blue72

I've done it with the car up on jackstands as well. I even had one of those cheapie $24.99 hydraulic jacks at the time to remove the trans with. I just put a wide board on the jack and slid it in place under the trans (it contacted the rear and front of the transmission to distribute weight). Jack that up, slide trans off of dowels, past clutch onto board, lower down. Easy as that.

If you have questions about the Nissan Diesel engines, I'd check out http://nissandiesel.dyndns.org/

What makes mine unique? I'd say the fact that I've spent more on it than it is worth. Oh, wait, I guess that's not uncommon. Hmmm... How about the fact that even though at times it has run perfectly well I've seen the need to disassemble and rebuild major systems off and on. No, wait, that's been done before. Well, I guess its the mysterious thing currently floating in my gas tank and cutting off my fuel supply at inconvenient times. Or maybe because its the only running (at times) 240Z I've ever seen in my town.

I wouldn't mind if someone went through and reorganized things a bit. If need be I have pictures of combustion chambers and intake/exhaust ports for a P79, N42 and a '72 E88.

I hope this applies, so I'm chiming in. I have two 225mm flywheels at my disposal. One is the stock Z L24 flywheel (23#), and the other I pulled from an early eighties Maxima (17.8#). For illustrative purposes I thought I'd show where the difference between the two that makes one lighter than the other. Namely where the extra material is located, or what I could see. Unfortunately the only picture I have is of the stock Z flywheel. The Maxima flywheel looks exactly the same except for not having this "bump". It continues flat up until it meets the machined part of the inertia ring. Based on what I've seen and the comments here, I'd say that if you were to remove the excess material from this area you would achieve the same weight savings. My Maxima flywheel spins up to 8k no problem.

I personally enjoy having hot motor oil run down my arm and into my shirt when removing the drain plug. I think its just a matter of convenience to change the oil when its warm. Usually I at least have to move the car into position before the procedure anyway, or have just come back from the auto parts store where I bought the oil and filter. Seems like the same deal as changing transmission fluid. You can't get all of the old stuff out by just draining and filling what with the torque converter and valve body and all. You accept that some motor oil will be left in the block when changing, and it probably helps lubricate on startup either way you do it.

So what are the plans for your car? I read on another forum that you'd ripped the interior out already. As far as shifters go you could find one from a junkyard 240,260 or 280Z. Different years had different bends to them and I'm not brushed up on which is which (I did include a few links at the end that might help). The bushing are available for them from a few places. Another option is a short shifter kit like those available from MSA. A few links you might enjoy: http://www.atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/shifterbushing/index.html This site shows some differences between shifters and their bushings. http://www.geocities.com/jasonparuta/gearbox.html He has a short shift kit on his tranny. http://datsunzgarage.com/engine/ He talks about transmissions in this section.

Thought you might like my little story from this week. It involves my '72 240Z and its 1978 FS5C71A 5-Speed transmission. Last Saturday I was driving my Z without a worry in the world until I went to shift into 5th. Bang! and I was in neutral. I found that I couldn't shift into 5th at all and the tranny would no longer stay in 1st or 3rd. I drove the car home in 2nd and 4th instead. I couldn't detect grinding and no strange noises presented themselves. I was just short half my gears. My father is a transmisison mechanic (lucky for me) and his theorizing led us to believe that perhaps the main bearing was having trauma and forcing the internals backward under load. Monday morning I drove the car to his shop (again using 2nd and 4th). His test drive gave the same results, namely popping out of 1st and 3rd, and no 5th gear at all (would not engage). Four bellhousing bolts, a driveshaft, speedometer, shifter, starter and tranny mount removed, then out it came. Easy 10-15 minutes of work, plus its so nice to have lifts. Also helps that I've done this two or three times before on the same car. So, transmission out and over to the teardown bench. A pin, bolt, spring and cup , a few snap rings as well as some long bolts out of the middle and the thing splits in two. Visual inspection shows nothing unusual. Fluid looked just fine. Sure, there was a little bit of goop in the shifter receptacle, but the gears look good too, no abnormal wear whatsoever. No severe slop in any of the bearings, or excess play in the gears at all. We shifted it through each gear manually on the bench and couldn't hear any odd noises in any of them, or find difficulties in shifting. The only real wear was on the teeth that engage 5th, they were a little rounded on the edges, but not seriously at all. Hmm... New theory: something must be up with the shifter (I have the MSA short shift kit installed). Went to remove the fork on the end of the rod that attaches to the shifter bucket (inside the output side housing), but the bolt won't budge. We give up and decide to put the washers and nut back on the bolt, but drop one of the washers inside the housing. Fishing around with the magnet yeilded zero results, so time came to manhandle the thing until it relinquished its hold on my washer. Tink! I hear. "Oh good", I think, "my washer and I are reunited once more." Nope, it was a little tiny screw that fell out onto the teardown bench. Guess where it fell out from... Yep, the shifter housing on the backside of the transmission. Oh, I did get my washer back too. The previous owner had neglected to install a dust boot, or even the rubber shift boot on the car, just the leatherette shifter boot on the inside of the car. Someone else must have knocked the thing down in there in the past where it was floating happily until my spirited driving awoke the ancient spirits which abode therein. The spirits of the tiny screw were angered by my displays of cornering G's and flung the tiny screw behind the shifter receptacle. That explained why I didn't have any gears that involved a forward throw. Here's a picture of the angry little fellow: Concluding what might now be an essay, I threw the case halves in the parts washer. Reassembly went smoothly now that it was sparkling clean. I made double sure to tighten the zip tie on my dust boot when I had the tranny and shifter in the car again. Back in the car it performed flawlessly much to my amusement. I'm also performing some other maintenance on the car this week, but soon I think I'll have most of those pesky deamons excised from my vehicle. Then it'll be back to high G nirvana for me and the Z. You can chose a moral to this story: A. Don't trust the P/O's workmanship too much. B. Demons may sometimes be expensive or frustrating to find, but if you don't push the car they'll mount a sneak attack when you're least expecting it.

