice. Other than the driver door situation, they're better aligned than they used to be and the passenger door closes real easy. Excited to finally use the brand new door handles I got from black dragon for $5 years ago when they were closing. It's far from perfect, but for my budget and goals it's actually exceeded my expectations.

In the middle of reassembly. Between the change in personel and the painter trying to finish it for me in the time he had committed to he missed an area under the front windshield and the color didn't spray evenly on the deep end of the fuel area where the fuel door bolts, so hopefully we'll be able to tape up and cover the car and do a quick spray just so we get even color on those tight spots. Hoping to have it out and driving by the end of day either way! Taking some pictures as I go, but it's mostly motivating me to get stuff like carpeting and upholstery done so the outer finish on the paint doesn't look near new against some of the ratty and worn out interior and engine bay haha

I'll have to take a look before I order for sure! I think the mms compression is why android has a reputation of low quality cameras with iPhone users. Even though they compress both directions just so the media message format is compatible with both. Regardless, I'll have better photos and maybe a video after It's put back together.

We. Have. COLOR. Painter sent me some videos but it's pretty grainy. Looks like the video got really compressed when sent in MMS (android problems... I love my phone, but I do acknowledge it comes with some downsides when most other people are using iPhones and media messages default to a dated format that both are compatible with) Will post some pictures tomorrow when I'm at the shop to drop off seals/rubber bump stops and help with assembly to get it back home. Or later today when the painter sends me a few.

Thanks for the kind words! I've followed your thread a bit in the past and actually taken a bit of of inspiration from it and other similar ones that pushed me towards the subtle OEM+ styling with modest upgrades. I'll also hopefully be installing Vintage AC soon before the interior upholstery and carpeting gets done.