Poindexter

Oh, was *that* what that explosion was? Just kidding. At least drive shafts must be cheaper than transmissions! And they sort of are "wear items" (at least the U-joints) that the car would benefit from by finally replacing it after 38+ years- or so I might rationalize it. I can't wait to look underneath tomorrow. :stupid:

Hi Carl. Thanks for offering your advice. The problem is deeper I think. I can NOT get it into any gear. When I release the clutch (anywhere in the pattern- no neutral!) it feels and looks (tach drops slightly) like it wants to engage but the car doesn't move. Brakes are totally free, car will roll freely by itself from just the slight incline on the garage floor (the natural drainage angle). Shifter feels wrong- I'll be able to check more tomorrow, but I think something has gone internally in the transmission and I'll offer further specific clarification as to precisely what "wrong" means then.

Great idea, Rags, but I learned that lesson from the long storage years ago. I never apply the parking brake except on the street during the day. In the garage, for more than a couple of days I always use chocks. Those brake drums can be expensive- and rare too.

Thanks. I will try these tests once the weather clears up and I can put her in the driveway to get the ramps underneath, and I'll also check the shifter bushing and the cross pin too. I guess just seeing enough fluid in the clutch master isn't enough to check, huh? The shift lever felt uncertain, like it wasn't following the correct pattern, like it was imprecise- although not necessarily like there was a box of rocks in the trans housing either. I'll check that too again and report back in more detail.

Thanks for such a quick response. 1) The clutch *seems* to be working, as in if I try to crank in what I think is neutral, the car will jump unless I have the clutch depressed, and when I slowly let it out it seems like it wants to engage. Anywhere in the pattern. Ugh. I can't seem to find neutral- or any gear emphatically, any more. The "H" seems to be gone. 2) Yes, the PO *did* nip away enough steel/material at the top of the trans access hole, and there has never been any interference there with the shift lever. Only the slight back-pressure on the stick from- shall we call it- the outer rubber shift boot. 3) The shift lever has the two "ears" with the transverse pin that hold the shift lever in- the one with the nylon button at the bottom, FYI.

Help! 2/1971 240Z with later year Z "B"-model 5-speed, I believe. New master & slave clutch last May. *Never* speed-shifted or abused. Worked flawlessly all last summer. However, now after winter storage, when I try to put her into gear, no matter where the gearshift lever is, the tach drops, and you can tell the clutch is beginning to engage, but I don't think the car wants to move in either direction. I'm kind of afraid, as it's in the garage and I don't want to launch the car through the walls! The shift lever doesn't feel normal either, it doesn't seem to want to follow the normal modified H pattern, so I don't want to do anything to hurt her without more knowledgeable advice- like from the board. Any advice, or further triage to be done to help with the diagnosis? Can I place standard chocks a foot from the front and rear wheels and will they keep the car from flying too far- just to judge how or if she will move? PS- After I replaced the rubber shifter gaskets in August, inner and outer inside the console, it slipped out of third-only- once or twice, then it stopped happening- as the rubber softened up a bit I imagined. The rubber was pretty stiff and might have been pushing the gearshift lever a smidge. Anything? TIA!!!

Somewhere Carl actually published the figures on downforce- or the relative lack thereof! I think the lift at speed is around 140 pounds! Versus what should be downforce. I too have the original urethane air dam and have noticed absolutely nothing bad at 100 mph- which is about as fast as the old girl seem to really enjoy going at. No bad manners, no squirrely-ness, no looseness, no shudder, no instinctive "feeling of dread" in the pit of your stomach when a car feels somehow "off" at speed. About the same as she feels at 60. Of course I've never driven another Z at high speeds so I really have nothing to compare it too- except the various descriptions around here, accurate as they are. I can't imagine what 130 would feel like! I have driven many other cars for long periods of time well above that, not there have been so many cars that I would actually trust (with my life) much above 100. Everything seems to change once you hit that mark, it seems to me. FWIW, my top speed, legally, on the open road was 162 (measured by GPS) in a heavily modified and chipped BMW 750iL and it felt like there was still another 10-15 miles left in her! Wow.

Same here. Using Safari. I also found that it was my favorite way to enter the site, to see what had changed in the last day or 2. One click and I was there.

Thanks Mike! Yes, I literally just saw it while doing my daily romp through all things Z on ebay. I noticed it didn't have the glow controls, so I wonder what's involved with that system? Then there's the turbo to be sourced too... I seem to recall shipping to be somewhere between $150 and $300. I still have to find the rolling shell (CA or AZ) to put the diesel into also, and I'm still also trying to find the perfect Mercedes diesel too, to round out my ideal quiver of non-gas vehicles. So much on my plate for this winter! I'm psyched for the long, dark nights of work in the garage, and I'm adding onto the scope of work daily for this project and to complete the work on my current Z too. And speaking of winter, it's almost time to put the Z up for the season. I actually got caught out in the rain all day yesterday and although I wiped her down with towels, I also set up a portable heater in the garage to take the humidity out of the air to help dry the undercarriage better. Poor girl is not used to having her makeup and hair mussed! Thanks again for letting me know.

Almost a joy- if you drove it in a Z, that is. Or a Bugatti.

This is exactly my question too...precisely what do I need to do to remove my smog gear on a 2/71? All that useless weight, with a frozen air pump and a dirty, rusty, "holey" balance tube... for what? How will removing all that junk affect my tuning- which is almost flawless now? I'd love to get one of ZTherapy's tubes, but I don't want to throw my Z into a tizzy randomly pulling "stuff" off.

Looks great! When do you anticipate first flight? I too fell in love with the Corsair from that show, and the hard-living Pappy Boyington was an idol, along with Gen. Chuck Yaeger. When my Dad was 13 during WW2, he worked at the Vought factory at Stratford, Conn. making landing gear parts for the Corsair, another connection with this plane. It's great how people can literally fall for inanimate objects of great beauty. I've seen the scale Spitfire too. Maybe some day I'll build one of those, and we'll fly into Oshkosh together in scale warbirds! I wonder if the L-24 would be too heavy for aviation usage? I also thought I'd take a vocational course in welding and metalwork to learn the basics. Best of luck to you! Not all of my family or friends understand this. Some even call my Z "that old POS!" Their loss to not appreciate the mixing of such grace with so much power and gorgeous lines. Age has nothing to do with it.

I'd suggest that you be very careful about the fit of these parts. I mistakenly bought an aftermarket outer rubber shift boot, and it is way too thick. It in fact forces my shift lever OUT of gear from all of that rubber pushing back. My .02

You really have too much time on your hands. Unwise you say? Some understatement. A crime was in fact committed on a US website based in California, as should be adjudicated by their laws and the criminal statutes of the US, whether or not it was withdrawn is MOOT. Yet all you can see is an obvious joke based upon long-standing cinematic stereotypes. I'll wait while you look that up. Apologist. Go pound the desk with a phony shoe, like Kruschchev. Leave me alone. I don't think I like you, and shan't waste another second with you. Buh bye.

Inciting the Police? Nothing, silly. Go edit some more. Way to miss the point.