JMortensen

I showed an appraisal and receipts at the time when I got insured. I'm positive that I could get them to pay what they agreed to pay should it ever come down to it. The car was my daily driver at the time, now it hasn't moved under its own power in 2+ years. When I took it off the street I got classic car insurance which limits me to something like 3000 miles/year, but that's more than I'll ever drive so who cares? At this point it's probably not going to be driven on the street at all, and the insurance is more to protect it from being stolen.

I had Allstate as my first insurer, I was on my parents' policy and they had their life, homeowners, car, and every other kind of insurance through them. After a couple of years my brother pointed out that I was paying more than the value of my car every year in the insurance premiums. I pointed this out to my parents who said I was getting a great deal and that I should be happy they let me on their policy. So I called around. The very first place I called offered me the same policy, 100/300, comprehensive for $1000/year LESS than Allstate. My parents were pretty shocked, but it wasn't an "offshore" company or any of that so they let me switch. I called Allstate to cancel and they said "Oh, we can reduce your rates to that amount, no problem. Why don't you just stay with us?" I said "You gonna give me back the $3000 dollars I overpaid in the first couple of years?" Of course the answer was no, and of course I told them that I would be changing insurance companies in a not very polite way. When I went to insure the Z I had some other insurance, can't even remember now who the carrier was, but they would not insure it for stated value. I searched around and found State Farm would help me out. I've since been a customer of theirs for the last 8 or so years and they have been great to me. They handle all of my insurance and they give me a very good deal. My wife and I have each had accidents since changing to State Farm. I was driving along and a van didn't stop for a stop sign and T boned us, and then my wife was driving up our street and a Hummer backed out from behind a tree and hit her Sentra. They weren't our fault, the rates didn't go up, the company helped us out with rental cars and all that, the one car that got T boned was fixed at the best body shop in town, the other was totalled and we were given a fair price for it. So count me as one 100% happy State Farm customer.

Search dude. There is a group buy going on right now for the Power Brutes. If you had searched all of your questions would have been answered, and you would have found the price break.

Yep, I epoxied my floor white in my last house and it was great when I had to work underneath the car. You could see for days. White is your friend.

The failures that I've seen on Hybrid Z are: The roll pin retainer bolt thing comes out. The cross pin wallows out the hole in the carrier. The cross pin slides halfway out and beats the hell out of the inside of the case.

If all else fails, I had good luck with 800-FIX-ARIM. They fixed a rim for me where the tire had debeaded and the car had slid a hundred yards down the road on the rim. Looked like new.

All manual 280Z's should have a R200 3.54. I'd follow Austin's suggestion and weld it, unless this is your daily driver.

I think he's got a newer diff, possibly out of a truck. Stub axle makes you think of the wheel end of it, but I think he has the clip in side stubs that plug into the side gears on the diff. bjhines was nice enough to give pictures and document how you can put the screw in type axles into that type of diff, which have now been integrated into this thread: http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=114798 Follow the directions there and you can use the old side stubs.

http://www.onlinemetals.com/merchant.cfm?pid=7337&step=4&showunits=inches It's .065 wall, but its $27 for 8'. 4130. They have DOM for $16.73 6' is $21.68

Another method for pilot bushings is to use a dremel with a little burr on it and cut a groove on the inside of the bushing. You cut front to back, and when you cut all the way through then the bushing has no spring tension on the hole anymore, and it comes right out. I have also used the hydraulic method and found it to be a PITA, especially when you're on your back under the car trying to hit the alignment tool with a hammer.

Those prices, except for the plate/sheet, are way high. The good news is that your car should be plenty stiff.

The coils hit each other because it is a progressive spring. It isn't "defective", they just don't leave enough travel.

Trim down the bumpstops and you can get a bit more travel. Other than that, this is the reason why we suggest sectioning the struts when the car gets lowered more than about an inch. Coilovers won't help with the lack of travel if you have the height you want, sectioning will. Coilovers will get rid of the progressive rate in the front and will allow you to choose pretty much any rate you want in 25 in/lb increments.

This is the MAIN consideration for us. We realize that the market is on a downturn, so we're trying to find a place where we would be happy to live for the next 10 years, just in case it takes that long for the market to cycle back up. I don't think that this is the case in terms of home buying. The interest on a loan is a write off. Doesn't necessitate a loss. This is what we're trying to do. It's a matter of degrees. We're not going to check out MO, where my sister-in-law bought a house for $35K, because we don't want to live out where she was. We want to find something reasonable where we can afford to live comfortably and where we would be happy long term, should we need to stay for a long time.

