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comment_317342The story of Christine/ Eleanor…A 78 Datsun 280Z.
Jan 2002 til present.
The search for an early Z started as a teenager, when either driving my MGB or dad’s 280ZX, and I would see a pristine brown 240 racing about. This was southern Indiana, mind you, and rust had eaten its share of these cars, making my search very difficult.
Fast forward some years, to 2002, Jan 3rd, to be exact. I was in Eugene, Oregon, visiting my father, heading back from the airport as my flight home to Indiana had been postponed for a day. We passed a St Vincent De Paul thrift store, which sold donated cars. In the front row was a brown Z. “Turn around,†I said. Walking up to it I knew. I ran my hand along the underside of the rockers, no rust. 96,000 on the odometer, and the perfect interior told me it hadn’t rolled over…I sat in it, clutch pedal went right to the floor. Tried the key, nothing. Dead battery. After a jump the car started right up and ran smooth. Stopped there…they were asking $1000, we got them down a bit, and added $40 for a tow to the home-stead. The car had been on the lot for 4 days.
I flew home as scheduled, my dad took delivery of the car and sent me a simple message…â€you stole this car.â€
He put a clutch slave and a battery in it and drove it everyday, reporting to me back in Indiana what I would need to do to get it ready for a cross-country trip. Tires and shocks were it…the car had been well-treated. I ordered the parts and he threw them in, what a great dad…and he continued driving it everyday, with no issues. He installed a set of lowering springs for me as well.
June 2nd my roommate and I flew out to pick up the car. After a few days of visiting we headed east. The plan was to zig-zag across the west…seeing everything we could. The plan changed about two hours south on I-5, as the Z died, rolled to the shoulder, and refused to restart. 70 mph, no overheating, no weirdness, then, nothing, like the key had been shut off. We lifted the hood and checked everything we could think of…nothing amiss…and then, a couple hours into it, the z restarted…and we were off…east, now…the trip had become shorter by a few zags already…no stopping til Colorado, we’d spend some time there instead.
The z ran perfectly for 400 miles…and I mean perfectly. We began to forget the issue, and then Christine earned her name…rolling through Nevada and we pulled into a rest stop, and the Z refused to restart. For 8 hours. We were starting to realize why the car had been donated.
Let me say we were just two 21 year-olds with mechanical inclinations, and not much experience, but we went through the car very thoroughly, out of necessity. We found nothing. The wiring in Christine had never been molested. The engine and manifold were clean, nothing awry…good spark(ow!) fuel pressure…and the car just looked perfect…not like something that belonged on the side of the road…we were stumped.
We made our way to Golden Colorado, where a friend loaned me his garage for a couple of days. We changed plugs, cap, rotor, fuel filter…and when Christine started right up we thought, sure…lets try Kansas…
We eventually made it, but Christine would randomly die, or refuse to start, with no pattern. She just had a mind of her own.
I changed a few things out over the next few months, fuel pressure regulator, electronic ignition control module, and cleaned every connection I could. Christine would run flawlessly for a awhile, and just when I’d forgotten, she’d act up.
And then I moved to Colorado, everything I owned in the z, and the car ran nearly perfect. Once a month or so the car would die, or refuse to start, but wouldn’t stay that way for more than 5-10 minutes at the most. Whatever her issue, it was getting better…it seemed like a loose or dirty connection somewhere…but where?
For the next year I put 12,000 miles on the car without a single issue…Drove her to work everyday, road-tripped to Utah, Albuquerque, grand canyon, and all over Colorado. She ran like a champ. The big blizzard hit golden, 4 feet of snow in 36 hours, and I was driving the z…had to be pulled up lookout mtn once…
And then the next curse appeared. The boss’s son ran over the rear-end with his suburban. I had been saving my pennies, hoping to have the car painted anyway, as there were a couple small dents here and there. The boss paid the whole exterior restoration bill, and I spent the summer working off the debt of my share. God she looked good…perfect body, with fresh 301 brown metallic…
The day after I wrote the last $100 check, my neighbor ran into Christine, crumpling the headlight bucket and front fender. And he had no insurance. Wound up collecting a few hundred bucks, and I obtained a lightly dented fender from a Nissan dealer, and a headlight bucket from a z guy. Painted them black and tried to forget the image of the perfect z I had once owned…
Drove her to Oregon(no issues with dying) and spent the winter with my dad.