I'm in Southern Utah. I've only ever seen one other S30 here in town. I have that exact same step ladder by the way.

I've experienced something similar in my Suburban. Perhaps that explains why the needle jumped off its peg while simultaneously the cable emitted a high pitched whine. Eh... I just drove it without a speedo for about a year.

Hmm, MSA sells the individual filters and they fit '70-'72. If in doubt look at ztherapy.com under the spotting guides. You'll see in their pictures that the air filter mounting holes are the same for that year range. p.s. '70-'72 were round tops. They didn't come out with square tops until later in '73.

I like that color on Z's. Shifter looks a little funky though. What part of Utah are you in?

Ooh, shiny! I've used a fan before to pull paint fumes out of the garage, and it works well. Just make sure that it isn't someone else's white fan you decide to tint a different color.

That's what I'd do, get it to TDC and check if your timing marks on the damper line up. You could either do the piston stop method, or you should be able to look at where the lobes on the camshaft are pointed to get a ballpark estimate on how close to TDC you are as well.

I'm jealous. Very clean. I've admired your car for a while now, but I especially liked the exhaust video. Can't wait to see/hear more.

Color code 072 applied over light gray primer. I like it much better over a dark primer. The car was this color from the factory (over red primer), and eventually it'll return it to its former glory. The one headlight bucket you can see I painted either code 115 or 903, I can't remember. I just recall that it was much lighter than I needed.

My exterior actually has the appearance of being worse off now than when I started, so I'll show some engine bay before and after instead. Old Engine: Engine Bay a few months ago:

Had it up to 116 on the GPS this weekend (I solved my previous fuel delivery problem). Upcoming curve forced me to slow. Didn't get to try it again because I broke the transmission later in the day. Seemed entirely stable at that speed, and I was only at around 5,500 RPM. Not bad for a car with completely stock, rotted 36 year old bushings all around.

I'll second the Carquest endorsement. I bought mine from them a while back. They had to order them in to the store through worldpac. WPC 1F20419900A was their part number, and they are genuine Nissan parts in all the appropriate packaging and everything. Had them in after just a few days. I was surprised to see Genuine Nissan logos too.

Have you done a compression test on they cylinders yet? Leak down perhaps? It might not be HG related, but it'd be nice eliminate the possibility.

What year is your car? I'd do a search for the Factory Service Manuals. Someone here has been very considerate and posted a large quantity of them online for us. Inside are orthographic views of the car and many technical drawings. You might also want to try the-blueprints.com.

Yes, it has been done and it looks great. I've got some pictures on my hard drive of an Aussie with a '71 who had his done. Just have to know where to look.

I've done an entire frame before (my Suburban, 18ft long). The frame had been sandblasted prior, and we didn't have to thin the POR-15 at all before spraying it. The result is great. Made sure to be plenty careful, no runs. Did two coats and now its set for life. I've also done the underside of the body and firewall of it with a paint brush. The brush does great work as well because the POR-15 is so thick it fills in brush lines. In short, I'd have it straightened, media blasted, and spray the whole sucker if you never wanted rust again. Then just prep the surface and spray the primer and color of your choice. Only concern I would have is final thickness. Two coats adds up with this stuff. I also have a can of the Blackcote which is gloss and UV protected. Goes on just like normal POR-15, but doesn't fade into another color after prolonged sun exposure. Doesn't need a basecoat or anything. P.S. cover the ground (and everything else) before you spray. Two years on the concrete still has a protective coating in one of the shop's bays.

I've used the GUNK engine degreaser with very good results on aluminum. The tougher bits take some scraping, but overall you can do a very good job with it. I've cleaned a whole cylinder head or two with just degreaser and an old screwdriver.

Hey, that better not be the one in Idaho, I had my eye on it. I'd like to have a low VIN car, but I already have one Z, what more do you need? (hint: multiple Z's)