zKars

Dave: After reading this last week I ordered a bunch of connectors and new pins for my projects from vintage connections. Just came in (fantastic service). Their connectors fit perfectly with our harnesses. See attached pictures of the 6 pin plugs. They should do nicely for your projects. You're back in business! Seeing those nice white plugs makes all the stock yellowed connectors look very bad. Might have to change them all now, including the pins, certainly the high-current connections at the fuse block, light connections etc anyway. Hey, I saw your car on Friday night at MSA. You win! Fantastic lighting all around. Nice job. Jim

I believe you may have mis-read the specs or found a bad reference. The specs from the 76 Factory Service Manual are: Hot Intake 0.25 mm or 0.0098 inches (0.010") Exh 0.30 mm or 0.0118 inches (0.012") Cold Intake 0.20 mm or 0.0079 inches (0.008") Exh 0.25 mm or 0.0098 inches (0.010") Check your clearances again with these new settings!! Jim

Matches: I will make no judgement about the quality of the question, only assume it to be caused by the excesses which you have likely indulged in over this festive season, or the long hours doing the swap. Or both. Or neither. Positive battery cable to the starter. There is a large 8mm bolt sticking out of the solenoid on top of it with nothing attached. That's the one. There are two similiar such terminals but one has a un-insulated copper wire going inside the starter. That's not the right one. The negative goes to one of the bolts that holds the starter to the bellhousing. If it already has two, take out the top one and see if the bolt dangling in your negative cable is the same size. Use the one that fits that best (length wise). Find out where the other bolt goes! Do you have four 10mm bolts in the bellhousing that go in from the trans side not counting the two that hold the starter? Are the two 8mm bolts at the bottom going through the rear cover and bell housing? Go over everything before you try starting. Make sure BOTH NEG and POS cable ends and hardware (all 4) are shiny clean!! Got a ground from the battery to the firewall? And of couse make sure the neg/pos on are on the right battery terminal!! Good luck and best of the season! Jim

The Atlantic Z guys have sold two Z's recently to folks here in Alberta that I am now helping with the resto's. Given what I saw and was told, both deals were done right IMHO. I personally know and trust one of the sellers (Blue). Long term Z community member. As always, remember you are buying an old used car, ask lots of questions, get lots of pictures and all the advice in above posts is spot on. Jim

Dave There is missing bendable flat piece of rubber coated metal that goes under the 10mm drivers side top transmission to block bolt, that you bend around the speedo cable where it passes this point. Must have left it off when you put the new trans in, or it was missing. There is then a similar bendable metal tab spot welded to the passenger floor pan, low in the trans tunnel, just ahead of the point where the cable goes into the tranmission, that serves as the rear cable attachment point. Good luck! Jim

sean240z Glad to hear you trip is going well. If you are still planning on going through Calgary Alberta in the next few days, if there is ANYTHING you need, Z related or otherwise, please let me know. The Calgary Z Club is at your service! Jim

Mike: I too bought my set the middle of last year and have not yet gotten them in. I'm very glad to hear you are happy with the result. I should do mine this spring when the dash is out getting "fixed". After doing the job, do you have advice or specific areas to watch that caused you grief that you can share to make my experience a little smoother? Jim

The throttle valve switch has two sets of contacts for your car. At idle, one set of contacts is closed. When the throttle is opened any amount they should open. At full throttle, the other set of contacts close but are open at all other times. This is for fuel enrichment correction. Easy thing to test. Perhaps all it needs adjusting or the contacts cleaned.

