advice on difficulty level

[Guest Death69]

alright guys, i got a problem. theres a 240z that i can get for a killer price, but the problem is that is is just a rolling chassis. leterally no interior and egine. the good is that its been sand blasted already. i just want to know how hard it is to do the full dash and elctrical work. this would be my first attempt and id like to know if its something i can handle. i have only done motor swaps and didnt really do too much of the electrical then. i know ill probably be getting a repair manual to help me with this "adventure". also, would it be smarter to just swap a full 280z dash in w/ l28 since thats what i was planning?

[het976]

That is what I have to work with, a shell. I would find a donor car and just transfer everything over to your shell. The 240s were pretty basic cars and not too complex. If you can turn wrenchs you should be able to do it.

[Guest Death69]

thats what i needed to hear. thanks

[jt1]

The only way I would attempt a bare chassis is if I could find a complete donor car. Otherwise you're going to go nuts chasing all the bits and pieces and trying to figure out what goes where.

 

jt

[Guest Death69]

yea i was planning on just just getting the body work and supension done then get comlete donor

[datsunlover]

Thats the way to do it. Start with a 'blank canvas' and take the doner apart YOURSELF so you know where evrything came from/goes too. Nothing worse than trying to finish someone else's project, when you didn't have anytnig to do with it in the begining. The other option is a 'painless' wiring kit, and wire evrything how you want, where you want... using whatever dash you have to work with, and aftermarket guages/lights.

[DHale_510]

The aftermarket wiring kits as from "Painless" are great, but I doubt that they would be a good "first timer's project". One of the big problems would be that all supplied connectors are GM and NONE of those are Nissan compatable. This means reusing all the old connectors and that unravels the benefit of all new first class wiring parts in there.

Swapping out a full harness is educational enough for a first timer. Even with a full harness you will find at least 25% of the connectors and parts have moved around or changed and you will spend lots of time naking those adaptations. The farther apart the age of the cahssis, the more changes you will find in there. Always respect the color coding, no cheating with the splices. Nissan was pretty good about keeping the color coding similar from year to year by the time they made Z cars. Beware a Roadster though.....

It will take several days the first time, but with patience it is not terribly difficult. Kind of like paint preparation.

[DHale_510]

Another idea: Nissan was most friendly when they went to FI on the 280Z. The FI wiring is so stand alone that it can be rather easily added to a 240Z harness. Maybe they were just being cheap, but it is the easiest one I have ever seen to convert.

So, if you find a donor 240Z or 260Z [generally always considered an orphan since the carbs just didn't work] and just the FI stuff from a 280Z, you would have a good basis. The 280Z harnessing is pretty different and remounting everything is strange. Even the dash mountings are pretty different.

The rolling chassis sounds like a lot of work. I have been fooling around with a similar project for about 10 years. It now is getting a full roll cage and race prep instead of ever returning to the street. There will be no OEM wiring or much else OEM left on the car. I have stripped both a 280Z [it was burned, I didn't get the engine bay harnessing nor FI stuff] and a later 240Z to do just this sort of thing and given up on the idea. I found none of the underdash connectors the same between the '74 and '78 cars.