madkaw

Well I decided to replace my pump with a Walbro since everyone seems to like these pumps on this site. My stocker is bad(I believe), so I went with the upgrade/replacement. I ordered from Summitt because they have locations in the Midwest and I figured delivery would be a day faster. The problem is that summitt doesn't carry the fittings for these pumps since they are metric thread. Since this is going back in a stock application on my 81zxt, I don't want to reinvent the wheel, I just want to hook back up to the stock hoses. The only place I saw the proper fittings was at the actual Walbro site, but they don't answer their phone, or return calls. I ordered there fittings with paypal on their site and now I will only hope I get the fittings? Does anyone know where I can get the proper fittings besides Walbro incase they fall thru. I called my local Napa, but they said they didn't have the metric thread fitting. Now I wish I bought a different brand pump with NPT fittings.

Don't know if that will work.

I need a fuel pump asap for my daily driver-please Steve 317-979-9929 sfinnerty@indy.rr.com

Well I got the car back long enough to do some work on the interior and bodywork. I finally got a chance to see the interior all together with the new panels and carpet and my great find on some original seats. I think when I get some of the more important issues dealt with I will repaint all the plastic in the car. The body work is also coming along. I was able to finish off the drivers lower rear quarter and I started with the back panel and passenger quarter. The passenger rear quarter was much more of a challenge because of the spare tire panel. I spent a lot of time making patterns for the sheetmetal for the inside panels. As you can see the spare tire area really ballooned out when I started looking for good metal to weld too. I only gave myself a day and a half to do all this and really had to rush to get it done. After getting all kinds of sh%t in my eyes(yes I do wear protective eye wear) and mig burn I was able to weld close all the holes before the daughter had to take the car to work again. This is a tough way to do a partial resto-I feel for you daily drivers trying to do this. The next major hurdle is the front windshield. I ordered the clips for the moldings and I have my por15 ready, but still debating whether or not to have someone else do the removal and installation. I think I have the skills and it would cut down on the logistical stradegy of getting someone there when you need them for the install.

Sorry for the slow response, but I pulled another late nighter and worked when I should have been sleeping, so I layed down after posting. I loose my A/C just after I start reaching boost and the doors DO change from the vent to floor Tony. I don't doubt I have vacuum issues, and it sounded logical for what was happening. Cygnusx1, thanks for the visual, I will put a valve in place there when I replace all the rubber lines on this car-which will be soon. Tony, the leaking reservoir that you refered to is a resevoir for the HVAC specifically? I will look at the FSM after posting here.

So I likely have a vacuum leak somewhere?!

Another issue I have been dealing with on my 280zxt is oil on the sparkplugs-mostly seen as wet oil on the threads. It is not running down off the valve cover and the engine has been thoroughly cleaned. The cylinders are all reading about 135. I haven't had the car very long, but I have not noticed any major oil consumption or smoke. I have checked the pcv and the hose is dry between the valve and the crank case. After searching(I haven't found too many threads about oily spark plugs), I suspect noe the turbo oil seal is not holding. i am going to remove the return line to check for obstruction of the return oil-maybe building excessive pressure? Any ideas?

I noticed on my 81zxt that when I throttle up into boost and if I have my A/C on, the cold air will stop coming out of the center vents and hot air will start coming out on the floor. It's like the boost triggers a switch to change my A/C to Heat-what's up with that? Is it my compressor belt slipping( I checked it and it seems tight) or is ome kind of vacuum control not holding under boost situations? I'm not even sure where to start with this one.

This is the info I was needing guys , thanks for your inputs. Like I said I don't know much about the zxt's , so I need to be schooled. Ruzn, what hoses were you refering too specifically? Roger-thanks for the correction on the guage, now that you mention it I now remember that it was not lbs. I also read about the rod adjustment, but it sounds more like a rod replacement. I now how bigger problems now though, since the car died on my daughter yesterday on the highway. She said it was cruising nicely, but in traffic it died. She also said it made a whistling niose at around 70 and it growled when idling-so it sounds like it might be giving me it's first problems.

