waynekarnes

ahhh, same thing happened to me in work van. making right hand turn from residental street on to 45 mph road. as far as i could tell, i wasn't on it. van is loaded down, ladders on overhead racks. i had already seen the cop in the camaro running radar about 150 yrds behind me. van is moving about 25 mph. radio's on loud. i get all the lights, sirens. WTF ??? pull over. as i said, i knew he was there. no real idea what he wants, figure is going around me. pulls in behind me. won't tell me why pulled me over. keeps insisting that i know full well. is rookie cop ( i've work same area for 26 yrs, recoginize most of the deputies ). says, wants to write me for exhibition of speed. decides to give me ticket for unsafe start. i sign the promise to appear line on the ticket. as he walks back to his camaro, he turns back to me, looks in the window, tells me ... i expect this from the young punks around here ( he's maybe barely 26 ) but, not from an old fart like you ( i was 50 at the time ) and laughs. can't fight these things. paid the fines and went to traffic school.

Great !!!! I love it !!! i can see the competition was rough !

from what i have read and talking with those in the know, the coil paks really do not go bad all that often. usually is corroded connection. 1st lets see if you have a dead cylinder. 1st figure out how to remove the electrical connector on top the coil pak. some have a catch that needs to be pressed to release em. others it appears can just be wiggled and pulled off. once you get this figured out. leave connectors attached as they should be. start the engine. parking brake on. wheels chocked. with engine running, pull connector off easiest coil pak you can reach. if engine speed falters when connector is removed and smooths when reattached, that cylinder is fine. work way through all 6 cylinders. should you find one that makes no difference. engine runs the same, no stumble, no change in idle, you have found the bad cylinder. if you go through all of em and no difference you will need to do more extensive testing to find the problem ( as suggested earlier, may be a bad injector. more info later ). now supposing you have found dead cylinder, good deal at least you know something. one is dead. suspect wiring or the injector before you suspect the coil pak. injectors are a pita to get to. easy test, 98% accurate. use screw driver with long shank. 12 inches or longer. with engine RUNNING, lean over engine. be careful around fan, belts, ect. on one of the cylinders that tests good ( missed when you unplugged connector ) put screwdriver blade on top the flat metal bracket holding the injector in the fuel rail. hold blade firmly against that metal bracket. put the handle of screwdriver to your ear. with a good injector you will hear TWAK, TWAK, TWAK. now that you have listened to a good one, you know what they should sound like. move screwdriver to the dead cylinder. give a listen to that injector. if you don't hear the TWAK, TWAK, TWAK then, that injector is not working. can be either wiring or bad injector. cool trick : engine NOT running. remove connector from injector. grab a 9 volt battery. connect wires from 9 volt battery touch to connectors on the injector. should not matter which is neg and which is pos. when initially touch wires to connections on injector, if injector is not frozen or coil inside injector is not burned up, a GOOD injector will go TWAK once. disconnect one wire at injector, touch to injector again TWAK ! if you hear the TWAK from the injector that didn't go TWAK with engine running as you listened with screwdriver, the connection or connector is bad. you can also check with ohm meter between connectors on injector. should read between 10 and 14 ohms. is cooler to hear the TWAK using the 9 volt battery. don't use the car's 12 volt, you may burn the coil on a good injector, use the 9 volt battery. if you do hear the same TWAK, TWAK, TWAK on the dead cylinder as the good cylinder, this usually means injector is good and means no spark. now we swap coil paks. disconnect the connector on top the pak. remove the bolts holding the clamp ( 2 bolts ). vacuum and brush to clean any crud away from the pak and the hole it goes into. pull the coil pak up at the angle it sits. is attached to spark plug at bottom of the shaft. plus has a rubber like tube that slides into the shaft. may take a steady hard pull to get the coil pak out of its hole. remove coil pak from good cylinder. remove coil pak from bad cylinder. swap em. put the known good coil pak in bad cylinder. put suspected coil pak in good cylinder. make sure both coil paks are bottomed into the shaft, is connected to the spark plug. reconnect the wiring. no reason to reattach the hold down brackets ( yet ). start the engine. remove the connector from the coil pak in the good cylinder if engine speed changes, coil pak is good. if no difference, suspect coil pak is dead. put connector back on coil pak. go to cylinder that is bad. remove the connector to the coil pak. if engine speed changes, then means injector is okay and connections are good. if makes no difference, cylinder is dead. means bad injector or wiring to either the coil pak or injector. already told you how to electrically test injector and determine with screwdriver if hear TWAK. so, if you isolated the injector and we know the coil pak is good because we moved it from a good cylinder you will need to use volt ohm meter to test the wiring. if you want to test the coil pak another way : remove coil pak. put a spark plug in the business end of pak. connect the wiring to the coil pak. make sure there are NO FUEL LEAKS !!!! don't SHOCK yourself doing this !!! have someone start the car for you as you hold the spark plug to ground ( engine block ) a good coil pak and good wiring will make a big spark at the spark plug. if no spark, make sure have good ground, try again. no spark coil pak is dead. replace coil pak. now think about injectors. some injectors will die in the closed position, some in the open position. closed is better than open. open means flooding engine with gasoline. you will smell it in the oil. check the electrical connections at front of the engine above water pump. corrosion there or loose connection can screw up readings to the computer. you may also want to check crank angle sensor. i am no expert. just bought my son a 1990 zx for high school grad present. same issue as your car. found bad injector or bad wiring. haven't been able to get into the injector with 9 v batt yet. has been raining and busy. plus is the number 5. buried under fuel lines and balance tube. it is surprising how well these cars run on 5 cylinders. on the turbo engine is really hard to tell from behind the wheel that engine is missing. good luck, wayne

