Pharaohabq

So it's February almost march... Did you get to race?

Oooh, Hope you feel better.. Yeah I understand cold. We got another 3" of snow last night, Just when I thoguht it was warming up. we'd down below freezing again. I'm looking for a trailer to haul my car to the shop next. Right now I'm fitting the 350Z seats to the stock sliders. And I'm modding the steering to take the 350Z tilt steering. (shortening the 280z column, and adding the U joint just behind the 350z mid column mount, which almost matches the mount point for the brake/clutch pedals) the downside is I can't use a stock 280Z steering wheel, so I'll have to find a newer wheel, maybe a 90' 300zx wheel, I'll have to check the splines. the 350Z splines are finer than the 280z column splines. So I get the steering back together, then I can put mine on the trailer. I've been kicking the idea around of having the underside Rhino-lined just so I'd probably never have to worry about it. I probably need to sort the RT mount for the Diff and any other changes like the 240Z bumper-swap before doing that. so many projects. I need a list. Oh I also just found out the stock 350z rear wiper motor would actually fit in a 280z hatch, but I'll have to weld in mounting tabs/nuts. I might have the only 280z with a working rear wiper soon

Mine looks rough, but it's actually in pretty good shape. Needs to be sanded and painted and put together, but I've got 95% of the original parts. mainly it's just been sitting a long long time. Supposibvely my engine was rebuilt before the car was parked. There's a little rust, the pans are a bit thin but serviceable, and I have replacement rear arches. mines a Nov/70' Series 1, #5832. Built stock it'll be worth $20K but it's a project so I'd be looking for $2500 as it sits. Depends on how much work you want to put in.

Thanks SleeperZ Good to know. I don't care about the oil in the engine already, it's really really old, and though it looks clear it may not be, it may be just well settled. That oil is already contaminated by the WD40 I'd sprayed anyway. I might find some BioDiesel and try that for a week or so to make sure things are loosened up before I change the oil. It's the dilution and film removal I'm looking for to help clean out the old oil from the passageways. A better solvent is good. Either way, I'm going to try to get as much as possible out of the case before I refill anything.

I didn't use Mystery oil, but I did spray in WD-40 and let that sit a few weeks before I tried turning the engine with a wrench. I am going to drop the tank and blow out the lines before trying to start anything. That was in the plan all along, since I know what bad gas can do. I don't think the lines shoudl be in bad shape since they've been disconnected for so long, but I won't know if they're clogged until I try to blow them out. But I'll replace the filter and make sure it's as clean as possible before trying to start it. Some of the other classic car forums were saying to put Diesel fuel in through the oil fill and crank it over a bit to get it circulated w/o any spark, then let it sit. This is supposed to soften up any gummed up oil in the bearings etc. This seems to make sense. I'd of course drain and replace the oil & filter with new before trying to start the engine. I like the swabbing the cams with grease idea, and I might just do that too. Has anyone heard of this using Diesel fuel idea before?

Hey Tank... On that Ring gear tool, you don't need it, just take a 2x4 and cut a wedge, about 1 foot long, then put in a couple mounting bolts and wedge the wood between the bolts and the ring gear then tighten the flywheel/clutch according to the manual. It worked fine for me with very little slippage. I was able to torque everything properly, then knock out the wedge and I was set to mate the tranny. I replaced my pilot bearing and all my bolts with new from Nissan before mounting my clutch. Yeah Just dashes is way expensive, but you'll never have to worry about the dash again. They use the 3mm UV resistant vinyl. though I've been thinking I might be able to find another vacuum forming company and have them form over mine and I'd just finish it myself. Sand and all with that Great Stuff then once it's the right shape, have it sprayed with glue, then formed and I can do the rest. How hard could that be? Worst case I get a junkyard dash and use my cap.

