1975 Datsun 280z daily driver (for now)

Many of you have been keeping up with my "For Sale" thread, and I received a lot of advice on freeing up my seized engine. After a week of soaking the cylinders with Deep Creep & trans fluid, my buddy came over and we were able to turn the motor over by hand! Once I replaced my Advance Auto starter with another one I was able to discover that it cranked strong too! A couple plugs had shattered when I pulled them out, so today I went to the store and picked up a fresh set of NGK's. Here's the result from the 1st crank!

1st start!

There will be a LOT more to come with this-the car has not been on the road since 1990, so I have some work to do to make it roadworthy. I need to replace the heater core, fix the driver's window, fix the psgr door latch, get a new ignition, fresh fluids, CLEAN CLEAN CLEAN, and any other stuff that I find along the way. I'd like to make this thing pass VA State Inspection and make it my stock daily driver (I live 2 miles from work), and hopefully sooner rather than later! The tires are dry-rotted and I'm sure the brakes are done, but we'll see. Thankfully there isn't too much rust, and that (along with paint) will be done down the line. I'd love to lower it and put my black mesh Enkei 92's on it, but that's not for right now.

Thanks for following along!

It's not dead yet!
Way to get it going and move toward getting it back on the road.

The dead do rise.

It runs! Nice work!

I'll be watching this one.

that is great!!!! i knew it would go...now its all down hill from there you will have it on the road in no time now

Thanks for the support guys! I CAN'T WAIT to get this thing on the road!

awesome! I still remember the day I fired mine up for the first time. . . drive it for a little bit, then adjust the valves and i bet you will love it even more! the more first gen Z's we save the better place this world will be!

So I spent a couple hours this morning working on the driver's window-it was stuck halfway down (or halfway up, depending on whether you're a pessimist or optimist ). I pulled the window frame/trim off, pulled out the window, pulled out the regulator, cleaned everything up, greased everything, put it back in...and it still binds. Everything looks like it's there, nothing broken or bent that I can tell, but I'm having no luck. I can get it almost the whole up way by pulling on it, then winding, then pulling, then winding, etc., but this ain't gonna fly. The psgr. window does the same thing, just to a lesser extent. Does anyone have any experience messing with these? I never had any window problems in my other Z, so I never messed with them. Maybe I just need new regulators, but I'd rather not spend hundreds on them (if I can even find them, that is). Anyone have any good regulators they could sell me? I'll throw some pics up here that I took of the window stuff, but right now it's lunch time.

EDIT Here's the pics I promised of the offending window...yes, I got a little grease on it.

The starting point

Anyone have a good OE mirror for sale?

All apart

Greased up and back together, but still have this problem. It seems to be binding on the front slide (which I didn't take a pic of).

I thought I'd do a little "photo dump" so I can get everyone up to speed, in case you didn't see my For Sale thread. Here's the pics so far...

Solid floors...

A few rust spots...

...one on the floor

...LF lower fender

...LR rocker panel/dogleg area

It's been off the road for a LONG time!

I've got a pretty good list of things I need to do, so it's gonna take me some time. I was hoping to have this thing roadworthy by mid June so my wife and I could drive it to Chincoteague for our anniversary weekend, but I'm not sure yet if that's gonna happen. Here's my list so far-if anyone has any of this stuff or knows where I can get it cheap please let me know!

-change oil (there's a bunch of Deep Creep & trans fluid in there with the oil now )

-fix driver's window, psgr window and door latch

-possibly replace tires (they're a little dryrotted, but they have tread-if they hold air and pass state inspection I'm just gonna rock 'em for a little while)

-replace brake hoses-the ones on there look pretty dryrotted

-replace side mirror

-REGISTER & TITLE it!

-fix horn

-wiper blades

-get correct ignition and replace

-get door lock cylinder for psgr side, get doors & ignition all keyed to the same

-remove wheel locks

-replace broken wheel stud on LR

-replace heater core (it's bypassed so I assume it's leaking-I'll check before replacing, of course)

So that's what I have so far, and mind you this is just stuff I've noticed without driving it or jacking it up off the ground-I'm sure I'll find more. Bodywork, rust repair, and paint will come later-I just want to get it on the road first. Oh, and I am WAY under budget on this(I've got abut $465 in it so far, including the price of the car!), so it hopefully will end up at the Challenge one day too! Thanks for following along guys!

