Walter Moore

What exactly are these motors. I do not understand the rb20 rb25 rb26 designations. (Of course I only recently learned the L24..L28 designations. Sorry for my ignorance..

Well, tonight I finally got the engine and transmission out of the 240Z that I bought a couple of weeks ago, and have started looking for rust. It is there, in all the ususal places. The bottom of the doors have rusted away, and there are bubbles on the fenders and hatch lid. The floor pan is ok, but some of the original rustproofing is flaking off. I was delighted to see that there is no serious rust on the "strut towers" or what ever the areas where the struts mount is susposed to be called. Four frends, or family members of mine have lost cars to rust that removed the metal to which suspension part were attached. Some of those people found out about the damage while they were driving If you haven't removed the door panels and checked the bottom of the doors, on the inside I strongly recomend doing so. Water gets down past the window when it rains and sits there with nothing to do but eat the metal.

One additional tip for avoiding rust in your Z car. Never, under any circumstances drive it here in the American rust belt (Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, etc.) during the winter months, when the roads are white with salt. 1970's vintage Japanese cars don't rust here... they dissolve... At least part of the reason that I bought mine was so that I could prove that there really was a 31 year old Japanese car in Indianapolis that hadn't returned to iron ore...

I crawled back there from the driver's seat and searched into the area with a flashlight. The release is pressed down as far as it will go. I think that either the latch is broken, or the mechanism is so rusted that it can't move. I squirted some 0W-30 (Mobil 1) motor oil onto the latch in the hope that it is just rusty and a little oil will free it up. I will be too busy to look at it for a week or so, perhaps that will give the oil time to disolve the rust.

Well, we tried to remove the "tag light" but the part that hold the light bulbs is held in place with screws that can only be accessed by opening the hatch. I can't get to the latch mounting screws without drilling through the plastic bulb holder assembly. We did not see anything to pull from inside to release the hatch, but I will look this evening. Thanks for the suggestions. If there are any more ideas out there I would appreciate the input.

"Over restored"... "Braided hoses"? I will be happy if I ever get mine to start...

Ok, this may sound stupid (in fact it does sound stupid...) but I can't get the hatchback door open on the 240Z that I just bought. Saturday I bought a 1971 240Z, beat-up, and with 20 year old tires... and I can't get the hatchback door open. My son crawled into the back and removed all the interior panels, and I tried to remove panels from the outside, but no matter what we tried, we cant get the latch to open. (Yes, we tried the key... ;-) ) The car has been in storage (indoors thankfully) for more than 10 years, so I think the latch may be rusted shut. Perhaps it was broken all that time... Anyway, if you have any suggestions, please help...