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History of my Z31
I purchased my 1989 Nissan 300ZX NA 5-Speed 2+0 on April 23, 2004 from the
Naperville Police auction. I had not been at the auction to purchase a car; I
went with a friend because I was curious to see what kind of items would be
available there. When I realized that there were also cars at the auction, the Z
caught my eye. I knew absolutely nothing about it, not even the name of the car,
but it just stood out from the beat-up pickup trucks and junky Hyundai that were
also in the row. My parents were never keen on the idea of me buying a car; it
was generally assumed that I would inherit the Ford Contour and share it with my
brother through high school. I, of course, had other plans, and I was initially
leaning towards an El Camino before arriving at the police auction that morning.
However, the auction was the perfect setting; no parents, a small group (perhaps
30) people interested in the cars, and payments payable by personal check. I had
quit my job bagging groceries earlier in the year, but I still had my checking
account with some money left over.
When the auction finally moved to the cars, I anxiously waited as a few trucks
and a Grand Am were sold off. The trucks with 300,000+ miles went for peanuts,
while the Grand Am sold for a few thousand. This was also my first time at an
auction, so the whole bidding process was somewhat foreign and exciting to me as
well. Finally, the 300ZX was next. The elderly auctioneer started rambling about
the 'sporty little black car' as the auction lady started the car up to show it
was running. BAM, the car lurched forward and stalled immediately. This was our
first rude introduction to the fact that the car was stick, and the lady was
obviously flustered. "Place the automobile in neutral and pull the Johnson bar!
The Johnson bar!" the old man yelled over the microphone. Some of the people
behind me were chuckling at the old man; to this day I have never again heard
the emergency brake called the 'Johnson bar'. After a minute or two of
confusion, the car was put in neutral and started up properly, and it seemed to
run reasonably well. At the onset there were three bidders; myself, a
middle-aged guy, and a 30's black guy. I let the first bids go by, then jumped
in at $500. From there it was back and forth between myself and the black guy,
each one of us nodding to the auctioneer's call for $100 more. I finally bid
$1,000, and the black guy paused for a moment before going to $1,100. I looked
at the car as the auctioneer turned back to me and was talking at the speed of
light as my mind raced. I knew nothing about how the car actually drove; hell, I
had never even driven a stick car before. I didn't have a huge amount in my
checking account, my parents didn't really know about this at all, I was making
a major purchase with exactly an hour of prior consideration and no
research...but hey, that's what being a teenager is all about. I laid down the
bid at $1,200, and was overjoyed when the other guy shook his head at $1,300.
The Z was mine.
The parents reacted as expected, with an almost textbook display of the 5 stages
of grief. Denial: "You did not just purchase a car behind our backs! We can't
believe you'd do something like this." Anger: "This is not over, mister. If you
think you're keeping this car, you have another thing coming." Bargaining: "If
you take it back to the auctioneer, we'll think about letting you purchase a car
in the future." Depression: (no talking). And finally acceptance. Muahaha.
There was always the problem of getting the Z home. I had never driven stick,
and neither of my parents had the slightest clue how to drive stick either. I
ended up calling a buddy from one of my classes at school who is an expert
mechanic and works at his father's shop. He was nice enough to come out on a
Thursday night and get the car out of the police lot with me. After putting some
gas into it and trying to investigate what came to be known as 'the clunk', we
drove over to Arrowhead Industrial Park in Plainfield where the shop is located
(for anyone in the southwest Chicago suburbs:
DJ's Auto & Truck is one of the best and most reputable shops in the area).
I drove the car around for an easy 45 minutes before switching back to drive
home. Here are a few pictures of the car that I took the next day:
Besides handing over the title and keys, I was given very little on the history
of the car. It had 131,000 miles, had somehow ended up in the hands of the
Naperville Police Department (an organization I don't find particularly
favorable) and no owner or servicing history. It found its way to the police
auction by either being a car involved in a drunken driving arrest, or a
suspended / revoked license seizure. There were plenty of reminders that
previous owners left in the car, in the way of receipts, scraps of paper with
phone numbers scrawled on them, and even a plane ticket from San Jose to O'Hare.
I half expected to find bricks of cocaine falling from hidden compartments, but
so far nothing like that has turned up. There were at least a handful of owners
over the past few years, in Aurora, Bolingbrook, and a few other neighboring
cities. It's doubtful I will come across any other information than what I have
already.
In late November, I was driving the Z to the lower parking lot at Penn State Erie. After turning onto the road next to the
lot, I shifted from first to second, and my Z made a tremendous BANG, and the whole car jolted. It hit so hard that
my rearview mirror broke off and landed in the passenger seat. I started coasting with the clutch in, and I couldn't
put it in any gear. I coasted the Z to a parking space, and feared the worst. Later on that week, some friends helped
me push the Z to another lot, where I removed the exhaust and driveshaft in preparation to drop the transmission. When
I drained the transmission fluid, however, metal pieces came out with it, and I knew that the transmission was toast. I didn't
have the money or the facilities to replace the transmission, so I had to sell my Z. I was originally going to part out what
I could and scrap the rest, until I received an e-mail from Chuck in Buffalo, New York. He was looking for an engine to have
Dan at The Specialty Shop put in his '88 showcar Z31. We settled on a final price of around $700, and Chuck and Dan came down
the next week with a trailer to pick the Z up. Here's the last time I saw my Z, picture taken with the cell phone:
Thankfully, the Z went to the best home possible. Dan's work on Chuck's '88 Z is absolutely phenomenal. You can see some
of the progress pictures at Dan's Photobucket page. Among other
things, he completely re-did the engine from my Z, with a turbocharger system, topped off with TSS parts.
One day I'd like to get another 87-89 300ZX, preferably black, but in much better condition than my first car. It had a
good run.
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