6/2/08
I picked the car up last Friday. It's red, glossy and straight. The results look to be just what I wanted, not a showroom or concours job, but a very sharp refresh of an original survivor.
I started reassembling it Friday evening, but didn't go too far, as I wanted to make certain that I was fresh when I worked on it. Picked back up Saturday morning. By the end of Saturday, I had all the glass and door hardware re-installed, and had begun working on the lights. On Sunday I completed the exterior: lights, trim, bumpers and emblems.
I still have to clean all the dust out of the interior before I re-install all the soft trim, but have all of next weekend to get that done, as I had hoped that this would all come together in time to make it to the show in Canby on Father's Day. Turns out that wasn't tough at all. The whole project came together very smoothly.
Yes, during the reassembly I've found a few very small and mostly inconspicuous flaws, but no one (and no car) is perfect and on the whole, I'm very pleased. It was a good looking car when I tore it apart five weeks ago. Now, the roof is right, the color is far less 'orangey' (but is still a rather 'warm' red) and is uniform from top to bottom, and it is not covered with door dings and rock chips. In short, it is an even better looking car now.
Public exposure
6/15/08
Today was the second day of the Datsun get-together in Canby, which is the best day to go if you are not a member of the sponsor club, or can only go for one of the two days. This is the day that the cars are all there, and all on display. And yes, we were there.
I pretty much finished reassembling the interior last weekend, other than the headliner (which will take at least two people and some advance planning). Spent a couple evenings just looking things over and some final prep. Last night, I loaded a few odd parts, checked the tire pressure, oil, and suchlike.
Then this morning, Deanna and I met up with another local couple in their 280Z and took off. After 90 minutes or so on the road, we stopped at a freeway rest area that many area Z owners had designated as a gathering spot, so that we could all drive the last 10 miles or so in a group. We ended up with ten, maybe eleven early Zs (one each 260Z and 280Z, the rest 240Zs) and a 350Z bringing up the rear caravanning our way to the fairgrounds. I was towards the end of the train, saw nothing but Zs in front of me, and more in my mirrors behind me. That's a rare sight these days.
The show itself was great. Good weather, more cars than last year, lots of friends to talk with. As always, I get to visiting with friends and looking at cars, and I forget to take pictures. You'd think that I'd be reminded by the fact I have the camera hanging around my neck. But no, that doesn't seem to help. But I did take a few, and here's a couple of them.
Highlights? Well, I was very pleased to get my car on the road again, and it did garner numerous compliments. I was also thrilled to see Jim's car in person after his single-handed restoration over the past three years. (His is the orange 240Z in the picture above, parked directly in front of my car.) Also, 240Z #32 was down from the Seattle area, and it was interesting to see all the subtle differences between this very early production car and the run of the mill 240Z like my own. And of course, visiting with all my other Z friends that I really don't get to see very often.
All in all, it was a very good day.
Moving to July
6/30/08
Very quiet around here on the Datsun front since we got back from Canby. The car has only been out of the garage a couple of times since then, since I've been busy on non-Datsun projects at home. I don't see that changing in the short term, either. I've made plans to drive the car North in late July to meet with a few friends and install the headliner, and I'm hoping for a not-too-hot weekend day sometime in July for a picnic drive, perhaps with friends. But I don't expect much else of note to happen in July.
Longer term, there are a few things I have in mind now that the paint is done. No set time on any of this, but these are the items I'm thinking about, in no particular order.
- Carpet. The original carpet is badly faded, and the driver's floor piece is threadbare. New carpet is definitely on my short list. The only problem is that I haven't quite found a supplier who makes a replacement kit that is close enough to original. So no firm plans on this yet.
- Front suspension rubber. No real problems here (yet), but like the rear, all these rubber parts are 37 years old. That can't be good. Might not get to this until over the Winter.
- Exhaust. I do like the way the current exhaust sounds, it has a nice, mellow note. But that's about it. I don't like the construction (welded one piece from manifold back, hard to remove for service), the small pipe size (1 7/8 inch), the rust (due to mild steel construction, not aluminized), or the appearance (odd looks with no rear muffler and cheap bolt-on chrome tip). This will definitely need some help at some point.
- Maybe wheels. I still like the look of the wire mag style wheels on the car, but now that the paint is done, the current wheels (with their pits, spots and surface imperfections) are not up to the standard of the rest of the car. This is probably the lowest priority of any of these things. So I will keep my eyes and ears open for a better set of wheels. But they will need to be period-correct, no more than 6 inches wide, and have a lot of surface for polishing (the bright red finish really needs a wheel that stands out). So some of the usual suspects for a 240Z won't do - like Libres (and the Libre-clones), turbines, Minilite/Watanabe-style, etc. I'll need to stick with things like the wire mag style I now have, perhaps a nice set of slot mags, or other styles that have a lot of flash when polished.
That's about it for Z news today. Check back for updates soon.
