seattlejester

I've always really enjoyed your car, looks great!

Hmm, haven't heard of serial 9. If it is indeed 2inch ID you might be able to get it to work pending the height of the tube and thread pitch. I guess that came out pretty blunt. Allow me to elaborate... So your choices are serial 9, mikinney, and zccjdm or I guess home made. Mikinney only sells the 280z version (2 and 1/8th) according to their website (might be able to ask if they have any of the 2 ID size left), and serial 9 adapter is for a mx73 cressida, so the only ones that are specifically made for a 240z and I believe have the little hump carved out to seat right up against the bottom of the housing is zccjdm. If you have the 280z sleeves, you can use 280z suspension. Pretty much interchangeable and it will have the stronger stub axle to boot. The extra length and height don't matter all that much since you will be chopping it all off anyways.

...Zccjdm sells the zccjdm coilover adapter sleeves, and if you buy the 240z sleeves, you should get the 240z sleeves.

There is a set of HP struts and eibach lowering springs for sale very locally if anyone is in a hurry .

I wouldn't bank on them going down much, the seller is right, their aren't many Z cars in the UK (for good reason) and they are a rarity over there. I'm going to say don't let your heart get in front of your head on this one. 500 pounds is roughly what 800$, that is going to be pittance compared to what you may/will be investing in repairs. And if it was your car, and you take an offer of 500 pounds, doesn't that mean you got the better end of the deal? How bad would the car really be? It seems like you have been waiting for a while, what is a couple more months, a few more years? You will have more money to spend and more knowledge. But then again, it really is your money and your choice, I know when I saw my car in person, I wrote an IOU to get it into my hands. If you really want to get the car: do point out the missing trim pieces. do point out the rust in all the locations mentioned. do take a look under the car for any rusted metal. do not point out how much of a classic it will be. do take cash. But be very prepared to walk away, if you don't have that in your head you will be game to whatever the seller wants: do walk away if the rockers and frame rails are compromised (possibility of warped body) do walk away if the paint is bubbling all over the car (a lot more rust is hiding) do walk away if you don't have the prospect of a couple of grand to spend in repairs (I'd rather delay a Z enthusiast then loose one to debt) Good luck.

I believe on your side of the pond, the 260Z carried all the way till the 280zx, thus a 2+2 260z is possible, someone who is familiar with that may have to chime in. The car was resprayed at some point (Blue engine bay), and seeing how much rust is poking through the paint, probably poorly. Given what I know of the UK, most cars will tend to be quite rusty and this seems to be no exception, your father is a very smart man. The rust near the fuel filler cap points towards quite a bit of corrosion probably present. The hood looks fairly gone and one of the headlights seems to need repair. Interior looks to be in good shape and all there, that alone is worth a bit, but at the same time, if you look at the door sills, you can spot rust on either side indicating probably a fair amount of rust in the rockers and looking near the pedals you can spot some rust, indicating a leak of some kind is present, most likely this leak will have seeped and rusted the floors. In my opinion, the 2+2 is not that great a starting point. The extra length ruins the iconic rear quarter glass. Don't get me wrong, there are a few which have been executed very well, but in general I think a 2+2 is going to be harder to pull off than a coupe. Conclusion, pass on it. If you are in Uni, you probably won't have much money to spend to fix the car up, while once again there are quite a few people, (a lot on this board), that have pulled off a very cool project car on a students budget, you will see some builds that are painfully ruined and on the verge of questionable due to a lack of funds. And given how strict an MOT inspection is, this car will probably need quite a bit of work to be kept on the road (lots of welding, panel beating = money). Unless you are going somewhere where you know there won't be anything to do, or anyone to socialize with, a project car can be pretty bad. Save up, and find a better starting point that you won't have to invest all your time and energy into. Personal example, I spent the last two year of my Uni working on my car, never went out on weekends, and always doing research and work. Yea, I have a pretty fun car now, but my grades suffered, and I grew apart with a lot of people. On the other hand, I had a friend go to school in the middle of no where, other than classes he literally had nothing to do, he probably could have used a distraction. Edit: sorry I got on my high horse before answering your questions. Repair-Reason-Difficulty-Estimated costs Floors Based off of picture of the interior pedals, water seeped in at some point. All sound proofing will have to be removed as well as interior-about 10 hours in labor if replacing with flat floors. ~800$ Hood This piece is gone replace it Rear wing Based off of picture of the rear quarter, and color change. A new panel will have to be sourced and welded in meticulously slowly to prevent warping, lead soldering will have to be used to limit the use of bondo which in your climate would most likely trap water and rust very quickly. If you can source a panel about 4 hours in labor for removing and installing new panel, lead soldering and paint will be much more. ~400$ Rear bumper Based off picture of the rear quarter, looks either really dirty or some deep inset rust-as long as the main supports aren't rusted it is a pretty easy replacement with the correctly sourced patch panel. 4 hours in labor for removing prepping and installing new panel, lead soldering and paint will be much more ~400$ Firewall Looks to be surface rust, may need just a quick sanding and some rust inhibitor You get lucky on this one because it is vertical, unfortunately the side where the battery rests may be rusty, pretty easy to replace with a flat piece of sheet about 4 hours. ~400$ Frame Rail These tend to be rusted out, if you decide to cap them the repair isn't too bad about 4 hours a side, if you decide to remove the rust this can cost a great deal depending on the level of restoration, which will need a jig to hold the car in shape ~800$ to 3000$ (full strip, custom jig, front to back, etc) These are super ball park estimates, a friend of mine was quoted 2000$ for just floors, and another was quoted a few snapples ice teas for a replacement patch panel. You can see how each section quickly adds up. Without a friend who is a welder/panel beater you are going to get into trouble real quick. And pictures really don't do a car justice, if you are at all in any way serious, go take a look at the car. Look at how bad the panels are and decide for your self. Sorry for the long post.

