skunkbud280Z

That was a ZX, but yeah.

and I was using locking pliers on the other side as counter torque. And I sprayed it with WD-40 at least 10 times and left it for a few days before trying again to loosen it. The fitting began to round off on the flare-nut with just a modest amount of torque/counter torque so I went ballistic on the fitting with a 2nd vice grip. Locking it down as hard as I could and it STILL slips(slipped) on the fitting. It's frozen in place, hasn't been touched in 32 years. I've done so much damage to the outside of the fitting at this point I've chewed up half of the metal on the fitting with the vice grip, it's basically completely round now with groove marks from the vice grip, and still the thing won't budge. I'll dread having to cut the line next to the fitting and get a new fitting and reflare it, but I don't have any of the tools to do that, I don't want to have to do that all the way around the car, especially since I've never done it before and wind up buying $50 in tools for nothing and create even more expense for myself by the mechanic having to replace the metal lines, which are hard to even find anymore. I need other options. I've tried tapping on it with a hammer and the vice grip slipped around the fitting with that too. I even tried to wedge pins in the rounded corners and thereby jam the wrench onto the fitting so it wouldn't slip off, to no avail. My latest idea is to boil some water and slowly pour it on the fitting, the only thing I haven't tried yet. It might be the way I'm using the tools at this point, but I'm about to just tow it to the garage and have them do everything and hand me a huge bill because I really want to drive my car...fast. This brake work is easy, if I could only loosen this stuff I could do the rest so easily. The fittings on my '94 Camry's master cylinder were a lot easier to move than its wheel cylinders. Maybe the Z would behave similarly but I'm upset at myself at this point I never want to strip another fitting again.

I'll get one soon out of gratitude for this great website! Money's tight for me right now unfortunately and I've got major brake repairs to do on this car. Brakes seem to bleed but no pressure. Got one bad wheel cylinder, and I'm almost sure my master cylinder is shot. Z-shop told me it was going bad over 12 years ago and I neglected it when the brakes still worked. My car drank a lot of fluid when I was bleeding the brakes and the fluid level in the rear-brake reservoir is going fast, and losing some fluid from the front reservoir as well. With NO fluid anywhere spilled on the floor, I'm starting to worry the MC is leaking fluid into the booster and I suppose I'll be getting brake fluid in my intake so I'm not even running the engine right now. I am tempted to pull that line where it clamps onto the booster and see if there's any fluid coming out. I trust that if things are working correctly, there is nothing but vacuum in that line? I would do all this brake work myself (and would LOVE to), these brake fittings are just so tight every time I try to touch one, the only thing I need help with is to loosen them up. I'd almost tow my car to a shop, have them go around and loosen all my brake fittings, then put it back on the tow truck and tow it back, but getting someone to cooperate with such madness (for them) is another thing...

Hope you fellow S30 Z fans enjoy these old advertisements as much as I did.

11/75 and the same plate. Oh I like your car! Thanks for linking. Not that I'm partial or anything... wait, yes I am! We chose virtually the same air dam and spoiler it looks like.

suggests that the only change made between 1975 and 1976 was that the ammeter was changed to a voltmeter. And it lists the 1975 engine at 149 HP. It doesn't explicitly state that the power was increased in 1977 but it strongly implies it if you take the wording as it sounds. http://auto.howstuffworks.com/nissan-z-history3.htm What I'm curious about, if anyone has a 1975 280Z, is what does your plaque under your hood say regarding your engine's HP? If Nissan didn't raise power to 170 till 1977, why does it say that on our cars? If they raised it in 1976 then Howstuffworks is wrong, as is another website I visited (don't remember which one). And if there is a 21HP difference between any of these 280s, WHAT made the difference?

Didn't think to use Wiki for some reason. So all these fabled cars I always gawked over like the '69 Hurst/Olds with their ~400HP ratings were pared back a great deal due to how they measured horsepower differently. Still doesn't explain the extra 21 HP like you said. Could Nissan have reverted back to Gross Horsepower in 1976, where they hadn't done so in prior years? Or were they always using GrossHP in those prior years?

