RebekahsZ

Check your steering bearing at the TOP strut mount. You will have to jack car way up, remove the three bolts at the top of the strut and drop the strut from under the hood. You may also need to disconnect the rubber brake line to keep from breaking it (which means you gotta bleed your brakes after-yuck). Use a jack under the control arm/ball joint to keep your toes from getting smashed. I think your top steering bearing is either broken or has gotten cocked. Is your car lowered? That would be the cause-spring seat dropping off top strut insulator while you had car jacked up. Be careful not to smash any fingers.

Thanks guys. I'll do a little more searching. I'm on hold for Wilwood tech assistance right now. As you suggest, the handle has fee play and a return spring already. JMortensen, you have described the phenomenon perfectly-I'm gonna study every word that you said-if you have any more suggestions, let me know. It is funny,before I set out on the road this morning, I even shook the handle a little to ensure that I had a little slack in the handle and linkage. I shook it again mid-trip and it was still fine. Even after the system cools, it is like extra fluid is making it into the pressure line from the reservoir. Is it possible that whatever kind of valve regulates entry of fluid from the reservoir, is bad? Just got thru talking to Don at Wilwood tech support. This may be the problem. I changed the actuator rod between my handle and the piston in the master cylinder because the Wilwood and the clevis on my handle were of different thread pitches. It may be that the little ball on the end of the rod is too large and may not be allowing the o-rings to return past the passage that allow the fluid to get back into the reservoir, so with every movement of the handle (like you said, even a rattle) I am adding fluid to the line from the master that cannot get back to the reservoir when not needed. Heat would make it worse as the fluid expands. Gonna go home and look at those actuator rods-that would be a very simple fix (which is what I've been praying for). By the way, Porterfields are very dusty, but they do not fade! Hopefully my rotors aren't warped. Thanks to everybody so very much! I've gone from bumbed to fired up!

After my LS2 swap (and other work), I am now having trouble with my hydraulic handbrake progressively locking my rear wheels up after a short drive. The rear footbrakes that use the stock 280zx master cylinder and the 85 Maxima calipers seems to be working fine. Fluid pressure just seems to build in the hydraulic hand brake system until the wheels will almost not turn any more. This system also uses 85 maxima calipers, but uses a willwood master operated by a hand lever. I can release the pressure by loosening either brake bleeder screw on the brake caliper, or by removing the little snap ring that holds the piston in place on the Wilwood master cylinder. However, once I reassemble and rebleed the system and everything seems great, I go for a test drive and in a few miles - the both rear brakes are on again! I'm not even using the hydraulic handbrake! Anybody got any recommendations? I wonder if the master has a bad valve and is somehow pulling fluid from the reservoir and super-pressurizing the system? Should I start with the master cylinder, or the calipers first? Since it is affecting both sides, would it likely be a caliper?? HELP-I want to drive this monster.

Solo your Z-car with SCCA, drive a Volvo as a daily driver.

I would call that clean.

Brake dragging fixed. Clutch adjusted-well, sort of. I still don't like it, but it neither slips nor fails to release like it did yesterday. Drove it to parts store tonight to return excess trans fluid. Gonna try to limp it 3 miles to work in the morning. No hood, no mufflers, no horn, no wipers, no heater-should be fun. Do you still get one call from jail? IMG_0129.MOV

I plan to go 2.5" from collector to a 2-1 merge collector somewhere in the tunnel. I REALLY want to be able to have dual side cutouts either behind the front wheels or in front of the rears. I may make the cutouts small, like 2" oval, since they are really just noise makers. Single 3" beyond merge collector, under the diff and over to stock muffler mount with a 12" long 3" straight thru Borla XR-1 muffler. Not to be too specific. There just may not be room for the cutouts...

We are making progress. Thanks for all the suggestions so far, the plot gets better with every new chapter.