Bouncing speedo is normal as far as I know, mine is inaccurate until I get to about 10-15mph, anything below that and it just pulsates. As far as the harness, I would wait until the roll bar/cage is done to install it. Technically speaking a 4 point without an antisubmarine system of some sort (antisubmarine belt/break away strap) is going to be unsafe in a big accident, more so than the stock 3 point. It took me a bit of time to get that through my head. Car looks and sounds great!

Surprisingly enough, I had the exact same build planned, and I mean exact: E31 head, N42 valves F54 block Stock KA24 pistons L24 rods SU carbs What killed that plan for me was budget and future upgrades. I had an E31 head, but having some of the chambers worked and the new valves installed with appropriate seats was looking at about 900-1000, having the block bored out, boiled, tumbled, and decked with a torque plate was about 1000, I had L24 rods, the pistons would be a few hundred, and I had the carbs (yes the first machine shop I went to charges quite a bit). All in all that would run about 3k after new gaskets and seals to have a middle of the road engine. Even with all that machine work, you would still be running stock ka24 pistons. To purchase nice forged ones would cost over a grand (keep in mind you have to buy two sets of 4), and the SU's would idle horribly (on my L28, the SU's have to idle at 10.5-11.0 to keep it from leaning out during partial throttle). Short of boring them out or running new needle profiles (I have sm's but don't have them installed) you would have a hard time idling especially with a lumpy cam. So throw in a set of tripples and you are adding another grand or at least a couple hundred for a used set. In the short of it, it would cost about roughly 5 grand to have a decent 3.0 liter, and for 5k you can have pretty much your pick of any engine out there. Unless you have the money to go for it, or a hookup at the machine shop, or happen to have all the parts, I would steer clear for the time being. I'm very happy with my rebuilt N42/N42 L28, and it's nice to know I can go turbo with just a few parts. A built 3.0 block will be in my future, but for how much it would cost, I think I can have a lot of fun in the meantime. That's my 0.02, but if you decide to go for it, please post results! I'm very curious to see what the other path would have produced.

Sweet progress, I am enjoying your build very much!

If it sat for a while with E85 (which is acidic) it could have eaten away at the rubber a bit and clogged the filter. Best case replace filter, worst case may have to replace some lines and have the injectors cleaned. But that's just the internet talking

So plans have changed, and I had to move out of my garage. It's been a busy few weeks. And as I was ever approaching my break in oil change (500 miles) I've been trying to drive the Z every time I get. An earlier post will show that I was concerned regarding a brake line bracket that kept moving up. Well...I drove up to my parents house and parked it to go to church, and when I got back, I turned on the car, stepped on the brake and nothing. Thank god I park the car in gear and always backed into a curb, as I looked under the car to see a large puddle forming under the car. Took the wheel off to find something quite different in that, the brake hose had worn through. Ordered a new line and installed, flushed and bled the system and now I'm keeping a keener eye on my lines. I'm still leaking a couple drops of oil from where the transmission and engine meet. I have a spare valve cover gasket I'm going to use, just in case it is leaking through the back, but it looks like my rear crank main seal may be leaking . Kind of disqualifies me from competition, so will have to get that addressed. The rear suspension has unfortunately settled quite a bit more and now I'm tucking a bit of tire in the back and have a one finger gap up front. I'm going to try some rubber spring spacers to get some of the ride height back. Plan is to get some work done before the final day, including my break in oil change, installation of my hydraulic brake, repair of my cable brake, fixing some leaks in the door (found quite a puddle in my car after the spot of rain yesterday). I leave you with these pictures for now, taken by my artsy friend.

Thanks for the response Jon, I think I may have to consider relocating that bracket as well, either that or cut out the lip that juts out from the unibody.

