Walter Moore

Well, my car is clearly what 26th-Z refers to as a "Series 2", build date April, 1971, but it has horizontal line heated rear window glass. I remember installing aftermarket rear window heaters in both my '72 Pinto, and '72 Beetle, so it is concievable that some of the Series 1 cars sold in colder parts of the U.S. might have had dealer installed rear window defrosters to meet local demand. (Similar to the clearly dealer installed air conditioner that I ripped out of my car... unless Nissan was buying parts from Texas in '71...)

Hey, I have a question about heater cores... I took mine out and tested it by submerging it in a bucket of water and then pressurizing it to 20PSI with compressed air. There were no leaks that I could see, and the heater core itself looks nearly new. Would I be taking a huge risk if I just put it back in the car? (I promise not to blame anyone else if it fails in a short time. Regardless what anyone else tells me in the end it is my call.)

BTW, the "black stuff" will also come off with a hammer and chisel, but that is the hard way. :stupid: I just finished removing it from my car (which appeared to have a pristine floor...) and I found some holes under the insulation. (or were those places where I got carried away with the chisel?) So, anyway, I agree that if you have holes the size of those in the picture what is "solid" under the insulation is likely worthless. By the way, that insulation when it is cold is really strong. The rocker panels look bad as well. I found just a little bondo on my car around the read fenders, and when I stopped sanding I had removed 1/2" from the surface of the entire car under the belt line. Every surface of the car has been repaired with riveted in repair panels, including the rear fenders, rocker panels, etc. (And this is a car that I had "checked" for rust before I even considered starting on it.) In my case, the repair panels are solid, so I am going to leave them. But I want to strongly warn anyone who intends to go down the road of "restoring" one of these cars that there will be rust in places you would never think to look... and the cost of the repairs will be higher than you expect. Look hard before you start down this path.

OH! I forgot that the tire bulge on most tires exceeds the listed width! On 50 series tires that isn't as big a factor as it would be on others, but with only 2.5mm to spare... I wouldn't risk it. Just my opinion.

Well.... A quick thumbnail calculation is that on a 240Z you have about 5 inches before you interfer with the strut. So the basic equation is: Offset (Max) = 127-(Tire width/2) For you question that works out to an answer of 14.5mm. But, there are other factors that influence the result. It would be good to hear from someone who had actually mounted the tires on the car before spending the money for the tires. Your worst case for interferrence (with the strut at least) is on the front of the car.

Low demand only means low price if there is a plentiful supply... A friend of mine was lamenting one day that back in '68 he had bought (brand new) a Chevy Nova (SS I think...) with a big block V8, and a Muncie 4 speed. A classic American muscle car. With car prices being what they were back in the day, he spent less than $3000 on it I expect. The thing (like most of the late 60's muscle cars) was really poorly built junk. Within two years it was trash. The rear leaf springs had broken (and been replaced) several times. The body was badly rusted, and the frame was saging. He traded in in on a Capri, and got very little for his trade. He saw a Nova sell at auction recently that was almost identical to the one he had owned. (when it was new, not when he traded it in.) The car sold for over $100,000. (note the U.S. use of a comma to separate the thousands place, not as a decimal point.) Very few people WANT a 60's Nova, but for those that do, there are almost none left in existance. The same sort of twisted logic applies to many other cars as well. Lots of people want a "Z" car, but in the shall we say "less moist" parts of the world there is still a good supply of them.

Are those hood vents the ones that MSA sells? (or similar to them...) I have been wondering what they would look like installed.

On the unleaded fuel issue, I have the feeling that the author doesn't live in North America. The cars that were sold in the U.S., (and I think Canada...) after 1975 came from the factory with a catalitic converter, and thus had the hardened intake seats installed. (Leaded gas plugs converters in only a few thousand miles of operation.) Leaded gasoline has not been legal for street use in the U.S. for nearly 20 years.

Somewhere years ago I saw a picture of a Dixie Chopper riding lawn mower with a jet helicopter engine on the back. Talk about overkill. Nitromethane is powerful stuff. They use it because it doesn't need air to burn. People have used it for rocket fuel, it doesn't require an oxidizer, it is its own. But then those motors are rebuilt after every 1/4 mile.

I know nothing about the car, except that it was in our employee parking lot about 4 or 5 times during the month. We could never find the owner... Or he didn't want to be identified.

Hi all, I spent most of November in Japan, and the only car that I saw that was even close to a Fairlady was this Skyline. I know that it isn't a Z, but it is pretty nice.

