Walter Moore

I confess, I confess... I ALWAYS replace the entire blade, never just the insert. But then that is because usually when I replace the wiper blades the old ones were crushed by the weight of snow and ice that built up on it... But seriously, I would never have even known that there was such a thing as an original240Z wiper blade...

The wheel in the picture looks like an old style Cragar brand "Mag" wheel. Those were not original on any car, but were an extremely popular aftermarket weel in the 70's. They were Aluminum, in spite of the name...

Ok, I admit that the only 240 I have ever really looked that closely at is the pile of parts that is in my garage (which I should point out I am sure hasn't been restored yet :-) )... but I am not so sure that this is a fake... First, on the VIN#, is it possible that he just left out the "30" from the model number? My car's VIN number is HLS30-2XXXX. If you assume that the 30 is missing, and all he has listed is the part after the dash then the number itself is only about 900+- higher than mine, which was manufactured in April of 1971. As for the rest of the car... the original parts that mine still has look just like that. The valve cover on my engine is identical to the one in the picture... in fact the whole engine compartment is with the exception that his still seems to run... ;-). The serial number on the engine in my car matches the number on the nameplate, so I have no reason to assume that the valve cover isn't original. (In spite of what I have read on some web sites...) I can't talk about the shift lever that much, because the transmission in my car is clearly from a 260Z, the lever isn't straight like the one in the pictures, and someone has cut-out the floor to make it fit. But on the plus side for the Ebay seller, his shifter doesn't look like mine... As for the shift knob... the car is 32 years old... I never left the original shift knob on any car that I owned with a manual transmission back in the 70's. That center console is a dead ringer for mine, except that his is clean. The pillar vents, or what ever they are are identical to my car. The car has clearly been repainted at some point, so whoever painted it may have put the front side markers on backwards. And of course, the wheels are not original, but they look better than the chrome abominations on my car. Granted the radio is aftermarket, and the car has been spruced up a little here or there, but any car that someone has been actually DRIVING on a regular basis is going to have to be worked on just to keep it running. (And I wouldn't have put up with an AM radio for one day longer than I had to either.) But for the real test... the current bid is over $4100 and the reserve hasn't been met. Too rich for my blood... But I am a tightwad, just ask my wife or my daughters...

Gosh, you folks have me just about talked into dropping by the track this September to watch those "foreign" cars run the "wrong direction" around the track. I have to admit that having lived in Indianapolis for 42 years, I kind of take racing for granted. I have only actually been to "the race" once, just after the CART/IRL split. The paper that year said that "nobody" had shown up to watch the race. It took about 4 hours for the 500,000 nobodys present to get out of the track... I decided that if that was a lightly attended race, I didn't want to see the real thing. I love the racing, but hate the lines... But the F1 cars have always interested me. I really want to hear one of those things screaming down the front straight at 18,000 RPM. I hear that the Indy track has the longest full-throttle stretch of the season. The first year they were all crying that their engines couldn't run at full boil that long without exploding. None of them did as far as I know... I might drop by, but I just don't like crowds.

Yes, the Infinity is the "up market" (read luxury) version of a Nissan. They have a higher base price, and usually more leather on the inside. A funny story, a friend of mine went looking at Nissans because he wanted to buy a Maxima, but ended up buying the Infinity version because by the time you added the options to get the Nissan version up to the same equipment level as the base Infinity it was more money, and the Infinity has a better warranty... (Free loaner car etc.) His even came with a limited slip differential... which I didn't know you could do in a FWD...

An even better question is does the amp meter still work correctly if you install an internally regulated aftermarket alternator? I am strongly considering putting a G.M. style alternator on my Z (If I ever get it put back together.) I am not fond of the externally regulated alternators of the early Z car era. I had a lot of trouble with an old Volvo and its rickety charging system. I really love modern alternators, but don't want to loose the usefulness of the gages.

That having the needle straight up or down thing... that is a old racing trick. The NASCAR boys still do that today, even with the remote control monitoring, they turn the gages so all the needles are vertical when all is ok. Makes it easy to spot a problem.

It sounds like you have a small short circuit somewhere that is draining your battery, slowly... If you start the car often enough it charges the battery back up, but if you wait a couple of days it is dead as a post. Your external battery charger, booster is taking the place of the battery on starting. If all this started after the clock was replaced, then it may be the problem, or as you say the mechanic who installed it made a mistake. Otherwise you need to start looking for something that is drawing current with the ignition off.

