Zedyone_kenobi

I have ordered two ITG air filters for my stock SU's on my basically stock L24. I am not looking for HP of any kind from this, but I am wondering if I will need to adjust the carbs any. I ordered air horns to put inside the ITG's so it will be as close to stock as I could make it. I still have the stock air box with a new filter, just in case, but I wanted to try this out for a while. I am asking this as my car starts, drives and idles perfectly right now. Wondering if I am opening a can of worms. I would imagine that the SU's can handle it as they self meter for the most part.

My question is what is the use for the car? Are you planning on racing it. I see your soon to have a stroked 3.2 in your signature. If the car is just going to be on the street, then why the need for 245's. That is a huge amount of rubber on the road. Going too wide on a car can sometimes lead to ill handling effects in steering feel. I guess it depends on what you are looking for. I find that sticking with a tire that will fit perfectly and then buying the stickiest tire possible often leads to better results. As light as Z's are, the tires are not worked as hard and I think you can get away with 225's quite nicely. I have 205's on mine, and they look 'the business' in my personal opinion.

just my tools, my Z and my shelves... fridge to come later.

I was strongly considering ordering new inboard rear control arm bushings. I mean I am practically there already with the front diff mount off the car, the rears are just 4 small bolts. I think I will do this. Heres the reason why. As mentioned, my rear diff feels exaclty like the diff I ordered. Now there is no guaranty that the one I ordered is any good either, but the chances of them both being bad in exactly the same way, (or rather what I perceived as bad) is extremely slim. So since I found no smoking gun, I am left scratching my head what to look for next. I will take a look at the inboard rear control arm bushings. Pics to follow.

Thats good advice, but I would need to start looking for a R200 then right? I am not sure I really need a LSD with my stock L24. Sticky tires and throttle modulation will work fine for now, but if I can find a good posi unit to put in it, I most certainly would not thumb my nose at it. At the moment, I would not even know where to look.

Just an update... Today after I spent hours mending a fence to serviceable conditions, I decided to take a stab at more clunk diagnosing. I pulled the yoke out of the old diff and put it in the new one with the bolt just finger tight. I could still move it up radially just as much as I could with the old diff, which leads me to believe that my old diff may be okay, still hard to measure clearances just eyeballing it. I did find a local diff guy that would rebuild it for 250 plus parts. May be worth doing, we will see. It may be perfectly fine. I removed my mustache bar and wanted to look at the bushings inside those. Well it unbolted rather easily, not lose mind you, just not stuck bolts. When I looked at the rubber inside it, it looked fine. No cracks, it was still supple actually. So far the investigation has been just mechanics eyeball for now, but heres the score. half shaft u-joints feel tight as can be... no detectable slop found Front Diff mount appears to be in good shape, with the rubber not showing any cracks or damage or give Mustache bar bushings look to be rather new, not really in need of replacement I may need to turn my attention to the transmission if I cannot find anything of substance. The back end is not giving me any smoking guns.

Update. After evacuating from IKE, we are just getting things back together. I had some roof damage, my fence is in tatters, my bbq pit was beat up. All the trees in my yard were blown completely over. But it could have been worse. I had no water damage, other than a tiny leak that made some of the drywall on my ceiling start to crack, but it could have been much worse. We are lucky. We have power now, and running water. We still have to boil it before each use, but we made it back. The Z project is going to have to be put on hold for a week or so, until I can mend the roof and fence. Family is well though. My youngest did manage to catch diarrhea in Louisiana, so he is not happy. But work will finish soon enough.

Sorry to hear about your accident, but cars can be repaired people cannot. If you are interested in something other than Mitsu wheels, give me a PM, I think I can help you out. Just letting you know that your Z friends are here for you.

must resist that temptation! Must stay on target. I have a POR-15 starter kit I have yet to open.. It may be enough to do the diff, mustache bars, and half shafts...But I do not know for sure. Only problem is the kit is silver, not grey. So I may have to use something else. Not sure how it would look in silver.

Update.. Not much has happened since this pic was taken. It still pretty much looks like this. But I did manage a trip to the parts store to score package of wire, brass, and hard plastic bristle brushes. Also bought a few more rolls of towels while I was at it. I have a couple of bottles of diluted Castrol Super clean. Once I get them cleaned up, I will start the assembly process. If I still have the clunk, then we will start looking elsewhere. Is there any trick to removing the yokes coming out of the diff? Looks like one bolt holds each in. Looks straight forward.

