TimNC

Thanks for all the responses. Sorry it's taken me so long to post back, but due to family issues I'll have to postpone the Z project this summer

So I've decided to start doing some serious work on my 73 240Z, but I'm slightly overwhelmed at where to start with it. In my intro thread I list the car's background and what's been done so far: http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=25801 I would like some opinions on what should be done in what order, so here's my list of things that need to be done: Carbs are running rich, maybe leaking. I can smell gas but I can't see any leaking, but it's definantly fouling the plugs. Should I try to rebuild it myself or should I just eat the $500+ and get a ztherapy set? I have round tops. All the weatherstripping needs to be replaces. When it rains it leaks water on the lower edges of the windshield. I don't know if I should do this before I .... Paint the car. It's still the original 73 green metallic, and it's faded and looks horrible. I can't decided if I want to paint it original or since it's already faded a lot, get it pained the olive green that the new mustangs are sporting. New carpet. I got the car with no carpet. The original owner said that through a rusted spot in the floor and being stored, ants had moved in to the carpet and it was removed. Seat covers. Maybe new foam also. New wheels. Trying to find originals. This is probably least important. Air conditioning. The car originally had air conditioning but the previous owner removed the compressor. I got a working compressor off ebay, but it looks like all the previous hoses were cut. Not sure on how to put it in or if I need a professional to do it for me. Rust. I have two rust spots, one very bad and one minor. The very bad is in the passenger door towards the bottom where there is a hole the size of a quarter. The other is beginning rust above the exhaust, but the metal is still solid. The bumper needs some rust repair also. So..... how should I tackle these and in what order?

Hello everyone. My name is Tim and I'm in Shelby, North Carolina. I've owned many Z cars over the years, and my current project is a 1973 240Z. I was doing online research on the carbs when I stumbled upon this site. I got the cars from a friend of mine who had them stored in a garage for many years. I say "cars" because one is a parts car. This is how they looked before I took them. The green one is the running one. The yellow one is the parts car. I have the engine for the parts car, even though it's currently removed. The green one has round top carbs on it, but I still have the original flat tops that it came with. My friend had put some headers on it and a 2 1/2" pipe on the exhaust before he stopped driving it. As I said earlier I have had many Z cars over the years. My first was a 1977 280Z. After that I had a 1984 300ZX Turbo anniversary edition, a 1990 300ZX coupe and a 1990 300 ZX 2+2. My father worked at a local Nissan dealership as the parts department manager while I was growing up and I loved Z cars more than anything else on the road. Dad was like a living reference manual on these cars, and what he didn't know he had books on. My 77 280Z needed the entire fuel injection system rewired, and he had the official Nissan "School" books on it. Aparently Nissan had a mobile school for the mechanics where they would come to a dealership and teach about the specifics of each model. Anyway, last year my father was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I was looking for a project that he and I could work on together while he went through treatment, and my friend with the 240's was selling his house and the cars needed to see the light of day again, so I had a rollback deliver them to my house and now they're mine :classic: Dad and I did all the normal stuff to a car that had been sitting for years and eventually we got it to crank. My dad new many of the part numbers by heart which was amazing to me. The brake fluid had somehow become like a thin jelly and we had to push it out of the lines. Here's a picture of me and my dad working on it. He's working on the brakes, I'm sitting in the drivers seat. Unfortunately my father died last November. He was 60 yers old. I still have the car and plan on fulling restoring it, so expect to see a lot of questions from me.