Z-TARD

Should be okay provided you put on enough coats. I beleive the procedure in the original moparts thread was for applying two coats, then wet sanding, then two more coats followed by wet sanding and then polishing. Four coats of rustoleum should cover just about any base color. Mike

I used mineral spirits for spraying. No problems to speak of, although I didn't compare it against spraying with acetone to see if it was better or not. My only concern with using acetone would be the fumes, since it flashes to vapor much faster than mineral spirits. Using the mineral spirits, I can almost spray without a respirator, although I wouldn't recommend it. Mike

Been toying around with this idea in my head for a while now. I haven't measured it yet, but it seems like the two engines (L28 and Jeep 4.0) have similar external dimensions. I'm sure the Jeep mill is bigger, but not by too much. The latest Cherokee engines are rated for 190 horsepower and 225 Lb. Ft. of torque. Not exactly a powerhouse, but more than enough to get a 2500 lb car moving along pretty quickly. Adapting a T-56 to one would make good use of all that torque. Gas mileage probably wouldn't be too shabby either. The Jeep engine is also IMO one of the most reliable engines ever built, anywhere. Performance parts are available. A 300+ HP NA built would be pretty reasonable. I have other plans for both of my Z's, but if I someday manage to pick up a third Z car, it might just end up with one of these. Thoughts, opinions? Mike

I ended up changing passwords, as well as starting a new email account to use. I noticed that there is an option to hide your email from the person asking the question. I clicked on that box when I emailed the tractor guy, but changed passwords and everything anyway just to be safe. Seems like a big part of hacking in is just matching up your ebay login to your email address, that gives them another chance to figure out the right password for either ebay, or your email. I guess up to this point I've been really lucky on ebay, and haven't run into any scammers at all. A large part of this may be that I don't have a sellers account. I've definitely learned a lesson from reading through all these posts though, and will be extra vigilant before bidding on any auction, or communicating with sellers over email.

Find yourself a nice (relatively speaking) junker on Ebay for as cheap as you can get it. Throw it up on a rotiserie and dive in. Definitely don't sell off any of your other Z's, you'll regret it later. If anything, put them in storage and register them as non-op. I'd recomend just finishing the Z's you have now rather than starting them over. Constantly re inventing a project is a good way to keep it from ever getting finished (Welcome to my world ). Just my 2 cents worth Mike

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Crikey, a cannon that size deserves to be named after a religous diety, like Zeus or something. If you had the guys GPS coordinates, you could probably lob slugs at him from several hundred miles with that thing. I still haven't received a reply back from the guy. Not sure what one has to do to get on the pre approved buyers list, but evidently wanting to buy a tractor is an automatic disqualification. I'll let you know if I get anything from him. Mike

Normally they come out without too much hassle. Just remember to leave enough sticking out to grab onto with some channel lock pliers. If all else fails, set the torch to an oxidizing flame and burn that sucker out.

I've used sand in tubing before to make hot bends using a torch. A good way to seal the ends is to use tapered wooden plugs, the force of pounding them in also packs the sand in tighter for even better wrinkle resistance. Hot bending can make some really tight radius bends, but I'm not sure if it's legal to bend roll cage tube with this method as it tends to change the mechanical properties of the metal after heating. The trick to hot bending is to do it a little section at a time. Mark of the bend area into 1" sections, enough to cover the length of the bend area. Divide the degree of the bend by how many 1" sections you have marked off. If you want to make a 90 degree bend over a length of 6 inches, each section will be bent 15 degrees, etc. Clamp the tube or pipe firmly in a vice that is attached to a heavy table. Have a 5 or 6 foot section of pipe available that will fit over the outside of the tube you are bending. Heat up the first secton (the one closest to the vice jaws) until it glows a dull red color. It helps to dim the lights a little when doing this, as dull red in a brightly lit room is significantly hotter than dull red in a dimly lit room. Once you have the entire i" section glowing around the circumfrence of the tube, slip the extra length of pipe over the other end and slide it down until it is only a few inches away from the heated area. You can do this by yourself with enough practice, but it really helps to have a friend pushing on the pipe while you heat with the torch, or visa versa. Slowly bend each section the required 15 degrees, having a wire template to compare against really helps to get the right angle. Using a bubble level on the legnth of pipe will also help you to maintain your horizontal angle, it's pretty common to end up with bends that angle down towards the floor if you're not paying attention. Once a section has reached 15 degrees, move the torch to the next section and repeat the process until you have the desired bend. It takes some time to get the hang of it, there are a lot of tricks to making a smooth looking bend. Cutting the sections down to 1/2" will make it look a lot smoother, but a wire template is pretty much mandatory to make sure you don't over or under bend when the sections are that short. Concentrating heat on the inside and outside of the bend radius also helps prevent kinking on the sides. And again, I'm not sure about the legality of using this on roll cage tube, so bend at your own risk. Maybe someone more familiar with the rules and regulations can chime in on this. Mike

Just sent this: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Hello, I'm currently looking at another used tractor similar to yours (Kubota TLB 39) and after finding you auction I'm now trying to decide which one to buy. Would it be possible to arrange an inspection of the tractor before I use the "Buy it now" option? Thanks, >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> The Kubota TLB 39 was the result of a 5 minute google search for tractor. It had the closest horsepower rating to the John Deere listed in the auction. I know exactly crap about tractors..... Hopefully turdlicker will take the bait. Mike

Notice that the item location for the tractor is just listed as "United States". Every other item in the sellers items for sale list has the Socorro, NM address listed. This seems like another good way to spot a scam. I think I'll send him an email and try to get a location for the tractor. (The description for the tractor is pretty detailed, the $hitstain may actually have one...) Mike

It's okay. I guess......