looked to be 2007 z06 ??? next door neighbor just bought one last friday. 505 hp. took me for a quick ride. 2nd gear at 35 mph hour, barely breathed on gas pedal, shoved me into seat. his girlfriend is tall, left the seat leaned back, i slid back and up, head almost hit the roof. he used to have a hemi gtx. says vette is a beast compared to the gtx. would eat the gtx for lunch. as was suggested, no way i'd let an 18 yr kid with no training behind the wheel of car with 800 hp. lucky she didn't roll the thing into a ball. neighbor was telling me he saw a wrecked 2007 z06 on hiway 17 near san leandro ( new comers to bay area know it as 880 ). half the car was gone. he suggested, i might want to swap engine and trans into my scarab. LOL

Les, i will see if i can remember what that B/A is. i may be that timing retard device i was mentioning earlier. nox control ??? as far as the turbos go, to be strictly legal, look for turbos with a carb part number on em. one of my younger brothers has a 69 chevy step side running a 600 plus hp small block boosted by a B&M super charger. though he no longer needs to , the truck passed smog with the blower on it. in case you are wondering, turbo 400 trans, i think diff 3:23 gears. at 75 mph, if he stands on it, trans drops into passing gear and both rear tires go up in smoke. B&M blower has carb numbers, his cam, headers, carb, ect, all carb approved. think he bought the truck when he was a senior in high school, 1975. in his junior yr he had a 55 chevy 2 door hard top all metal, pull the both front wheels 3 to 4 inches off the ground. it as also smog legal ( back in 1974/75 ) cops pulled him over at least once a week on his way to high school ( leigh ), safety inspection and check for emission equipment violations. at he time my daily driver was a 65 chevelle fake SS. 327, corvette factory racing 3 speed trans, 3:90 posi. turned 12.49 120 mph on the 1/4 mi. oh yeah, you guessed it was also smog legal. traded it for a beat up 31 chevy pick up in 1976. almost sold it to Jungle Jim Liberman. anyway, you can be legal with the turbos . especially with turbos being so common on imports. camaros were made in canada isn't the pt cruiser made in mexico ? it has turbos as an option. aren't both of them imports ? i say, you should be able to have at least 2 turbos if you want em.

