Wobbles1971

Im back to messing around on the Z after taking a leave for a bit. New home and kid have swayed me far away from the luxury of wrenching anytime I want. Starting back on the car now tho. One thing I cant figure out is why my battery keeps loosing charge. Only thing I could really think of, and is on my mind, is the horn button pad from my aftermarket wheel, the little pressure extension on the backside of the attachment is not touching, I need to bend it out more I guess. This is from the GT wheel motorsport Z sells. Anyhow, dont see how that would drain my battery so fast if at all. I loose charge every couple days and Im kind of lost atm due to being away from the car for so long now. My basic question is, what are some of the major things I should look into if Im loosing charge on my battery from it sitting for a few days or a week at a time between me touching it? Thanks in advance.

If all your doing is changing out the radio it should be alot easier to do without dissasembly of the whole center unit. Radio is accesable with enough angling, and blind sighted reaching into the cavity of the console. Sounds like your well on your way taking it all apart so I wish you luck, but if you havent Id really grab a flashlight and look around from the sides and see if you can do it without.

Heres it mounted on a 71. Here it is without from a 72, maybe this bracket that is welded to the body is broke off. Look to the left soon as you open the hatch. If the bracket is broke off, you may not see it because the panel is covering it up.

So I replaced my 4spd with a 5 spd I picked up when I bought this motor. After reading lots of posts about how you can change the shifter and also about how its easier to cut out the console to make fit I thought I would ask a direct question to my scenario. This car is the earlier series, a early 1971, basically a serises 1. The later 5spd is not going to work and the housing for the shifter is different from my early shifter. Heres the tranny as mounted and showing how the shifter matches up underneath. So Im not matching up by about 2 inches or so like Ive read other people state, what Ive read is that I could bend the shifter to match up but I just dont see how that could actually work because when I jack the tranny up to position there is no room for a bend to happen, the initial thrust of the shaft is rubbing already. Basically what I gather is most people are fine with a different shifter when they install the later transmission into the 72 or later Zs but Im thinking because of my Z being an earlier model that this is not possible and I must cut the console a bit to make fit. Im not even sure what year tranny I got here, it has the dual flangs so Im thinking its a pre 81 tranny, was also wondering why I have 2 outlets here instead of the single reverse lamp switch.. My head hurts, my back hurts, my whole body hurts from climbing underneath the car! Bear with me if this seems like a redundant question, which Im sure it is, but I want to make sure that for my application things are working as intended. I want to make absolutely sure if I need to cut out my console to make this fit, I really dont want to do that if there is a shifter out there that will work. Thanks.

Like an old horse, theres just a certain point in time where its not worthwhile to feed it anymore.

I just read thru some posts, couple recent ones were nice. I got to the point on a recent one where Carl Beck is stating dont keep the collars too close to each other and smacked myself! My problem is I think I actually put the wrong collar on my 4 spd. I put in a 280 motor and left all the clutch assembly intact, I hooked up 4spd tranny up to it and left the 5 spd for later use if wanted. I "thought" I changed over the collars correctly but Im thinking somehow in my mess of garage and delay in this particular project I may of mixed em up. Right now I have slight friction and can barely get any reaction to the wheels, this is with adjusting the slave cylinder out as far as I could go. My question is, if the wrong collar is on there would you even get any friction at all on the clutch? Making sure here, I pretty much know Ill be yanking the tranny out, just trying to save the inevitable if possible. This is for my 71.

Car looks nice, but not sure I would pay 9k for it. Guess its all about the whole ebay thing and someone in the heart of no-Z land wanting it. Thats cool tho, because I know the frustration on not getting what you want when you want it, I guess that part of some crazy economical thingy I have failed to except yet.

Something about the feel of the car to me. Granted my first car in high school was a 73 and I somehow grew attached to it over the years, maybe that keeps me going on them. Ive drove a few 280's and they just didnt feel the same, was somewhat strange. Till this day, just as 18 or so years ago, I can turn a corner and catch a glimpse of a Z and focus my attention on it in amazement, but as soon as I see those fugly bumpers and reverse lights Im somewhat turned off and thinking "meh its a 280". Silly? yes, but just how it is for me.

Had them on my first Z, was happy I didnt replace them when I got it painted. I just cant help but think they take away from the sportscar feeling and do nothing but add to the "safety in the shopping lot" feeling. For some reason they seem to look a little better on a white or silver Z's compared to the darker colors tho.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, when.......Anyhow, its really nice no doubt about that, but my orange 71 was pretty darn good looking when I first got it also, you guys all know what the expectations are once you dig deep and see whats going on underneath. His wheelwells show you there some wear and tear going on, and for sure hoses/rubber/ect is in need of replace. Nice car though, for sure and no one can argue that, but Im pretty sure its not as cherry as the pictures show. Maybe its my pesimistic attitude, but I would think all the sparklys on that car is just the camera angles not showing the hidden bad spots in need of care, the care that we all strive to do to our cars. Maybe Im wrong, because you best believe I would absolutely love to see a spotless Z off the showroom floor, too bad Im not old enough to actually witsness it. Any you guys ever go into a dealership in 70 and see a brand new Z?? Now those are the stories Id love to hear!

Fun fun, finding wierd stuff stashed away. Sorry about the bad picture, I tried to throw something up before going to work. The ground wire (alligator clip) is connected to a spool of wire on a very thin wire. yellow is to a "capacitor" type module, red is to the top framing of the unit which does overlay the ground side with a gap there (instant motion detector thoughts come to mind). Im guessing its a motion detector type of unit by my novice guess. Just a little curious if this really indeed was once wired to the interior lights. Blah, too much work lately, must sleep and return to work. Ill read your thoughts more thouroughly after work tonight geezer, thanks.