Okay I know this has been brought up and discussed before and I read the old threads and talked to different sources through the years and I'm as confused as ever. Let me see if I can put some supposed puzzle pieces down that I've heard about regarding 280Z's horsepower (and generally all the classic Zs). 1975 the 280Z came out. Sources speak of the engine having 149 HP. Okay. 1976 some online sources don't speak of anything different with the engine. I have a metal plate under the hood that says 170 HP. I was talking to the owner of one Z shop locally and he was saying "oh yeah we can completely rebuild your engine brand new to 200+HP for xxxx dollars". Another owner of another Z shop laughed and said "there's no way that engine is going to produce 200-220 HP and still be pleasant streetable". I retorted "Oh c'mon, my engine has 170 HP already!" And he replied back "That engine does NOT have 170 HP!" So, Nissan was pulling a fast one here (no pun intended)? They're using a different unit of measure that happens to share the same name? Samurai, like vikings, ride hobby horses? Or WTH is going on? Then I read on a lot of online sources that in 1977 280Z's HP is upped to 170. I also saw a sticker that still says it has 170 HP, just like mine. Then based on the discussions here and elsewhere, I read that the HP difference between these 280Z cars is non-existent and they're all the same or about the same???! I found this information in another forum which seems realistic, mentioning an old convention for measuring HP vs. the new convention for measuring it: BHP- Brake HP measured at flywheel HP- 1BHP=.986HP so for most cars the difference would only be off by 1, also measured at flywheel Gross HP- old way, HP of motor only-no accesories and out of car, also measured at flywheel. http://www.zcar.com/forums/read/2/854050 But is this right? So how much HP does a '76 really have? A '77 really have? A '70 really have 150? 151? A '74 really have 139? Etc. To add more dizziness to the discussion, an old friend was telling me the virtues and drawbacks of mounting weber carbs onto my L28: Sounds mean, FAST, difficulties starting, etc. How much of a HP boost would this move make? If I keep the EFI and just go for different options on a rebuild, what gains would we realistically be talking about here? Any good bang for the buck wisdom from any of you fellow Z-heads? I'd rather keep my original engine and EFI than install a V8 so am more interested in L28 EFI alternatives. I don't want to stifle the discussion though. Hearing someone's V8 stories would be fun too. I saw a 240Z on youtube with a big V8 in it, and when he got on the gas, the car wanted to lurch right out of its lane (TOO much engine as he said). I hate people who do burnouts and donuts in their Z. Doesn't impress me. I like to see cars vault ahead with smooth efficient power without losing any of their handling characteristics also. And original engines = greater worth, in theory. Here's that youtube video I was referring to: Supercharged V8 as it turns out. It looks like he's about to veer into oncoming traffic at one point. I also suspect those wheels, beautiful as they are, might be doing some rubbing there. Anyway...different strokes for different folks I suppose. If I had a 240Z I'd definitely want the original 2.4L in it.

That thing was so tight I'm going to have to tap the screwdriver with a hammer to loosen it to take it off again. And I hope I can remove it with the tank left installed. I would guess I can but I dunno. Not worried about fuel coming out, just clearance.

In my own layman's vocabulary: There is a sliding surface that moves between two terminals. It moves across a number of "winds" or metal coils, making contact with them. When the tank is near empty the sliding surface touches less of those winds, and when the tank is near full the surface touches more of them. Presuming higher resistance indicates greater fuel level. So now that (I think) I get the fundamentals better, what could be wrong with this thing... Of note, I did some shaking of the tank before I installed it because when I was carrying the tank out to be installed, I heard a few pieces of crud rattling around in it. So I was sloshing a gallon of gasoline through the tank several times to wash out the loose particles till I couldn't hear anything. A few times while I was swinging the tank in an arcing motion I heard the float apparatus moving around in there (in its 10 inch arc range of motion as was described). Maybe it's possible I caused something on it to shift out of position when holding (shaking) the tank back and forth but I can't see what that would be. The float got stuck on the arm in the full position perhaps? That would seem plausible at least. There I be, overly cautious while cleaning the thing, but oblivious to breaking it while sloshing the tank back and forth. :stupid:

