Z Odyssey

I woke up from a deep slumber at 7 AM on Tuesday after about ten hours of much-needed sleep. Lucy and I said our goodbyes to our gracious host and continued on our final leg of the journey. We breezed through Ohio and hit some light rain in Wheeling, West Virginia. I had forgotten to pack my EZ Pass, so I decided to take I-68 through western Maryland to get onto 70 and avoid the tolls from the PA turnpike. This turned out to be the biggest mistake I would make.

For those readers unfamiliar with western Maryland, it is quite mountainous compared to central Maryland and the Eastern Shore. Growing up, I recall ski trips to Wisp resort, located there. The weather could be bluebird and sunny in Northern Virginia, but as soon as the front tires of our ’94 Chevy Astro AWD chariot crossed into Garrett county, it would start snowing. I can count on one hand the number of bluebird days I have had at Wisp and I’ve likely been there over fifty times in my life.

I had forgotten about the weather and elevation changes along I-68, and Lucy hated the grades. I struggled to keep the throttle both steady and light so she wouldn’t slip going up the passes. The clutch was starting to slip really bad and I wasn’t sure if I would make it. I ended up having to downshift a few gears to keep the revs up higher where she wouldn’t slip on me. Meanwhile, a light drizzle was turning into a downpour, and I had to put the wipers to the test. I began to fear crossing into Garrett county as my past experiences coupled with winter’s approach started to stick in my mind.
I lucked out again, as the falling water stayed in its liquid state through the county. This was the most grueling part of the trip and my anxiety was peaking. Each mountain pass felt like it would be her last. Passing through Cumberland, I knew only had a couple more passes to make before it was smooth sailing on I-70 again.

Coming out of Cumberland, I came upon a yellow 370Z with the license plate “BUMBL Z”. I passed him and he immediately pulled back up with me and gave me a big thumbs up. We cruised together the last few passes and worked together, whether he realized it or not, to help Lucy limp home. Merging onto I-70, a sense of relief washed over me. I was going to make it. I took the exit for I-81 South and flashed my lights at Bumbl Z to say goodbye. He tapped his brakes and the last 50 miles flew by. Years later, I randomly saw Bumbl Z on I-70 again while driving back from a work trip. I was in a work vehicle and he had no idea who the driver was next to him. But I knew who he was and what he had inadvertently helped with. I silently thanked him for his help.

At last, Lucy was home. I did it. I bought a 45-year-old car sight-unseen, flew out with thirty hours’ notice, prepped it as best I could, and drove four days across three thousand miles of God’s Country to bring her home. I sat in a terrible seat for over forty hours with zero padding under my tuchus. I turned my hooded sweatshirt into makeshift seat foam. I resorted to talking to an inanimate object to occupy my time.
Phone calls were nigh impossible due to the road noise for most of the journey. When I pulled into the garage, I immediately texted Pat “I made it, I ain’t ever fucking doing that again.” He responded with “Don’t be such a pussy.” Classic Pat.

Don’t be such a pussy.

-Pat

I drove Lucy over to my father’s house the following weekend. You could see the nostalgia coming out his pores as he sat in her. He felt like he was in a time machine. The nostalgia was thick and it was so cool, as a son, to see your father light up over something simple like a car he used to think of as trivial. A quick spin around the block and he was bracing on the dashboard as I was pushing Lucy through some spirited turns. I think at that moment, he finally understood. The car life was never really his thing, but at least he understood it now.
This trip was one of the greatest experiences of my life. The constant uncertainty, glancing every five minutes at the oil pressure and temperature gauges, the quite literal pain in my ass; all of it was worth it. I learned the journey is often much more interesting than the destination. So to all the readers out there: go out and find a car, a real car, not one of these consumable, trade-in-every-five-years appliances that they sell today. Something without traction control and these modern driver assists, and preferably far away from home. Get out there and go drive. Experience this country, the way it is meant to be experienced, on the open road. My only regret is taking interstates and not a more rural route. Discover those hidden gems littered across the country. Don’t worry about the destination, just live for the journey. You will thank me later, and if you purchase something with fully intact seat foam, your ass will thank me too.