Ah, that explains the rear drum that was in pieces in the back of my 240Z when I bought it...

I have a frend who used to own a Taurus SHO. He claimed that the thing absolutely ate clutches. Too much torque for the wimpy FWD drivetrain... I don't even know where Ford got the manual transaxle and clutch, the Taurus isn't available without an automatic transmission... Could have been parts from a 4 cylinder Escort for all I know.

Well, I just started to rebuild and engine that was stored for more than 10 years by someone who just shut if off and stuck it in the garage. I don't know what to do to prevent it, but if you store it long term you need some way to keep the rings from getting stuck and so fourth. They tell me this engine ran "fine" when they shut if off, but it had no compression in 4 of the 6 cylinders when I cranked it over. Of course considering the state of the intake valve seats... running fine may have be an optimistic assessment... But the rings were stuck. When I took the end cap off of the no 5 piston with the block turned upside down the piston slid out onto the floor.

I have never even seen the fuel injection system on a 280Z, so it is ok to call me "brittle" on this subject... But, on my 1974 Volvo 164E you adjusted the fuel pressure by attaching a mechanical oil pressure gage to the system in place of the cold start injector (it had a hose...) and jumpering on the electrical fuel pump. That gave you a clear reading of the pressure in the injector rail. I doubt that I can be much more help than that. I recomend that you buy a manual if you intend to pursue it much further.

I had a Mercury that was making universal joint noise once. I took it to a dealer and told him I had a bad universal joint. They checked it and couldn't find one so suggested that it may be in the Differential... $80USD later... when they could find nothing wrong in the diff, they tried to re-connect the drive shaft and found that one of the U-joints was frozen. They were looking for a loose or wobbling U-joint. This one was litereally rock solid. It would not move in one direction. It made a banging noise when it turned. Lucky for me I noticed it before it did take out the differential. (Most of my passengers couldn't hear the noise I was complaining about...) I have been told that wheel bearings "usually" make a rumbling noise, not a banging noise. I also had a brake drum cut in half because I had replaced the pads once too often without having them turned... :stupid: but no one else on the planet is that stupid. (I mention it because that made a banging noise also.)

Sometimes on G.M. V8 starters the solenoids stick when they are hot. I have had a lot of them, and it seems to me that the not starting when they are hot is sometimes an early warning that the solenoid is about to fail... but perhaps not. At least on the G.M. the starter is replaceable separately. BTW, never use an old solenoid on a new starter... parts stores will sell them that way, but you will end up heaving that stupid thing up into the air again really soon... ( I just LOVE holding that stupid motor up in the air with my left hand while I thread the two mounting bolts in with my right... :stupid: )

Personally, I am not sure that I really want tires much wider than say 205 or 215 on a 2K LB car. I had 205's on a light sports car back in the 80's and it was sad in the rain. I know, there that mid-western guy goes again worring about rain and snow, stupid: but for me that is a real issue. When it isn't snowing here it is often raining, and over wide tires just don't cut it in the rain, unless you are going for flotation. :

Generally, the lower the profile, the closer the wheel width needs to be to the tread width. The current (2002) U.S. Tire and Rim Association standard doesn't even list a 245/45R14. The only 45 profile tire they list for a 14" wheel is P225/45R14, for which they recommend a 14 X 7.5 inch wheel. (But they also list 14 X 7 as the minimum wheel width.) The book does list a P245/50R14, again the standard wheel width is listed at 7.5", but it does approve a 14 X 7 I know that different years of the 240/260/280 had different sizes of tires stock, but my glove box door lists the "standard" size at "175HR14", which given that the old metric tire sizes were generally 80 profile gives it an outside diameter of ~636mm. Scanning quickly through the book, here is a short list of the tire and wheel combinations that come closest to that outside diameter, along with their nominal approved wheel widths: P195/70R14 --- 14 X 6 P205/70R14 --- 14 X 6 P215/65R14 --- 14 X 6.5 *** Closest OD to 1971 stock. P235/60R14 --- 14 X 7 P195/65R15 --- 15 X 6 P215/60R15 --- 15 X 6.5 P205/55R16 --- 16 X 6.5 P225/50R16 --- 16 X 7 P205/50R17 --- 17 X 6.5 P225/45R17 --- 17 X 7.5 Three notes: 1. In the mid 70's sometime Nissan switched to P195/70R14 tires, which have an OD of 630mm, making many of the sizes listed above just a little too big. 2. The nominal OD is only really accurate when the tire is mounted on the "Measured" wheel width. Wider or narrower wheels will change the OD accordingly. 3. I restricted my search to sizes that were <= 1.1% different from the 636mm outside diameter of the "right" tires for my car. There may be tires that would work just fine with a different gear set, but I didn't go that far.