What condition is the hood in? I'm looking for something with minimal (hopefully none) dents to take a mold from. Mike

Having a black hood on an otherwise unblack car was something that probably started on Z's, with the Japanese 432 Z's. I think that on any other car, a black hood looks pretty ricey, but on the Z it just looks plain bad a$$. Why not fix up the L88 hood enough to take a mold off of it, and then make one from CF using the mold? Mike

I'll ask you the whole laundry list of questions since you've actually used it: How long has it been on your jeep? What kind of spray gun did you use (standard, hvlp, etc.) and did you have any difficulties getting this paint to shoot well? How durable does it seem? What kind of prep work did you do prior to painting? I'm sure there are a few questions I'm forgetting, but these will help me out a lot to decide what paint to use. Thanks for the help, Mike

Those dust masks are actually outlawed in the Navy, too many idiots passing out or getting sick from using them during painting. I've found that they don't even really keep out dust very well. All in all a pretty useless product, and I'm surprised to see someone trying to pass it off as a respirator, even on Ebay. I actually use an old gas mask for painting. It filters out EVERYTHING, but it gets uncomfortable after a while.

This is kind of a spin off of the "Painting a car with a roller" thread. I decided against using the roller method, and found that both rustoleum and valspar spray pretty well out of an automotive spray gun when thinned with mineral spirits. After looking both online and locally for suppliers of rustoleum and valspar products, and not finding much variety, I decided to just look for single stage automotive paint. An Ebay search yeilded this: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4575389318&fromMakeTrack=true Omaha Orange is about the shade of orange I had in mind. This entire kit is only $59.00. Considering that it comes with reducer and hardener (Not to mention a really cool disposable respirator.....) this makes it about as cost effective as using the rustoleum paint. I'd appreciate any opinions you guys could offer on the pros and cons of using this stuff. Thanks, Mike

Using a divider plate in the plenum area of the single plane will also help out it's low RPM manners a little. The Weiand/Holly Xcellerator manifold comes with one already that you can either install or leave out. Mike

I wonder if the hardener could be used with the Rustoleum paint? Both the Valspar and the rustoleum are dry to the touch now, and at this point it's hard to tell them apart except for the color. Both have about the same gloss, texture, and scratch resistance. I'm still leaning more towards using the Rustoleum just due to the faster drying time. I do like the colors of the Valspar anti rust paint better though. Their gloss orange is an exact color match for the rattle can chevy orange. A little more yellow and it would be perfect. My attempts at making an orange using the rustoleum yellow and red paints have produced a best result that I can only describe as "Harbor Freight Orange". It's an exact (EXACT) match for my floor jack, jackstands, pipe bender, and sawzall. I was hoping for something a little more vibrant, but not glow in the dark either. Rustoleum makes a gloss orange stop rust paint that looks pretty good, but I haven't been able to find it in stock anywhere. The lighting makes it look a little different, but they are the identical shade of orange: Mike

Lookin good man! I havent had a chance to use my hvlp gun with this stuff yet. I was pretty sure it would work, and I'm glad to see that it does, as I will probably be using it when I finally paint my car. I sprayed my test piece of sheetmetal today with Rustoleum, Valspar, and DuraCoat. The more I use Rustoleum, the more I like it. It doesn't really compare with the DuraCoat, but compared to the Valspar paint, it really shines. I've noticed that the Valspar paint stays tacky for a very long time. This happens with both the thinned and un-thinned versions. For painting in a garage, this is bad juju. I can only imagine the amount of dust this stuff would collect when sprayed over the entire surface of a car. I'll test it out anyway, but I won't end up using it. My plan for now is to use the Rustoleum for painting all the body panels on the car, and using DuraCoat on all the trim parts, bumpers, flares, emblems, etc. From what I've noticed so far, there isn't really a need to take it down to bare metal before applying the rustoleum, in fact I think that might be a bad idea. The paint on my car is for the most part uncompromised, and not rusting out from the backside. If it hasn't developed rust under it in the past 36 years, it probably won't anytime in the near future. I'm going to just block sand mine with some 320 or 400 grit and paint right over it.

Definitely go for a World Class if you can get one. The non WC wont last long behind 350 HP. Any Firebird/Camaro made after either 87 or 88 should have the WC tranny, both V8 and V6. The V6 trans will have different ratios, probably not as low as the V8 tranny. The newer body style of Firebird (93 and later I think) Also come with WC T5 behind the V6 versions, but the bolt pattern where the gearbox mounts to the bellhousing is different than the earlier trannys. It looks like it might be the same as the bolt pattern on the Ford T5's. If you could find an adapter bellhousing for Ford T5 to SBC block, it might work with the late model T5's. The newer T5's also came standard with hydraulic throwout bearings as well. I don't really have much left as far as extra parts go. For a while there I almost had my own little mini junkyard going on. My happy place.... Then I got married and that all changed. Now there are rules, etc. No car parts in the kitchen, on the coffee table, blah, blah. blah. My car is still pretty much in the same condition as the last time you saw it. It has different wheels now, and ZG flares. My engine block has been at the machine shop for about a year and a half now. They wrecked the first block by grinding into the water jacket while clearancing for the 383 crankshaft. This was after they already had it for a year. He found another block to replace it with, and had to start the machining process all over again. Should be ready for pickup sonetime next week.... In the meantime, I gutted the interior, made a new dash out of Carbon Fiber (Still in process) and am getting all the tools and materials ready for welding in new floorpans and a roll cage. I'm moving into a place with a 2 car garage in a week. After that, it's on. Mike