New To All Of This

Barricade

Forum User
Good afternoon everyone,

New member to the forum, club, and classic car ownership. I've taken the plunge into the deep end with a 1973 Avocado green 240z - I was certain I had done my research but until you're driving your new steed home looking down at the various clocks with a mind of their own, wondering why you've got no warm air to keep the windows from fogging up, and wondering, as it rains on your first drive, just how quickly things rust, you realise you've got yourself a project. :)

But....she is a 240z, she's home and tucked up in the dry, and I'm excited to be learning from you all as I set about fixing up the car.

D
 

AliK

Vehicle Dating Officer
Staff member
Club Member
Welcome D!

That looks like a lovely car!! Put up more photos for us to salivate over.

The Z has a way of getting under your skin in a very unique way. Once you have the car sorted to your requirements, you will never tire of driving her.

What are your plans for the car?
 

Barricade

Forum User
Welcome D!

That looks like a lovely car!! Put up more photos for us to salivate over.

The Z has a way of getting under your skin in a very unique way. Once you have the car sorted to your requirements, you will never tire of driving her.

What are your plans for the car?

Thank you. I'm not sure on the green but it is growing on me and I think given a proper detail it's got some depth to the colour.

I'll dig a few more pictures out - I plan on writing a build thread (I'm sure it's been done plenty times before) as I find it really handy to keep myself motivated on progress.

Very short term plan: full mechanical checkup and consumables replaced as needed

Short term: Lots of jobs from small ones like replacing speedo cable, to larger ones like fitting a complete interior (as it currently doesn't have anything other than two wrecked seats, half a door card in red and a dash that seems to have turned blue with age), get the red taken off the wheels and have them cleaned up and refurb'd, sort the bonnet to list a few.

Longer term: Fast road build of sorts, I'd like the car to be easy to drive but hard to master, I want it to be confidence inspiring but try and keep it representative of its time.....if that makes sense??
 

SeanDezart

Well-Known Forum User
Welcome, congrats and also for supporting the club. Good luck with your project and most of us understand 'representative' of its' time - a 'period build' !
 

Turn & Burn

Club Member
All of a sudden there’s green cars everywhere! Welcome and congrats on ur new toy, I’m sure you’ll grow to love the green. I chose it deliberately for mine.
Looks like a real tidy car you’ve got.
 

AliK

Vehicle Dating Officer
Staff member
Club Member
My humble advice would be to live with the car / drive it round for a while and she will talk to you!

You may end up buying all the bits and then deciding to change the colour and have to take it all off again! Or you may drive and find that you want to sort out the mechanical side first / extract more power and that would take your time and resources.

Make a list of all the items you need, take your time and don’t just part with cash as soon as you see parts come up. Try to get a feel for quality and prices and ask this forum, as people are often very decent at parting with hard to find items at a reasonable price.

I personally really like that green - especially of it’s fresh paint that is done well. If you plan to regularly use the car you’ll probably want to refresh the paintwork in 10 years anyway ;)

Read up on the mods - it doesn’t take a lot to extract the first few extra ponies: better leads, properly gapped plugs, electronic dizzy, coil, decent header /exhaust, well tuned carbs / Mix / timing, setting valve lash, loosing emissions kit etc. If you want to go further, then welcome to the rabbit hole of modified engines that you can pour your pension contributions into :D. Let’s face it, you won’t be enjoying it when your hip goes and your back hurts so you may as well cash the pension now!!

For example, my modified L28 engine built by experts (and not me!!), while producing about 78% more BHP than the one that I replaced, keeps the 70s soul of the car but turns the volume up on the enjoyment factor, without being a handful. There are others that run 300 or more BHP with turbos and engine swaps - but I feel that’s probably not where you are going.

One of the things of love about the Z scene is that most of these cars were modified very early in their lives and no two cars are the same. There is of course a place for the hallowed stock / concourse cars that you wouldn’t dream of hooning around a track or country roads!
 

johnymd

Club Member
Welcome.

You must remember to check the humidity before taking your fragile car out of its climate controlled storage facility. If you fail to do so then I would recommend booking it in for a full restoration ASAP to avoid it ending up as a pile of rust on your driveway.

:)
 

Barricade

Forum User
Welcome.

You must remember to check the humidity before taking your fragile car out of its climate controlled storage facility. If you fail to do so then I would recommend booking it in for a full restoration ASAP to avoid it ending up as a pile of rust on your driveway.

:)

It does feel a little bit like that [emoji1787]
 
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