The wind howls like wolves outside my door, and the cold tonight soaks into my bones as it has so many nights before. But tonight, here I stand gazing upon her lifeless body. She's waited years for me to find her. I admire the beauty that's still quite apparent after so many years of neglect having been laid to rest in a field decades earlier. They had tried to save her, worked hard to preserve her heart and smoothed her skin as she laid motionless. They then they left her, seldom to visit. We'd pulled her from that dusty grave in that field, dragging her body miles in the dead of the night to my workshop. It's difficult to understand why someone would let her rot, though there is a point when you recognize that she's beyond their ability to try any harder and the pain of knowing you cannot see her live is greater than your need to see her beauty. That is not me, I still see her beauty and I know she will move again, she will breathe and life will return; I will restore her youth. Be it brute strength, chemical, or lightning, She will live, I must only find the method... So here's the deal, I dragged a 70' 240Z from a field some time back where she was a project that won the fight, and her owner could not handle the restoration. He had last worked on her 15 years before. Her last date of registration reads 1983, so it's been more that 30 years since she's run. In his restoration, he'd completely rebuilt the engine, and dropped it back in place along with the 4 speed. so it's all stock, but I don't think the engine was ever started as the fuel lines have been still disconnected. They then sanded the body down from it's blue to it's copper to it's original silver, then primered 90% of the outside in grey primer. They took all the lights and trim off and put it in boxes inside, only the headlights, and tail lights remain installed. That's where they either ran out of time, or ran out of money. I looked and it's got clear amber oil, though I would never run that, I did turn the engine with a wrench to make sure it wasn't locked up. She turned nicely, so mechanically I believe the engine is in good shape... This is where the "method" comes in. When you have an Engine that has sat for YEARS (at least 15 as I could tell), What is the SAFEST method for attempting to start it. Of course I can get fuel and spark together, and I will change the oil, but I want to know what is recommended to do prior to trying to breathe life into her again. If I have to rebuild, I will, but as I said it looks great, just dusty. In NM it's dry, 15% humidity at the MOST. so I'm not really worried about a lot of rust internally in the engine mainly I'm worried about old oil varnish or gummed up oil passageways. I can crank her over I'm sure, at least enough to get compression numbers, BUT I've heard horror stories of people trying to start old engines and blowing rods or locking up cylinders so I'm asking for advice on doing it right Though the primer had mostly worn away on her body, and I am going to just replace the hood and left fender due to a pair of dents where it looks like something fell. I'll have to re-sand and pull a lot of the rust out of the metal along with some other bodywork, I'm not too scared of. Mostly I'd like to avoid doing something stupid and messing up the engine if indeed it was rebuilt.

Hey, So far as the dash cap, Mine I think will fit a lot better once I sand down and glue all the high spots. I have a couple places at the gauges where the dash has split and cut back almost to the gauge itself. So mines going to have a bit of repair work to do first. Aside from that you can carefully use a heat gun to get it to really mould down to the dash. You're supposed to glue it down too, I am not so sure about that, if I do I'll glue it with something sandable that I can remove later. I dunno, That rubber bumper stuff really looks good in a lot of cases. But yeah I'm concerned about the cracking too. Where your cracks, was it at a repair point or was it at somehere new? I've been real tempted to just send mine out to www.justdashes.com and have them do it the right way. But I don't know how much that'll cost. I figure I can do it later if the cap doesn't work out. Nice, that Diff sounds sweet. Mines a stock LSD out of a 350Z. The RT mount should be fine, and I'm going to use poly isolators to hold it and drill the existing moustache bar until I can afford either the AZCar or the T3 suspension. My driveshaft: it's only going to be about 28inches or so long, so I am just going to have a standard metal shaft made from the Z34 yoke, I don't have the full carbon fiber shaft to play with, just the yoke. I'll have them make the differential end. the weight will make very little difference. Metal is easier to balance and much cheaper to have made. I'm still pending paint and all so that's a future project. I really need to see how other people have mated R200's to S30's. I've read a few and seen a couple weld jobs, but really we need a defined guide.

Yeah, you can put the fan on it's own relay with a temperature switch so it only comes on when the car is warmed up. Doesn't matter much, though. A new relay for the starter is really easy to put in. Mainly you're just keeping high current away from your ignition switch/key and underdash wiring. I believe there's a straight plug in unit on ebay that you can use. MSA still sells the Replacement fuseboxes for the 240 as well. That's worth it just in the cost of fuses and non cooked wires.

These are interesting, I like how the scoop behind the wheel flows into the Body line, but that's about all. The front edge in just kind of bulbed out without much flow from the top or side. The do look to integrate with the air dam, but even then there are some asthetic issues. I would be fine with this if it was a one off on somebody's car. but this is a product and subject to scrutiny just as other people would if they saw it on my car. The Benefits have to outweigh the flaws. I'm sure painted up nice these may look great, Race specific. But if I'm going to cut my fenders, I want something that will make it worth the trouble. Please search the Karotta Z, and see how his custom fenders mould into the body lines. The soft upper fender line, the sharp mid and lower lines. His are custom/non-production but I like them.

Cgsheen beat me to it. I was going to say the same thing. Pull loose the hinges and wire them closed, then put the hood on and see where it's lining up. The hood is from the same type of S30 body I assume. Once you can see where it fits with the latch and it's "in the hole" as CG said, then it's a matter of getting the hinges to cooperate. There's a lot of adjustment there. just becareful because those tension bars have a bit of snap to them. In your picture, are the hinge to hood bolts all the way forward? (can you loosen these and see where the latch fits?) You can remove your grille to get in there for easier adjustment on the car itself.