So full boost would be what? I am not familiar with these l28et and I don't think the manual tells you anywhere what your boost guage should be reading under full throttle and max rpm. That's why I am looking for input from other l28et drivers as far as what their stock 280zxt operates. This info would also help me determine whether the engine is performing correctly. The car seems to accelerate well, but the boost guage never exceeds 3. I have nothing to compare to but from what I read on this site and I don't know anyone that owns a 280zxt to ask.

I know there isn't much interest or talk about the auto trans , hence little info to search. My daughters auto seems to work fine, but I don't know what is normal shift rpms under hard acceleration. I figure I would post and hopefully get some feed back to learn some of the idiosyncrasies of this car. Her car under hard acceleration the trans shifts at about 4750rpm-does that seem right? I'm not sure about these boost guages, but hers never goes over 3lbs of boost. So neither the rpm or boost gets anywhere near the red on the guages-is this also normal? I was reading about changing the rod length to alter shift patterns, but it sounds like a non plausible solution for me. I appreciate any feedback.

I guess I will run it like it is since I sold my other diff I had. In the end it is my fault for not insisting the seller take pics of the inside. If your going to pay this much money for a used part, check it out thoroughly and ask for lot's of pictures.

I believe they are worse then .0005, maybe .0010. Do you really think I should sand them? What would be the worst scenerio for this situation? I would have noise or it would cause a stress crack?

Well I just got around opening up the LSD I bought. I wasn't real happy to see the ring gear had some pretty bad pitting. Someone let this rear sit around without oil in it -I guess. I paid 700$ for this rear and now i wonder if I will have issues from this pitting. Please look at the pics and let me know what you think. The rear turns very freely and the outer axle bearings looked good. Do you think I will have any problems from this pitting?

I been trying to figure out my bad idling issue on my 81zxt. When hot especially-the engine idled like crap and surged slightly at most rpms not under load. I say not under load because during cruise the car seemed to run well. After checking many basics on the car I decided to start pulling stuff and see how it effects the running of the engine. I pulled the EGR vacuum line and it immediately ran better. I diconnected the anything to do with the VCM, electrical and vacuum and the car runs better then it ever did. The idle smoothed out and the slight hesitation off line got better. Before doing this disconnect process, I pulled my relatively new spark plugs and they looked like they were fouling under idle , but the cleaned up themselves after driving. I say that because the end threads has some carbon deposits, but the electrode almost looked lean. Except for color left by the injector cleaner I am running, the plug was petty clean. Also noted: is that doing all the OHM tests according to the FSM, the car passed except for the CHTS. At the ECM the CHTS failed the ohm test, but the sensor component check seemed to look good. My connector looks servicable and I cleaned it also. Maybe my problems are all tied together here, I don't know enough about EFI to say.

I obviously have the tan interior and I am trying to buy a SEM color to match. I purchased the Buckskin color from the SEM chart, but it seems way to light to match the plastic trim pieces. Now I am leaning towards the Palamino, but at 12$ a shot and shipping, I would like to hear from someone else that has done this.

Warren, I realize that there is a difference in that one fastener is a half turn lock and the other is an actual screw thread, but my issue was that the half turns worked on one type nutplate and not the other, though they looked very similiar(not screw type). So either they(the nutplates) are wore out or their was two different diameter half turn locks. Sounds like the plastic nutplates were just wore out. Thanks for the compliment and info. Also, I need some pics of how the rear hatch tie down straps are configured. I started from scratch and the new hatch carpet has no slots for the straps, so I need a little help on where to cut. I debated on doing this, but I can't allow those heavy t-tops to flop around in there and possibly hurt someone in an accident.

Sorry but the automatic stays. This is my daughter's car and she doesn't do 5speeds. I bought this car for her, but I told her that she has to give or sell it back to me when she is done with it, so I can have the engine. With only 90k miles the engine is barely broke in and I can tweek the motor while it is in the 280zx. This plan may backfire though, because she loves this car so much, I might never get it back. The auto performs well too. I am impressed with the performance of this car being a 1981 vehicle. This is the first 280zxt I have actually ridden in and besides some aging squeaks coming from the suspension, I like the ride.

