Oddmanout84

I can see some annoying adjustment procedures needing to be used to get these aimed right, not to mention I doubt the effectiveness of cheap headlights/foglights (let alone the fact they're shining through a smoked light cover). But whatever floats your boat I guess.

Steering rack and swaybar reinstalled, front of the car back up in the air, blah blah... kinda boring stuff, and nothing of note that would make for exciting pictures. Getting the sway bar links (with new urethane bushings) to fit onto the control arm was an exercise in frustration, as it was on the rear ones. Those long bolts just aren't long enough, so as before I rigged up a stupidly complex array of wooden blocks and jacks to compress them so I could fit the locknuts on the ends. There's probably an easier way but... I also reset the alignment back to what it was, good thing I took pictures of the threads (in relation to the inner portion of the rack) before taking the rack apart! I was way off on my initial adjustments before I looked at the pics. I've removed the headlights from their buckets as well. As the be expected, the portion facing the tire was covered in a lovely layer of surface rust. More annoying; the rust extended to the bolts holding the assembly apart, so it was quite some work to get them out (turning phillips heads into standards with a dremel). That and readying the splashpan for painting is what I'm into now. Oh, and I guess this is picture worthy; Its not entirely done, but 99% of that sticky black tar sound deadening is gone. I spent many hours chipping away at it with a hammer and putty knife. Found even more rust hiding underneath.... But its not terrible, mostly just surface. Soon I'll finish this and recoat the interior once the rust is taken care of. The stock ignition relay has also been replaced. The newer Nissan unit looks much more durable, and better yet, it was still a simple R&R job! New Ign Relay; Compare that to the pictures of my original relay. Much better. More updates to come, soon.

If its anything like the Bond car from The Spy Who Loved me, I want it!! There's a project fit for someone on HybridZ; a Z that goes fast AND goes underwater!

I'd love to buy this game just for the Z, but it would take $55 out of my car fund for a USED copy at Gamestop! By the way, are there any other styling options for the 280Z in that game besides the hideous ones? (The black one you have there and stock are the only good ones I've seen...)

I'd recommend a 33 gal compressor at the least for painting. I got a Craftsman one from Sears which is probably the minimum.

TT V8 Z: POWER>weight There is such a thing as too much... unless you're making this into a drag car. Otherwise you're looking at a LOT of work just to make the car handle right.

Those look like fog lights sold in Autozone, lol.

I think my favorite commercial was the crystal ball one. FREE DORITIOS FOR THE OFFICE!! Lmao

I was going to budget paint (DIY) my Z with that Duplicolor ready-to-spray lacquer from Autozone (hugger orange), but this thread got me thinking. Maybe I should reconsider using a better brand? Really though, I don't think the brand will matter terribly. I have a feeling that my painting outcome will depend much more on the weather at time of painting, and my ability to paint a car without any prior experience doing so. Sure, I've painted some snazzy model airplanes and cars, but this is entirely different! I'm hoping with a little luck (and care over the years to come) will help my car stay shiny for years to come, even if it is the duplicolor.

One more question though... Ezzzzzzz, did you get the cobalt blue glow or the standard blue?

Perhaps I'm a little too anal in this respect, but I like all of my lights/gauges right in line of sight (or in the corner of my vision). When I eye-gauged it, it looked like if I did a similar light pod option like ezzzzzzz or the map light idea by NZeder would be a little farther away for my liking. I don't like the thought of hacking up a dash for it, but another idea would be to put each turn signal at the edge of each (speedo/tacho) gauge on the outer rims, then plopping a light pod for the highbeam/brakes inbetween. I know I'm just spouting ideas right now without trying them, but down the road when I get to the gauge replacement, I might be crazy enough to try it. My dash is already ruined, so if anything I'd be just risking a dash cap. Sure its more complicated, but its just my two cents. I'm not saying that I look down on the installs that you guys are going through, far from it. They're much better than what I currently have! just throwing ideas out there.

Daeron: Here is a picture of the exact location of my ign relay. Yours, being an older model, may be different if I remember. Mine is nestled in near the horn relay and intermittent wiper relays, just above my fuse panel on the passenger side and below the dash. Keep in mind this is a '78 California model as well, but I don't think that affected the relays' positions, just the amount. I'm trying to point to the relay bracket with the beef stick, its a little off though. The garage was too dark, so I took this picture with a flashlight in my mouth aimed at the area in question, all while trying to point the beef stick at the location while trying to aim my SLR through the eyepiece at the area so it would autofocus. I was a bit overwhelmed.

Yeah, its not too bad in the aviation field because you usually get updated paperwork that replaces the old info in the manuals when a change occurs. From what I've seen here, not so much. But then again, I'm pretty sure its because our manuals don't update like Nissan's do over in their shops. I bet they have all sorts of documentation (somewhere) that details the little dynamic component upgrades that have occured on their cars. Its just a little bit harder for us to get our hands on them. Man, I need to find an inside man, lol. Maybe I should go over to the Nissan dealership and try to make friends with some mechs.