Update, the Diff is out and what a job that was... the PO had the exhaust run under it to some degree, so there was some exhaust shuffling going around.. I Think I have reached a while I am at it situation. I may as well order that nice monza exhaust to replace my rusted one. Love the over/under look and 3" piping is just overkill for a stock L24. Here are some pics. I found some nice clear bins I am going to use to clean and store / paint my parts. Half shafts are nice and cozy. Here are my two diffs, the VERY dirty one is the one off the car, the dirty one is potential replacement, I find it interesting how many more casting numbers there are on the diff that came off the car. THere are numbers everywhere. "209" is in several places. ???? you got me.. I will post pics of all the numbers tomorrow when I get some castrol superclean do work its magic.

Well, no argument there, no the revs, but 3" is overkill if you ask me. Plus the current exhaust looks rather bad. I am with Arne on this one. the PO had the foresight to get the header jet hot coated. I would hate to not use it. Seems like a whole bunch of work to replace a perfectly good header. I agree, that a good shop should be able to fab up just the back end of the exhaust. I think that will be my direction.. Plus it will save me 450 bucks on a new header.

Is that the eurethane bushing in the background.. I just ordered these.

I currently have a 71 Zed with an MSA 6-2-1 Header that has been jet hot coated. The previous owner decided it needed a 3" pipe all the way back to the no name muffler. I have long known that I have no intention on spending life upwards of 6500 rpm very long and would like a tuned exhaust with a smaller diameter pipe (2.5" all the way back, or even twice pipes) I have read many many threads on exhausts here, but since this is my first Z, I have noob kind of question. Can I replace my header with a new one without taking off the carbs. From the look of the gasket, its all one piece and would think I would need to replace the entire gasket if I chose to just replace the header? I have my eye on the Monza header and over/under exhaust system that matches it. Its all aluminized so it should be good to go with rust. As you can see my old exhaust is rather.. um... oxidized to be nice..

WEll thats the plan Mike, I have a urethane mustache bar bushing kit coming, and I have new diff mount. I do plan on using the existing strap, as it appears in decent shape snug against the diff. I will let you know about my results when I am done.

I have been looking at parts drawings and reading more on the web here an other places. Mike, I am going to take your advice as it seems number 3 is the best method. I was initially concerned with just dropping the crossmember and leaving the back part of the rear a-arm still attached to the frame, but the more I read on it, it seems to be fine. #3 is also more attractive as its quite easy to get my impact wrench on those bolts as NOTHING is in the way. More pics to follow after I get the diff out, probably this weekend. I assume when you mean big mothers that hold the bushings, you mean the mustache bar?

DOH, good one, I can get pictures, but I think the comments on sliding the boot back to clear the connector is a good one. I was going to try that, but was not sure if the boot moved and did not want to do any damage. I will try that and get back to everyone, WITH pics to help.

Project Update: The passenger side half shaft was pulled off and it is just as tight as the driver side. There is absolutely no slop in the ujoints that I can feel by hand or when I grab each side with a wrench and twist. The motion is smooth and fluid. The drive shaft put up little resistance and its u joint felt just as tight. So I still need to decide if I am going to replace all of them or none of them. I started to loosen the bolts to the differential and realized I may have to make a decision. I am not sure how I want to tackle that. Of course I want to remove the least amount possible, but still do the job right. THe back bolts to the diff are a piece of cake. Its getting the front lose and out that seems to be more of a challenge. Seems I could do it in several ways. 1) Loosen the arrestor strap and unbolt the nut holding the mount on and pick it right up and over the crossmember 2) Unbolt the two bolts holding the mount to the diff and then just pull it straight out, but those seem impossible to get to 3) Loosen the 4 bolts holding the crossmember to the chassis and lower it a little enough to pick the diff with the mount attached over the crossmember and out to freedom Either way seems feasible.. but for those who have done it before, what do you recommend. Pics for clarity included. Also, I have been pinging on the numbers on the bottom of my diff, here they are as well. Any clues to relevance?