Howdy, So I've been taking the rear wheel on and off while updating some of my suspension bits, and I noticed that the rear brake line bracket on the car has slowly been moving up, until two days ago, I found the brake line touching against the body. Specifically, the 1971 240z, car is lowered on cut 280z tokico springs with tokico blue struts, with about a 1 finger gap in the rear on 15x7 -0, 215/50/15 with a rear brake disc conversion using a maxima rear caliper. It seems under hard accelertation, the brake line holding bracket is bending up toward the body, am I the only one with this problem? Could some people who have routed their own brakes, or don't have this problem take a picture of the bracket?

The 3m bonder is stated for use with non-structural parts, the rocker is very structural in the 240's. Especially if the whole area is rusted causing you to replace it. Places suggested it not be used include unibody rocker panels. Jig/brace it then weld it. If you can't do it, pay someone else to do it.

Did you replace the intake/exhaust gasket? A leaking gasket can make the car run pretty rich if everything else is the same. Firing order 153624?

I am curious where he got the year from, everything about it, sans the roundtop carbs (which should be earlier than '73), point towards what Tony says.

Mig and flux are kind of mutually exclusive. I suppose you can run flux through a mig welder, but I believe you have to change polarity and it would be fair bit of a downgrade. Unless you are limited by location (car does not move and is outside where it is windy all the time), I agree with the person above, with flux it will be fairly difficult not to blow thru, you will have a lot more splatter which means more cleanup. Buy/rent an argon/co2 mix mig setup with adjustable speed and amperage. Are you removing the whole rocker? Or just a portion of it? Recommendations: It is spot welded from the factory so a spotweld cutting bit is very helpful to cut through the welds. Alternatively you can use a cold chisel to rip out the surrounding material and grind the spot welds down. If you are just removing portions, a die grinder with a cutoff disk works fairly well, and if you lay the new rocker on the old and and cut at the same time, you will have a perfect patch panel (make it a little bigger so you have some overlap) Cut out all the cancer, remove until you get to clean unpitted metal. Clean painted surfaces down to the metal (both sides), remove anything flammable/valuable from the area. If you are removing the whole rocker, the car should probably be braced or on a jig or something, the rocker is a fairly large structural piece, without it the car can warp. If you just have a shell it would be better. Clamps, lots of clamps, use lots of clamps and vice grips to hold the new panel on. Couple on the bottom and couple on the top at the least. Alignment, take pictures and all the measurements you can to where the stock panel was. Weld as hot as you can go without blowing through. You want to make sure you have good penetration, but remember to skip around so you don't warp the panel. Depending on the maker of the replacement panel, you may need to drill holes yourself for the pseudo spot weld. The bottom and the middle portions of the rocker have seams, seal these up or you will get a rusty panel again. Rust inhibitor spray, eastwood sells a flexible spray nozzle you can use to spray the interior of the rocker once you replace it to keep the rocker from rusting again, alternatively you can use a full spray can and spray in the holes from the interior of the car.

^Where did you get the wheels from? The 17x9.5 -20 size isn't even listed!

There we go, single filament bulb with housing control. I have the same setup, but from a different source. Only trouble shooting I can give over the internet is: 1. Try the same with the car running and a voltmeter (please provide voltage readings). If the problem goes away it is the flasher which is draining too much power, replace flashers (the solenoid), or better yet replace them and run them off relays as well. 2. Unplug the housing control. If the problem goes away the housing control is loosing voltage or seeing voltage from another source (I can't recall if the circuit is an always on or always off for the high beams, I would imagine they are always off). Find the source of the drain or surge, and fix. My charging system is fairly new, with a new battery, new wiring, higher output zx alternator, and my voltage still drops 1.5-2 volts when I'm using the flashers.

It would be helpful if you posted your headlight/wiring setup. As well as a voltage readings. Are they on relays? HID's? Moving bulb style (HID bulb moves forward when receiving input from high beam), or regular bulb? Without that all this is just assumption, but essentially what I notice is that the high beams dim with the flasher? If the bulb is the moving bulb style (can't recall name off the top of my head), it looks like you are sending power to the bulb to switch between high and low using the flasher signal. Either that or you are draining just enough power with the flasher that the magnet that pulls the bulb looses charge each time the flasher goes off, thus moving the bulb. Try it with the car running.

My 0.02, a lot of it is just repeating what other people have said. I pulled my 5 speed from a '79ZX and it went into a '71. The transmission does bolt in with the stock crossmember as long as it is not the T-5 (good time to replace the transmission mount). You do need to cut the transmission tunnel ~2 inches forward and either fold the metal over or cut it off, which will result in a new shift boot. You can use the either gear stick, but 3rd will be inside your radio/heater control, so you will probably need to either put an S to move the gear lever back, cut and weld in a piece to move it back, or I think the short shifter has an adequate curve and reduced throw to work. For my application, I needed to shorten the ZX driveshaft by about an inch, I think this may have something to do with my 2+2 mustache bar for my R200, but your results may vary. Oh and if you have another drive shaft/spare shaft, you can cut or use the whole things as a plug and swap out the tranny fluid while everything is nice and accessible. Also a great time to inspect and replace your slave cylinder and boot.