Uhg! that sucks... I'm going to use a full cap on mine, it looks pretty good. another option is to send it out to Redash, where they're smooth and fill it, then use a vaccuum formed new coating on it to fully restore it. The ones I've seen have looked amazing, but thats a pretty penny to have it done. If you ha time,you guys rubber bumper fix yours again, probably cheaper than even the cap. You have to wait for it to get painted anyway. Are you keeping the stock Diff in your car? I've got a shortnosed R200 LSD for mine, I just need to make a RT mount, and figure how to mate the 6 ear Z34 cv cups to the 5 ear 86' cv axles. I'm not sure there's room for an adapter plate. I'l get there sometime. My build has been delayed due to having a family.

I've often wondered what happened to the Corvette Summer FairladyZ... ? Don't much care about the movie, the Vette was a lot overdone.

Pretty Nifty, I'm really liking the positioning. I'm not sure I like how thin the metal on the top mount is, but it's a great idea. I was looking at other pumps recently, and there's a lot of really little pumps out there, so I'm going to look for some that'll fit that bracket. I may have to weld up a spacer, two tubes parallel to each other, but it should work. Thanks for being the first! are you using the stock condenser/oiler/dryer/core for it all?

Sent you a PM Hiroe... So I had been looking into the Spring covers on the seats. I was able to model one but the have to print flat or have a lot of support, So they're certainly doable. How many of you would want one? I don't know how much call there is for the seat spring covers? They will take a while to print since there's so much surface area. Phar

So I see you're selling the Green Car up on Craigslist. I guess that was going to be your Dad's car? $900's not a bad price.

Crap, That sucks. Hope they find it in one piece. It'd still probably be good to call uprev, since I'm sure they've seen all these problems before. I but they'll have some good advice.

Pretty Cool, Keep it up... I want to use the Stock 08 Clutch cyl in mine since it'll match the conscentric clutch, but I haven't got there yet. I'm trying to finish my body mods so I can get it to paint before doing all the wiring.

Pretty Cool... Oh on those Steering linkages. I'm just using spare 280Z steering Ujoints in mine. The stock steerign column I'm shortening to about 18" and going to use the 350Z tilt column in place. I don't really have to have Tilt, but it'll be a fun detail. The Ujoints are compatible with the 350Z steering yoke, and they fit the top where the stock steering wheel fits. I only needed two spares from the Z graveyard.

Hey MadZcar, I'm here in Albuquerque, We should get together and check out your car. I haven't done much on my HR swap, but having another VQ swap in town would be awesome. There's also the Albuquerque Z car club if you're interested. We get discounts on a lot of parts and service. Send me a message and we can see what's what. Phar

If I read your post right, it the engine when you are HAVING the problem, won't rev past 1500 rpm. That sounds a lot like Limp mode to me, which tells me that uprev missed something. I'd give them a call and describe the issue.

Did you check the Z car registry? it's still a longshot, but you may have better luct. Aside from that, you could check with the DMV and see if they still have record. Being that our VIN's don't match the standards anymore, it's likely they're not tracking it. Aside from that you could check with CarFax, or even the state police and see if it's hit any of their resources, though often the cops aren't going to tell you anything on a private citizen.

Lots of Good advice in this thread. The Pull the fuel line at the engine and see if you have fuel flow is probably one of the best. Good gasoline safety practices should apply here. Even old fuel is flammable. With the Key on, you should be able to lift the flap in the AFM and hear/see the pump running. If you haven't checked the fuel filter in the engine compartment, that'd be a great place to start too. You know the engine runs, it's just getting fuel there that makes the difference. You could also clean/replace the injector plugs. They're often corroded pretty badly. It's rare that none of the injectors would fire. My bet is that there's still old crappy fuel in the rail that needs to be drained out. Tony's overload on Seafoam is about the best advice I read on this thread, so certainly try that before pulling everything apart to clean plugs. That and check the pump, it's easy to replace.

So, Not to thread jack, but I have a set of Sportmax 002's 16x8 I believe. I think they're 0 offset, and I was thinking of putting 225-50-16's or 225-45-16's on them, but if I can get 245's that would be awesome. I'm probably going to have to have the tire shop experiment a bit. I have the Michelin Pilot's on my Z32 and I love them. I was thinking I'd use them on the S30. The Stock OEM tires on my 78' were 195-70-R14's which show an outer diameter of about 25", so if I go with 225-50-R16's the diameter will be almost exactly the same, but much wider. 245's would need to be 245-45-r16's to keep the same diameter. What I really wonder about is how important is it to keep the wheel width in line with the tire width. eg 225-50-R16 on an 8" wheel is ~1" wider tire than the inner mounting surface of the rim. IMHO an almost perfect fit. But, that same Wheel with a 245-45-R16 tire is almost 2 inches wider than the rim. Which tells me we may get some extra roll over around corners. How apparent is that compared to riding on a 9" or ever 10" wheel?

you should be able to wire in a low impedance resistor in place of the original bulbs. Test the Ohms of a bulb and replace. it should be really easy.