JMortensen

I would spend my money on a good temp gauge if I were you. I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill on this one Bastaad. I don't really worry about temp until it gets to about 215 or so. Aside from a broken fan belt, a stuck thermostat, and that header wrap incident I had last fall, I've never had problems even at the track in 114* weather. You can get a cheap overflow bottle for about $15 at the parts store, or I used one from a 280ZX parts car I had and just bolted it to an existing hole in the rad support. Get a good thermostat, consider replacing the rad cap, and run it. You've already got a bigger radiator. You should be fine. Seriously consider the gauge though. Cheap and you'll never have to wonder again. Jon

Yeah thanks Terry! It was fun. Very surprised that no mechanics piped up on the subject though. I figured for sure there were more than a couple here... Jon

Well at least you didn't pay $2500 to have it stripped to bare metal and painted, then about 2 years later get some chips and see the original red underneath, then start to see rust bubbling up, then notice that they never painted the leading edge of the hood underneath, then have a chip on the driver's fender and see the fender crack where the chip was, then have the roof start spider cracking under the clearcoat, then see the leading edge of the doors crack, then see clearcoat flaking off, then... oh, nevermind... I'll never pay a shop to do bodywork again. Next time I'll do the work and take it in and have them spray it. But there probably won't be a next time. The more I drive it the more I think that the paint job was the biggest waste of money I've made on my Z. But it was a daily driver for my wife at the time, and she couldn't handle the badly repainted red with the black hood all oxidized and crappy looking. Women... Jon

Despite the help guys rather than burn down the garage or blow the siding off the side of it or cause major water damage, I'm just going to call an exterminator. $90 was the cheapest I could find. I guess that's not a bad deal, and it's just not worth getting stung for me. My neighbor tried to take out a hornet's nest last fall and ended up stung 5 or 6 times. Jon

Bottom line: If you go to a shop they give you an estimate. The estimate states the value of the job. If you don't like the estimate, go to another shop! Another note on flat rate: shops pay flat rate is so that they don't have to pay mechanics when there is no work to do. I know not a single rich mechanic. Some make decent money, but as I stated in the beginning, the rates for jobs are not determined by the mechanics. Jon

Cut up the tubing and sell it to the rest of us. You'll more than cover the costs. Or try to find a shouldered bolt (but good luck on that one). I agree with Mike. Drilling and tapping the ring gear is almost guaranteed to be a big PITA. Jon

Well it was embarrasing when I was 10. 10 is about that age when you're supposed to not scream like a baby when you get stung by a bee in front of 500 of your schoolmates. Bottom line: YOU WIN! And now you need to share the rest of that story... Jon

PROBABLY MY MOST EMBARRASING STORY- I was 10, and it was the middle of an elementary school assy. The whole school was there. Everyone had just settled down and the principal started to talk. I take a bite of my school lunchroom taco, and the f'ing bee stings me. Being 10, I did the logical thing. I jumped up, started screaming, and ran through the whole crowd to the health office. Of course I was sitting in the back so I got to do my own little screaming sprint past EVERY row of seats in the cafeteria. Next day my tongue was all swollen and was swelling down my throat and I couldn't breathe. Adrenaline shot to the tongue and I was all better. It's kinda funny now, but man did that suck at the time... And yeah, "it tastes all buzzy and stingy" was pretty accurate! Jon

No, we don't have Africanized up here yet. F'in Washington! Goddamn bees everywhere! Yeah, I guess I could call an exterminator. Was hoping there would be some bug bomb type of solution I could use, but they're INSIDE the damn wall. Jon

So I've been out in the garage lately, and I've been hearing this weird buzzing noise. I thought bees were trying to get in thru the vents near the roof of the garage. Today I located the noise. A bumble bee hive built between the siding and the drywall on the side of the garage. I'm mildly allergic. I swell more than most, but I've only had to get a shot of adrenaline once, and that time I got stung on the tongue (yeah, it hurt). Also my understanding is the more times you get stung, the worse the reaction gets. Any entomologists out there? What the hell am I supposed to do with a hive of bumble bees inside a wall?!?! Jon

I'm doing some slight mods to mine right now, so I won't be able to take pics for a while. If you know what you're trying to do it's a pretty easy job though. Just drill out the peened ball on the end of the gas pedal, weld a tab to the end and drill and slot it to accept the end of the cable, then make a bracket to hold the other end of the cable. I moved the arm that attached to the linkage into the middle of the shaft from the firewall end and bolted my cable bracket to the top of one of the carbs. Whole thing took ~2 hours. Easy job. Jon

Oh yeah I punched it! Getting on the freeway I floored it from about 25-80 mph. Holy crap that thing is fast! I thought the Chevy was fast, but that Nissan, Jesus!!! I don't know that I need that kinda power for everyday, but it might help when towing. I liked the 5 speed auto too. Very smooth, and always in the right gear at least on the test drive. The best part about the Titan IMO, no body roll. I mean none... felt almost like a gigantic sports car. Nice firm suspension too. Not all floaty feeling. Floaty makes my wife carsick. I'm going to see what kind of deal I can get, but they didn't seem too enthusiastic about getting a better APR for me. I still think the Chevy might be a little nicer as a daily, just because it doesn't have 400 buttons and switches on the stalks coming off the column and it is a little easier to control the gas pedal, although I'm sure my wife would figure that part out in fairly short order. Thanks for the input Chris, even if you made my decision harder . I would probably never have driven the Titan without your suggesting it, but the price is a heck of a lot closer than I thought it would be. Jon

Where do you get this crap?!?!