It is a resistance reading that moves the gauge. At a certain level of resistance or higher the gauge is going to read full, I have to assume irrespective to what position the float is in. It was somewhat rusty when I pulled it out. Not as bad as the one you're showing in the pictures. It was more spotty with rust than scaley. I used a rust remover gel (a phosphoric-acid based naval jelly) on the (larger) rusty surfaces and rinsed it off. What I didn't do is try to clean the corrosion around the wires. It looked delicate there, there is a very fine metal wire on this that I wouldn't even touch and I didn't want to be "busting my thumbs" all over it trying to clean it immaculately and then end up breaking it. I figured I took off around 75-80% of the rust on aggregate. As the fuel gauge worked at the car's last running state about 10 years ago, I applied the rule "if it ain't broke don't fix it". Of course now it's broke so the rules have changed. I'm not gungho with climbing under the car and removing it either. BUT someone please tell me I can do this without taking the tank off. So here I am now and you've got me thinking that A) It's a corrosion issue and I didn't clean the oxidation where the wires attach (sufficiently, or more likely, at all) or Perhaps I left a little bit of the phosphorous coating that jelly tends to leave, as it seems to be chemically attracted to iron oxide as opposed to non-oxidized metal, it might have just "opened the circuit" so to speak and created an infinite resistance at the round piece the arm is attached to. At this point it would have been nice if I had disconnected the fuel pump, installed the battery, and checked the gauge for operation before draining and removing the tank to see whether I "broke" it or if it was already reading incorrectly. But since it sounds almost sure that I physically installed it right, I'm guessing something on the surface is creating resistance where it shouldn't be. Oh, and thanks!

That maybe I put it in upside down? If I put the float opposite the way I put it in there, it would be in a more elevated position as it sits in the tank. That didn't make sense to me. The float would sit in a low position with an empty tank thereby reading empty, and rise with the fuel level. I guess it's possible I put the thing in there wrong but common sense still tells me I didn't. But you asked "rightside" up or down. If I remember correctly and I think I do, the float was connected on the arm that was on the right side (passenger's side) and it was in a down or low position (as it rested when inserted into the fuel tank). If I put it in the opposite (and still horizontal) position, the float would be resting in a higher and left (driver's side) position. If the latter case is the correct way to install the float, then I have to assume that gravity alone (via the weight of the metal arm) is enough to drop the float to the level of fuel in the tank. This would seem like the wrong way to install it, but I'm not ready to conclude I didn't make a mistake here either.

I always wanted a 240Z, wound up with a 280Z, fell in love with the 300ZX Twin Turbo in 1990 when I read Motor Trend's article. I even won a $20 bet that the new Z would smoke the Ford Mustang, which was a big deal back then as I was just a kid. But anyway, I posted a video on youtube hybridizing two old Nissan ads for the Z32 over some Filter music. My old title for the vid was talking about Barbie and Ken and I think I attracted some pre-teen girls who didn't think very fondly of my participation in the youtube community. Anyway I thought some of you fellow Z-heads would appreciate it more. It combines a few ads; one where the Z-driver is dreaming about being chased, the other is the Toys commercial where GI Joe picks up Barbie at the mansion. Hope some of you folks like it!

but I didn't replace the sending unit or change the wires in mine. I disconnected the keyed pins at the tank and removed the float apparatus when the tank was off and being cleaned out. My car hadn't run in about 10 years. It's running now but the voltmeter still reads zero and the fuel gauge still reads full. Because the battery is brand new, the fuel tank has 3 gallons in it, and the gauge is useless reading like this, I just unplugged it. I'm not sure if I placed the float inside the tank incorrectly. I placed it horizontally to the surface of the fuel in its lowest position, assuming the fluid in the tank would cause it to rise accordingly. The arms of my float are perfectly straight so their being physically bent isn't my problem (and might not be yours); likewise, the sending unit might not be my problem either.

If the owners dry this market up a little bit then the prices will rise. I agree, they go too cheaply, so stop selling them that way! If I had a '70 240Z in mint condition, either someone would be paying me $35-40k or someone wouldn't be buying my Z. Put another way, part of working the market is passive. That is, we get the accepted "values" for things from the aggregate market forces we are slave to, and concede to them in our buys and our sells. This is observed by nearly everyone as is evident by reading the replies in this thread. The other part, and this part is often completely overlooked by everybody, is active. If all of you (us) Z fanatics could collectively agree to bloat the prices of these cars together (by stubbornly refusing to sell them for reduced prices, buying them for higher prices, et al), the net result would be a market that completely dries up. A dried up market with no Z cars for sale is going to jack the demand and as everyone with some economics under their belt knows, demand is the prime mover of price. Making the market "want" the Z car more is a job that many of you Z owners oversee, whether you knew it or not. There are less "legal" ways of driving prices higher that I won't get into here. They would involve an absolute trust between Z owners that would be impossible to instill through simple rhetoric on a message board. But in theory...there are ways....