10cjennings

Woah, haven't posted on this site in years. A 280z I bought came with a rear tow hitch, I thought it was crazy. I might have some pics before I took it off the car. It's sitting in my garage taking up space if anybody wants it.

Have a locksmith (or shady friend lol) pick the lock? Seems like a better idea then hacking up your current glove box just to get inside. I think there are also ways they can disassemble the lock and make a key with the correct pattern.

What is the difference between those two? Thanks, Chris J.

SO I'm finally getting started on my 280z project, and the first order of business is suspension. I know I'm going to go with a Koni Yellow/ GC Coil over sleeve but I'm not sure what exact parts to order. I know what goes into installing these shocks but considering they don't label any of their parts (at least I haven't found any) as specific for an S30 I'm unsure of which part numbers to look for. If it matters the car is a 78 280z, and I think I'm going to be running welded in camber plates (though unsure), and I'd like to run something a bit stiffer then the "typical" 200/250 rate (Ie if they made something like 220/280 that'd be great) Thanks, Chris J.

Looks great on those wheels, your car looks like a much cleaner version of my 280 (similar blue color, once I get my 240z bumpers on it'll look even more similar)...I'm loving that 86 in the back round as well, any details on that?

I pulled all 3 of those nuts, as well as the three bolts from the outside of the car (they pass through the rear sheet metal, located around where the exhaust exits) and the shock still wont budge. I've got to be missing something, but I can't figure out what it is.

So I'm in the process of removing my rear bumper, and the rear shocks so I can install my 240z bumper using ZCCJDM's brackets. I've got the tank lowered and moved out of the way (that only really matters for the passenger side mount anyways). On the driver side mount I removed the 3 16mm Bolts, as well as one 10mm bolt which is holding this shroud/cover piece to the shock, but the shock won't budge. I can feel what seems to be another small 10mm bolt which is holding the shroud to the shock (it's in the small space between the right side of the shock and the body sheet metal) but I can't get to it with any wrench. Considering the shock isn't moving I'm guessing there are other bolts which I can't see yet because they are being covered by the shroud/cover. What bolts am I missing that need to be removed? Thanks, Chris J.

I'd say he clearly is making a point not to thrown around any specifics in his thread. He's asking for help from someone and I'd think he'd give out the specifics (Amount, to whom ect.) once someone actually expressed interest in helping him through PM. No point in telling all the details of his situation for everyone to see. He also said he PM'd one of the admins and didn't receive any reply, not that the admin acknowledged his situation and did nothing....Maybe the message never made it, maybe the admin never saw it, ect. He's not really accusing them of doing anything wrong. and to Midnight, I'd say try and contact an actual lawyer to see what you can legally do to try and get your money back. The people on this site are really helpful but for something like this I'd say contact someone you know is a professional.

Just drilled another hole in its mounting plate so that it got spaced off the strut tower another inch or so. The strut bar dropped right in, taking the car out on it's first drive I'd say there's a definitely noticeable difference in the front end responsiveness when pushing it hard in the corners. Even with my basically stock set-up. I'm sure as more suspension upgrades are installed the added stiffness will be more significant. For $120/each I'd say these definitely aren't the suspension upgrades which will give you the biggest improvement for your dollar (Bang/Buck), but if you're planning on doing a large amount of suspension upgrades (as I'm currently getting into) these are parts I'd definitely add to the list.

My MSA Front/Rear strut bars arrived in the mail yesterday for my 1978 280z. I got the rear installed last night (Looks like a really solid part, great fitment, appears to be of high quality), and it didn't take more then half an hour. Today I moved on to the front strut bar and I ran into a small problem. Where the bar mounts up to the passenger side strut there's some (appears to be electrical) piece in the way. It looks like something I could modify/relocate but I'm not even sure what it is. Any help ID'ing the part, and any ideas on how I should go about modifying it would be great. It's the lower left cylindrical piece, to the right/above the top of the strut.

I wouldn't have even thought of the Cam gear thing...It looks like it clears it fine, so I'm just gonna run a bead of Hi-Temp Silicone along the mating edges of the VC and the Block tommorrow, torque the bolts down to decently tight. Let the silicone sit for about an hour, then torque them down to 12 Ft/lbs.

Wow, that was ridiculously informative....Thanks!

I've been having nothing but trouble with the 2 Cork Gaskets I've got (They keep warping, breaking their seal and leaking oil). So I'm just gonna use a good bead Sealant instead, should do the trick.