Gollum, that's better than my experience. i never got to hang out at the ref station. that would be a great education. plus, i can imagine from what i saw years back while waiting to have my meyers manx dune buggy certified, there has got to be some real insanity among those bringing cars in to be certified. LOL during the couple hours i was there, saw at least 3 refs get so p'off at people that they told driver he wasn't going to leave driving the car he had brought in, were told to call a tow truck because that was the only way the car was leaving the inspection station. this was backed up by armed CHP officer. just maintain your cool, get temp operating permit and return later for another inspection.

Les, your metal tag should show the make , year, cubic displacement, and type of trans, auto or manual. below that are boxes the ref would stamp an X into all smog control devised that applied to your replacement engine. i have same tag on my scarab. there should be a pic of it in my photo gallery. oh, NEVER EVER say engine SWAP !!! it's always a REPLACEMENT engine. this is important. the phrase engine swaps sets off all kinds of crazy alarms with the refs. enuff of that. you got your tag before the car haters at the carb bought themselves a legislator. thus your car is legal with an engine older than the chassis. you are correct about the open element. i used to own a real 1970 LT-1 roadster. smog legal with open air element. i would imagine that your tag must have the pcv marked. in california a pcv was required on all 1964 engines. if i remember correctly, 1960 was last year for a road tube. a road tube was used to vent moist air from the engine, was basically a long tube from off the block, had a couple screens in it to keep bugs out, ran from some where high on the block ( chevy was at rear of block near the dizzy ) down to the road. the pcv routed to the air cleaner, so gases burned off instead of being dumped directly into the air. i think 1961 was 1st yr for pcv in calif. i know for sure by 1973 all 1955 and newer cars had to replace ( well small engines were exempt and most pre 1968 imports were exempt ) the road tube with a pcv to pass smog tests in calif. anyway. with the sticker showing the smog controls you need, you are pretty much free to do most anything you want. the only draw back is you need a 1964 engine to remain legal. there are many blocks that have been decked and the codes on the front engine pad shaved off. there are stamp kits available that allow one to restamp the engine codes back onto the pad. this pad is normally where the smog inspectors check for the year of the engine. especially if you show up with an engine code book and show the inspector, see code on pad, see code in book, it's hard for them to dispute this evidence. that said, there are date codes on the chevy engines that show the year, month, date and hour the engine block and heads were forged. most inspectors will not bother looking for these as they are usually difficult to see. so, a block restamped with the proper codes is legal. i believe, though the laws get changed by flakes that know nothing about cars so often i may be wrong, that : because your engine replacement was done before the laws changed forcing the use of same year or newer than the chassis. you are allowed to replace your worn engine with a newer one of the same family if the correct ( read as YEAR ) replacement is no longer available. meaning if smogged with small block chevy, you may replace it with same year or newer small block chevy. the smog controls would match the tag on the pillar tag, not the newer engine. those who's replacement engines were certified after the same yr or newer rule went into effect, would be required to meet the smog device required by the year of the engine installed. so, as i understand it, you can replace your irreplaceable 1964 327 with any small block chevy engine available to you and provided you retained the smog control devices required on the certificate tag. this would include a turbo charged LT-1 small block. unfortunately this info is not on the dmv website, you get this info from the books the smog refs use. my uncle ( passed away while back ) used to have his smog license and built hi performance engines. he knew all the rules that allowed people to legally drive cars with his engines in em. this is where i obtained most of my info, plus several friends used to have smog test lic ( most couldn't afford to live here anymore and moved away ). an old neighbor works for CBAR ( calif bur of auto repair ). he knew the carb ( calif air resources bur ) smog laws inside and out. he was a mechanic that that ran cars through crooked repair shops as well as crooked smog test shops. acted as expert witness for the state. for a while i had his brain to pick and his ref books to look at. in my opinion, i'd say you'd be fine running that LT-1 as long as it has smog controls matching what ever is marked on the metal tag. wayne

