iaconsultants

Its been a long time since I was there but there was one on Capital Court which was right near a shop that worked on lots of Z cars. I think the guys name was Arnie Kudja or something like that, but the body shop that was like two doors down had a special bay for doing that. In Houston most CSI places have an area t do that.

There is an old trick we used to do with the standard Z oil pump that worked out very well. You remove the fastener remove the spring place 4 small stainless steel washers behind the spring the same diameter as the spring or slightly larger (ACE Hardware has them). This increases the pressure to the oil pump of the standard oil pump above what the turbo pump has. Side note generally there are two things that go wrong with the oil pump. 1. the spring fails and it does not pump as much oil as it should. 2. The pump simply gets worn out and oil pressure drops.

I agree that you should not keep running it in the looped configuration but it does allow you to still use the car until you get the heater leak repaired. About the heating problem that a looped system might cause, well I had to do this with an old 77 Z during the hottest time in the Houston summer time (I have owned 15 1st gen Z's so far and it worked fine twice when I needed to try it). It rain plenty cool but I also had an electric fan and took off the clutch fan years before that time. I am not saying that it could not cause over heating but if it does I would say you have found out that there is another issue going on with the cooling system that needs some attention.

You can simply bypass the connections made to the firewall side in the engine compartment by looping the two lines together. This will allow you to take it out and redo what you need to do. Chances are it is the outlet fitting to the heater box since it seems to only happen when you turn it on and not all the time. It probably keeps dripping until the outlet line goes below the leak area.

Did you bleed the master cylinder before bleeding the lines? You can actually bleed it in the car just make sure you get something like fish tank air hose or some small tubing like that and bleed it into a cup with some paper towels shoved in it. Also some times parts we buy are rebuilt and not rebuilt very well. If you pulled apart the mastercylinder you might discover that the two seals on the shaft were installed incorrectly or possibly are defective.

You would probably hear the belt slip so I would look at the connections made with the alternator and the starter especially when it comes to grounding. Many times you can wiggle wires under the hood and the lights might get brighter which means a bad ground. Also check your fuseable links which could also give you a similar issue if they are old. I would have said your diode in the alternator is not functioning well but seems you just replaced the alternator.

Just a thought take the Distributer cap off and the rotor off. There is a Star like element on the shaft of the distibuter and an electronic pick up that looks like an opened up thick L shaped piece of plastic with some wires coming out. If the gap between there is too much you will get a strange stumbling action when you increase the RPMs. Do not use a steel feeler gauge on this but use a brass one. I do not remember the gap but some 10 years ago I bought a Z that someone had actually pushed the palstic pick up too close to the stator (star shaped element) and ate away at the stator. Check to make sure there is no foreign build up and that the teeth are all in tact. Hope this helps/

What I did is ended up buying the Bob Sharp race front fenders (with flares) and used the stock fender extensions. I would also suggest filling in the openings of the rear fenders on both sides unless you want rocks and dirt tearing and scratching at your paint on a regular basis. If you used the ducts as brake cooling then there is a benefit of leaving them open and porting them to the brakes. I might still have some pictures but sold the car around 1990 time frame. You can make the rears handle 195 50 15 comp TA tires. The only bad part is the original fit was not the best and had to be modified and ground to a better fit. Make sure you make an inner fender because you will be cutting the joint away between your original inner fender and the original quarter panel. I believe Sandy is his Jim Cooks Daughter. It's been a long time since I called them but I think he passed away more than 15 years ago. Like I said it has been a long time since I talked to him. Good luck

I am thinking about doing something similar to the rear hatch, but my idea is simply to use a hatch release and put some stronger hatch shocks in the back similar to the ones on a 4-Runner or possibly like the use on some of the Honda/Acura hoods that slowly push it open once released. This is much cheaper than finding a linear actuator that will have the right stroke length, rate, and force level. The hatch release will be operated by the trunk release button on the alarm system. The alarm would still be wired in to the hatch so if someone tried opening it either of the two sides would set it off. The locking mechanism is the only part that needs some work still.

