Careless

soda blast for the entire body, and ask your sandblaster what he would use to remove heavier spots with rust. remove all sound deadening and seam sealer before sending it for blasting. the easiest way is to talk to a sandblaster that has done this before and save yourself the trouble of the guessing game. they will know what to do and how much it will cost you.

yes. what would you like to know?

I didn't "get" my info anywhere, I discovered it on my own through trial and broken parts. I have taken apart many of these TPS units. One of the first used ones I tried to diagnose issues with had a slightly deformed centre contact- the one with the button that rides the trench in the nylon base. I literally chased harness gremlins for months because I had already changed and adjusted the TPS thinking it had to be the issue with why my car was idling weird all the time- it seemed to fix the issue... or so i thought. I was wrong. I just gave up messing with it at one point until I installed Nistune and logged drives on my way to work. After fitting my 60mm turbo, I was dicking around and seeing how fast it spools by conducting repeated closed-to-wot throttle jabs. I must have done at least 10 to 15 in succession, one after anoter. When I parked the car, it would not idle correctly. I used nistune to check TPS logs and found that it was not closing... I opened both previous units that had seemed to fail, and the one I had just taken off had a noticeable kink in the blade. The one which that one replaced the first time around was deformed, but not kinked. The blade was definitely bowed more than normal. Almost as if the nylon piece pushed it further than it could possibly move in the trench. I have 3 or 4 more TPS units in storage because I've seen two show erratic behaviour due to the same issue, and because they're inexpensive at junkyard expeditions. It's a common mod to intentionally bend the 280zx blades to adjust the function of the TVS, but these were sealed Z31 or other VG30E/T units, so I ruled that out. It's also possible that the reason they bent is that the grey stick that is what swings the nylon pieces around possibly deformed a bit causing the center pin to bottom out on the end of the trench, but I do know that they were bent before I opened them- I did not modify them. If you spray silicon lube on the nylon piece, they move noticeably smoother too. Maybe that says something. In any case, I'm not saying they're all doomed to fail. Manufacturing tolerances probably have a lot to do with it, and that's why they made replacements. It's still a nice and compact design.

It should be noted that Nissan TPS/TVS are known for poor contact buttons and finger-follower deformation which can change its range of response where the open/close circuit will function- mainly due to the center conductor/pin binding up when you jab the throttle sharply instead of easing into full throttle. it's only brief, but by design- over time, it can deform the contacts within the unit because of how the plastic trench that the center pin rides on is designed. the area of the trench that moves it to the open position is a short and sharp zig-zag. if it were misadjusted + had misaligned contacts, it might hit that RPM. can't say i've actually tested various units and recorded the number. I just prefer to just adjust them and get them working. Nissan partially fixed the issue on the Z31 model by adding a linear potentiometer within the TVS, essentially turning the Z31 unit into a TPS, as you've mentioned- there is a difference. Though for some reason, the fix was only adopted on the automatic ECUs, even though all the TPS units had the additional 3 pin sumitomo connector hanging out the bottom/side.

I'm not familiar with the particular part you're referring to. is it an Injector impedance box with 7 pins? one input power wire and 6 outputs to the individual injectors? some injection systems are squirted in batches or pairs, so it might only have one input wire and 2 or 3 outputs. if so, its most likely just a cluster of resistors in there. somewhere in the FSM or online there should be an impedance measurement and pinout you can use to test if the resistors aren't blow or shorted or degrading.

if it makes it run like poop, you could always spray the bajeezus out of it with brake clean and try something else, but i don't think you'll ever open it up again. put some silicon lube in the connector housing too. its a dielectric grease. in fact, put it on every connector that doesn't have a weather seal or at least whatever you can reach. you'll instantly know if the pins on a connector need to be looked at because every male/prong pin should wipe or scrape away enough silicon from its socket/female pin in order to make contact. if you're losing contact after applying silicon grease, that means it wasn't making a great connection to begin with and the socket terminals need to be de-pinned from the connector housing and deformed just enough so that it makes good contact again with the male pin. i bought this kit for de-pinning after trying to use various needles, and screwdrivers and round steel tubes to get some connectors out of their housing for all sorts of cars. i don't use it often, but when i need to use it, its most often the difference between doing it now or doing it another day: but thankfully, most nissan connectors can be de-pinned with a small hair pin or sewing needle. this is getting a little off topic- but if you end up needing to do some connector work, i can post more info or pm me and i can lead you in the right direction regarding your concerns or issues.

desiccant bags need to be redried from time to time using an oven, so i don't think putting it in there would be any more beneficial than opening it up to clean out moisture from time to time. Also, if there is a moisture leak, then it would be dehumidifying everything, not just the TPS since it's not sealed. Use a silicon spray instead. You can drill out the two small rivets on the back, and use M5 screws to hold the cover on again after you've opened it (for anyone reading that hasn't opened theirs yet). I've done this to all my Z31 TPS's. You can even use silicon gel/grease if that's all you have. The silicon spray will coat everything that doesn't need to short, and the finger-follower will just wipe silicon off of where they ride and make contact.

