Jeff

Get the 6 speed car. I love my Trans Am but could kick myself in the ass for buying an automatic. I've done some track events in it and had a blast but I would have prefered to have been rowing through the gears.

41 years young although all of you young guys make me feel old.

I doubt a front end collision would buckle the floor pans unless it was very serious. I'm dealing with restoring a 260 that had been invovled in two different front end collisions and the pans were not bothered at all. All of the damage is from the strut towers forward so that is where we are sectioning the car. Just my $0.02 but I suspect they ran over something or put it into a ditch a some point. I think it should be an easy fix with little or no structural impact to the car.

Sounds like a great time and it was definetly a garage kind of Sunday. I added some much needed lighting to the garage and hung out with a couple of friends. When we were done it turned into a bench racing beer drinking episode that can only be done in the garage. It's been a good day.

What size rim and tire are you trying to run on the rear. It looks like it is sticking out too far to allow the lip to clear the tire. Just a thought and I hope I'm wrong.

Sounds good Scottie I'll see you guys there.

I just reread my post and I worded it poorly. I scraped my 240 but it was because of major rust issues not the broken bolts. Even if you break them the fix shouldn't be too bad just take your time.

Those thread into the rocker and I don't believe there is any way to get penetrating oil or heat to the rusty threads. I broke all four on my first 240 but ended up scraping the body so i didn't have to deal with it. My plan was to drill and retap to the next size up. Don't do like I did and get impatient just slowly work them back and forth to see if you can get the threads clean.

I've still got the article but I can't find the scanned images on my hard drive. I will rescan and put it back on the web as soon as I can. Work is a nightmare right now and I'm off to Atlanta tomorrow so give me a few days.

Mine weighed 520 pounds. You can check out a thread on it here

Thanks for the pictures. You guys are the best.

That looks very nice. Do you have any pics of the connection to the front frame rails? Mine should be getting this treatment very soon.

On the Wilwood setup I would love to see a provision to mount the Wilwood mechanical spot caliper. You can check it out here. That way we could maintain a functioning ebrake and still have the Wilwoods on all four corners.

That sounds like a great deal Juan. I haven't bought my brakes yet as I won't be needing them for a while. The brackets, hardware and hats are safely tucked away at the moment. Any progress on a rear kit for the early Z's?

It was Mikelly and he explains how to make them in this thread.

I don't have any idea what the rate on those springs are. That information seems to always be hard to find. Anybody else out there know? They will certainly be stiffer than stock but that is the reason to get a quality strut that can properly dampen the stiffer springs. If this is a street car that will not see autox or track time then I don't see the need for adjustable struts. He's got the springs and Tokico blues listed with free shipping so all in you would only be $405 with the "Buy it Now" option. The adjustable ones list a $55 shipping and handling charge so make sure and tack that on to the auction price.

That is a very good price considering that you can easily pay that for the Illuminas alone and the springs go for around $200. I just bought a set of new in box Illuminas off another HybridZ member for $400 so if you add the springs I would be around $600. I don't think you will find a better deal.

The most cost effective solution is lowering springs with good quality struts. The cheapest I've seen is here at $405. That solution doesn't give you ride height adjustability or allow you to run the widest wheel possible. For that you will need to go with coil overs and Ross at Modern Motorsports can hook you up with everything tou need. You can check out his site here.

Mike, shoot me an email and I will give you my phone number. Load everything you've got in your truck and come to Orlando on Sunday. I've got a spindle pin puller, air tools, workbench, blast cabinet and a good assortment of hand tools. I guarantee we can get it all pulled apart and the spring perches cut off. If we can get it done in time then a quick trip to my work and we can get the struts cut on the band saw. You would need to find someone to weld them back together but surely one of those shops would do just that. I know your time is running out and I want to see you finish your car.

Congratulations Mike that is how it should be. I work for a great group of people and even though we're not a large corporation they treat me well. I'm a numbers guy and just did the math, let's see 2% of 44M = $880,000 I believe you might be able to afford that Z06 and both Z's if you can do that again.

Very nice numbers Mike. I found out through the grapevine that you were up there. Oddly enough the guy I bought my Z from knows the Corvette shop owner very well and I got a call from him telling me about a white 77 Turbo 280Z that was on the dyno. I almost left work early but the thought of getting accross town on a Friday afternoon just sucked. Maybe next time.

Sounds good Mike thanks for the update.

I have the one that Tim posted and I'm very happy with it. You will need a pretty good volume of air or a lot of patience with a small compressor though. If you are just doing the battery tray I would pick up one of the cheapies and make do.

Here is a scan of the Ground Control instructions. Sorry for the image size I don't have any photo editing software on my poor excuse of a home computer. I know the quality sucks as well but it's a scan of a bad photo copy. Ground Control recommends sectioning the strut below the new spring perch so that you can leave a full bead and not grind it smooth. On their system they provide you with an O ring to keep the threaded sleeve snug. Hope this helps.

Remember when you had some extra money and people were telling you to hold on to it for the little things? These are the little things everyone was talking about, ain't life a bitch.