When you have your headlights on do one or both seem brighter than normal? If so you have a poor ground which will blow fuses in the same manner. If it involves lights you can generally find one light brighter than the other which let's you know the poor ground is closer to that light. Just something based on a previous experience that I found out. Good luck

Sounds like your going to have some fun. Basically in most directions from Houston there are leases but from what I remember Rockport/Alvin area is supposed to be good for wild pigs and dear. To bad there was not a gathering set up here in Houston for all to hang out.

I totally get your point with the hieght issue, me being at 6'8". I have to slouch in the seat and we are going to put in some custom seats since my wife is like 5'3" and she drives the Z more than me at this time. You really do not need any more roof support with the sunroof, but adding a little probably will be alright. We are planning on putting on a sunvisor and I am thinking the one for a late 90's 4-Runner would work fine. My wife likes the visor on the car and it would serve a function too so I am okay with that (cavitation).

Also just to let you guys, that most of those places will work a better deal on a cash deal. I spend 800 cash if I remember correctly and they would do the work in 3 hours time with me watching. The one thing I wish I had done and probably will do in the future is redo the headliner in a leather that matches the interior. Right now it is a heavy felt/velvet type of cloth. Also I think that area would be a good area for tweeters along the roof sills. About T-tops. I had a couple of old Z's with them. You will have to add some structural members in the roof area. The ones they did in the 76 and the 77 where almost not there. They both ended up not fitting well and one of those was caused by me taking a corner a bit hard and disaligning the roof line. The sunroof I have does not have that issue and I have put it through some hard turns even a few with dips in the turn and no problems as of yet. Also Tincup - you might be able to get a larger one in there than the 300 if you want. You can push the sunroof as far back as possible. This will help with the air passing along the top. If they have the motor in the back you could alway redo the plastic molding you have above the hatch and place the light elsewhere. I am fairly certain yours is the same barnd as the one we have. Don't forget to add the sound proofing and heat shield material while the work is being done. I think I put the dimensions of the sunroof on the other posting out there so you can compare the sizes. They always try to put a smaller one in there because it is easier for them and they do not have to work the headliner as much. Good luck

Thank you Sparks280zt, I think the pictures I took are still up here. The sunroof works great, no leaks, just some wind leak noise but that is at a significant speed (around 110 or 120) and I know how to take care of that. The way it fits and works it looks like it came from the factory that way and it is fully electrical. I actually had it done in California, mostly because my wife loves sun roofs. Structurally it did not do much to the car and if it did it actually made the roof area slightly stiffer. About if it changes the sheetmetal in the roof by adding weight, the answer is not at all and my car proves that without a doubt. At 120 you can drive with it popped up in the back, closed, partially open, fully open , and operate it and there is no issues either. You do hear a pretty good suction noise when you first open it up at higher speeds. There is a slower speed that when you drive with it all the way open you get wind cavitation but once I make a slight raised area that will go away also or a sun visor (I know some purists will hate that statement, but this is Hybrid Z not purist Z). Besides this car has power windows, door locks, remote auto windows crack or full down, it is getting adjustable power seats, mirrors, and hatch unlock (open,close, lift about 4 inches and hold open at that point). I won't get into what is going in as the drive train at this time but it will be much more modern and a very good power range. I am just very lucky that my wife is into this stuff and does not mind spending the money if she can have fun driving it. I also for the fun of it checked to see if it helped with wind resistance and it des seem to trip the boundary layer of the wind and bring it down closer to the roof line along the hatch. This was done in a real wind chamber so I would tend to believe the results they found.

If I remember correct about another diaphram that is under the float bowl on the primary side. Make sure that is not leaking and that it makes the correct gasket type of seal. Also check to make sure your float levels are set correct and that the floats actuate the valves properly.