+1 for Evans, it's the best stuff out there. Would also use it for a street vehicle that has a sound coolant system that is leak free. you'll barely ever have to even check it after the initial fill.

is that a Landau top on a Z? now i've zeen it all

The muffler itself is ok. I haven't installed it to test fitment, but it looked pretty close to what was already on the car in terms of bends and size. The 2-to-1 downpipe... meh. not the greatest repro. it fits well, but the way it was made was, as i was told, to "save cost on production"... I've welded many exhausts as I've worked at a number of performance shops and I can say that's utter bullshit. Personally, I'd just make my own in the future, and I have 3 OEM exhausts now to make copies of. I found one while moving tucked under a storage rack. I have the very early stamped collector one, and two of the later 70+ side-entry merged ones, but I'm going to use what's there for now. As i understand it, the way it's joined on the 2nd last photo posted by katz is how the late 70 and on were constructed. A side entry from one pipe to the other... and that would be far easier to produce than how it's made on the reproduction, which merges two to a collector style cut, and then continues down with another single pipe attached to the end of the first merge collector. IMHO, close... but not close enough if you care that much. I understand that some feel "no one is ever going to see it" but the fact that this thread has photos of people willing to share the details negates that point, and having constructed exhausts myself... it would have just been easier to produce the late 70+ style as shown rather than "reproduce" one that is not identical to any of the OEM ones at all. If there is any interest in actually producing good OEM reproductions of both kinds, I may entertain doing so later in the year. I just don't want to step on anyone's toes by selling stuff that's already available, but I'm finding that the quality of said items is just not what I would expect given their simplicity. there has to be a market for discerning individuals, and some of the older Z repro guys are retiring... so I'm not sure if it would be acceptable just yet. I'm sure some people would be upset. sorry for the rant. just started getting to me recently, the more i try and assemble this car, i'm satisfied less and less with what's been purchased to complete it before I started working on it.

I knew this was gonna be a good debate! All the points expressed are why I questioned how I had them installed. There are logical advantages to orienting the grommets both ways. I just managed to find a set of photos from the tear-down of this particular vehicle that I did not photograph, and low and behold, tucked away in a folder- unbeknownst to me... they were shown like so: IMHO, it looks way better facing the opposite way, considering the other various grommets don't protrude into the engine bay and i like the tucked in look. But in keeping with the theme of installing it how it came out; if it seems like it's not wrong and will work how its shown in the tear downs... that's what I'll do.

today, I was about to glue the firewall insulator to the inside of the car i'm restoring, and I noticed that on one of the cars, looking from the engine bay... the rubber insulators that go around the hoses for the heater core have the cone facing outward pointing towards the front of the car. And on another one that i took apart, the cone is facing inward. These are the items I'm referring to: does the pictured face of these grommets face the engine bay, or face the interior? Another photo:

That's the same wrench I used for the last pair I did. I bought it for $8 bucks so it was a no brainer to give it a shot. you might have to use the open end and shove a 1/16th shim on one side to get it to be snug and protect the edges of the gland nut. no heat required. I just bolted the hub to a wheel/tire and put it face down on the ground and stood on the bottom/back of the strut tube where the spindle is and pulled upward with the wrench. No heat or extra force required. Worked quite well.

pencil me in for 2 may long weekends from now, @wheee! hoping to have something to drive by then!

FWIW, here's exactly how the #182 car's bushings were oriented. I put everything back the way it comes off when I store things: I'll have to check the other car I'm working on. I may have them installed wrong according to this photo.

heyyy slow it down there. i got one comin' up too!

so nice, he keeps it in his house as a conversation piece!