Death69, i wasn't trying to be a wise guy or shut you down. hope didn't come off that way. no one was born knowing this stuff, the 1st fool had to show the 2nd fool how to do it and so it goes. i'm just another fool in a long line of fools ! LOL LESD, name makes me think "lead sled" back from days when i hung out with customizers. they used lead instead of bondo then. many customs had many pounds of lead. low and slow, lead sleds. anyway, your question: are you grandfathered. as long as you leave your car as it was when the referree stuck the tag on the pillar of the car, your z is smog legal. i also have a carb sticker on my 72 scarab. it states the smog equipment required on that engine and your car. it also states the year of the engine. according to the laws back then, as long as had proper smog devices one could use any year engine from any make. laws have changed. now engine must be same age as chassis or newer. your swap is grandfathered in, you can legally run an engine older than the chassis. if you remove the pcv, reset the timing, put a non thermostatic controlled air cleaner on it, remove the air pump ( some counties in calif did not require em. my mom's 69 firebird, bought in '74, has never had a smog pump, was originally from so lake tahoe ), any way if you remove or alter smog devices , this is considered tampering and your car is no longer smog legal. for your z as well as mine to remain technically legal, vehicle must retain all the devices that are stamped on that metal tag. an engine swap will render your vehicle, nonconforming ( spell check says no such word as nonconforment ) and illegal. to be made conforming, you would do the swap, take to referee to be checked. where upon, i believe you will be told to have all the smog controls the engine came with, including a cat or two. lonely old guy with all the cats. yank the engine, store the smog devices ( mine are under my 58 vette ), store the engine if you think you must. i'd strip it to the short block and store the short block. if still too much for you. strip it down and save the block. just incase the anti car nazi's get into power you will be able to make your V8 z legal again. i seriously doubt that anyone is gonna hassle you. the boy racers in their hondas get hassled because they usually smell of ass. cops smell em and hear em miles away. act like an ass, cops is gonna yank you to the curb. if suspects driver of street racing in his chain saw sounding car with red lights on front fenders and orange on the rear, officer just might ask to see under the hood, looking for that stolen v tech engine. local cops probably won't bother, chp most likely will. chp has some training on smog devices. most certainly recognize an illegal open element K&N filter. depending on attitude of ass behind the wheel and chp officer could be, pop goes the weasel. weasel gets to take coffee can exhaust car to smog station for test. again, let your freak flag fly. won't encourage you to do anything illegal, no one here would even think of doing such as thing. retain the old parts, swap in that cleaner running LT-1, help clean up our air and have every good intention of getting it in to your local carb certification center as soon as you have all the kinks worked out of it. because after all, you want it to be running its best and be presentable to the men and women doing the inspection at your friendly local carb certification center. i am sure i am joining with everyone here, encouraging all of us to do the right thing. simple answer, if you swap engines or tamper, you are no longer in compliance with the carb sticker affixed to your vehicle. vehicle is then, no longer smog legal. sorry to take so long to get to such a short answer, had some time to kill.

Gollum, thanks ! your reply made perfect sense to me as well. it's important knowledgeable people speak up when ever anyone is confused by the no smog test requirement rumors. i left out quite a bit of the important details about swaps that you included. guess, here at hybrid i have been parroting the " no, your car is not exempt from smog reduction devices requirements " so many times i am getting better at it. LOL for those that don't know, there's a sticky here at hybrid on the ca. smog checks/laws and what's legal as well as a link to the ca. dmv web site. i believe there is also info there on the smog laws in other states and countries as well. legal disclaimer, your results may vary. wayne.