Driveshaft U-joint. If this weren't the internet I'd put $20 on it. EDIT- I suppose I should clarify. My friend's Z has a vibration on acceleration at low rpms, you can feel it in your butt thru the seat more than anything else. Turns out she ran her front driveshaft U-joint dry for who knows how long, and that was the cause.

Just drove the Titan. WHOA!!! That truck has buttloads of power. Many many buttloads. The throttle was SUPER TWITCHY. When my wife and I switched seats I thought she was going to give me whiplash. She couldn't press the gas softly enough to keep from jerking me around. That was not good. Also, the controls are more ergonomic on the Chevy for sure. The Titans have a "limited slip" which is actually more of a traction control. Applies the brake on the wheel that is spinning. GM has the Gov-Lok, or as I call it, the Gov-Bomb. Still, I tend to think that the Gov Lok on the 8.6 might be preferrable to applying the brakes on the DANA (who knew?) rear end in the Titan. The salesman could not tell me which Dana axle it was. Thought it was a 44, but I think he just agreed with me when I suggested it might be a 44. Anyone know for sure? So back to the bottom line. Titan $26K or so for 2wd with our preferred options. Probably in the 4.8% APR range. 1500 $25K with the same basic setup, 0% financing. Stupid question: could I theoretically do the TunerCat thing on the Chev if I felt like I was missing out on some power? Jon

jonzer, does it occur to you that we just made the same argument? The jobs are worth a set amount (making pizza or changing a timing belt for example) so that's what the job is worth. Do the job, get paid the money. Jon

The service is the job, and the shop should charge what the job is worth. If the mechanic can get the job done faster, then that doesn't take away from the value of the job. Would you rather pay the new employee at the pizza parlor MORE because it took him longer to make it? Jon

Me too! Strap yourself in... I'm going to get a little communistic here, so anyone who knows my libertarian ethos be forwarned. By going to a backyard mechanic you are SCREWING legitimate mechanics. Legitimate shops need to pay for insurance, need to be regulated, have OSHA inspections on occasion, are forced to a higher safety standard, need to dispose of chemicals in the proper manner, etc. Your backyard mechanic doesn't have any of those requirements. So he can take your old oil and dump it in his backyard (in theory). Or he can work under a car that is not properly supported, etc. He has virtually no overhead, and probably stocks no parts. So sure he can give you a better deal. But he is doing it ILLEGALLY, so he is laying his ass on the line every time he works on your vehicle (if you were in a wreck he has no business to shield his personal property from your lawsuit), and taking the business away from shops that play by the rules which is more expensive to do. Sure, there are "gravy" jobs. And there are jobs that aren't. And all of this depends on the mechanic you get of course. What incentive does a mechanic have to better educate himself and learn his craft and to buy all of the specialized tools if he can't make any more money? Why buy all the tools if he can't use them to his advantage. That's the difference between a rookie mechanic and a guy who has been doing it for 20 years. The guy with the experience has spent the money on the tools, has honed his diagnostic skills, and wastes less time. He makes a bigger profit for his boss. And his boss pays him flat rate to compensate him for his trouble. The shop gets can handle more business and make the customer happier, and the mechanic gets a fatter paycheck. When a flat rate mechanic's work comes back, he fixes it and gets paid NOTHING. I would not want to go to a mechanic who got paid hourly. There is no incentive for him to do better. He doesn't care if he has a comeback. Jon

This is how mechanics make money. How else would they afford the $40K in TOOLS that they have to work on your car? I don't know one mechanic who has been in the biz for over 10 years that doesn't have AT LEAST $40K in their tool box. The job times are not rated by the dealer, they come from an independent source (sorry, can't remember the name of the book). Mechanics that I know make anywhere from $15 to $25 per hour. Show me another profession that requires such a HUGE investment in tools in order to make such a measly wage. I know people hate mechanics, and I know there are a FEW crooked wrenches out there, but by and large they are honest and they've got a hell of a lot of time and money invested in tools and expertise so that they can make 12 hours flat rate in an 8 hour day. Jon

280z-racer, is there ANY difference between a Chevy 1500 and a GMC 1500 given the same options? Seems like I could spend an extra $2K so that the thing says GMC on the front instead of having a bow tie. Feedback has been great guys. Thanks again. Jon

The manifolds are different lengths, so I doubt the linkage would crossover. I had the same trouble getting all the linkage pieces together, so I ended up using a cable. Jon

Hopefully someone else knows of a site where you can download it yourself. Should be an attached file. When I sent it it took an appropriate amount of time to send the mail with the file attached, so it did go out with the email. Sorry, but I guess you'll have to find it online somewhere. Jon

It may just be too big. It was zipped though. I was trying to send you the L series engine calculator. You can plug in head head gasket thickness, rods, crank, block, even change the cc's on the combustion chambers and it will calculate the compression ratio for you. I'll try sending it again. I'm guessing you won't get it if you didn't the first time. Maybe someone else has a link to a site that has it so you can download it.... Just checked, it is 348K. That's not very big. Sent again... Jon

I tried to email you a file. Did you not get it? Jon