Yeah, cheese-I read your posts while searching for a solution. Seemed like all your problems went away by upgrading to a bigger master cyl. Somehow, mnoel has only a 3/4" clutch master and has no trouble. I had the car on jackstands looking for leaks and went ahead and shifted it into gear and the rear wheels started spinning even with the clutch depressed. So, I just kept lengthening my clutch adjustment rod (darn near all the way out) until the rear tires no longer spun with the clutch depressed. For all I know the clutch may be full of cobwebs! So, I'll go thru all that stuff again before I try to get back out on the road. I figure I'll be finding surprises for a while everytime I drive it. My absolute deadline for having car at the racetrack is May 5th for 2-days of SCCA autocrossing in Little Rock just before my best friend's son goes off to West Point. Perhaps, I will run into the legendary Terry Oxendale (Blue Oval Z) there. I still have to do my R200 LSD swap, alignment and exhaust, probably in that order. Anybody can call me with questions (256-366-4685) when they do their swap. I was so bad about double purchasing parts-it would be a joy to help somebody thru this swap, although it seems there are so many different ways to skin a cat. Does this forum ever host national or regional get-togethers? I'd love to be able to thank so many of you personally.

Thanks guys-this forum rocks! I'll look over what you've listed. I wonder if there is any type of really good adhesive that would PERMANENTLY bond a couple of these boots together...Anybody really smart on rubber adhestives? I've not had good luck with them.

Celebratory burn out will have to wait until I have the line lock wired and will not be done in my neighborhood-my neighbors have been VERY UNDERSTANDING. I'm a little scared of this thing. Plus, my rear brakes are dragging BAD-will start trouble shooting Tuesday night. The elbow on the cold air intake is the stock one from the 2006 GTO LS2-it fit perfectly; I have an extra one that I cut off a bit that you could have for postage, but I pretty much ruined it. I am really pleased with how nice the cold air intake turned out. The shifter "boot" is the 1972 240z boot that I trimmed carefully with wire cutters-it is not perfect and I may try to come up with something better. I wish my car were a 1970 model because it would be easier to do side exhaust in front of back tires: the 1972 has a seatbelt recess that gets in the way. Thanks for all the support from HybridZ.

Send pictures if possible.

We should start a beer fund. Everybody who has bought an "LSD R200" only to get home and find out he was duped must put a dollar in the bucket. We can all get toasted at the national convention with the hundreds of dollars we collect. I have an Open Long nose R200 sold to me as LSD: my cross shaft looks totally different from yours. My real LSD looks like the latest picture posted.

Sorry, I used that term to differentiate between the rubber boot UNDER the console (dust boot) and the cloth/vinyl/leather one that is ON the console. Some guys don't know the rubber one is down there under the console. If the rubber boot is good, the cloth one is just for looks.

Show her once and if she can't figure it out-dump her fast. My wife hates cars and it has been 23 years of hell. OK that is a little harsh, just suffice it to say she hates cars, especially z-cars. Damn shame she is so pretty.

Mine show a little similar wear on the sleeve, but it doesn't cause any noise, or any problem at all. Make sure your springs are seated correctly on the top seats when you lower car off jacks. For the knocking, I'd look at gland nut tighness and top strut rod to insulator nut tightness. Finally, if gland nut is screwed all the way in, it is possible that your strut tubes are too short and are bouncing around inside the strut tube. You'll need a spacer under the strut insert to tighten it up (often just a few fender washers). Checking the gland nut tighness and the top bolt are pretty easy, the first you do with a channel locks, the second you can do by bouncing the fender (like rocking the bolt) and looking for movement of the top nut in relation to the insulator. If the gland nut is bottomed out, you gotta pull it all down and start over-a big job. What kind of bushings do you have? The alumium/delrin offset bushings can be pretty loud. I switched back to poly/rubber because it sounded like my car was falling apart with the metal bushings. Let us all know what solution you find successful. PS-BEAUTIFUL CAR.

When your patients return for their annual check-up and ask: "You got that car running yet?"