So I was just about ready to put the snaps back on the firewall insulator, and I noticed that the early firewall mat from the #1606 car had snaps that did not screw in. I still made the hole in the event that I use the bolt on snaps that I have, but it looks like #1606 utilized a snap that is just a common press-fit style shown here: so tomorrow I am going to go to the art supply store to see if they have a set of snaps that I can use with a setting tool if I can mount it in a vice, because the hole-punch plier style ones will allow the material to be put into the jaw. providing I don't find anything that will work, i'll just use the bolt on style. It's too cold in the unit right now to use contact cement. it's not setting up as well as I'd like, so i'll be able to snap them together but can't install them with glue until the weekend. No biggie! I'll just be polishing things up in the mean time!

labor? come onnnnnnnn. I can get the metal guys to cut a 1 foot tube into 4 pieces so I have 4 x 3 inch pieces, and i can weld the tube to the squares in about 3 minutes. that saves me time from busting out the grinder with a cut-off wheel- which only takes 5 minutes anyway. bet it would get the job done waaaaaay faster with the 5 foot leveraging bar than beating the $^!# out of it with a 20lb sledge would. so any points on saving "time" are null and void! and if I had to use it on a car, you wouldn't catch me swinging a sledge hammer that close to the rear quarters on any car that's not going to the demolition derby. I also trust my thick-wall tubing welds much more than I trust some of the heads on sledge hammers to stay on. I'm sure some of us have the greatest of luck- but my personal luck account has a habit of cashing itself in without giving me a balance check or a receipt. I tend to use it only for the less costly "purchases"

the absolute most important thing is finding a way to hold the strut while you twist the nut. I figured since the spindle can take 800lbs of the cars weight when bolted up, I just bolted the assembly to a wheel/tire and stood on it while positioning my foot on the strut tube and pulling upward with the wrench. No heat, no extension bar, just what i'd call "normal" effort for a stubborn fastener of that size. If it didn't require curse words or insults towards its parents, in my book- that means it was fairly easy. IMHO, far too pricey for the purpose. you could just cut a square out of 1/4 plate and beat the $^!# out its side or buy a 2" wrench and do the same. if I REALLY had to do this and couldn't find a tool locally, I would just go to a metal supplier and get a 2" offcut square tube, grind the seam weld on the inside, and weld a 5 foot long 1.5" OD 3/16 wall tube to it. That would cost me about 15 dollars and the leverage of a tube so long would make quick work of DEEZ NUTS.

These gland nuts can be a pain for sure. I bought a 2" wrench for 8 dollars when it was on sale at Princess Auto (Canadian Harbour Freight)... regularly 32 dollars. I like using the wrench because both the socket and the wrench have a bit too much play and can sometimes damage the finish or edges on the nuts. but with the wrench I found that sliding a 1/16 steel shim between the open end and the gland nut made it as snug as it should be- something that is a little more frustrating to do with a socket. IMHO, cheaper, less time consuming, and overall the same result as modifying a socket. I have spare sockets now, so my next version will be a socket "tube" that is long enough to go passed the threaded strut with a square drive welded onto the other end so I can use a 1/2" impact gun, but the wrench has been good on the last 4 or 5 sets I've done. No heat required.

you don't necessarily need a standalone. if you get a 82/83 distributor, 82/83 oil pump gear/driveshaft, and an ecu from a Z31 + the CAS disc from the Z31 distributor, and a Z31 MAF, you can use Nistune with the Z31 ignition system on the L engines. It will come juuuuuust under an MS2 kit and if it ever fails for whatever reason- it most likely will not take the Nistune with it, so you could just resocket another ECU and pop the nistune in there if the address files are compatible. It's a slightly cheaper option, and can be retrofitted to run with just 3 standard 4/5 pin relays.

Thems are the ones! I believe I did receive a sample of the Jute from Newport, and it was semi-synthetic and had some strands of bright fabric in it... or maybe they were the ones that never answered the phone. I called so many places and got so many samples- I can't even remember now. The masonite backers I removed also had a small rectangular piece of somewhat hard grey plastic under the nut as some sort of moisture barrier as well. I wish I took a photo at the time, damnit! I'm going to double check the package of snaps Jim provided. It may have come with the triangular one shown there. Gonna message you now regarding some other stuff!

yeah i don't know why I keep seeing decade old posts pop up on my main page like they're something everyone is discussing lately. It's not like I'm searching for them, either. not sure if it's just my account or what, but I can't say checking the dates of the last post is my first instinct when it's in the active threads list.

Thanks to everyone who posted. AZ-240Z, that is the exact combo I was describing, both on the firewall insulator and on the carpeting. Are any of these items available new? the ones here seem a little tarnished, though I am doing a plating run soon. The carpets made by C&H were really nice, but the snaps seem to be the ones you can get at any fabric store. just a circular thing like those seen on some denim jeans or nap-sacks.