Weasel73240Z

I'm definitely no expert, but I did all of my own welding and metal fab on my Z, and in my experience, as long as long as you can find some uncompromised metal to weld to, its just a matter of basic metal fabrication. Clean/grind, cut out the rusted stuff, clean/grind, make a template out of cardboard, check, make it out of metal, clean/grind, and grab the welder. It looks like the metal gets better toward the front of the car, so you should have a good welding surface there. Just got to get it real clean to take the weld. The back side of the repair, near the firewall looks like the challenge. It might be a matter of 1st fabricating a piece to go against the firewall, to give you a good surface to weld to in the back side of the repair. As long as you can weld, I don't think it looks too bad. I remember seeing your car when it was on eBay. I remember thinking that the floors were going to scare people off. Especially contrasting the floors against the rest of the car, because the rest of the car is beautiful.

Sounds like you may have issues with both the air/fuel mixture, and possibly timing. By double carbs, do you means double SU's or double Webers (aftermarket)? Get a good timing light, a Unisys (to balance carbs) and if you have SU carb's, get the ZTherapy video "Just SU's". I think that the run-on (dieseling) could be related to a float that is stuck too high in one of the carbs. Getting the air/fuel mixture dialed-in is the toughest part in my experience. It took me at least 2 weeks of playing around to get it just right. Use the lifting pins on the underside of the carbs to lift the suction piston (SU's) about 1/8", until the exhaust note rises slightly, then falls back to about the original idling tone. If the motor sputters when you lift the pin and sounds like its going to stall, it running lean, if it races when you lift the pin, its running rich. Use the mixture nuts on the bottom of the carbs to adjust the a/f mixture. When it rises slightly, then falls back down to where it as at idle, the a/f mixture is about right. Of course, if you have anything other than SU's I have no idea. :laugh:

Gotta agree....a beautiful paint job, but a 1st place show winner?. The original interior of my 73 is in much better condition, and my engine compartment blows that car away. :laugh: It just looks.....incomplete.

Lots of info using the Search...... http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10521&highlight=block+head+combo

I'm pretty sure the PO of my Z ran over a curb at some point. It has a pretty nasty dent right under my left foot when I'm driving, but it has no effect on the way the car drives and the alignment is perfect. But it's true, I love the car so much, it bothers me that it has a dent, even if I'm the only one who knows it's there.

FWIW, I just changed from Longflo filters to the factory air cleaner, and couldn't be happier. The stock air box does perform a lot better, and the exhaust note is better also.

Unfortunately, the PO of my Z riveted a St. Christopher medallion to an otherwise perfect, original dash. So it's secured with two 1/8" rivets just above the glovebox, and I really want to remove it. But I'm afraid that I may do more damage removing the medallion and repairing the holes. I read a few posts about repairing cracks, but not something as minor as a 1/8" hole. I think if I could safely remove the rivets, I could probably repair the 1/8" holes with a black sealant/caulking of some kind. Am I crazy for trying it? Maybe I should just leave the medallion even though I think it looks like s**t? Any thoughts before I try it?

This is my l24...it's what I use for my desktop.

By the way...nice avatar. I have a Dalmatian that I named after Sid Vicious.

You can download the Factory Service Manual at: http://www.xenons30.com/reference.html That has everything you need to know, to do just about anything on your Z. You obviously need some mechanical ability, but even if you don't you have that, you have a great car to learn on. You would probably surprise yourself at how much you can do on a Z. Between the FSM and a Chiltons or Haynes manual, you could learn alot on your Z because they're great to work on. The simplicity of design and engineering with these cars is one of the things that makes them so desirable, in my opinion. A $100 lesson is cheap...download the FSM, and next time, give it a shot yourself.

Even 15 minutes to change plugs is alot on a Z. If you're counting the time to drive the car into the garage, lift the hood, get the socket, gap the plugs, replace the plugs, close the hood, back the car out of the garage, put the socket away and wash your hands...then maybe it's 15 or 20 minutes. I'd guess I could change all 6 in under 6 minutes. But $100/hour for qualified labor is pretty reasonable here on the East coast. He is full of shite about them being special plugs though, good NGK's are only about $3.

I still have a little bit of tweaking to do, and maybe I'll experiment with setting them a bit rich. Like I said, it feels alot better already, but I'll try adjusting them a bit richer and see if it feels stronger through the powerband. Gary, when you say you tune them rich with the colortune, do you richen them until the flame begins to turn orange at idle? I did notice that when I revved the motor in neutral, the combustion flame did turn whitish, indicating a leaning condition. Should I tune them richer at idle, with the intent of hitting the bluish flame when the rpm's get up to 3 or 4K? I'm still getting used to working with the SU's, and although its getting there, I have a feeling I'm not getting the best performance I can out of them just yet. Off topic, I finally get to see how my Z stacks up against other New England Z's in a few weeks. Theres a Z show in North Attleboro, MA at the place the that mine was originally purchased from, on June 27th.

