Georgia Flash

John, I have never taken out one of my 75Z's half shafts but will soon. I have taken out the ones on my old 80ZX and didn't have a problem getting them down. What year model Z do you have?

I have a set of 76 Chev Camaro seats that I will be trying to fabricate into the 75Z8 I have test fitted the seats already using the bottem seat brackets from my Datsun seats. They (Camaro seats) sit a little higher than the Datsun seats and are a little more compfy. However, they also need to be re-upholstered.

Yep the list never ends. Just when you think that you are done you always find something else that you want to buy. For instance, if you take out the dash, you suddenly discover that you need to refurbish the heater unit. Take off the rear wheel to do some brake work and you decide that you want to replace the drums with some of them cool disks. It never ends brother, welcome to my ((and everyone elses)) nightmare

Yep you guessed it RUST I kinda figured that the stock tank was going to have to have the tire well but I wanted to make sure and check with the experts before I did anything. I have seen a pic of a well that someone just covered but I wasn't sure if they were running the stock tank or not. The Z sat in a field with the back window shattered for years collecting rain water in the well so it was pretty rusted out when I brought it home. Thanks guys for the quick response

Good morning, I was wondering something, I have finished welding in patch panels in both the front floor boards and am about to start on the large round hole that I cut in the bottom of the spare tire well. Now can I just weld a round piece of steel to cover the hole flush with the rear hatch floor? Or do I need something for the stock tank to be sandwitched up against when it is straped in? If I'm not mistaken the tank has some rubber pieces that were resting against the bottom of the spare tire well. If I choose to cut the rest of the well out (the sides)what will I do with the tank strap that is tack welded to the front side of the well? I need this answer soon because I called in sick for work today so I could work on the Z I will go out and try to tackle this after I receive some feedback from my brothas here on the site. Thanks

Godspeed if you have the 300 I don't believe the 75z heater core will fit.

Hmmmm Heart of Dixie? I live in Georgia and I can tell you that we have many many days that a heater is neccessary. Without one your defroster will also not work so when you have ice/frost on your windows you will be SoL. Also when it rains and the windows fog over it will be impossible to drive. Now if you never plan on driving in the snow, freezing rain or cold I guess you are right, who needs a heater. By the way the other night on my way home from work we had a huge thunder storm roll through the area, it was raining cats, dogs and cows! The windows in my old pick up began to fog over and I had to use the defroster set to heat to clear them up. The temp was about 90 degrees. My friend recently drove to Louisiana to buy a 1984 Jeep CJ7 with a Chev 327. The guy in La said "The heater dont work, we dont need one down here" my friend handed him the $12,000.00 cashiers check and said "yeah I live in Alabama and it doesn't get cold enough for one there either." Just something to consider before passing on fixing the heater. Where in the south are you located? I have the old heater core that I took from my 75Z that I will give to you if you want it. I bought a new one while I had the dash out because I didn't want to have to go under there again anytime soon, V8wannabe is right if you have teeny tiny hands and arms it would be easier to get to. It is way easy once the dash is removed Good luck.

Hey guys another area that I recently found to contain a good deal of rust is where the heater/blower motor snorkles up to the hole in the cowl area. I discovered this little rusty problem when I removed my blower to do a little work on it. You will have to bend your head up and under the dash to see what area I am talking about. Just when you thought it was safe to assume that you had found all the places that rust lurks...another one pops up

While you are at it check the little water cotrol valve that the heater hoses run into. It is just on the other side of the fire wall in the interior. It will be tough to get to it with the dash in the car but it can be done. I had one blow once and thought it was the heater core. These things will usually fail before the core goes.

If you could pull this off yourself you would save a lot of cash on the labor end. Just be very careful with the spring compressors. I have never tried using a set of those little compressors that you tighten down with a wrench but I have used a spring compressor like the ones that shops have. I didn't have a problem when I changed my struts out on the machine but there was a group of guys that apparently had the spring in the compressor wrong and it went flying across the shop! It narrowly missed hitting one them in the chest, it probably would have killed the guy or seriously hurt him at the least. So be very careful with these things.

Only $2,500! Where is it and I will dump my old project and come running! I have probably eclipsed the 2500 mark already and haven't even bought a tranny yet. I say go and get it Just make sure to look it over good.

I used to be a member of the Georgia Z club when I owned my 80ZX. I joined at the all Z car show that they had at the Hooters one year. I was amazed to see all those Z's in one place. I soon learned that the club didn't care too much for shows and only wanted to do ralleys and track days and the such. There is nothing wrong with the two aforementioned items I just thought that the club would have more All Z shows because that is what hooked me in the first place. Me and the misses did enjoy driving down from Rome to the meetings though. When I get my Z running I plan on visiting them again, who knows maybe I will become a member again. Oh well off to work I go, I will check back tonight and see if anyone has offered any easy way to wire up the 280 and 350.

Yep when I was reparing my floor I noticed the light coming through the holes when the sun came up and reflected off the white concrete and up through the pin holes in the welds of my newly placed repair panel, doh!