Keep an eye out for future articles as I start painting my own Rembrandt.

A storm was heading in from the west and I was doing my best to outrun it. I touched base with Pat: he was headed back to Mammoth Lakes and hit snow on the way back into Nevada. Three inches of fresh snow had already fallen, and it was still coming down; had we left a day later, I would have been screwed. The Chinese-branded Deruibo tires [neither spellcheck nor I believe this is a real brand -Feed] and lightweight, open-differential rear end of the 240Z would have been a recipe for disaster in light rain; in snow it would be an apocalypse.
Each digital road sign I passed warned of imminent doom: “SNOW AND HIGH WINDS IN 3 HOURS”. But, as I traversed the state, the tension eased as I was outrunning the storm. It began to get Dark in Laramie and as I stopped to get gas, I realized I would be in the clear. I dodged a serious bullet by skipping that ski day.

If you’ve never driven 80 through Wyoming, do it. It is stunning. There are gorgeous mountain vistas and outcrops all along the interstate. If you’ve never driven 80 through Nebraska, don’t. Stunning vistas of Wyoming were replaced with the flat nothingness of corn country. I stopped for gas somewhere around midnight and realized that the other headlight was now dim. A quick fuse change returned the light to its proper brightness and I was on my way.

A weird thing happened somewhere in Nebraska. In my dreary state, in that dreary state, I started to personify Lucy more and more. The analog clock wasn’t functioning for the first part of the trip. This is a common issue amongst S30 chassis cars. I made a pact with Lucy that if she moved from 8:03 and hit 8:05, she was done for the day. I made it to Des Moines, Iowa around 4 AM, right as Lucy hit 8:05. I debated pushing onwards towards my friend’s house in Indiana, but I couldn’t go on and Lucy was telling me she couldn’t either. The real sacrifice of this trip so far was my hindquarters being married to these APC “performance” seats. My ass was screaming at me and I could barely stay awake. I had gone through 4 red bulls in 4 hours and they were starting to wear off.
I crashed for four hours at a Ramada Inn, and as I drifted towards slumber, I smiled knowing a free continental breakfast awaited me. I woke up and was immediately disappointed that this particular Ramada didn’t offer free breakfast. I managed to find the only damn hotel off of interstate 80 that wasn’t generous with the best meal of the day. The 90 bucks I paid for the room suddenly felt like a lot more.

I pushed through the remaining parts of Iowa on my way to Indiana. I was averaging about 27 miles per gallon, and I did math to the official soundtrack of this trip (Funeral for a Friend was still permanently stuck in the player) and realized I was likely going to come in under my $500 fuel budget. My smiles per gallon increased after that notion, and it took the sting out of my free breakfast sadness.
While I thought that the void of Nebraska would be the visual low point of the trip, Iowa really outdid itself. Iowa is boring. It’s painful and boring. Childlike, flat stare, playing with carpet fuzz catatonically boring. Flat land, cow pastures, and windmills as far as the eye can see. This seven hour stretch to Indianapolis was filler.

I spent time continuing my anthropomorphic bond with Lucy, helping break up the monotony of the bland countryside. Lucy didn’t present any signs of the clutch slipping in the flatlands, although I didn’t push her hard for fear of her getting upset with me. Previously, Lucy had communicated to me through the radio, and in the fugue state that is an Iowa highway drive, I started to hear her voice even clearer. I pictured her enjoying my crooning of Funeral for a Friends’ greatest hits, which was deepening my madness as it repeated again and again from the broken CD player.

I eventually arrived in Indianapolis at 5 PM and luckily I was scheduled to catch up with a friend, which allowed me to come back down to earth after my brief trip into the madness that is Iowa. Sports and video game discussion at a local sushi bar was just what I needed to remember to be human again. We headed back to his house in hot debate as to whether I should push the final drive home or break it up. I was really missing my wife and son at this point so it was a tough decision for me to stay. The last thing I remember is having one beer on the couch and my eyes getting heavy. I passed out for a solid 10 hours still dreaming of my missed free breakfast.