If you're like me this site has saved you thousands of dollars. I think of my donation as an investment on future savings, and a cheap one at that. Thanks to all who have ponied up some coin to keep it going.

I'm sorry man, that's gotta hurt like a bitch. Hopefully the surgery goes well and you get some good pain meds. Good luck.

I paid a hell of a lot in taxes last year. My CPA told me that since I'm self employed I wouldn't get my self-employment taxes back by owning a home, but I would have gotten the other half back (at least last year). So why rent and accrue equity for a landlord when I could be doing the same for myself, and have my mortgage effectively subsidized by the government? If I find that in 10 or 15 years that the tax benefit isn't as good, I'll just buy another house! If you think that makes me a "slave to my belongings", well then so be it. I like my belongings and I really loved my old house. I can't wait to get those shackles on again. I remember that feeling of "oppression" washing over me, how warm and happy it made me... In the mean time I'm going to keep working hard so that I can put more of that "evil" money into a "stupid" Z car, because it makes me happy too. As to property taxes, I haven't yet seen the $250,000 house where you have $17K in property taxes. That's basically what I pay for rent in the current place. When I owned in CA my $255K home ran about $3K in taxes. It is definitely something to keep in mind, and we are checking that before we buy. I've seen stories of homeowners and particularly seniors who were on Social Security and had fixed incomes that got pushed right out of their houses by the property tax increases. That was one thing that I liked about ID, they had laws against increasing property taxes more than .xx percent per year.

Here I was thinking that Quaifes usually spin the inside tire on a high g-load turn like a long sweeper or at autox...

I'm not using the Tokico springs, but I think the fronts are progressive and the rears are not. Check out the H&R springs site: http://www.hrsprings.com/site/index.html. Every spring I saw has the heavy part on top except the cup spring for the rear, and if you notice it gets really small in diameter at the top, so that makes it very hard to put the heavy part at the top (smaller diameter = stiffer, but closer coils = softer).

The chain tensioner will pop out if you let it. If that happens you have to pull the front cover to reset it. If you haven't let the tensioner fall out, then the most likely issue is the curved guide. You can loosen the top bolt on the guide with a long 10mm wrench and move it away to get more clearance for the chain. Regardless even with the guide out of the way it's always a bitch to get the stupid chain on, so you kinda have to fight it on there.

I kinda thought that was the case too. I remember someone (johnc?) posted a C&D article from the early 70's where they were able to reduce drag and lift by installing a flat 7" spoiler on the back at some specified angle like 30 degrees from the hatch. I know John quoted the article when he made his spoiler for the ROD. I think one benefit to the whale tail is that it is a lot wider than the hatch itself. Plus it has the lip at the end which acts like a Gurney flap and it has the side fences on it. Just looking at it I have to think that it seems like it would be a LOT more effective than the BRE spoilers, possibly moreso than the NASCAR style as well, depending on how wide you could make the NASCAR style spoiler. It just seems like with that style you're limited to the width of the hatch or maybe just a hair wider.

I believe all of the 240/260/280s share the same front fenders. My bro-in-law has fenders for sale, they're off of parts cars, so they're used but decent shape. You can PM him, his username here is Matman. The hoods also interchange but the 280 hoods have vents where the 240 and 260 do not. The shims in the springs is probably because they were sagged out and the PO was trying to keep the thing off the bumpstops. Sounds like you have some suspension work in your future. Search on the front diff mount. There are some good, easy $5 alternatives that will save you a lot of time and hassle and will make the mount much stronger in the end.

You're right, it probably wouldn't for long. But if someone were to make a support to transfer that force to the frame rails underneath... Iceice9, your sig pic is too big. 600 wide x 200 tall max. The pics of the full size whale tail and the smaller version is pretty helpful though, so thanks for that! I like them both.

Here's a good wing (not spoiler), if you have the $$$: http://www.g-stream.com/ I like the bit where it says the struts must be capable of handling 400 lbs EACH...

Too bad about Feltons. When I needed them they had them in stock. I just drove over and picked them up. The CVs are newer parts and shouldn't be that hard to find in the JY locally. Have you called around? Looks like the Power Brute is the better deal for you, BTW.