I was given a manual gearbox of unknown origin when I bought my auto 260Z. Now that I am getting close to doing the manual conversion I am interested to know what type of gearbox it is so I can work out the ratios.

I pulled the speedo cogs out of both the old auto and the mystery manual yesterday. Unsurprisingly, the auto had a black cog so I have the 3.54 differential. The mystery manual, on the other hand, had a blue cog (3.7 diff).

Could anyone tell me which manual Zs came out in Aus with the 3.7? Will this gearbox go OK with the 3.54?

Thanks

Chris

From the parts book as far as I can tell, all 260Z manual cars, both two seater and two plus twos in the australian market had a final drive ratio of 3.7 (37/10). Interestingly however the book lists the post august 73 automatic cars as having a 3.36 final drive ration? while pre aug 73 had the 3.545 ratio? So I hope it helps, but not totally sure. Incidentally I have seen a couple of Z's fitted with the presumably inferior boxes out of 4 cylinder datsuns, so really the box may be from anything?

Thanks mate. Based on your info I think it is pretty likely that I have the 260Z manual tranny.

The guy I bought my car from also had a 2+2 into which he had swapped a FI 2.8. Assuming that he got his parts from a 280zx, then he probably also swapped in the 280ZX gearbox and has given me his old 260Z 2+2 gearbox.

Hopefully this is the case and I don't have a 4 cylinder box

Cool, it all sounds promising, well more promising than me, I have two Z car gearboxes, one a known bad one, with synchro issues and one a great one that I test drove, only problem being that a certain family member cleaned out the shed and moved them both to a common location . Good luck with the swap.

I beleive the location of the oil filler determines whether it is a 280zx or 260z box, the 260z being the more desirable.

if you like you can run a search on performanceforums.com, I started a topic my Z a while ago and some useful info like this popped up

As D'master said the 260 is the one you really want with the oil filler on the drivers side. It's not a hard & fast rule as the last one I bought like this turned out to be a zed box with skyline ratios :stupid: no good for the race track.

Try this

-select first gear

-paint mark front & back shafts at 12 o'clock posi

-get a mate to watch the back shaft turn once as you turn the front shaft counting how many times it rotates ie 3.6 times, 3.3 2.9 etc

tell us what you get and I can probably tell what box you have

steve

While we're on the topic of gearboxes I have a question. I'm really going to need a new box soon, however I have buckleys chance of finding a z box locally. Just wondering what more common L series boxes would be a reasonable alternative?

I have a 260Z box which i may sell soon :devious:

Let me know when you're ready to part with it.

As soon as my engine arrives i'll sell it.

It is much lighter than i expected but freight might still be an issue

Roughly how much does an L series box weigh? I'll have a look into freight next time I'm at work.

Can't give you an exact figure right now for weight, but I would guess somewhere around 40 kg based on the last time I shifted it in the garage.

Thanks everyone for the info. I'll try the 1st gear test, Steve, but I have a slight problem in that the box does not have a gearstick.

I tried to change gears without the gearstick by just moving the gearstick-attachment-bracket-thingo, but buggered if i could get it to move much at all. Is this bad?