Pat didn’t abandon me but, but elected to follow me out to Utah just in case something happened and we had to tow Lucy back. It was also a chance for him to see my brother, one of his closest friends, so it was a win-win. After the thermostat “incident” and checking to make sure the lugs were torqued tightly, we finally left his shop a quarter before noon on Saturday. I had previously thought I would add in a ski day, but it just felt slightly decadent with my wife and son waiting at home; I elected to save that trip for another day. As I set out, I felt anxiety slowly engulf me as the reality of a cross-country journey in a half-century-old car started to flood my mind.

I quickly compartmentalized the fear of breaking down on two lane black top outside of cell phone range by taking a quick stop at the filling station in Mammoth to top off the tank. The gas station stop not only filled my car’s tanks but my own. Sitting there pumping away, I was surprised and fulfilled by the people who came up to me with some connection to the S30. Their dad had one, their best friend in high school had one, their mom’s sister’s husband had one; it was the coolest thing ever. These were relatively cheap sports cars that the average person could afford, so a large swath of America has a bond with it. It’s an everyman’s sport enthusiast vehicle and that’s what I love about it. The Datsun Club is warm and roomy; I was thrilled to be in its folds. With the safe arms of the community hugging me, my anxiety abated and I was ready for the highway, and what a highway awaited me.

If you’ve never been up Rt. 395 to Mammoth Lakes and driven through that area, it is absolutely gorgeous. The landscape pops against the desolation of that part of the country. Driving through that emptiness, my anxiety revisited when I noticed the car wasn’t holding a constant temp. Heading up through mountain passes towards Tonopah, the engine warmed to operating temp and then cooled off to about 140 degrees on the way down. I fretted that maybe the thermostat I had replaced was faulty as well. I ultimately came to the conclusion that the radiators on these cars are so big and efficient that even with the thermostat closed, they couldn’t stay warm with an ambient temperature of 25 degrees Fahrenheit outside. An hour into the trip, I realized just how cheap the APC “performance” seats really were. My ass groaned at the thought of 8 more hours.

While my nethers reached a new state of numbness, my mind reeled in the bliss that is the 240Z. Modern cars aren’t really cars any more, but merely transportation appliances. This ancient machine was pure driving pleasure: every bump in the road was felt, and every turn was earned through the lack of power steering. The chassis was stiff with little body roll. I took a mental inventory of the feel through the winding mountain passes. This was an actual car. Rather than just mash the pedal, I had to feather the throttle gently and feel the clutch out up the passes to avoid any slipping. It pulled surprisingly harder than I was expecting while heading up the inclines and I could really lay into the turns on the way down.

Lucy amazed me as I learned her, and the smile on my face grew wider through each turn. Pat’s headlights slowly dimmed into the distance as I pushed her through the twisties and then eased back down on the straights to let him catch back up. We successfully made it to Tonopah, Nevada and then Eli with no issues, other than the temperamental clutch. I stopped for gas at every opportunity. I wasn’t sure how accurate the gauge was nor what kind of mileage the2.8L (transplanted from a 280) mated to a 5-speed transmission would net me. I was worried about running low on fuel as well as overheating the pump. 

We made it to SLC around 9 PM and stopped at In-N-Out for a victory burger. You should never pass up an opportunity to get food not found in your neck of the woods. After a Double-Double and some Animal Style fries, we continued on to the outskirts of Park City, Utah. Lucy made it up the steady grade on I-80 just fine. As we took the exit for my brother’s place and started driving the back roads to his house, my anxiety rang again replaying a scary scenario. My brother has hit quite a few deer on this road, as their feeding grounds are the grassy plains right next to it. I was following Pat at this point, so I maintained some distance just in case a deer popped out. We passed a house that stole my attention because of two people standing out in front of it looking at something across the road. As my eyes darted back to the road, a deer jumped out between Pat and I. I swerved hard to the left and barely missed it. My heart was pounding and I was scared shitless there would be more. I slowed down to well below the speed limit for the last couple of miles to his house. We made it. Mission Accomplished. No issues at all save for sore butt.