Ok, I see where the fume problem comes into play, if you replace the PCV valve system with a breather then you have crankcase fumes blowing through the engine compartment. But if you only replace the hose from the valve cover to the stock air cleaner with a filter on the valve cover itself, and leave the PCV valve stock, then there really shouldn't be any engine fumes escaping. (Ignoring the exaust system...) As long as there is a hose from the block to the PCV valve, you are still purging the engine into the intake manifold. Or am I somehow still missing something?

I would have expected the breather pipe on the valve cover to be an air inlet. The PCV valve is bolted into the intake manifold, and connects to a rather large pipe on the side of the block. Having taken the engine apart, I noticed that there is a baffle inside the block near that pipe to prevent pulling oil up into it. I just assumed that the air flow was in through the top and out through the pipe on the side. Or have others disconnected the PCV valve? Now I am really confused...

True story... I tried to teach my wife how to drive a manual transmission back in 1984, in my then two year old Dodge Charger 2.2. She was doing just fine until I mentioned to her that she might want to slow down a little (she was doing 80+ in a 40MPH zone...) When she realized how fast she was going, she planted her right foot on the brake pedal and just stopped, stalling the engine. Then she jumped out and refused to get back in the car until I returned to the driver's seat. I answered the poll "She can't drive." Can't drive a stick == can't drive in my book. But that means that 90% of American's can't drive... accurate I guess. I bought my son a VW Fox specifically to force him to learn to drive a manual... but those cars won't stay together for a week, so it is gone. :-( When I get the 240Z running it will be the first manual transmission car I have been allowed to own since 86' (The Fox was my son's...)

A 72' 240Z as a daily driver? The advantages of living in California I guess... My wintertime daily driver ( a rather large station wagon ) has a layer of salt on the outside of it nearly an inch thick a the moment. (At 0F there aren't many car washes operational at the moment) I somehow don't think the "Z" would hold up well under those conditions...

I live in the city of Lebanon IN, one county north west of Indianapolis. I work in Indy however. I was in Evansville once... I can't recall when or why... It is easier to get to Detroit from Indy than Evansville, at least unless/until they extend I69 down that way. I don't know how they plan to fund that project, when the state is flat broke...

Well, just tonight I bought enough steel brake tubing to replace all the hard lines on my car (I hope...) I didn't have any trouble finding them, but it ran me more than $60. Why am I replacing them all? Because I have the engine and transmission out of the car, so they are accessable, and in the past 5 years I have had the steel brake lines rupture on three cars due to rust.:mad: (Not one of those cars was over 12 years old, my Z is 31...) They don't call this the rust belt for nothing!

After being submerged in ATF for two weeks I was able to get the latch cycling with a punch and a hammer. Now it seems to work pretty smoothly. After I got it cycling with what seems like normal effort I put it back in the ATF, to finish off what little rust is left. That stuff is amazing!

By all means you want the front wheels to lock before the rear wheels. My old '72 Pinto always locked the rear wheels first (until I started running the rear tires 10PSI underinflated...) and every time that I made a panic stop I wound up facing backward...:stupid: Driving that car was like hitting myself in the head with a hammer, it felt SO GOOD when I quit! But at least even now, 22 years after it died, I can still feel a skid starting WAY before I need to correct for it...

The bolts are 10mm. Nearly all the bolts that I have found on the 240Z are the standard metric thread pitch, so I suspect it is a standard M10 bolt. You will need bolts that are longer than the ones that hold on the transmission, but exactly how long depends on the engine stand. I wound up having to buy 70mm length bolts and stacking washers on them to get enough threads in the block without bottoming out the bolts. Be sure you get at least class 10.9 bolts (the metric equivalent of SAE grade 8) or class 12 (which is stronger) because you are going to have 600+ lbs hanging on those 4 bolts. Have fun! Be careful! (one or the other if you can't do both...)