I've looked through my PC copy of the 280z FSM and can't seem to find what the correct Tightening sequence is for the L28 Valve Cover. I'm sure it's the standard corner to corner method, but I'm on my last gasket and I'd rather just verify and make sure I do it correctly. Thanks, Chris J.

Yeah, I'll be doing that tomorrow, as well as sourcing a new VC gasket (It got a little beat up in the process of removing the VC and I'd rather just replace it.

The torque range is 5-80 ft lbs, it's a relatively new (Had it for about 8 months but it doesn't get all that much usage) Craftsman "Digitork Torque Wrench" (IMO A very high quality tool). I've never had any reason to suspect it of being in accurate. I'll run it by my local Sears and have them re-calibrate it for me just to be sure. Luckily upon removing the valve cover I was able to easily unscrew the rest of the bolt, but I am wondering what could have caused this. Could have been a much more annoying situation if I was going to have to weld/solder on an extension to grip the bolt and turn it out or drill out and re tap the threads.

This thread was originally asking what to torque the Valve cover bolts down to, but I was able to find out the FSM recommends 7-12 Ft lbs. Well somehow with my torque wrench at 11.5 ft lbs one of the bolts snapped. It's getting dark so I'm going to start the extraction process (I think there's enough threads there that I can grab with a pair of plyers). But now I've got to find replacements for the valve cover bolts. I have no idea how that bolt managed to snap besides the possibility that it's an extremely crappy quality bolt, so I'm going to replace all 6 with something of high quality. What dimensions are those bolts? My car is a 78 280z with the original L28. Thanks, Chris J. EDIT: Does 6x1.0mm Thread pitch and about 2 inches long sound right?

I bought my 280z about a month ago, and the car's pretty rust free. There's a spot on the hood, and the rear hatch but that's about it. Solid frame rails, solid floor pans ect. At the moment I'm trying to convert the car over to 240z bumpers. This requires removing the front tow loops (Don't know what to really call them). They bolt into the frame rail. I knew there was a rust issue on the passenger side before but upon removing the passenger side tow hook the area that it was covering is totally rusted out. It seems like a 5 inch piece of square steel welded into to replace that section would eliminate the problem, but I'm trying to confirm with you guys. I know of one local shop that deals with restoring classic cars so I'm headed there tomorrow to see what they have to say about the problem, but what would you guys say is a reasonable estimate to fix the problem? It seems bad (at least to me, I'm used to working on new, rustless cars so I'm panicking a bit) but this is a really isolated rust problem on the car so I'd say it's definitely something worth fixing. I know it's really hard to tell without good pictures so I'll do my best to post some better ones tomorrow. Thanks, Chris J. Edit: These are the best pictures I could manage with my crappy cell phone and a flashlight. I'll take some better ones tommorrow.

What you're saying makes sense because even though it seems like it's just the e-brake dragging if I want to park the car on a hill or something I can still easily pull the e brake up very far (way more then 3 clicks, the handles is pointing basically vertical) before it really seems to engage. I'm gonna pull apart the rear brake drums this week, but is there any literature that might help me through that? I'm sure it's not too hard but I've never dealt with drum brakes before and don't want to make some stupid mistake.

So is this adjustment "wheel" in the brake drums? or in the transmission tunnel?

With the rear of the car up in the air, car in neutral, and the e brake off no matter how hard I try I can't turn the passenger side rear wheel by hand, the driver side I can turn a small amount (like 1/8 of a turn, and then it stops), but it's also very hard. So I'm guessing the e-brake is dragging on both, but a little bit more so on the passenger side. So how do I go about adjusting the brake? I went through the interior only to realize that if there's anyway to adjust it, it seems to be outside (under) the car.

So I've noticed since I bought my 78 280z about a month ago that the Emergency/Parking brake (It's a 5-speed) is always slightly engaged. Sometimes the dash light stays on, sometimes it goes off, but I can still tell that the brake is slightly on when I let the car slowly roll to a stop and it stops its self quicker then it should. Also the brakes (seems to be the back ones) are squeaking a decent amount, before I go replacing the rear brake shoes I'd like to see if this is the cause of the noise as well. It seems to be coming more from the Passenger side of the car but I can't really be sure of that. I'm guessing I need to just add a little bit of slack to the cable but what would be the best way to go about doing that? Thanks, Chris J.

Awesome video! In part 2 can anyone provide some insight on what the green S30 (they talk to the owner almost the whole video) had under the hood? I didn't see anything that looked like a No2 set-up so he put out a 10 second run out of an N/A straight 6...That's impressive.

Front bumper purchased...Still looking for a rear 70-72 bumper.