I wouldn't do that on a bet. If the jack slipped and that spring got loose it would kill you. I friend of mine (who I swear has an angel on his shoulder) had a car spring escape uncontrolled once, and it tore a hole through the outside wall of his garage. He found it out in the yard. In fact, I wouldn't try your friend's method with removing the nut then jacking up the car either. Saving time is nice, but I prefer to keep all my body parts attached.

For the record, the only DC motors that require an "electronic controller" are "brushless" motors, not magnet-less motors. They (brushless motors) have to be electronically commutated to keep the moving field produced by the stationary windings in the stator ahead of the permanent magnet of the armature. Permanent magnet DC motors of any size are a fairly recent development. It used to be that all DC motors had windings on both the armature (the moving part) and the stator (the stationary part). Really large motors (like the ones on train locomotives) are still mostly that way because the flux density of those motors is so great it tends to demagnetitize permanent magnets. Sorry, that had nothing at all to do with the discussion at hand... just painful flash-backs to my motor's class of long ago. I still remember that the equations for series wound motors were completely different than shunt wound motors vs series-shunt vs shunt-series vs... Arrgh! The MADNESS!!!!!

If it is like a 240z, which I suspect that it is, it takes an M8 X 1.25 bolt. The bracket has a blind hole 32mm deep, so somthing in the 40 - 45 mm length range should work.

As I understand it however it was more than just different badges. The 2.8 liter motor was sent to the states, but not to Europe. (I have no idea if it was sold elsewhere...) Several sources that I have read on other (non-Z) cars state that in most European countries there are significant taxes imposed on cars with "large displacement" engines, and that catagory begins at 2.8 liters. Many different explainations exist for this, but the one I believe rings true is that the displacement of the flat-head 4 cylinder engine in the Ford model T was 2.8 liters, (more or less...) and those countries were trying to even the playing field. Of course, a tax, once imposed is never recended. The U.S. federal income tax was originally said to be temporary, just until they paid off the debt from WWI. :tapemouth

I'm not sure about an L28 motor, but on the two piece, three row pulley that is on the front of an L24, the timing marks are on the back side (motor side) of the piece that is keyed. The front pulley is not used for timing the engine, and can go on in either of the two possible positions. I am sure someone will correct me about the later motors...

An RX4? Man I haven't seen one of those in over 20 years...

It is 27mm, but a typical inpact socket will not fit because the wall thickness it too great. I pulled my hair out trying to find a socket, until I realized that 1 1/6" = 26.9875mm... and that sockets aren't nearly that precise.

I tend to agree with beandip, don't remove solid paint unless you are not sure what it is hiding. As you can see from my picture I did remove all the paint on my car, but that was only because whever I hit it with a sander I hit bondo, and I wanted to know what I was up against. (old repair panels mostly, that some previous owner had "blended in" with body filler and an oar... in some places it was 1/4" thick.) But the factory paint, if it is solid and not hiding rust, is a better base than anything else you are likely to apply later. Just what I have come to believe.

The pump prices here change twice a day. There seem to be a ripple effect, as stations raise their price, lose business to a lower competetor, lower their prices to try and get some business back, and then have to raise their price again to make money... I have seen $1.91/gal to $2.08/gal over the past week... sometimes at the same station. Oh, and for those outside the U.S., back when gas was selling here for $1.00/gal taxes were about 35% of that price, where as in some places I have read that taxes account for nearly 90% of the price. Just an observation, not an excuse or a jab. Our taxes haven't gone up, so the difference between then and now is mostly oil prices.

You know I thought that the whole issue of whether or not the Z cars would get more respect if they didn't have "Datsun" badges on them was silly, until I ask a guy at work who recently bought a new Infinity "So how is your Datsun running these days?" His response was unprintable... Needless to say I guess my opinon has been modified somewhat...

Ok, really stupid question... Are you guys using those aftermarket coil-over rear suspensions to achieve toe in/out adjustment, or is there something that I missed when I put my rear suspension back together? I didn't see anything that looked even remotely adjustable on the entire rear suspension.

That is why the PO of my car cut the shifter opening of the transmission tunnel up. When I first removed the engine and transmission I noticed that the sheet metal had been cutout at the front of the shifter opening. All they did on my car was to make two cuts on the side of the opening and roll the excess forward. Be careful however, as somewhere in all of that the plastic piece on the leading edge of the console ended up cracked slightly. I suspect from hard shifts into third.

Don't take this the wrong way, but the 318 was never exactly a power house of a motor was it? Now the 340... that is a different story.

Good plan... remove the car from the grips of the V8 guy. My guess is that he only understands Holleys. Not that there is anything wrong with that, if you only work on old Fords...