New owner of 1991 240sx SE Hatchback - maintenance questions

[RickBlaine]

Hello all,

I was with my buddy back in July of 1991 to give him a ride to the Nissan dealer to pick up his brand new black 240sx SE hatchback with automatic transmission and without ABS brakes. He moved to Seattle a little later and the car never saw road salt. As a doctor, he always had it serviced and kept in top shape. Long story short, he just gave me the car (2013) and bought a Skyline. Well, it has just 100,000 miles on her, bone stock, and very reliable.

The only rust was of course the dreaded stock foam rear spoiler (what was Nissan thinking?) which was falling off. I pulled it off (it crumbled) and luckily only one of the ten mounting holes had rust. I will take care of the holes and paint next week. Other than that, she drives and looks good. I want to change all the fluids and do a brake job on her. I am pretty handy and do most of the wrenching work on my Honda Accord.

Do you have any recommendations for finding part numbers for her? I need to change the automatic transmission fluid and filter, change the air filter, complete brake job including fluid, spark plugs, and even order a new carpet. The guys at the local Nissan dealer here in Skokie, IL (where the car was bought from) went nuts went the car went up for an oil change. It is 22 years old and the underside looks new.

Any part numbers listed?
Any procedures for changing the transmission filter and complete brake job?

Thank you!

[mechanicalmoron]

The procedure for the transmission is usually to replace it with a manual....

I suggest that you just use quality fluids (valvoline being my go-to) of the proper specifications. There's probably no real reason to use fancy plugs on a stock motor, I just use copper..... but maybe others will disagree with me on this. Don't blindly replace the wires, use a multimeter to check the resistance against the spec, they're probably just fine, doing wires without checking them is voodoo. You might do the distributer cap and rotor, because they're just so cheap and they do wear out, and will have a small effect on your spark. For filters and such I generally use a reliable house brand, autozone/duralast is my choice. It's consumer-y, but generally good quality and they're generally willing to take things back that you are not satisfied with, when the "genuine nissan" part might cost 3x as much for the same part. (I'm NOT saying to buy crap, just be be thrifty).

All the part numbers you need can generally be found on courtesyparts.com, they have all sorts of great obscure OEM stuff. Nico also has the entire factory service manual (fsm), which can be found in a sticky at the top of this (240 general chat) forum. There's also the supplemental body/other manuals, at 240sx.org (get there from the "car-specific sites" menu at the upper left).

Do the trunk right, weld it. (A year later, I'm still looking for an oppertunity to hammer out my JB weld patches and weld mine) Or if the car's that perfect, you could find a stock wing-less hatch of the right color.

[RickBlaine]

@mechanicalmoron: THANK YOU! I spent a few hours running through a few of these links and there even was a post there on how to fix the rusty hatchback! Many pictures are missing/no longer hosted- but the car is 22 years old so I assume some members have left their hosting services lapse.

I searched Craigslist and found a rust-free hatch, different color, for $90, but I think I will use a sandblaster, fiberglass patches, Bondo, and a lot of sanding to repair the existing one as my car is black and the replacement hatch is white. As for maintenance, the link you provided was very helpful, and a little confusing. There seems to be two different automatic transmission filter kits for my car. Maybe I'll drop the pan and THEN order the new filter and gasket based on what I find.

Funny about making it a manual transmission....I think for now I will stick to auto just because it works fine.

I also saw the links to remove the tail lights and replace the gasket material to stop the ever so slight leaking during a rain storm.

I have my work cut out for me- but am enjoying the thumbs up and the stares when I drive it around Chicago. Really, it is rust-free (except a couple of holes where the evil foam spoiler was) and even has the original wheels.

Thank you again and if you know of any specific links for brake jobs, auto trans filter replacement, and even all four struts (they are Nissan and have 50,000 miles on them) I would appreciate it.

[mechanicalmoron]

courtesyparts probably has the struts and such, but if you have 50k struts I'd assume they're still fine. If you upgrade them, I'd suggest reading about exactly what you want, and getting aftermarket, or coilovers. (240s come a tad high, like the different design teams didn't quite work out what looks good for the body and also puts the frame the right height..... lower it an inch or so and it centers the wheels in the wheelwells, looks a million times better).

If you like auto better that's fine and all, but I think you'll have a hard time finding anyone who knows or cares about the auto transmissions, other than how to pull them out.

I know it's got a bad rap with some, but I generally get OE stuff at autozone, they do me right from whatever type of filter I need, to whatever. If they don't have it, NAPA might, but that's hardly ever an issue.

I, having epoxyed aluminium patches under the holes in the hatch, suggest against that. If you press on it you'll hear it crack and mess up stuff, it will probably leak a bit and keep rusting, etc..... fiberglass is, as far as I know, a bandaid for throwaway cars. I say replace the hatch or get it welded.