Death69, common misconception. all passenger vehicles 1955 to present must pass smog tests. all federally and if in the state of california, all ca mandated smog equipment must be in place and functional. any removal of said equip is considered tampering. the state can legally remove your vehicle from the roadway on the spot ( should an officer of the law in his/her opinion there has been tampering ), not to be returned to the roads until certified by smog ref. in ca. all engine swaps ( to be legal ) must be carb ref certified. what the ca. smog ruling says is, you no longer need to have 1975 and older cars smog tested at registration renewal or when transferring title. it does not say they no longer have to meet smog requirements. that said, as was suggested earlier, unless you are acting like an ass in a car that smells of ass, unlikely any officer is gonna harrass you and pull a smog inspection at the curb. but, officer does have the RIGHT to do it if officer suspects TAMPERING. keep it clean, keep it safe, doesn't have to be sane. chances are you can swap most any diesel engine into your z that you want, run dual stacks with chome flapper valves up through the roof, get yourself two 22 inch stage coach wheels on the rear and 16's on the front, chances are won't be a single officer that bothers you. let your imagination go wild !!!

there's an 83 datsun diesel truck on the bay area craigslist right now. think he wants 400 for the truck. check cars/trucks for sale. search key word : dastun

exhaust leak will only cause a burnt valve if you have a leak big enough that you can see it, you get the engine over heated and when you shut the engine off, it's freezing outside. there is enought heat in the head to keep the valves warm. with engine running at idle, pull spark plug wire off plug number one, does idle change, does miss go away ? no ? put the wire back on. repeat through spark plug number 6. when you pull the wires, idle should get worse, more missing. if you find the wire that doesn't make a difference, that's most likely the dead cylinder. check for spark at the end of the spark plug wire. with engine running, hold end of wire to ground ( engine block, head, ect ) DO NOT use the battery as ground. you should hear the tack tack sound of spark hitting the ground. if you do this at night, turn off your trouble light, in the dark you should see a white/bluish light. if no spark, or a yellow spark, you have an ignition problem. good spark ? yes ? let's eliminate the spark plug. swap spark plug from good cylinder to nonfiring cylinder and bad to good cylinder. put wires back in place. start the engine. you may still have a miss. if so, pull spark plug wire off what was the good cylinder, does it make a difference, starts to miss ? yes ? then wasn't the spark plug. put wire back on the good cylinder. pull wire from bad cylinder. does engine stumble or runs the same, still has the miss ? if so, sounds like a fuel/air problem. which could include a bad valve, but not likely on the datsun 6 banger. before you go tearing anything apart, add full bottle of techron injector cleaner to the fuel tank. the no name cheap crap is mostly kerosene and alcohol and some sort of moth killer. open the air cleaner cover, with engine running spray 1/2 can of injector cleaner into the tube leading towards the induction system. drive 100 miles or so. spray other half can of the injector cleaner towards the induction system. put 20, 30 miles on. if still have a miss, then start into the fuel system.

1st you need to find out what is failing. is it failing the visual inspection or the tail pipe. if visual you will have to find out what parts the inspector says you need to replace and replace them. if tail pipe you need to know whether is NoX or hydrocarbons. if NoX is usually too lean, if Hydrocarbons is usually too rich. is it failing at idle or at high speed ? you could have bad sensors or bad controllers. possibly corroded connections at the sensors. the cat can clean up some excess but that is not what it is meant to do. the cat is to clean up the exhaust of a perfect running engine. plus the used cat you installed may have been no good. material in the cat is used to create a chemical reaction within the gases passes over the catalytic material, alter the gases make up and for the most part cause sulphuric acid and water to come out the pipe ( along with other crap ). if the cat material is coated or wasted away, no reaction, same as no cat. again, you need to find out why not passing and explore. most states base their tests on california laws and regs. here is a website to check out. http://www.ratwell.com/technical/Smog.html#settings good luck, wayne