Adding to the Diamond Vinyl pattern part of this thread, I was lucky to see HLS30 00036 at the DNBC show in Vancouver BC last weekend. Great show by the way, thanks to all the organizers. Naturally I ignored this marvelous car's overall beauty and when straight to the hatch area to inspect the diamond pattern direction on the strut towers. I was not disappointed. The attached pictures shows the surprising result. The left strut tower is different from the right! The top panel on the left is "later" style, the right top panel is "early"!! The sides show the early diamond direction. The seam overlap patterns are both early style, so this isn't a case of replaced vinyl, as confirmed by the present owner, who knows its complete history. Seems just an un-noticed sewing error. So what does this teach us of the early hand assembled cars? No doubt the theories will abound about how this took place. As this car is reported to be the first Z car landed and imported to Canada, I hope it wasn't a case of "oh darn, look at that pattern mismatch, let's send that car to Canada. They'll never notice, they're too busy shovelling snow!!" Jim

Had to look. HLS30 00137 has the chromed plastic (complete with peeling "chrome"...) gas door latch. It is the same round shape as the metal one pictured above, but does latch closed with the knob handle in the Vertical position, as suspected by 26th-Z. The list of early uniquess knowledge continues to grow... Jim

Man, same story on my 11/69 butterscotch interior. It too follows the 10/69 and 12/69 examples shown above. Very cool. Just when you thought there just couldn't be any more hidden details... Which one will be next.... Jim

Gang: HLS30 00137 has the "A" lighter, round chrome coat hangers, and no screws holding the door panels around the handle. This car was oringally sold in western Canada.

Dead Flo: I have just gone through a ST to Eibach Progressive spring swap. I have the Tokico Illumina shocks on my '73. Saying the ride with the ST's was stiff is an understatement. There were 5 settings, hard, really hard, rock hard, "This is Crazy" and OUCH OUCH OUCH.... Now the ride is much better. Still not "soft" by any means, but it feels GOOD. The ride is almost exactly the same, it actually dropped 1/4" in the rear. And of course now I have a spare set of ST springs laying around if you're interested.... Jim

Dan: I sent you a few pics just now. Here is the "best" of them. Let me know if you need a better shot! Jim

koreavet: I think I've fixed the missing pictures. The web site filled up during the upload and I didn't notice. Should all be there now! Enjoy. The thread you referenced about the mirror is very enlightening. I'm just happy to be in the red dot club! Jim

Thanks for the comments everyone! Happy to see my 2-hole grommet guess was right. Speedo cable and its grommet look pretty new. Now to find the grommet! The alternator has been replaced, starter looks old, but not THAT old. The car has had lots of maintenance and care, apparently we are on our 2 re-paint already, one front fender is fibreglass (yuch!) floors/frame rails have been replaced, brakes are new, everything works. There is much electrical deterioration, the usual stuff, that I'm fixing first, but over all it would pass inspection here no problem. It runs well and everything "works". I have been lurking here for a long time, soaking up the knowledge as it were while working on my 73 over the past few years. I've been Z'ing on and off since I was in my 20's but very ernestly for the past 5 years. My 73 is heavily performance modified, but I've always wanted a original low VIN beauty to feed that side of my lust for these cars. Then 137 fell into my lap. I have a web page for 137 started, there are a few pictures in the Gallery link http://www.members.shaw.ca/z137/. More to come. I am documenting everything I do to the car as its brought back to life, and will post accordingly. Just let me know if there is some specific you want to know or see about this car. Thanks again. No more stranger here! Jim

Greetings All I find myself in possession of another Z, this one's quite special. Its HLS30 00137 . As I am discovering, there are uniquenesses to this old girl that I'm just learning about (thanks Carl B.). Clear no-defroster glass, rubber mats, AM radio! Amazing! As I dig through it beginning to bring it back to life, I ran across something I haven't seen before. Both the hood release cable and speedo cable are currently run through (what I know on my 73) is the speedo cable hole in the firewall. What is curious, is that there appears to be no separate hole for the hood release cable as there is on my 73. The grommet on the speedo cable is there, it has a single centered hole that the speedo cable passes through, but is not in its firewall hole at the moment. The hood release cable is just stuck throught the same hole, beside the grommet. So am I correct in perhaps saying the "correct" grommet has 2 holes, and that the speedo cable has been replaced, and came with the later style single hole grommet, leaving who-ever did the replacement with the current arrangement? There isn't some other secret way to route the hood release cable is there? I'm most interested in getting the right grommet if thats the secret and doing it right. Thanks the help, I know there will be more questions to ask later. Jim