I finally got the Z just about dialed right in now. I'm running at 12* initial timing, which gets me to about 38* or 40* total advance (mechanical and vacuum). The carb floats were set way too high. They are new (last year) from ZTherapy, and I'm not sure if I checked the float levels before I installed them. :stupid: Anyway, both floats were less than 1/8" from the top when I inverted them, but according to my FSM they should be around 1/2". I adjusted the float levels to 1/2" and that helped alot. The floats were so high that at 2-1/2" turns out, I must have been running really rich. Next, I bought a Gunson Colortune....what a cool tool. I found out that my front carb was still running really rich, and had to dial it way back. I was trying to get the A/F mixture right using the lift pins on the bottom of the SU's, and listening to the exhaust note, but I wasn't getting it right. With the colortune, I got them dialed right in. I'm at about 3 turns on the back carb, and about 1-1/2 turns on the front. The last thing that was causing me a problem is that the damper oil on the front carb was low. :stupid: I topped the damper oil off, and the Z runs like a bat out of hell now, with no more hesitation. Now I just have to get the 5-speed rebuilt, because the 4.11/4-speed combo is no good for driving over 50 mph....but it sure if fun getting up to 50!

2003 Chevy Silverado and a 2007 Honda CR-V (the wife's).

Same here in Mass.....

All good suggestions Carl. I'll keep that in mind if my precious Z is ever hit, but I hope I never need it! I do occasionally drive the car to work, maybe 2 or 3 times a month to show it off to my co-workers and the guys at the garage out back, but not more than that. Other than that it really is just a weekend toy, but after your post, I'll probably drive it to work less often, just to be safe. Thanks. P.S. - The pic in my avatar was taken at my office today. Showing off the Winter upgrades to the boys at work.

There is no restriction on where you drive to. You have to maintain a separate insurance policy for a daily driver, and the insured car has to be stored in a garage. Those are the only restrictions.

I just changed insurance coverage of the Z over to Hagerty Insurance. Last year, with MetLife (with collision paying "book" value) my premium for the year was $548. Through Hagerty, with $10,000 coverage, and a lower deductible, my premium for this year was $151 ($127 premium + $24 to join). Wow! I know I'm not the first guy to say it, but if you aren't using them, you're throwing away money.

Wow, sounds like it could've gone real bad! Glad it all ended up OK. Anyway, 1 last issue to work out, and I'm ready for the Summer.

I've been searching for a knock in the rear suspension since I put the car back on the road, following the rear diff swap and rear suspension upgrades over the Winter. Checked and double-checked all bolted connections (I thought), re-torqued the bushing connections, re-checked everything brake related that could be loose. I couldn't find anything loose. Then a light went off......I never torqued the passenger side strut retainer nut down all the way (the one inside the rear hatch area). I finger-tightened it when I was re-assembling, and guess I somehow forgot to go back and torque it down. Tightened it up, no more knock....:stupid: Learn from my dumb-assness.

Plug gap is at .025. I had it at .035, but reduced it to .025 when I was working out these bugs. At one point I was thinking I wasn't getting good spark from the coil so I reduced the gap and never opened it back up. The plug gap was .025 originally (w/points) so I went back to that, but with the ZX dizzy I should try it wider. I'll try bumping it back up to .035 now that I seem to have the timing worked out. I am also going to try to richen the carbs and see what happens. I just ran out of time yesterday before the Red Sox game started.

Well I finally got a chance to work on the car for a few hours yesterday. After many timing tweaks/road tests, I think I found the best set-up for my Z. I'm at 15 BTDC, and I disabled the vacuum advance. I'm still getting about 25 degrees total advance, even without any vacuum. Full advance seems to be about 40 BTDC at around 2,500 RPM's. In fact, when I attached the vacuum line, there is no change at all, still goes to 40 BTDC, no more. I not really sure why I'm getting 25 degrees of advance out of a dizzy that's stamped 8.5 (should be 17 degrees of mechanical advance), but its running great now. Might still be running a little bit lean, as there is the slightest hesitation under HARD acceleration, but its higher up the powerband (around 4,400), and much less noticeable than before. Either way, I think the timing is where it needs to be, and some minor carb tweaks should have me all set.

I left the house yesterday at 11 AM, told the wife I was going for a short drive just to let the Z stretch out her legs..."should be back in 15 or 20 minutes". I got home at 1:30 PM.

I can't speak at all to the Z market in Australia. But I know that when I started mine, I figured I'd have it done for way under $8,000 and have a car worth quite a bit more. In the end, I've spent about $10,000, I'm not quite done, and I probably couldn't sell the Z for that. But I wouldn't sell it for $10,000 even if I could, and I have no regrets about the money every time I turn the key.

Well after a few days of back-and-forth, it looks like the Roadster isn't in the cards for me. If anyone's interested, you can find it on Craigslist New Hampshire. Just search Datsun.