when talking cars : restored means : exactly as car left the factory. replacement parts ( including wiper blades ) are factory parts. some parts have date stamps on em. those parts must be within the time frame the vehicle was coming off the assembly plant. various oem ( original equip manufactures ) may have supplied parts to the factory. a restorer may use any of those parts for the restoration ( again, date stamped parts must fall within the period the car was still on the assembly line ). dealer installed options are modifications. when calling a car restored you can get by with calling it "restored with dealer added options ". some people go buggy for restored cars with dealer installed options. for example: a manufacturer may have a ban on racing. no speed equipment was on car when left the factory. however the factory sold speed equipment through their dealers and warrantied em. some of these dealer installed options can be very rare and desireable. making it more expensive than a 100% correct original restored car. not right when some one offers up a restored 240z and in info says : restored 72 240z, L-28 block, 5 speed, cd player, recaro buckets, mega squirt and turbo. that's a modified car, not restored. sticking to the strict true definition of a restored car, if you changed/ swapped out the hitachi am/fm for a clarion am/fm, cd player, car is no longer restored. this is from the hard core, corvette, porsche, rolls royce, big buck cars perspective. true restorations. where they use a mirror to check the frame for chalk or grease marks made by the factory workers indicating items had been checked off as being installed. however, even the low buck high volume cars such as the vw bug restorers are now seeing it this way. if not as left the factory it is not to be called a restoration. there is a term among restorers to indicate really nice modified cars : rodification or restorification . basically what most of us do. cars brought back to life with modern upgrades ie: performance and safety oriented modifications.

trouble may not be with the alternator or regulator. but 1st, for some reason, datsuns like the regulator and alternator changed in tandem. been fooling with datsuns since 1972. experience has taught me, when using an external regulated alternator on ANY datsun/nissan always replace the alternator and the voltage regulator at the same time. not a week later, at the same time. for what ever reason, the new alt takes out the reg, new reg takes out the alternator. that said. datsun really screwed up the wiring in the z cars. everything goes through the amp guage, the light switch and then the fuse panel. large white wire to the amp guage. most problems with the lights are with the fuse box. the clips holding the fuses are press fit and riveted. corrosion builds between the two pieces of metal, metal gets hot, amps to headlights drops. suggest you check the fuse box. also suggest you use a couple relays on the headlights. instead of running all the voltage through the switch, high amp voltage sits waiting at the relay. low amp goes to the switch, turn sw on, low volt turns relay on, high voltage flows to the head lamps. if you are certain there is nothing wrong at the fuse box or with the wiring, you may want to upgrade to an internally regulated 280zx alternator. be a good idea to do anyway. some people are upgrading to the 70 amp GM alternator.

i slightly modified cozy's plans. i used a 180 degree fan switch and a 203 degree fan switch. one on the water pump, other on manifold. this is on my scarab z car. same concept will work on the L6. fan control switches are available on ebay. cozy's set up works great. fully automatic, no idiot switches inside the car. there is another set up posted on the web, turns fan on at low rpms, off at high with an override when temps reach 200. cool but more work than i wanted to do. if schematics don't show, go do a search in the chevy v8 section of here. look under cozycole or taurus fan. good luck, wayne from cozy cole. The two diagrams above show how to build and wire an auto relay switched 2-speed FORD TAURUS fan. Parts needed......10 guage wire for the power circuit. 18 guage wire for the control cicuit. Three relays..... 1) High speed relay, Tyco VF7-12V,70amps 2)Low speed relay and Aux relay, standard BOSCH relays Two switches,,,,.1)Low speed temp. switch- Adj. Flexilite, FLX-31147 from SUMMIT. 2)High speed temp. switch from Standard Motor Products, TS-158 or TS-392. I put the adj. low speed switch and the three relays in seperate relay boxes and mounted them in the engine comp. The high speed temp switch I mounted where one of the heater hoses went. Est. cost of parts, less the fan, is $50.00 . 10 guage wire is used in the power circuit and 18 guage in the control circuit. The 12V switched control circuit can be connected to any live connection with ignition on. The control circuit shown is as follows..... When the temp. reaches your set low speed figure, let's say 190 deg.the low speed relay is energized thru pin 86, 85 connects to 87A of the AUX relay and pulls 30 of that relay, 87 of the low speed relay and 30 are closed sending power to the fan to run at low speed. When the temp. reaches your high speed switch figure, let's say 210 deg. pin 86 of the AUX. relay energizes thru 85 and 30 releases from 87A of the low speed relay and connects with 85 of the high speed relay which thru 87 of that relay powers the fan to run at high speed. ARE we confused yet????? When the temp falls below the high speed swich figure the AUX relay will switch back to the low speed relay. Therfore low and high speeds will never be on at the same time and you will have the following conditions... 1) No fan on. 2) Low speed on. 3) High speed on. This set-up has worked great since installation of it and I fought heat problems for a year because of my blower set-up before this change and NO in dash switches.........