Well it depends on how good you are as a welder, I guess. The thing I would look at is if you can weld them together and weld like a sleeve around the welded area. I have been trying to work a C5's steering rack with powersteering pump into mine but I am also going wide body IMSA so I can use the more outward wheel stance. If enough people are interested in going power steering than I might be able to get a shop to build some special parts for one type of steering rack.

When I was in LA area about two years ago I found a place called Pacific Coast Import Parts that had good prices for stock items, brakes pads, rotors, mastercylinders, and other stock items. They only have a few shelves in the front but you call them order what you want and they seem to have it there in a day or two. They are located on 837 Pacific Coast Highway, Hermosa Beach Ca 90254, and there number is 310-374-8933. One thing I noticed on the receipt is a 20% restocking fee so make sure you buy what you want. You can also set up an account and they gave a discount back then, if I remember correct it was like 5 or 10%.

Also depending on which make and model of carb you have you could have plugged air bleed holes or pocket that is on the bottom surface of the carb. Generally they do not have them but I have seen a few that do. I believe rochester is one of them. Next time just use a gasket and do not use permatex to seal any carb to an intake manifold. Also depending on which carb you have most have a sealed float but there are a few out there that have open top floats and if you turned it over then you filled it up. There is little that anyone can give you on advice until they know what carb you are using. Good luck

It looks like it will turn out to be a nice dash, but I am wondering about the weight of it. It just seems like a lot of bondo and that stuff is not light and I just don't like bond (based on body work experience).

I cooked some powder coating on some stop-tech and some brembo brakes. But they were used during hard racing on a road course. Basically it fried it off in bubbles and turned it a little chalk like in areas. If you see very high temps powder coat will not work. Two part epoxy paint will, but requires a primer epoxy that is classified as a restricted toxic paint like leaded paint and mostly only used by government facilities or contractors. I would just recommend using standard high temp engine paint and make sure the engine is really clean first.

another thing you might want to check before you start this is if the defroster painted on the windows is in good working order. You can check for continuity across the two connections with them unplugged but a better test is to create a window fog with ice and hook it up to a battery for a short time just to see if you get a little clearing of the rear window. I figure you should check this first since almost none of the rear defrosters work any more. The paint gets rubbed off with cleaning the windows, age causes it to crack or lose connection and other reasons.

About 20 years ago put a 77 280z dash in a 73 240z and had no problems with that and it mounted right in. I would assume it would go the other direction also I would assume it would be the same for the 260Z. I did this because I wanted to have an AC dash in the 240Z and I had a 77 parts car with a clean dash with the AC ducts. The fun part was the installation of the rest of the AC system going from the 280 to the 240. Good luck.

Just to let you know it appears that the flares are Bob Sharp built especially if the entire front fenders are fiberglass. Looks like a very nice find.

There use to be a company out of LA that made T-Tops for the 1st gen Z cars. I am sure there are still some people out there that remember them and might even know how to find a set. I had a Yellow 240Z that I bought with them already installed. One suggestion do not take hard turns with them not in the car because they will never fit the same again. About 3 years ago there was a place that I ran across north on I45 some place near the woodlands or Conroe area that had a lot of Z cars in the front yard and all around their house. They had a 76 Z with the same T-Tops in it. Chances are they still have all those cars because for a basically trashed out and non-running Z they wanted to much money (1800) when I went there. My wife and I installed a power sun roof with a role up screen that seems to work very well with no leaks or structural losses. Just a idea for thought

I don't know if you guys realize it but most of the old Tommy Turbo stuff was a suck through and not a blow through, based on all the carbs I modified for his systems, many years ago. 600cfm Holley carbs, primary metering block placed on the vacum secondary side with the power valve and drilling into the carb body behind the power valve to add a brass tube that would be connected to the manifold. I might still have the jigs laying around for drilling the body on a drill press. Like I said this has been many years ago since I did the last one but if any of you are really going to get as much out of the system as you can and need some ideas on what to do with the carbs drop me a line. I actually preferred using Corky's system and making the carb as Tommy needed for his. (made an easy 365+ to the wheels). Good luck either way guys.