Hey Matt, if no one else wants or needs the space, I don't mind one or two longer term projects. So far just a few of my friends are lined up for some brake jobs, and I think I can get those done this weekend. Anything in mind?

Hiya folks, I was not sure where to put this, but I thought this would be the place. Now that my car is mobile, I have an offer for some local washington folks. Garage and tool usage! I was hoping I would have more time, but I will be moving in the next month or so to a much smaller area with probably no garage space to speak of, and I would really like to give back to the site that really helped me out a lot. So other than a donation to this site (which I will make very shortly), I am offering the use of tools and garage space for local Z guys for the next two or so weeks. I know that many people are on a budget, and sometimes you just need a helping hand or some nice concrete to lay on, or a project is too small to take to a shop, let's get those tasks done! So what that means... I will try and get the garage prepped this week for usage to get as many people through. Including building some ramps and organizing tools for efficient access. If anyone has a small project they would like done, I am willing to offer space and tools. There are a few caveats: cars must arrive and leave on their own power or transportation, no large projects, projects have to be very well planned out. There will be penalties for badly planned projects, tool destruction, and large messes, in the form of monetary or food costs (I am serious on this front). Example...you want to weld in a patch panel. You should arrive with the area clear (everything unbolted from the area like seats, carpet, sound deadening both on top and bottom), the area should be clean of paint, the rust should be cut out, and you should have a carefully cut out patch and seam sealer on hand. If you plan on painting you should pick a dry day or bring some method of keeping the panel from rusting on your return drive. If I or the group of people there have to spend time unbolting your seat, wire brushing the paint off, cutting out the panel, fitting the panel, on top of welding the panel in and paint/prime it, etc you can imagine that will push back anything else planned for the day, and thus you will be expected to put money in the kitty or will be required to buy some food, or help someone else on there project. This is going to be done seriously the more grave your offense the more grave your penalty. On the other hand, if you are unsure how to do a task, I highly advise helping someone out who is doing something similar. I don't know much, but I'd be happy to help point you in the right direction to the best of my ability. So once again, I have tools and garage space to help other Z owners in the area. I hesitate to put free, but it nearly will be as long as you address the caveats. Caveats: The project should be very very well researched, all the parts on hand, and you should be ready to get your hands dirty. Cars arrive and leave on their own power or transportation. No overnight or large projects please, (including substantial structural repairs etc), no cars left behind, AAA is a must if you are planning something that might result in this action. If the task requires tool destruction (grinder discs, dremel bits, drill bits, welding wire and gas, etc) a monetary fee will be asked to compensate (I'm thinking no more than 20$ unless you destroy my welder or break the jack). Projects will have to be approved. Timeline: Starting next monday, I will be opening up the garage for about two weeks. Tasks allowed: Any small task Tools available: Ramps Die grinders Impact guns Metric wrenches Metric sockets Torque wrenches Breaker bars Hammer, sheet metal folder, and dollies Welder (some fee to address consumable wire and gas) Jack Jackstands Hydraulic Press Drills Synchrometer Timing light Large cut off saw Variety of sand paper Wire brushes Screw drivers (flat and philips) Soda and sand blaster (these will require a large cleanup, be warned) Soldering iron Clamps Vice grips Please feel free to post your thoughts and requests.

Seems like you have had a run of bad luck. My rear brake kit was from a guy in las vegas. His kit used the maxima rear caliper and a turned down 300zx rotor as you describe. There is indeed about a one inch (or so) gap from the center of the rotor to the caliper, but the caliper makes full contact as far as I can tell, just makes contact a bit further than you might be used to. If you need to try out a turned down 300zx rotor I do have a spare set if you want to fit them, but I think you will find the gap is still there.

Depends on the pitting (do you have a picture?), but would cutting it out and patching it be out of the question? The stock floors aren't too thick and if there's visible pitting, enough to concern you it means there really isn't very much material at the bottom of the pit. I'd hate to see a hole when a rock bounces up and hits the thin part For seam sealer I went to NAPA and grabbed the black generic stuff. They have 2k sealers which are gaurenteed not to shrink, absorbs paint etc, but just like paint that are pretty pricey. At 3-5$ a tube the generic stuff has worked great for me, two tubes for the whole car and no leaks, shrinkage, or paint chips to speak of. I do advise clean disposable gloves and a grout shaper tool to make nice smooth seals.