that's what i was thinking. welding. didn't want to have to remove interior panels. afraid of breaking em. inside car is almost perfect. i bought from 2nd owner. 1st owner was a woman. 2nd a woman. other than occasional drive by husbands. the women were the only drivers. she kept interior spotless. still smells like a new car inside. garaged since new. guess i will have to use a broom stick until i get the nerve to remove the panels. thanks, wayne

hmm, last message didn't post. try again. 73 240z. previous owner, hatch back support strut stuck in open position at mall. kind hearted stranger offered assistance. slammed hatch shut. ripped the strut support off the body ( part inside the car, near the suspension strut tower ) not at the hatch. anyone ever repair one of these ? welding the only option ? thanks, wayne

muscular from hoisting wankels !

i'm going to have to connect the battery to mine and see how much travel they have. i did it while back ( got em from summit ), seems that they had the amount of travel to open door without using a wire over a pulley. now you have me afraid i might have to rethink my future installation. use the search. there are people here that have completed their remote access solenoid installs. maybe there is some info there. good luck to both of us ! wayne

lot to go through. glad you family, friends, and work buddys looking out for you ! walking with a limp, better than what you thought you might be facing. cracked up over image of manager zipping down the hallway on the special chair. exercise those legs and stomach muscles. this time you put weight on be all muscle ! friend had back surgery. doctor connected him to electrical electrodes, get his muscles working. exercise without straining his back. he says he could tell the muscles were toned. watch those long hours, might be like wrestling with that lawn mower again. you get stiff from sitting ? might be reason for watching the hours. need to exercise, stretch and such. again, glad to hear that though you aren't where you were before all this nonsense, sounds as if you are 100% better than where you were a short month ago. you feeling up to taking "our' z for a ride and having it waxed before winter rolls up on you ? the best to you and family, wayne

Ernie looked at my car on saturday. trying to talk him into helping me out.

Seth, thanks, friend of mine shaved the outside handles. he started the conversion. removed interior door handle from driver's side. i agree about keeping the interior door handles. in event of emergency be nice to be able to open the doors with stock door handles. i will be putting driver's side back in. i may be wrong, but appears with out that rod with the spring on it, door latch mech won't reset into the latched position. what did you do to keep get the mech to roll back into the latched position. on mine, without rod and spring in place, i can grab the door shake it and it will eventually pop open. thanks, wayne

Gary M , beandip at classic, woman is an aquaintance of his. he thought i might know some one in sacto Cozy Z, i did as you suggested, ZONC has a list of preferred vendors. i forwarded that to Gary. Z Noob, no idea what she wants to spend. don't know her only know of her. if you would send the info to g.moisant@comcast.net thanks, wayne

friend over at classic has friend in sacto looking for decent fair priced shop to restore body on 240z. says most shops want to hammer. bondo and paint. most shops don't like working on older cars. anyone know of a good body paint shop in sacto. woman's husband died. she wants to finish the car. doesn't want someone that says will weld and then uses bondo. wants to pass on to children. any body ??? thanks !