I was playing with my half shafts the other day and notice two wired going to my gas tank on the passenger side facing the front of the car. One was so lose it fell off with a touch. The connector looked like it would slide onto the terminal on the tank. The terminal on the tank looked like a short stub with a flat hat on on it. My issue is I cannot get the darned wiring connector back on the flat hat!!! I think my wiring connector is worn out. Is there a place I can buy another connector I can splice in? I can take pictures if that helps!

DRAT, I had no idea, I figured somebody on this board had to have that somewhere in the country. I figure there is little chance we will bump into each other, although, if I do see you, I will buy you a beer.

Forward position it is then. Good explanation. Something for a future project Negative on the backlash, I did not. I started to get weary of driving the car with the diff the way it was 45 miles across Houston to the Z shop. With my 6 month old, it would have been hard logistically to get somebody to follow me and give me a ride home. However, my 'new to me diff' appears to have the same amount of free play when I turn the pinion, so you were correct, in that you cannot check for backlash by turning the pinion. I am not totally sure I have done the necessary legwork. I was done speculating, and decided to pull the halfhafts, drive shaft, diff and mustache bar and replace all the bushings before I just swap out diffs. I will pull the covers of each to see if there is any metal shavings or if the bearings look worn. Surely the entire ring gear should not move around inside the diff housing. I will look for obvious problem areas, then put a new gasket on the best diff, paint it and start to assemble it. I may need to check out the tranny mount while I have the car up on jacks. It may need some attention. But I dont want to get carried away. With relatively low miles, certain parts should be fine. Its that whole 37 years old thing that makes things tricky.

My car has a 7/71 build date, so does that put me in the scooted forward rear diff catagory? Also, is there any way to identify the pedigree of the diff I have on my bench? My current diff has numbers stamped into the bottom of it, and I would wager that they are meaningful to some degree. This new diff is smooth all over, no numbers anywhere. So I am left scratching my head. Its more of a curiosity than anything else. I would actually like to keep the stock diff in my car if I can, but I think I have bearing issues. It makes a noticeable noise when you coast in gear off the gas

Thanks, yeah, my little boy is 6 months old.. and he is why this project will take several weeks instead of one weekend. I spend 15 minutes a week sweeping it and mopping it. It actually pretty cluttered. The wooden shelves are destined for my shed thats going in the back yard in a few weeks. So then I will have more room for the compressor air lines, I plan on installing next year. Right now my compressor is next to my tool box. Its out of the way, but having several air bosses would be nice. But first the clunk. I have added replacing my tranny mount to the list. As I am sure it along with the engine mounts are original too. Keep in mind my car only has 69234 miles on her. So most of these parts should be in great shape.

I used UCOATIT light grey, followed by their tinted gloss coat. I elected not to use the flakes, as based on past experience, trying to find a nut or a small screw on a flaked floor is impossible. I cannot tell you how happy I am with the results. The floor is almost rubbery smooth, and sweeping and mopping it are effortless. NOTHING sticks to it, and its hard as nails. I highly recommend it.

The Z had one last peaceful night in her garage before it was time to start the investigation into her rear end clunk. With tools put away, and the garage cleaned up, she was ready for a peaceful nights sleep. Then while waiting on Hurricane Gustav this weekend I had time to do a little work. I started cleaning my replacement diff in case I decided to use it, and started the task of getting the car safely in the air and well supported. I had to put the garage stereo on easy listening so to lull her to sleep for surgery. THen the tires came off, followed quickly by the drivers side half shaft, which put up next to no fight at all. Here is the picture of the half shaft, and replacement diff before cleaning. AFter shots pending. I cant find my brass and wire brush at the moment. May have to pick up new ones to clean off the diff and get it ready for prime and paint. The good news is that the rubber boot on the half shaft is soft and supple, with no cracks I can see or feel. The U-joints no matter how hard I try have no slop and and are completely smooth in all directions. I have ordered new U-joints for both half shafts, but I cannot see replacing parts that are probably OEM and are probably in great shape. Opinions? Here is a better look at the U-Joint. So far the project is going well. I have new drive shaft U-joints coming as well, and a Urethane Mustache bar kit. You can see the new diff mount in the picture. I am going to be very interested to see the condition of the mustache bar bushings. More pics to come.