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Celebrating 51 years of Z-ness together today.

Here's an update on the paint removal process, using heat and razor blades. The exterior is basically done. I will leave last traces of primer for my body guy to deal with. It's only about 0.5 mil thick, plus or minus.

It's not often a guy can keep his wife and girlfriend around so long. 😉

But Cliff is a Southern Boy. Alabama I believe. That Z on BAT is a Yankee car.

I have a PW list on my phone, but everything is in shorthand. I have various combinations of PW's for different sites depending on the type of site and requirements. My list tells me enough to know it, but not enough for anybody else to figure it out. As for the scammers, I've seen some good automated safeguards on other forums. Some force the first post to be in the introduction forum and then also block posts in certain sub-forums until a specified timeframe and/or post count is reached. For example, classifieds cannot be posted or replied to for 30 days after the intro post. @mike is there any way to automatically block a second post until the member receives a certain number of likes on the intro post? We as members could take the pressure off of you if this is possible. There are enough old timers that could weed out the real members from the bots. We could "like" the real posts. Once they reach five likes, they are approved to post again. It should take less than 30 minutes to reach five likes and it would be spelled out upon joining. The new members could also not give likes until they are approved to keep the bots from liking their own posts from different accounts. This would put the burden on us to police the scammers and bots. Another idea would be to give contributing members the authority to hide posts. There are enough paying members to keep the bot posts off the board. You could then delete and ban when you have time.

Another Beverly Hills Car Club special...I'm not sure if someone else has posted it, but I just have the image of these twits searching through wrecking yards for cars to sell. https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/dealer/datsun/240z/2454374.html

Ouch! Cdn$355 (plus tax and shipping). Cdn$270+ for an OE gas cap. Maybe I should start parting out my car.

I used thread seal. I too never had a leak until I used BRAND NEW bolts, then even with anti-seize, it leaked. So Z Kars, were the bolts new or used (with residue of some kind on them) enquiring mind would like to know.

Even trickier. "I want to marry you, but she stays in my life, too."

To elaborate, the black/white wire should be on the anode side of the diode, and the white/black wire should be on the cathode side.

If I were to hazard a guess, I would say you have your diode backwards on the L terminal circuit. The other alternative is that there is a bad connection in the circuit.

Happy anniversary James! Let’s see. Mrs. Racer 1.0, 3.5 years. Mrs. Racer 2.0, 25 years and counting. 1972 Camaro 45 years. 1971 240Z 35 years. 1972 240Z 30 years. Still have the cars, and Mrs. Racer 2.0.

The gas filler door appears to be rust and dent free. But $6K plus shipping is beyond a bit steep.

The lowest resistance ground is probably at the distributor mount. See my video linked below. You have the large gauge cable firmly attached to the starter. The starter is firmly attached to the bell housing that is firmly attached to the engine. Unless you have a large gauge cable firmly bolted to the chassis, the engine will have less resistance. I just went down to my garage to verify. From battery negative to the distributor mounting bolt, the meter read 00.0. From battery negative to the shock tower or bolt for the coil, the meter read 00.1. The 00.0 tells me resistance is probably less than 0.05 ohm. (I'm not sure at what point it might round up.) Either grounding place (engine or chassis) should work as long as the surface at all the grounding points is clean and not corroded.

Here's my solution for replacing a PS30 Stock CDI with a Pertronix HP box, using the stock harness hookups. It fit neatly on the existing bracket, with the aid of a pair of "hold-down" fender washers. To get the Tach to work, I used an MSD Tach Adapter, as I could not get the Tach to respond to any alternate configurations using just the Pertronix setup alone. The Tach loses accuracy as the RPMs increase, with a 700 RPM difference at red line (reading 6800 at 7500 RPM actual) but for now, that deficiency will have to suffice. The other change I made is to remove the in-line coil resistor from the circuit, which is a simple matter of removing the electrical tape, removing the 8" wire connecting the resistor and the coil, and storing it for later use if needed. I'll probably just mock-up two dummy wires and re-tape it to the main harness to give a stock appearance. Of note, I think one can hookup the stock distributor trigger wires as well, but a prior owner had removed a good chunk of the wiring already, so I just used modern purple/green wires, bypassing the harness hookups. edit: in thinking a little about this tonight, I may consider adding a jumper to "Ign Start" to the +12v switched input of the Pertronix, and monitor the results. The car starts fine without this feature, but it's a little awkward, as some power is disabled during cranking (by the design of the ignition switch), which causes the Tach to jump twice.

