In the beginning....God created the heavens and the earth....God started with nothing but a concept at least I had the car and enthusiasm and....a now empty wallet !
It all started with a stock standard 76 260z 2+2 still running the troublesome flat top carbs! The amazing thing is that 3 weeks after I bought it Ii had trouble with the carbs in hot temperatures, my question is how did they run it like this for the last 30 years?
Well as a complete 'Newbie' to the Zed scene I found myself with an instant dilemma, not all mechanics were experts after all! I took the Zed with it's ailments to a number of 'doctors' to be given a variety of diagnosis and prescriptions which included everything from a a heart transplant (engine rebuild) to an enema (flush out the cooling system). It wasn't until I came accross the local Victorian Zed car club that I began to feel that I wasn't alone in my new found condition (newZeditis) and that there were other sufferers who had managed to get their Zeds cruising as they were designed to do!
I remember one of the first things I wanted to do was put some nice wheels on it and fix the paint, but the Zed had other ideas. First things first! 'GO before SHOW' as my eldest son says, so off it went to have a carb transplant where the flat top SU's were exchanged for the preferred 240z carbs which didn't have the troublesome fuel evaporation and tuning problems of it's younger sibling. The standard points ignition system was also updated to the later electronic version transplanted from the 280zx and a set of breathing tubes (extractors) to compliment the fuel delivery upgrade. Finally (only a few weeks) my Zed was on the road and being used as a daily driver.
I guess it was early 2007 before I really had much opportunity to cosmetically enhance the Zed. By this time my son Ben had caught the Zed bug and purchased a 1974 260z 2+2 to restore as his first car (more on that later) being the creative mover and shaker that he is, he willingly handed over his uncracked dash and mag wheels in favor of later transplanting the dash of a later model Nissan (some ricer thing!) so together with this I added a quick paintjob (backyard style) to preserve the body.
The Cheviot Hotwire rims weren't my first choice, I thought that 'popping' down to Bob Jane TMart would see a new set of gleaming shoes upon my Zed BUT...it was here that my education on the Zed idiosyncrasies went to the next level! It didn't matter how much money I had these guys couldn't sell me any wheels because of something to do with 'offset' all of the later model vehicles had positive offsets and I needed a '0' or negative to fit on my hubs, so armed with this new info I did what any up and coming enthusiast with little money would do....I settled for the (donated) Cheviot Hotwire 14x7's encased in some new radial T/A's (with the cool white lettering).
Ebay provided me with the next inexpensive cosmetic mod which enhanced the front on look of the Zed. A new FG front spoiler with the styling to incorporate the parkers/blinkers that were previously seated in the stock valence.
So the story continues on my Retro Resto, click the Zed logo to continue.......