That winter Christine received a heater core, hoses, new plugs, wires, cap, rotor, tires(I had been hard on them) weather-stripping, battery cables, and we painted the fender to more nearly match the correct color.
In the spring I went back to Colorado, and stayed there for several years. I drove the z all over the damn place, and the issue of dying randomly all but disappeared, now it was just a little glitch I didn’t even notice anymore. I rebuilt the front end, ball joints, tie-rods, calipers, rotors…
It was then that Christine was renamed…an old friend flew out and her first reaction to seeing the Z was “Eleanor.†Given that the Shelby was also a little cantankerous, it fit and I rolled with it. We drove 800 miles that weekend, all over Colorado. I’v now forgotten the girl’s name, but I remember the z climbing up to the Eisenhower tunnel in a white-out, passing 4x4’s…and the car ran so well for the next few years that I forgot the name of Christine, and the Z was Eleanor…
Then, for whatever reason, I dropped it all and moved to Whidbey island, Washington, once again with everything I owned in the Z. I got a job at a shipyard, bought a boat, restored it, and moved aboard. Sadly, Eleanor became a storage container for things that didn’t belong on board. These were dark times for the z, she sat, neglected, in a marina parking lot.
My plan (of sorts) had been to buy a boat, sail around the world alone, and then eventually find some island girl to marry…
I wound up dating the girl at the fuel dock, and day sailing about Penn cove with her. She also called the Z Eleanor. We eventually got married. Wound up selling the boat, packing everything into my trusty z, and moving to Seattle.
Around this time I was given a jeep Cherokee, with a blown engine. Something about not adding any anti-freeze…I rebuilt the engine and then parked the z. time for the ultimate tune-up. She had 180800 on the odometer, but honestly for all I knew it could have been 280…anyway, a rough list of a six-month project:
New oil pump
New gasket set
New head bolts
New timing kit
New rings
New main and rod bearings
New water pump
New seat kit
New clutch kit
New clutch hose
New slave cyl
New master cyl
New shifter pin
New boots
New flywheel
Head reconditioned, surfaced, new valve guides
New wheel cylinders
New steering rack boots
New mustache bar bushing
Rebuilt halfshafts, new u joints
New spark plug wires, plugs, cap, rotor, thermostat
New heater hoses
New radiator hoses
New radiator
New tranny and engine mounts
New fi seals
New emblems
New msa twice pipe exhaust
New belt
New brake shoes
New konig rewind 15x7’s
New Goodyear 205 60’s
New optima battery
Eleanor was given a new lease on life. I was up to 1000 miles on the rebuild when that second curse returned…rear-ended in Seattle…
The insurance adjustor turned out to be a z fan, and was easy to work with. Since the accident and the related bodywork there I’ve also undertaken:
New Fiberglass rear skirt
New fiberglass front bumper
New tailgate weatherstripping
New steering coupler,
New steering rack boots
New brake caliper paint kit(silver)
New carpet
New door panels
New shift,brake boots
New temp sensor
New air regulator
New fuel injection connectors
New heater core, and hoses
New wheel lugs
New wiper boots
Used wiper linkage and arms
New fuel injector seals and mounting blocks
New fi hose
New fuel filter
New fuel pressure regulator
New vacuum hose all around.
After all this, with 1500 on the rebuild, Eleanor still likes to randomly die. 8 years of this…the other day I went out with the intention of making the car die. Enough is enough, I said. I found that when the car hiccups if I tap the computer with my foot the car will immediately restart. Then I tempted fate by tapping the computer while the car was running. Immediate death. And then another tap and the car would restart. So I’m going to track down a spare ecu, try that, and definitely have mine rebuilt…I mean, hey, I’ve changed everything else…
Aside from her attitude, the z has been a great car. The second curse has contributed a few door dings from parking lots, and being Seattle these dents have led to bubbling paint. Once summer arrives…(any day now…) I’ll start knocking the paint away and treating the rust before it gets serious…the car is still rust-free in the usual problem areas, after all these years…and then, who knows, maybe a fresh coat of 301 brown metallic…try to get that perfect z back that I remember…I’ve got that first curse on the run, maybe #2 will go as well…
Some photos of the process…
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=6871&id=1772871283&l=4d9f9a1028
thanks for reading
jeremiah
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