They are engineering us to look more and more like real humans by the day.

I know that's not true! I've met you. Your not a real person, you're an engineer! Totally different 😉

I made a video summarizing my install of the Silvermine Motors EPS on my 1973 240z. I'm impressed with the kit and 1st impression in the garage is that the system works really well. Just waiting for the salt to be washed off the roads before I pull out my 240z for the season. https://youtu.be/fF24zOops2M

That is the oil pump. My suggestion is that you take the following steps. Stop what you're doing. Get a copy of the factory service manual for the car. If you are on a PC, you can find the link in my signature. Otherwise, go to the resources tab on this site to find the manuals. Study the FSM to find the relevant sections to what you're trying to work on. Don't even think about removing the oil pump before you have the engine at TDC. (Otherwise, you'll probably mess up the timing on the engine, especially if the oil pump gets turned while it is out.) On the other hand, why is the oil pump in the way? I'm pretty sure the cross member is more of an interference than the oil pump. By the way, from the amount of RTV on the oil pump, it looks like someone removed it in the past. I don't believe RTV is needed if you do it right. Also, why are you trying to take off the oil pan?

When rewrapping parts of my 76 280Z engine and dash harnesses I used non-adhesive vinyl harness tape. It’s what the factory used, it’s easy to work with and won’t turn into a sticky mess like regular electrical tape will over time. Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk Pro

I just slapped some round tops that I got from a buddy for $50 on my 77 280z, and it ran fine, considering I opted not to keep the choke system (Doh!)...I got tired of the cold start problems though, and just finished converting it to a Megasquirt standalone with an aftermarket fuel rail but otherwise stock injection. I prefer fuel injection, but carbs definitely have character, and a distinctive sound. So to answer your question, it's not too hard to do, the throttle linkage doesn't even need to be modified, you just have to put on a low pressure pump ( I got the puralator $20 "red" pump that does 4-6 psi and it worked fine) or a bypass regulator and you're good to go.

It really isn't a good idea to remove, or have a non-working, vacuum advance on a street engine. On a road race engine - intended to spend most of it's time at higher RPM's and geared to do so - low end throttle response is not so much an issue. Not to mention that most of the triple carb. set-ups lack a port for carburetor vacuum anyway. They also run finely tuned timing curves in their distributors... and can live with a lot of initial advance at the crank... they also have accelerator pumps!! A great performing street engine is an entirely different matter. It routinely rev.'s from 750 RPM to 4000 or 5000 RPM. Sometimes that rev range is accomplished slowly... other times you want it accomplished as quickly as possible. The ignition timing advance/retard that your engine needs at various RPM's and throttle positions is a pretty specific number if you want to extract it's top performance potential. Spend a lot of money on "special" spark plug wires, a super hot coil and/or MSD... and all is for NOT - if that fat spark is to early or too late - in the combustion process. I believe it is better to think of the vacuum advance - as being a "timing retard - overridden with a vacuum control signal". This just gives you a broader range over which you can control and adjust the specific timing advance curve that your engine needs in order to preform at it's highest potential at any point in time. From idle to wide open throttle - the L6 responds best with about 20 degrees of additional advance... Without the vacuum advance, your distributor (and thus your engine) has to depend on the centrifugal advance weights to spin up and advance the timing... that is a far slower process, than the vacuum advance would have taken... so you get slower acceleration. (and possible bogs or poor throttle response). The vacuum advance gets it vacuum signal from carburetor vacuum (ported vacuum), when you go to WOT the vacuum signal from the carburetor increases as the engine demands(sucks) more air/fuel through the throttle opening.... to handle this effectively your engine needs more advanced timing until either the centrifugal advance catches up - or the engine RPM (load) levels off... The reason you can't use manifold vacuum to control a vacuum advance on the distributor is because manifold vacuum "drops" suddenly when you go to WOT - where carburetor (ported) vacuum increases. Yes - on a street engine you can simply set the static timing at the crank to a more advance point and to an effect, off-set the lack of the vacuum advance - - - but that is not a good trade-off. because your timing on the rest of the timing curve - over a range of engine RPM's and Loads is no longer as flexible nor nearly as well matched to the needs of the engine. Timing is everything... a street engine with a weak spark and correct timing, will out perform a street engine with a huge fat hot spark delivered to early or too late... That vacuum advance mechanism is a critical control element in the over-all timing curve that a good running street engine needs.. Make sure your's is working correctly. You'll get better initial acceleration, broad range performance and better fuel economy.. FWIW, Carl B.