millsan1

Nah, I scraped off 70% of the tar. I am down to metal. There is really very little rust, and all of it surface rust. I am not having a hard time removing it, just was wondering what is was. Thanks for the pointer on dry ice, though.

Fissed = how a young child would say "fixed" As in "It was bwoken, but now it all fissed."

I would try this: Take plugs out, ground the wires, and try to crank it with the starter. If the starter spins it, at least you know it is capable of spinning the motor. Then, I would put it all back together as it should be and try again. Could be a lot of things, like a bad starter, weak battery, etc.

Yay me, I fissed my AC. Tracked down about 100 miles of vacuum hose, fittings and electrical. Disassembled the dash, glove box, etc. Pulled the blower(it blows real hard, which is good), and managed to find the tiny vacuum leak that was causing my woes. Reassembled everything. AC blows cold. Defroster blows. Heat blows. (all of these things did not work before). But, they are all mixed up. AC makes the defroster blow, defroster makes AC go, etc. I remembered pulling out a part of the vacuum selector thingy (the part that gets actuated when selecting ac, def, etc) and it was geared. Which I immediately turned, and forgot about. AS I was disassembling hte dash, etc again, I was muttering to myself how it was stupid of Datsun to not put a key or some kind of marking on it so stupid things like this didn't happen. I was also pondering how difficult it would be to trial and error this thing to get it right. That is when I pulled it out again, and saw the two markings, clearly visible, that need to be lined up. Did that, reassembled, and viola! Everythign fissed. Yay me.

K. here is the YAY part. I ripped the carpet and sound dampening (yeah right) material out of hte passenger side of my new Z. Th efloors look great, just the most minor of surface rust in a couple spots, and solid as a rock. I will clean and treat the areas with POR before painting, etc. But great news that it looks as solid from the inside as it does from the outside. Now the HUH? part. Since my last 2 Zs were rustbuckets, and I owned them almost 20 years ago, I do not remmber this. Under the sound dampening material (there is that joke again), there was this semi-putty-like black material. It bound that (you know the joke) to the floor. I am assuming this is factory installed. Am I wrong? That stuff is coming off with some elbow grease, so yay again. Next step is the drivers side.

Well, I am stripping the car down to the unibody and building a resto mod, so I will find out soon enough!

My stick is super hot, I mean like burn yourslef on it hot. I was worried about trans problems, so I took it to a shop and had the fluid in the tranny (78 5 spd) changed and I had them add an engine additive that I like to use. It cooled the stick off some, but it is still super hot. I pulled the tunnel cover off, and discovered that the rubber boot cover is all but gone, so there is a ton of hot air coming in there, but I don't think it should get this hot. I have no shifting issues, no unusual noises, but the stick is really hot. I know that the tunnel will get hot, but this seems excessive. It has been almost 17 years since I had a Z, so maybe I am just forgetting that this is normal. So my question is, is it normal for the stick to be burning hot? Thanks

This is where I think I am gonna head to for my brakes and suspension. They seem very nice and knowledgeable to boot. I plan on going with the 5 lug racing setup. Anyone have experience with them?

I have spoken with Steve at Top End Performance, and he is working a solution for me. Turns out that I was pretty much correct. You can start with a Turbo Z block, and everythign else can be aftermarket. It is pricey (~$10K), but should be fun. We shall see.

I have a Momo on mine. I just looked today to figure out why I had no horn (I just bought my Z), and the Momo has a single spade, and there is only 1 wire to connect to on the column, but I have no way of connecting the wire, while allowing lock to lock turnign of the wheel. So, I pulled hte wire out, and will mount a horn button on the column cover.

This is my first post to the forums. I have been looking around, researching a turbo conversion for my 78 Black Pearl. It seems the majority of people go with an 83 ZX turbo, from a parts car, for their conversion. But then, if you want real power, items start to get replaced, such as the turbo itself, then the ECU, etc. I anticipate that I will end up with an aftermarket turbo, and programmable ECU (I forget the popular one), does it make more sense just to buy an exhaust manifold, and the standard sensors, etc, then buy the aftermarket turbo and ECU? I just think it is more logical, rather than buying a whole donor car, and using 5 to 10 pieces of it. As a side question, does anyone know of an aftermarket turbo kit that you bolt on to an exisitng engine? Thank you