I buy my interior stuff from the "yourautotrimstore" off the internet. I ordered their sample packet and then matched it up the best I could. As far as applying the vinyl, it is a lot of trial and error. I did spend the money and bought a real glue spray gun( a 20$ plastic one, but specific for spraying glue) and I bought a gallon of the glue. The vinyl is not too expensive, but you will probably waste some at first. It takes a lot of patience and a methodology. Unfortunetly there isn't much learning material on this. Books are vague, but maybe you can find some DVD's on "how to". I put the interior together today and it looks good. As far as the fasteners for the rear panel, I realized I had 2 different style plastic nut plates that go into the rear strip. It seems the fasteners I had grabbed one type better then another-is there different fasteners for this rear panel? It looks like one fastener might be slightly bigger(thicker) then another. Anyone have some extra tan fasteners around?

Thanks on the confirmation on the sucky fasteners. I thought it was just me. Maybe that's why all these panels are tore because of the owners fighting with them. That drivers side one was a real pain in the ass to get out.

Well I woke up today determined to find out what ups with the crazy idle on the car. I started it up cold, and she idles pretty decent, pretty smoooth, but gets worse as she gets hotter. I pulled the ems and started ohm testing everything. My chts wouldn't test good by wire, but the component check showed that it reacted to temperature in a proper fashion. It seems that the chts is working , but the signal is not getting to the EMS. I'm not sure what to do now, do I chase the wiring? ( I did clean the connector) As I let the car idle outside it hovers around 700rpm , but surges and sounds like it's missing. I swear it's a vacuum leak, but I take the valve cover cap off and she dies. I finally start disconnecting crap, and the EGR is the first to go-wow -what a difference. Then I just take the whole VCM out of the system-pull the wires and all-and it runs better then it has since I bought it. Any comments?? Then I moved on to body work, and about finished up the metal work on the drivers rear quarter-pictures to come. After that, the daughter had to go on an errand, so I quit on the bodywork and moved on to the interior stuff. I decided to try and recover the rear panels since that was the the one bad point left in the interior. I already installed the new carpet and the panels would really make the inside look great. I am proud of the way they came out-for an amateur. Tomorrow I will tie it all together and get some pics of the whole interior

Well I went after those dreaded rear panels on the zx, you know the ones that are tore up on every 280zx out there. I ordered some vinyl and got lucky on the color match. The rest of the interior on my daughters car was pretty nice, but those panels sucked. Now she looks good-if I might say so myself. What's up with those panel fastners. The taillight panel fastners are hard to get locked, and I think I am missing the correct plastic nutplate for the big plastic screw-anyone have an extra????

Vin, are your clips embedded in a rubber strip? That's what it looks like on the windshield now. I haven't recieved the clips from Black Dragon yet, so I'm not sure what they look like, but I will post a pic. islanddozer, I will check that out thanks.

Okay, I called black dragon and they sell the rubber molding that actually has the clips already molded into it. I thought I saw a piece of rubber molding when i took the SS trim off, but it was deteriorated pretty badly to be sure. Black dragon sells the upper and lower strip -50$ each- that I guess gets gued in place and then the trim snaps down on it. This repair is going to be costly and time consuming. I will try and take pics to document the repair for future reference.

I could only find one thread on this, but it sounds like that it is nearly impossible to get the chrome trim off without tearing up the clips. It also sounds like it is impossible to reinstall trim in the factory method. I have the similiar problem of rust around the windshield that I need to fix. I pulled off the top trim and not much was identifiable as far as clips. The side trims seem a little more stubborn and I was afraid to pull to hard until I posted here for some help. I would gladly take some recommendations from folks that have successfully done this manuever. I only want to do this once, but I believe the water leak by the gas pedal is coming from around the bottom of the windshield because of rust issues.