Just got done changing the oil...exciting, I know. Started her up again and let it run a few minutes. I think it's almost out of gas, which is good, because that means most of the swamp water that was in there is gone (I drained the tank a while ago but my pan wasn't big enough and I had to plug it back up, so I don't know how much more was in there). The blower motor works, and I heard the AC compressor clutch engage-the belt isn't on, so nothing else happened. Lots of stuff in the console doesn't work-stereo comes on but no sound, map light inop, clock inop(common problem), gas gauge inop?, etc. I'll hunt most of this down as I go...probably has blown fuses or melted wiring or fusible links or something. I had to stop so I can watch my son while my wife goes out, then I gotta get cleaned up and ready to meet my buddy later for beers and hockey at The Green Turtle. GO SENS!

get a list together of what you need and head to Leon's in Culpeper Va on rt29 he has many zs not alot of body panels good on them but all the little stuff is there

In reply to cutter67:

WOW! Looks like he has a bunch of stuff! Are his prices reasonable? There's a guy here in Chesapeake (East Coast Z Car Center), but his prices are high and I'd rather not buy stuff from him. Plus his inventory is way smaller than this guys!

In reply to sethmeister4:

Do you know of "the soup nazi" leon acts like him. He will deal but dont lowball him he will throw you out of yard. Treat him with respect and do as he says and you will be fine. When you go dont ask him if he has something just get the map of yard and go exploring most of the zs are in one place but there some scattered thru the yard those ones are mor complete. This place is hugh so plan on spending some time

In reply to cutter67:

Haha, the soup nazi...that's funny. Thanks for the advice! It's 3+ hrs from my house, so I would plan on spending a Saturday there for sure. If he's got what I need though then it's worth it. Looks like fun! Thanks again! Sorry it didn't work out for you to buy this car from me!

In reply to sethmeister4:

Dont feel bad at all....i am really glad you got her to run because you doubled the value of the car...i knew it would run...if its still to much of a project for you i would put it on ebay if i were you. I just sold one a couple of months ago with a body rougher than yours and it brought $2600.00 and if you just got it to move around i think it would pass 3k on there

one thing about window try sliding the glass a little to the back of door frame

In reply to cutter67:

It's definitely a project, but it's all stuff I can tackle. The rust is minimal, and I'll get to that later. All the mechanical stuff, though, I can do (or should be able to!). The worst part is not having a garage, but I'm determined to get this beast back on the streets of south Hampton Roads!

So I just enjoyed a wonderful visit with Mark (cutter67). Thanks for making the trip, it was great to meet you! I'll get a list up soon of all the parts I need!

It was really good meeting you and you have a great car to start with. I think the game plan you have decided on is perfect for it. But if you are laying in bed tonight and thinking maybe its too much for you i will up my offer to $2200.00

mark

In reply to cutter67:

Thanks Mark...if I change my mind I'll let you know. I'm dying to get this thing on the road now that it's running.

Here's a list of parts that I need/want. Hopefully some of you pack-rats out there can help me!

-Ignition assembly w/ key

-Driver side & psgr. side window regulators

-Psgr. side door latch assembly

-OE driver's side mirror (nothing aftermarket, I want to use the same mounting holes)

-Psgr. side door lock cylinder

-Horn mechanism (not really sure what to call it--the tab that grounds to the ring is broken off and hanging down)

-Antenna (my mast is gone/broken)

-A nice set of seats from a '75 or '76 280z

Just PM me if you have any of this stuff! Thanks guys!

Hope to get this thing titled and registered sometime this week or next! Anybody have any of the parts I mentioned? I guess I need to put a "Want to Buy" thread in the classifieds.

This is a great (and somewhat brave) undertaking!

Awesome that it's going so well so far. Continued good luck.

That is a sweet salvage yard, too. Old Z's haven't been in northeastern yards in a LONG time.

I'm kind of stalled on my project here, unfortunately. I'm trying to sell my Maxima daily driver so I can fund this project and put some money in savings, but no bites yet. I need to get it going though, otherwise my apartment complex is going to tow it. Looks like I'm going to have a busy few weeks if I can convince them to give me until July! I don't want to sell it (sorry Cutter), but it's crunch time now. Man I wish I had a garage...

the windows: The sliders or tracks or guides or whatever you wanna call it should have female adjuster sleeves on top of a male stud with a jam nut that holds it to the door, 4 per slider if my memory serves me right. I think I can see them in the pic of your open door, so you may get lucky by breaking the jam nut loose and turning the adjusters with a flat head. I would just play with those a little and try to find a sweet spot where the window travels happily. The 280 window system is waaay better than the 240 setup, so atleast you got that going for you. when you remove the window, the parts that hold the window in the tracks often fall off inside the door and go un-noticed until you try to put the window back in and are left wondering why it's not working, they just slide on to a stud, no threads or anything. so I would also check inside the door for some roundish grey thingamabobs. very descriptive I know, but once you see one you will know what i'm talking about. I can't remember how many for sure but I think it's 4 per window. Loose one and the window will bind up.

it's late and my description of something I dealt with 3 years ago is horrid, but I promise, the in & out adjustment of those tracks as well as the grey thingamabobs are key to a smooth Z window. your regulator looks fine and the parts are actually quite robust, so long as everything is in place it should all work together with a little fine tuning. hope my 3am description helps.