1979 UK S130 - 2 Seater Non-Turbo

WazzaJB

Club Member
Had the pleasure of picking this up today along with a huge amount of spare parts, the previous owner was a lovely gentleman in his mid-70's who unfortunately couldn't continue with the project.

It's been exported and imported twice now & also needs re-registering, which is going to be difficult as can't find the title with the cars documents... Doesn't help that everything is in Spanish though! (If anyone can offer any insight or advice here that would be much appreciated, be a shame if we started restoring it only to find out it could never go back on UK roads)

Plenty of rust to work through before making any serious progress but we got the 2.8 turning over nicely this morning so I'm sure that'll all be great with a bit of TLC.

Plan on restoring this with my elder brother and hopefully show up at a meet in the future with both cars.

The car is a 1979 UK RHD 280ZX 2 seater, non-turbo. Has only done 34,000 miles! You can see through the bottom of the drivers door and there's plenty of rust on the floors, rails & engine bay. The plan as it stands is to make a start on the metalwork and go from there.

Interestingly (maybe not?) I have about 10 invoices from MJP in the mid-90's onwards for various works. Alongside this I have a Z Club valuation declaring the car in great condition, sad to see it has fallen into this state of disrepair!

I know the S130's aren't worth the same as an S30, and most would maybe be reluctant to spend time and money restoring this(?) but me and my brother are super keen to do so and excited to get it back on the road. To give us an idea of how far we take this project in terms of detail, what's one of these worth restored? Can't find any 2 seaters on ebay previously sold listings.

Thanks all!

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chrisvega

Well-Known Forum User
Congrats Warren, that looks a superb project :thumbs:
There are at least a couple of knowledgeable S130 owners on here who have been down the route of S130 restoration, Huw and Derek (Candy Red) spring to mind.
I'm sure they'll be along soon to offer words of wisdom, advice and encouragement.
 

WazzaJB

Club Member
Congrats Warren, that looks a superb project :thumbs:
There are at least a couple of knowledgeable S130 owners on here who have been down the route of S130 restoration, Huw and Derek (Candy Red) spring to mind.
I'm sure they'll be along soon to offer words of wisdom, advice and encouragement.
Thanks Chris! I do consider this your fault by the way for selling me such a complete car...

Looking forward to nuggets of knowledge from Huw & Derek, and anyone else for that matter.
 

chrisvega

Well-Known Forum User
If you wanted a project you should have said so :D
The complete car Warren is referring is a super nice original 280Z he bought from me a couple of months ago btw, no idea where he picked up this ZX, not from me !

Did you see 'brownzilla' the 2 seat ZX Turbo (my own car) when you collected the 280Z ?
Thought that may have got you interested in S130s ?
 

WazzaJB

Club Member
I wanted an S30 that I could drive, think I ended up with the perfect balance of jobs to do (about 3...) vs can actually get out and drive it. You're very quick to distance yourself from this car though. Rightfully so haha

I love the 280z, which is why I'm being slow and careful in what I do to it.

I didn't actually see ''brownzilla", I did see one at Oulton though? My brother prefers the S130 to the S30 so this should be more his thing once it's done. Being much cheaper than mine we're not too scared to get stuck in with the cutting and welding.
 

Mr Tenno

Digital Officer
Staff member
Site Administrator
Also agree - I've not actually seen a UK S130 2-seater for sale before! It's always the 4 seaters that come up.
 

WazzaJB

Club Member
Also agree - I've not actually seen a UK S130 2-seater for sale before! It's always the 4 seaters that come up.
Honestly the condition of this car reflects that, I'm excited to get started but we've more than likely bitten off more than we can chew.
 

WazzaJB

Club Member
You also loved your 2+2 - it was the 260Z you detested !

Spain is Europe as is Britain so no problem to import/export !

I have letters to 3 previous owners indicating that it needs a V55/5 submitting which I'm comfortable doing, but do I need a Spanish "title" in order to get it through?
 

chrisvega

Well-Known Forum User
In the absence of an overseas title, if that is where it has come from, you will need a dating letter from the club.
DVLA need evidence of date of manufacture and/or first registration to allocate new reg.
 

Huw

Club Member
Hi Warren.

Looks like a nice little project you've got there. :thumbs:

If you need any assistance feel free to give me shout, more than happy to offer up my experiences when doing my rebuild.

Most obvious is don't throw anything away as some bits are not as easy to get as others think. There are still a few good sources of 280ZX bits about however.

They rust in all the obvious places as you will no doubt have been told (front scuttle, front valance, doors, sills, tail gate - everywhere really). I had very bad rust in the inner wings and chassis rails especially the dog leg where the handbrake mechanism fixes to it.

If yours has still got the reciprocating ball steering set up (loads of rods, ball joints and big old steering box), it would be worth while you sourcing a power steering rack, steering pump and steering column from a later model. Its an easy mod and makes so much difference to the handing.

Derricks thread has some great photos for reference:

https://zclub.net/community/index.p...resto-pics-what-do-u-think-made-bigger.16715/

My Resto thread is not so details but may have something to help:

https://zclub.net/community/index.php?threads/280zx-never-ending-rebuild.17434/page-6#post-277573

All the best with it and look forward to following your progress.

Huw
 
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