I had this same problem with my 75 before I started to dismantle it for the V-8 swap. It went great in all forward gears, it had a manual 4-speed tranny, but sometimes it wouldn't engage in reverse. You could put it in 1st and roll the car forward under power a little and then try to engage it in reverse again and it usually would hook up. I was going to the local vo-tech school at the time (automotive class) and one of my instructors was a former transmission specialist at both a Nissan dealership and a Chevrolet dealership. He was certain that the problem was in the tranny. So we put the car on the lift removed the tranny and looked inside. He said that the reverse gears were worn. So about $230 dollars later I had the new gears from Nissan. Put the tranny back together, lowered the lift and fired up the Z. The damn thing wouldn't back off the lift! I was sooooo mad I could have taken a sledge hammer to the Z and my instructor who had assured me that the worn gears was the problem! I asked at the time if the problem could be in the rear (R200) and all the instructors said probably not. By the way we never did figure out what the problem was and I still have the old manual tranny with the new gears sitting in my drive that I will make a sweet deal on! Nissan would not take them back after they were installed Lesson learned! The hard way!

Welcome to the site, You know brother I am at the same place as you and like you have stated the JTR manual, although helpful, is certainly geared towards the 240 swap. I would like to have an idea of what to keep and what to throw away. Right now I have successfully separated the headlight and parking light wires away from the other wires but that is about as far as I have gotten. I have looked for the other wires mentioned in the JTR manual but they seem to be eluding me. For instance I have about 400 big thick white wires that go to a little box on the passenger side of the car inside the engine bay just beneath the two fusable links. Do I disgard all of these wires? Do I keep the fusable links? My Chevy 350 only has 6 wires that came from inside the Camaro leading to the engine, the JTR book says you will have 10! Ok where does the other 4 wires come from? Also I will be using after market gauges so I think that will be easier than trying to get the Datsun gauges to work with the 350. I will just order Chevy 350 gauges from summitt. They will look nicer too in my opinion. If anyone has a simple way of wiring the 280Z, not 240Z, with the 350, please let us know.

Pete those mirrors look great I am still trying to decide what to use on my Z. I have some really nice ZX mirrors that I bought from a salvage yard but I may go with the bullet style mirrors that I have taken off of my 76 Camaro parts mobile. Again great looking set up you have there

Hey have you guys seen this site? http://www.fuelsafe.com They say that they can make a custom tank for any car. Don't know the price though.

The drive shafts are not rebuildable on the 75 and up Z/ZX. I had an 80 model Z and the nissan place was going to charge me about $600-$700 for a new one! You can go to a custom drive shaft business and get them to build you a new for a whole lot cheaper than that with replacable u joints.

Exactly right, they look like bumpers so there for to most cops and the general public, they are bumpers Sit back and enjoy the ride and don't worry about it.

10-4 good buddy, anytime

Oh one more thing on this subject. In 12 years I have never stopped a vehicle because it didn't have a bumper, not saying it doesn't happen but I have never done it. Sometimes you just have to play the odds.

Exactly right T-Zee, and Paul R. There is a charge called improper equipment that states that basically if you alter the car in any way than the way it came from the factory then you could be stopped and written up for "improper equipment". Yeah the shark thing is my way of explaining to people when they start complaining about the ticket they just got and wonders why they haven't been stopped before for the same violation. By the way there are some cool cops out there that will appreciate the hard work that all of you have done to your cars. Just ask the guy here in town that has the black 77 Z with the 307ci sbc. I pulled up next to him when he parked his z in a parking lot and got out and talked to him about his ride. I have a friend (police officer) who is doing the Chevy S-10 swap and is putting in a 383 stroker motor. Like I said before cops are people and come from all walks of life and backgrounds. I was in the Army for about four and a half years before becoming a cop. I was a field artileryman, yep a cannon cocker.

Hi folks, I may be of some assistance here since enforcing the law is and has been my profession for about 12 years now. As far as it being one of those "unenforceable laws" there is no such thing. Cops are people, some of them are traffic nazis and some are laid back. A lot of times rookie officers will get on the road and try to enforce every code in the book, on the other hand veteran officers who have been policing for 10 years or more will let more slide by. For instance, I have stopped people before for something like window tint violation (here in Georgia it has to have at least 32% light transmission) they will go on to say that they must have passed a hundred cops and didn't get stopped. Another way to look at it is this, you probably swam in the ocean a hundred times or more and never been bitten by a shark. That is not to say there were no sharks in the water near you at the time but for whatever reason the shark passed you by. There are all types of laws concerning motor vehicles on the books and all are enforceable. Now having said that, I plan on running the MSA front and rear fiberglass bumpers on my Z when it gets rolling. Eventhough they look like bumpers they really arent.

Everytime I look at Dan's pics of that rear deck with the little gas tank and battery relocation, not to mention the cool exhaust set up I get inspired However, I think that I will try something like that on my next project and try to get my Z running by this fall...at least that is my goal.

Yep I really wanted to leave that piece of thin strip thing intact for a little more support but the next time I sit in the tranny tunnel with my trusty air chisel that thing is toast!