The hard part was over. No matter what happened at this point, I was along a major thoroughfare and wouldn’t have any issues getting a transport company to get it now. We shot the shit for a couple of hours before crashing for the night, telling old war stories of being rural teenagers with nothing better to do.
In the morning, we got up and the stories continued over a couple cups of coffee. I laid on the floor most of the time because my butt was having trouble rebooting and sitting didn’t help it un-numb. Around 11 AM, we started talking about the rest of the journey and whether or not Lucy would make it. Pat told me “stop being a pussy about it and just do it.” He said I’d regret it if I didn’t do it, and that once I made it home, I would say “That was awesome. I ain’t ever fucking doing that again.” I decided to chance it and go for it. It turns out I left at the perfect time.

A quick refresher as to where we last were in the saga: I found a 240Z for sale on craigslist across the country, and had a friend that was semi-local go check it out. I purchased it, and due to shipping company snafus and location, as well as my heart’s whispered desire for adventure, I elected to drive this great nation: from California to Virginia, in December, with the looming risk of freak snow storms across half the distance. A genuine Lewis and Clark, from end to end, behind the wheel of one of Japan’s finest rippers.

Upon arrival, I finished my first test drive with the clutch slipping and heart alive: she was a little missile inviting my touch. After years of being censored and dampened by modern suspension advances, it was thrilling to be in a pure driving machine. There are no aides or nannies in this car whatsoever: no ABS and no power steering. It’s effectively a seat, engine, four wheels, and the open road. This would be my steed home, and I was not only going to see the country; I was going to feel every bump and divot between the gold coast and the old coast.

Before we could embark, Pat and I pulled back into his shop and got to work. In our hubris we thought we could simply adjust the clutch, hoping that it was a minor adjustment, but to no avail. Along with fiddling with the clutch, she got new oil, oil filter, brake fluid, clutch fluid, coaxed her heater to work, and most importantly, we got the defrost working. After fluid and essentials, we tackled wiring issues and chased a dim headlight to a failing fuse. Working back from the bay we cleaned the K&N air filter, greased the drivetrain, checked the brakes for pad life and shoe wear, and checked all hoses for potential cracks. By the end of the day I could barely lift my arms, but my heart was full with love for my pure driving machine.

We headed back to his place exhausted but excited. The Z felt ready to make the jaunt to SLC, where we planned to stay with my brother. With so much accomplished, our morning list was small, and my hope buoyed that we would be highway bound before long. One thing still concerned me: the old girl wasn’t maintaining operating temps. But, figuring a thermostat was a minor repair, I drifted off that evening dreaming of Virginia back roads and my new driver’s machine. We woke up fairly early Saturday to button up the small items.

I began to pull the thermostat housing and immediately snapped the first bolt. Dread came crashing in, and I began to panic that this trip wasn’t going to happen, and I started questioning my decision making skills. Luckily cooler heads prevailed, and after spending an hour drilling out the snapped bolt and securing replacements, she was ready to make the trip. We messed with the clutch adjustment some more, but no matter what we did, we could never get the clutch to not slip. This worried me a little as I was about to drive 2,600+ miles on a slipping clutch through remote parts of the country.

The more hours I put into her, the more I fell in love with her. She wasn’t taken care of very well physically, but that was about to change. I vowed to give her everything in that moment, OEM+ and all. I wasn’t put off by her paint peeling, the lost interior knickknacks and the dull neglected plastic sheen. Some enthusiasts might gasp at her cracked dashboard that was hidden by a plastic cover. Purists would scoff at the choke lever crudely secured to the center console, but I adored her in her imperfections; I loved everything about her. She was exactly what I had been seeking: solid wood over which to stretch clean white canvas and start painting my magnum opus.

Before departure she offered one other imperfect surprise to me: the CD player wouldn’t open. I was going to be stuck listening to one CD the entire trip. Fortunately, it was Funeral for a Friend’s “Your History is Mine” and I was glad for it. As I was pulling her out of the garage, getting ready to embark on a grand adventure, something strange happened. While I’m familiar with the tradition of naming cars, I have never named any of my cars and didn’t intend to name this one; that is, until she spoke to me. Maybe other cars have spoken but I didn’t have ears to hear them. Other cars were utility; this one was passion. Passion to travel across the country and lie on my back, draining old fluid and chasing ancient wiring. In my passion and my joy I heard her name as clear as a cold start: Lucy. Her name was Lucy. The cynic in me chalks it up to sleep deprivation and delirium, but the romantic in me knows the truth: I was for her as she was for me.

