My First Z-Car Purchase

[Mike]

This story is also available on my home page. It was also created a long time ago in a galaxy far far away..... (that's my lame excuse to make up for grammatical errors)

-------------

I first purchased my 1971 240z in 1989. I bought it from a family friend and he was the second owner of the car. The first owner of the car is also a family friend. So, I know where the car has been! Obviously, I am the third owner of the car and I'd have to say that I've pampered it the most. I have too much money into the vehicle to sell it. Plus, it means much more to me than the top value of the car (probably around $2,000).

I bought the car after it had been sitting for about a year. The master brake cylinder was shot and the engine was blown. So, I replaced the master cylinder and towed it home (actually, my dad drove it through town with a blown head gasket -- but, we won't tell anyone about that). It then sat in my families garage for another year while I managed to fix the engine.

To make a long story short -- I had the head rebuilt from Performance Specialties here in Corvallis. I then decided that the bottom end of the engine should be looked at. So, I took the entire bottom end of the engine over to Bob Forrest Engine Rebuilders (also here in Corvallis). He then tore the entire thing apart and called me into his shop to look at the damage. He took me into a dark-room and shut off the lights. He then switched on an ultraviolet light and pointed it at the engine. There were cracks in the block! Apparently, he put a chemical into the engine and forced it out through these cracks with high pressure. This test was able to confirm his belief that the engine had frozen over in the Winter! I needed a completely new engine.

Well, Bob ended up finding a new engine block and we had to rebuild that one from the ground up. I'm sorry to say that the serial numbers don't match. That's the only drawback to my Z. Anyway, I had the engine completely rebuilt and also had Bob put on the fresh head from Performance Specialties (I eventually found out that Performance Specialties originally had Bob do the work on my head -- and they charged a profit on top of his work). So, I had a new engine. I was ready, believe me... I wanted to drive my baby.

My dad and I transported the engine from Bob's place (after paying ~$1k) to our garage. We cleaned up the engine compartment, replaced the clutch, and hoisted the fresh engine into the old car. Now, you have to realize that we didn't end up doing this in ONE day! The entire engine "insertion" took us about a month. Weekends were just about the only time we could work on it efficiently.

After we put the engine in the car, I had yet another chore.... I had to put it all back together. This, in itself, was a hellish nightmare. It was, after all, the first time I had ever taken that car apart.

[m]