It runs and drives. Two buddies came over this afternoon: John from Sunday school and Jake (Jacob1971 from this forum. Well, we had a productive afternoon. Installed JTR headers and dump tubes. Cranked up car-it started on the second turn of the key-it was awesome. The car immediately ran perfectly. Oil pressure gauge worked, Temp gauge worked, radiator fan worked, fuel pump was not especially loud. Looked for a long time looking for oil, water and fuel leaks but found none. It took me forever to get car in reverse because I'm used to a 5-speed. Car sounds amazing with straight pipes. I've tried to make some videos, but they are turned sideways and the files are probably pretty big. Took car for test drive-these swaps are scary fast. The Drive By Wire gas pedal works perfectly, but it is very light, so it will be easy to get carried away with the go pedal. I've got to adjust my brake linkage rod between the booster and the master cylinder-I haven't got much pedal left over. The clutch pedal rod is adjusted all the way out, but I can't tell if tires are spinning or if clutch is slipping. Went around the block taking friends and family on joy rides. By the end of the fourth trip around the block, the rear brake calipers were smoking and stinking-seems I've got some dragging brakes to figure out. Looked under car and I thought I saw brake fluid, but it may have been just water from a puddle just before my driveway. I'm pooped and calling it a successful day. I'll find any leaks from the puddles I expect to find tomorrow. Thanks to everybody on the forum who has helped me get to this point. IMG_0125 (1).MOV IMG_0126 (1).MOV

Anybody found a really good boot to use, or some other smart mod to help seal the shifter to the trans tunnel? I found out the hard way not to use a dremel tool to cut the rubber-the rubber turns soft and sticky when it heats and stays that way, even after the rubber cools (gets on eveything kind of like chewing gum). The rubber is too thick to cut with scissors or a knife, but trims in a controlled way with diagonal cutting wire snips. My solution is neat, but doesn't seal well because of all the different contours in the stock 240z dust boot. The shifter I used is an F-body shifter from MGW. Please send pics of your shifter dust boot.

I have no idea. If you don't get any replies, send a PM to JMortensen.

Nobody has replied. So, I'm just going to try treating it as if there was no computer. I'll disconnect battery when working on electrical and reconnect it when I'm done.

Hell yes, buy one and drive it. Get a nice one that has had a really good restoration (pay for one somebody else has put their life into) and drive the tar out of it. They were daily drivers when they were made, why would that change. Unless we have them taken apart, my buddies and I drive ours everyday and we drive them hard. If you spend a little extra, you'll get one that you will enjoy, rather than working on it all the time-get one with A/C, although you might not need that for Hartford.

Finished trimming shifter boot (kind of a sloppy job-would love ideas on this); shifter installed. Bled brakes. Can't get air out of clutch hydraulics-please send tips-bench bled clutch master cyl and using remote bleeder, but still fighting air (I think that is the problem). Antifreeze and trans oil in (messy job). Re-made flex fuel line-old version seemed too short and had a lot of tension on it-now it wiggles freely. Finally finished fuel pump wiring. All 4 wheels and tires mounted. Gonna put 5-10 gallons of fuel in it tomorrow-I haven't bought high-test in decades. Goal for tomorrow also includes wiring tach and cable-x speedo and fixing stereo wiring I accidentally yanked out. May also re-install rear swaybar.

Antifreeze is in-filled both radiator and engine-took ALMOST 3 gallons of 50/50-lots of burping sounds, kind of like sinking of the Titanic. Trans oil is in-took between 3 and 4 quarts-there must have been some already in it. That was messy! The pump that I bought at Harbor Freight had plenty of room thanks to having no exhaust and trans location well over to passenger side, but it was still a mess-expected to need 5 quarts, so when I topped the drain plug prematurely, I got oil all over the floor and some in my hair-I reek. Engine oil is awaiting the dipstick after header install next weekend. Bleeding brakes went pretty easy. Having a hard time getting all the air out of the clutch master cyl/line/slave cyl. Using remote bleeder, but still don't have a good pedal-am trying gravity bleeding right now while I piddle on the internet.

I wound up buying Mobile 1 5W30 (since they paid to advertise on the engine oil cap), Peak 50/50 antifreeze (because I cant measure water and I think Danica Patrick is hot-Go Daddy!), and Advance Auto brand Dextron III ATF for the T56 (because that's the only brand they had and everybody else was closed). I'll try to order Redline next chance I get, but I gotta get this thing running! Thanks for the advice guys!