Stay tuned for part 4 where I stop romanticizing this car and start actually driving her!

I’d found the car I wanted, but, coming from across the country, how would I buy it? With everyone and their uncle leery of wire transfers thanks to the numerous Nigerian princes out there, I had to come up with a way to get my money in the seller’s hands without having him being scared of getting ripped off. Any banker in their right mind would warn him against accepting a wire transfer. I could always mail him a check, but then I’d be vulnerable if he backed out. I considered putting the money into an escrow account, which is common, but that would take time: time I didn’t have, since I was on both the seller and my friend’s schedules.

Golf, it turns out, would be the Klonopin all three of us would need to ease the anxiety. My friend Pat works for the golf course at Mammoth Lakes, CA, and the seller was a golf pro at his local resort. Once the two of them made the connection, it was smooth sailing from there. I wired the money directly to his bank, but the tellers warned him of the potential scam. He shrugged it off and put faith in me and Pat. He was $7000 richer, and I was $7000 poorer, with the title to a 1972 240Z. I kept in contact with the seller over the next few days, as transfers can take time. I wanted him to be sure that this wasn’t a scam and that the money was transferred.

Pat made the 4 hour trek back with my new pride and joy while I started contacting shipping companies to get it loaded onto a trailer to ship back east. This turned out to be a nightmare. Transport companies tend to just accept whatever job they can within a reasonable price range, regardless of the location of the vehicle. I had multiple carriers accept the job, wait a few days to a week, call me to arrange pick up, realize the location sucked, and then cancel on me. It was Thanksgiving , and time wasn’t doing me any favors either, as roads and winter storms could disable travel at any time.

After a few weeks of waiting, I wondered if I should just try and drive it home. I started researching flights and found a few decent fares. I talked with my wife to see what she thought of me embarking on this journey, and she was 100% supportive. I waffled for a couple days on the decision, since I figured I would need a two week lead time to make the flight prices work. As luck would have it, I was finally going to pull a sort of scam on Frontier. Frontier was offering $48 one way flights to Vegas. I could leave the next day for fifty bucks and start the journey. If you aren’t aware of Frontier, they nickel and dime you for everything. You want to choose your seat? That’s an extra fifteen bucks. You want to bring a carry-on item? That’s an extra fifty bucks. You want to use the bathroom, ten bucks. I might be the first person to make that flight for the advertised price. I was planning on packing light anyways, so this was more of an incentive. I shoved everything I would need to bring with me in a “personal item” sized backpack. With 30 hours notice, I was on my way to Vegas with only a backpack and a one-way rental car destined for MMH airport in Mammoth Lakes. 

I arrived in Vegas at 1 AM on Friday, December 1, 2017. I wasn’t hassled one bit from Frontier, which honestly surprised me, as I figured they would try and nickel and dime me at any opportunity. I got about 4 hours of “plane sleep” on my flight; that kind of sleep where you’re partially awake and partially asleep at the same time. Where you’re constantly entering and leaving consciousness. As I had a long drive ahead of me, any sleep I got was better than none.

I got to my Enterprise rental car at about 1:30 AM and embarked on the five hour drive to Mammoth. I stopped at the infamous Alien Highway rest stop off of Route 95 north of Vegas, and was bemused to see that they had an alien brothel. If I had more time, was single, and desperate, I might have walked in just to see what it was all about.

In between Mammoth and Vegas is nothing but highway, a small town, and a few brothels. I made it to the small town of Beatty around 4 AM. I was starting to get a little tired, and thought I saw something in the middle of the road. It wasn’t an alien, but I’ll be damned if it wasn’t two donkeys crossing the street. They didn’t acknowledge or flinch as I came to a quick halt about 10 feet away. I had seen wild horses crossing the road when I previously lived out here, but never wild donkeys. I wasn’t sure if that was an omen, but I pushed on regardless. I made it to Pat’s house in Mammoth at about 6:30 AM.

