Well, here's the machine I was agonizing over purchasing in another thread, LOL. Really glad I did it now. I'm the 3rd owner, previous owner had it for all its life except for the first 3 years. It's been in AZ or Texas all that time, the only rust I can find is some surface rust above the windshield. It's really a shame, seems the windshield was replaced 2-1/2 years ago....and it looks like they didn't seal the top correctly or something. I can actually see a straight line above the windshield where rust has formed. (It doesn't leak into the interior, just looks like the thing was reassembled in such a way that water can collect up there and attack a now-unprotected area somehow.) Other than that, the body is almost flawless....2 or 3 tiny dents, paint is about 2 years old (a somewhat questionable job, but it's not too bad), the front valance isn't even beat up too bad.

It's got 230k miles which is one of the things that initially deterred me....but it's been well-maintained, and according to the shop that the PO was using, doesn't need a whole lot of work mechanically (they gave me specifics...it's gonna take some $$$ even doing it all myself, but nothing major). My main concern is that it's not a turbo, but oh well. It does have t-tops and the 5-speed. The red interior I'm not crazy about, will be changing it over to black eventually. I do need to get a new speedometer for it, which is fine because I want to upgrade to the 130mph '79 unit.

Picked it up for $2k, I guess that was a decent price. I was waiting for another "sweet deal" like I got with my last car (Alfa Romeo Spider), but good Z's are getting scarce, even out here in the west!

Now for the good stuff!













Btw, is this muffler setup stock?

That appears to be a stock muffler, just looks like someone cutoff the tip of the exhaust pipe. It should stick out just past the rear bumper.


Looks like you have alot of cleaning and tuning up to do.

Should be a nice project and hope it makes a nice driver for ya!

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78 280Z my DD, 83 ZXT Automatic w/10 lbs of boost :) weekend toy, 83 NA 5 speed son's DD

Wise words from TonyD to consider PRIOR to starting you 1st gen Z project:

"If you think of putting time and money into an old Z is an 'investment' you are sorely mistaken. It is a hole suspended in mid air by four rubber donuts---donuts which you can not eat. Into this hole you throw shovel fulls of money, and it dissapears. You will never see it back."

Thanks GT, I was just wondering because of the length and design of the tail pipe, and also with it being on the driver's side as opposed to the passenger side like my '79. But now that I've looked closer, it appears the body was designed for the pipe to come out on that side.

Also, I have to confess (somewhat sheepishly) that this is in fact an '82, not an '83. :P For some reason I equated the newer bumper style with the '83, but the title indicates '82. Didn't the '83's generally come with more blacked out window trim?

On my 83' all the trim is chrome looking. not black but most of them ive seen have black trim.

Damn. So many nice S130s. I'm really really starting to want one of these things really bad.

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1985 300ZX n/a

See my Z project

Onez, 79-81 had chrome b-pillars. The 82/83 models were black. Same shape and size, though, so a previous owner has swapped them out at some point.

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We wish you a Merry Christmas and a puke-free New Year!

Oh so all the trim on it isnt suposed to be chrome?

Nope. The b-pillar (A-B-C are windshield, behind door and at hatch) trim is black on our later models. The windshield, t-top and over the door window as well as the hatch trim are chromed, so I don't have any logical reasoning why they changed the b-pillar, but they did.
Personally, I liked the chrome much better, but I tried removing the side ones on the parts car and cannot figure out how to get a couple of the screws on inserts out without breaking them.
I asked a couple people here how to do it and apparently trim glue is pretty common when re-installing them.

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We wish you a Merry Christmas and a puke-free New Year!

They went to the black pillar in 82 because they lost the chrome on the front and rear bumper that same year. In 82 they painted the bumper same as the car except for the center strip which remained black. They carried that theme around the car with a 2 inch black trim piece across the doors joining the bumpers, which looks like yours have been removed. I removed mine also, it was functionally worthless. So a chrome pillar would have looked out of place. When I painted mine, I painted all of the front and rear bumpers and lost that side trim piece. BTW, the french beige was the color of my first one. I would have liked to have found another fr beige. I came close, white with red leather interior.

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82 white w/ red immaculate coupe 108,000 miles.
83 2+2 298,000 miles and going strong with son
90 2+2, nickeled and dimed me to death, sold in 98
82 coupe, 1st Z rolled at 95,000
Pics:[www.zcar.com]

Had to go outside to see if my 83 was still in the driveway. Mine is french beige metallic. My paint is original so looking into a re-paint soon. I would like to add some depth to that color though. Any ideas on paint mix?

I liked the french beige myself. The original turned a pinkish color at night, very classy. When it wrecked and painted, it wasn't quite the same. So I guess it's all in the painter. Te other scheme I liked was called Cowboy colors in Dallas. Blue body and silver hood. I think this originated in 1980 with the Black Gold anniversary edition of gold body/black hood. I think black with gold woulda been better. They also had a brown with gold hood. Good luck, let us know what you came up with.

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82 white w/ red immaculate coupe 108,000 miles.
83 2+2 298,000 miles and going strong with son
90 2+2, nickeled and dimed me to death, sold in 98
82 coupe, 1st Z rolled at 95,000
Pics:[www.zcar.com]

It's interesting to see you guys commenting on that color, it's actually one of the things I was going to change. :) I'll probably go with red, metallic gunmetal gray, or straight silver. I plan on doing something kind of unique with the interior....I'll be using mostly black parts, but will also paint/dye some stuff white, like the faceplate around the gauges, and probably the lower dash pieces (below the vent level). Probably will go with white carpet as well, and black+white custom door panels (similar to the stock two-tone door panels). I was sorta inspired by the black+white interior I saw on a Lamborghini Countache. Plus I just like the look of white instrument panel and dark instruments, many Beechcraft airplanes have this theme going on (black glareshield, black instruments, white panel, black or woodgrain lower trim/aux control panel).

Porshe had a color for the 911 around '78 called salmon. Very nice as it looked to blend silver and red. Yep, just like the Alaskan Salmon. I am researching that color to see if it will work since I have no reason to do a frame-off. I have also heard to mix a little brown in with the French beige.

mattb Wrote:
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Probably
> will go with white carpet as well,

You ever notice how hard it is to keep the grey carpet clean??

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82 white w/ red immaculate coupe 108,000 miles.
83 2+2 298,000 miles and going strong with son
90 2+2, nickeled and dimed me to death, sold in 98
82 coupe, 1st Z rolled at 95,000
Pics:[www.zcar.com]

Errmmm, carpet I got now is red. I know white will be more "maintenance", but by the time I get to this project I will probably have another daily driver and the Z will be another "fun-only" car, so it won't be seeing as much use. But I may yet go with black carpet. My last Z had a sorta-custom black interior (aftermarket carpet installation covered pretty much everything...shock towers, side trim pieces over the rocker panels, etc) and it looked pretty nice.