jhm

The fact that it's a '71 kind of works in your favor....electricals in the early cars was a whole lot simpler than for the later years. If you have a buddy who's comfortable working with auto electrical systems, may be worth asking for his or her help with this. Buy yourself a good multimeter and test lamp....you're going to need it if you decide to fix things yourself. The "Engine Electrical" chapter in your FSM will define the correct wiring for starter motor, etc. The "Body Electrical" chapter will help you figure out the wiring for gauges....there is a separate harness for the dashboard ("Instrument Harness") that may be buggered up; or it could a simple matter of poor connections at the connector block. If you're blowing fuses the instant you connect the battery, stop. There are shorts somewhere in the system and you need to isolate those and rectify them before they cause a fire. Poor grounds are very often responsible for electrical malfunctions in these old cars. People will often find that an accessory is not working simply because the ground had corroded and just needed cleaning up. Good luck with it.

You're the only person that can make the decision whether to install a new harness or fix what you've got. It will depend on how bad the current harness is, how much time and effort you're willing to put into it, how much you want to spend on it, how long are you planning to keep the car, what other mods are you planning for the car, what is the desired outcome, etc, etc. My previous car was also an SBC conversion, that had been badly screwed up by multiple previous owners. I chose to fix it. It took a lot of time, but I know the electrical system inside and out when I finished. On my next car, I did a complete rewire because I knew that I would do it right, and I had already stripped the car down to a bare shell....so that was an easy decision.

Two solutions that I'm aware of.... 1) Get Futofab's Sti conversion stub axles: https://www.futofab.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=173:r180-sti-stub-axles&catid=38:datsun-drivetrain&Itemid=122 2) Get a set of R160 side axles for a 510 and machine a groove in them for the clip (assuming that your VLSD R160 already has the circlips internally).

What year and model is the car? And do you have the FSM for it? If not, you can download free FSMs at: http://www.xenonzcar.com/ If those two leads are for an indicator lamp, and they are still functional, you should be able to test them with a multimeter. The black would show ground, and the red would show voltage in a specific situation (e.g. when the car is in Reverse, or Park, etc).

Those don't appear to be OEM wiring (i.e. some previous owner put those in aftermarket); so you're really just going to have to trace them yourself and decide how to deal with it. If they were done correctly, the black should be a ground and the red would be a hot lead. Perhaps they are there for an accessory of some sort? Any OEM wiring for the starter should not be anywhere near the shifter, unless the car was originally an automatic perhaps?

This is a forum for Datsun and Nissan Z cars. You would probably be better off posting your question in a Subaru forum.

I believe Hung Vu and/or Minh Vu are selling nice new repro dashes in both fg and cf; they advertise on several of the S30 pages on FB. Minh is also here at HybridZ....username @grretc.

SOLD.

TREMEC has a cool little app for your smartphone that might help -- under the name "Tool Box", IIRC.

There could be numerous causes of "clunking" in the rear portion of the drivetrain. The diff mount is certainly one of them, but there are many other potential causes. Fortunately, there are several discussions in HybridZ on this very topic over the last several years -- you'll find lots of good info in them. Go over the entire drivershaft, differential, half-shafts, suspension, etc checking for worn bushings and/or loose hardware (nuts and bolts). A popular upgrade you may want to look at is replacing the stock diff mount with a Ron Tyler-style mount. It's a much more elegant solution than Datsun's stock lower mount and rubber strap. You can sometimes find them used, or Technoversions still produces them new: https://www.technoversions.com/DiffMountHome.html?. Good luck with it, and welcome to the wonderful world of old Z cars.

Yep, more leverage and heat should do it. And who cares if you snap the bolt(s)? Easily replaced. Worst case, you can grind/cut it off if nothing else works.

Are you talking about the stock front diff mount? And if so, which bolts...the ones that attach the mount to the car's shell or the ones the bolt the mount to the diff? Take a picture if you're not sure. Fie searching on HybridZ, Google search works better than our website search function. Just be sure to include HybridZ in your search string.

walkerbk, thank you for your Service and thanks for the update (especially from the sandbox). I think your wife deserves some kind of medal for unwrapping all that and doing the rough mockup for you! 😜

Another option would be to remove the brake lines from the MC and plug the two ports with standard hex nuts. They are 10mm x 1.0, IIRC.

Price drop -- $70 shipped anywhere in the U.S.

Regarding braided lines, there's a few vendors that carry them; but I've been using some made by a company called "Apex" (not Apex Engineering). They've lasted well for the three years I've been using them, and they will gladly make custom lengths upon request. I'll dig up their contact info and PM it to you.

You're going to want to bleed the system afterwards, so it's really not worth worrying about trying not to lose brake fluid during the conversion to coilovers. (Unless you leave the entire system intact, and hanging on hangers during the conversion, as Leon suggested.). Also a good time to replace your soft lines, if necessary, as Jon Mortensen suggested....consider replacing the stock rubber soft lines with steel braided lines, as well.

You could also post in the "Parts Wanted" section here.

On my V8 swapped 260, I ran the tach wire from the GM HEI straight to the stock tach (with the JTR-recommended resistor inline), and it's been working fine for years. I thought the adjustment was only needed for a 240 tach, but my memory could be failing me.

You can run the wires pretty much any way you want. All things being equal, obviously a shorter run of wire is more desirable than a long run. I originally considered running my main alternator wire along the path you were considering, but it ended up being slightly shorter on my setup going down the driver-side frame rail and across the firewall. Other factors to consider are "neatness" (if that's important to you), durability/survivability, and maintainability. A lot of solutions are easy to initially implement, but become a bitch later on when it's time to work on them and/or replace them.

Poor connection? Poor ground? Failing sensor? All of the above? A simple double-check of your water temp can be made with a cheap IR gun.

What transmission are you using? And wheel/tire size?

One pair of lightly used PAC Racing coilover springs. 2.5" inner diameter, 6" free length, 250 lb/in. Orange powder-coated. $75 shipped anywhere in the U.S. Thanks for looking.

SOLD.

Ah, sorry I misunderstood. Can't say that I've seen a source for just the pinion gear, other than a used one from another rack. FYI -- if you want slightly quicker steering, you can source a pinion gear from a 240Z rack....the 240 has slightly quicker steering ration.