I finally got to see her after weeks of waiting. Pat had gotten busy tearing her down a little bit to prep her for the trip. The original radio was long gone and she had been spliced open (Dash Panel had been hacked apart) to store an antiquated aftermarket CD player. I say store, because the head unit wasn’t even connected to power or the speakers. If you’re going to make a trip across country, you have to have music. And it’s sad to say, but if I was going to go from Mammoth to Northern VA, I needed tunes or else I didn’t think I could make it. He had also wired up the cigarette lighter so I could charge my phone for the trip.

We buttoned her up so I could take her out for a quick test drive and stop by the local NAPA auto parts to get a few needed items. The clutch was slipping under load in 3rd, 4th, and 5th but once you got above 3500 rpm, she would hold and pull all the way to 6k, which is short of redline. I wasn’t ready to push her that high yet. This 240 had a L28 paired with a 5 speed transmission which was perfect for highway cruising. It still had the stock 240Z secondary cylinder adjustment rod, so I was hoping to make some adjustments to get rid of the slipping clutch. Would it work? Tune in next time to find out!

The Dastun 240Z is one of the most iconic sports cars of the 1970s, and, I’d argue, the 20th century. It is a timeless design coupled with old fashioned Japanese quality workmanship and engineering.

I’ve tried to remember when I first fell in love with the S30, and I think I my appreciation began around 2010. At that time, I owned a 2005 WRX and was an active member of NASIOC, a popular Subaru Impreza forum. I had gotten bored one day on the site and delved into the off topic forum where I found a thread about 240Zs. I was smitten with the first image that loaded. It was metallic blue, lowered, and customized with fender flares, a shaved rear end, larger wheels, and a few other custom pieces. It was absolutely gorgeous. The modifications were simple and elegant in a period where extreme camber and two stepping at car shows was all the rage. I had never realized until that point how timeless these cars were. I vowed that day that, eventually, I would own one.

At that moment, I started keeping an eye on Craigslist. In a conversation with my father, I casually mentioned my slight obsession with them. While he isn’t a collector or a car guy in general, he spoke to me as if I was an idiot. It turned out he had owned a ’70 240Z before I or any of my siblings were born. He and my mother loved that car and told me a few anecdotes about owning it. It was at that point that my desire to own one grew and I was going to buy one. Unfortunately, I was working a job that I loved, but I didn’t have the disposable income to “throw away” at restoring an old car, so I had to put my obsession on hold. I remember talking to my brother about them right after discussing with my dad. “You want to restore a classic car? A 240Z? that’s not really a classic though.” Little did he know just how incorrect that statement was. The S30 is really starting to appreciate in value now, and some of them go for $50k or more on Bring a Trailer.

I started moving up in my company and finally became financially stable enough to seriously consider one. As time went on, I began laying the groundwork for ownership. I bought a house with a garage so I could start pursuing projects and keep my car out of the bitter cold Virginia winters. No way was I going to let mother nature reclaim through oxidation my soon to be pride and joy. My wife knew I was ready to pull the trigger on a project and was very supportive of it as I began my online search for a 240Z. In November of 2017, I finally found an example in my price range, and it was rust free. The only issue was that it was located in California.

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Fortunately, I had a friend that lived within a few hours who was also a gear head. He has some cool projects as well, like a 1 of <2,000 turbo DSM Colt and a Suzuki Samurai with a VW diesel motor swap. He understood my passion and offered to make the drive to check it out.

It was a perfect project, my friend claimed. There was no rot on it: just a little surface rust in the usual spots and a “nickel” (aka a shitty Maaco) paint job. It was living outside, but the owner made sure to tell me that this was his “driver”. Living outside in the arid parts of California is quite different than the east coast. Cars with exposed metal will often take years to develop surface rust, while back east you watch the chemical process take place in damn near real time. If this car had lived its life on the east coast, it would have returned back to the earth long ago. The windows were cloudy from years of sitting outside, exposed to the occasional rain storm. It had some cheap Chinese tires on it that had tread, but just looked really old. It had cheap APC seats, and the drivers side had a fairly large mouse hole in it. However, this was right up my alley; with a little bit of time and money, and this would be the perfect project car.

Read more the Z Odyssey archive.