So THAT'S how you get one of those silly subtitles... I was wondering about that for the longest time! lol

Dude, why did you have to go and show me that... now I want one! Seriously, that's just about one of the most awesome things I've seen in a long time.

I have my methods....

For the past few days I've been removing this crap. Weapons of choice? A small rubber mallet and a 4-5" wide metal putty knife. Since its been below 32 degrees F for a while, I just open the garage and let the temperature DROP. Once its cold enough, the stuff chips away like a charm. Usually in huge chunks. WAY easier than when I first tried at the end of summer. I tried a chisel first, but it was too small and sharp. Not to say that this doesn't require quite a bit of work, and its still a pain to do it. But it is much easier. Who says the cold never does any good?

Wow! That's a nice solution to the "idiot light" problem as well!

holy crap! lol

Rope it to the roof, bwahahahahahahaa! Sweet ride though, and the photography really does justice to it.

I hate to be a search Nazi, but all that info is pretty basic, frequently covered stuff. Its all over the forums here, and a lot of it is stickied so you have an easier time finding it. Just take the time to browse the forum to find the info you need, its worth it and more than likely you will find answers to many other questions that you might not have thought of before.

I'm not worried about the door panels, its more the rear panels in the hatch area. I'm not missing a screw, its just a matter of angling/bending the panel so I can pull it out. I gave my car its face back, just not the eyes.

I'm not absolutely sure. If the pre-'78 280Z's have the same stock 6 bladed relay that I showed in the first post (with matching art number), then I would say so. However, I have never worked on any 280Z besides a 78, so I'm not positive. If I remember correctly, the small, blurry diagrams in my Haynes manual showed a different relay layout for pre-'78 models under the passenger side dash (above the fusebox) where this ign relay was located. Sorry I can't provide a more lucid answer, but my knowledge of working on these cars is limited to my '78, and small blurry illustrations from manuals.

Booksmarts are undoubtedly a great asset, and go a long way. However, if there's anything I learned while flying on military helicopters, you need to combine it with hands on experience to truly make it useful. The manuals always outline how a system should work, and how it says troubleshooting should be done. Sometimes though they leave out a lot of important details and things that you can discover with hands on. And even more so, doing the unexpected, most contrary things to logic yields results. An example would be the old voltage regulator for our APUs. You could try reading a manual that told you all the troubleshooting steps (to find out WHY it was not "crossing over" and supplying electrical power to the aircraft), or you could get the 1" wrench out of your box and beat on it. 9 times out of ten whacking the piss out of it would solve your problem in a faster, more violent way than the manual would ever have you do. As such, most voltage regulators you saw were heavily dented. I wouldn't discount the knowledge that you've poured into this forum though, because as you said, even the quantity of answers you may throw out there (correct or not) will usually at least get someone to think and find a way to solve the problem. All that being said, now that my work on the bottom of the car (and EFI troubles) is nearly finished, I'm going to start with the interior. I can't fix my exterior without a welder (although the thought has crossed my mind that maybe I could cut out the rust, seal and glass the holes as they are small). Even if I did glass the holes, it would just be a temp fix to get the car on the road so I could drive it to somewhere that I can weld new steel onto it. I also have not put my steering rack back in, or my master brake cylinder. Not to bash on Ross or anything, but I ordered a brake proportioning valve from Modern Motorsports almost 2 weeks ago, and I have yet to even get an email response from them saying that they're at least processing my order. I had great success ordering my rear disc conversion from them in the past, but I'd be lying if I said this latest order doesn't have me a bit annoyed. My hands are pretty tied until I get that thing. So I'll start messing with the interior again. I have a lot of cleaning to do, and since its bitter cold outside the nasty tar-like liner inside is chipping off a little easier. I'm hoping to remove it all before I lay down anti-rust paint, but its really trying my patience. No access to a sand blaster, this is all manually done with a spatula. Once its done though, I can get that dash back out of my passenger side to where it rightfully belongs. I'm also having a bit of trouble removing the right side rear interior trim. The driver side came out fine, but this one is being a real pain. The mounting point for the hatch hydraulics is in the way, and guess what, its welded to the frame so I can't remove it. The only way to get this plastic piece out is to bend it, and I'm pretty sure its going to snap in the process, something I want to avoid. Definately needs to go though, as all the interior trim is being painted black. Doors are also on my agenda. I need to get all the cracked brown vinyl off so i can treat the surface rust hiding underneath. I also have to patch up my driver side mirror hole with fiberglass. Thank you, fender mirrors... So much time and so little to do!