You have some good info to go from, only thing Id do if you was get up under there and make sure you dont have any other problems before starting. Bushings and such, maybe even make sure your bearings all good and brakes are all fine. Your going to be in that area for a bit, might as well knock out as many problems you can at once. Maybe even get some penetrant sprayed around the day before to make life easier once you start.

Any idea of what the basic wiring set up was for these old "kill switch's". Now Im starting to think thats what it was, thanks to the heads up on this brand making them. Only thing out of the ordinarry that I could see was a wire coming off the ignition switch. Guess it could of been wired from that ignition wire to the rheostat and acting as a simple relay. Ill get under there next weekend and do some testing, but that sure would be nice to eliminate my "no dash" light problem and put to rest what this lil bugger was doing up under there.

Curious if anyone knows the use of this part. It was mounted under the dash although it was not hooked up to anything. Only thing readable on the unit is Pentatech Inc. Car had original radio installed and nothing out of the ordinary. Red/Yellow/black ground, makes me think radio attachment of some sort, but iono. Dash lights dont work in car, maybe this was some type of relay or something at one time to bypass the dash light rheostat switch? Just curious, maybe someone has seen one before, looks pretty old school. Thanks.

I picked up one of those battery cut-offs that VB sells and Im looking for suggestions of where to mount it. Really would be nice if they made these items fully enclosed of some sort but owell. I dont really want to just let it dangle around with exposed ends, and also dont really want to just tape the heck out of it. Its the circular type with 4 holes around the rim, and the exposed terminals hanging out the back, was kind of wondering what the 4 holes are on it actually? Thinking of searching for a circular piece of plastic tubing and making a housing for it, maybe some large pvc pipe, then mounting it to the firewall. If anyone could give a suggestion or link me to some pictures of people that have hooked this up cleanly Id appreciate it, thanks.

Wanted to add about the different lengths, in case someone comes across this. Not sure about all the years but I do know that cables from the earlier series consoles, the ones with the solid plate and dual slots, do have a longer cable setup. I tried to replace my cables in my 4/71 with the cables from a later 72 and they do fit but its so snug I dont get a nice curve around to the carb holders and running them under the console is rough. Will it work for now, yeah, but I know Ill have problems later with binding. Going to order me up some longer ones soon.

Sounds to me like you've already done one heck of a job "starting". If confidence is all your lacking I think you should reflect for a moment of how succesfully you have already prepared for the work you have ahead, that in itself shows you are on the right track.

Funny, because 250 bucks or 500 or so will barely cover fixing a major issue the car has. Inflation is crazy, I often have to second guess why things cost so much when "other" things dont really go up. In all reallity, a few hundred bucks for a fix up car is absolutely nothing and a steal if its a car you want.

Looks amazing! I never really liked the look of washing out all the chrome but you did a nice job in making it look nice. What do you have going on for your suspension and the ins and outs of how you got it to sit so nice? Good job and thanks for sharing, I think I will go back and stare at it for a bit longer now.

I was going to run the crankcase (from the block) port to #1 in my second picture, glad I asked. I have a clear understanding of what you did and Im going to re-route stuff and dig thru some old hoses and get it set up the way you stated, sounds good. Can anyone chime in on their info regarding blocking off the crankcase tube? Like stated, Ive heard that it doesnt really matter much but then Ive also heard that the block needs to breath. The block breathing sounds logical to me Im just unsure of why I have heard conflicting reports in the past. Thanks Arne.

Ugh, why in the world was I thinking that the antenna wiring was built into the radio wires. Too much stuff going thru my head lately I guess. Right on and thanks much!

Ya, got all that stuff and usually use, I just tend to go too fast when I have 15 projects going on at once unfortunately. Is funny cause you should see the walls in my garage spackled with ziplock bags and stuff. Stereo connection is that connector behind my pinky. Kind of thinking of that wasnt hooked up to anything actually, just making sure, the car dont have AC maybe thats the prewired stuff from that. Was hoping I could get lucky and have some guru say "hey thats the ...... wire!". Getting anxious to fire this puppy up after almost a year of it sitting, funny thing is for the life of me I cant find the keys . Tore the whole house up today and to no avail. Heres another pic taken from farther back maybe to help identify.

Yep I forgot! Was getting stuff planned out to reinstall my console and for the life of me I cant remember where these went, dont see nothing noticable around. They look clean so I assume they were hooked up somewhere:stupid: Thankies!

Not finding exact answers thru search or manuals, different set ups and stuff. So thought Id just drop a picture and try to get a quick answer from those in the know. So I have my tube vent(1), pcv(2), and side vent(3) to deal with. As can tell I took off the emissions and smog pump. Now here is the back of my air box. Basically I have the 2 ports on the air box tied up with the valve cover breather and the crankcase breather. Now my initial plan was to just route the side vent and center vent on the balance tube together to eliminate them without actually plugging. But the pcv valve vent is troubling me, not sure if its even needed without all the gadgets and not sure where to route it or if I can just plug it. Also, I was thinking about the crankcase vent coming off the block, I heard that it can be blocked but Ive also heard that its not a great idea, any thoughts? Btw, disregard my awesome "paint" job of the numbers on the back of the air box housing, was going to format the post differently.