Captain Obvious

Well said. Once I started taking stuff apart, I couldn't stop. Now I not only want to know... I simply HAVE to know. But whatever works for any individual... If you want to take your car to a shop, then more power to ya! If you want to try it at home, that's great too!

Yes, front toe is the only adjustment, but it IS a little more complicated than that. You could have the front toe spot on but if the line through the center of the front toe isn't parallel (or coincident) to the thrust angle from the rear wheels, the car will pull when you let go of the wheel. You have to take the thrust angle into account too and compensate for it or the car will drift. But that's why you can succeed with just the tape measure on the treads... If you complete step one "make the car go straight when you let go of the wheel", you have successfully got the front toe aligned symmetric to the thrust angle. And after that, there's the matter of putting the steering wheel straight. I guess you could consider that a cosmetic issue, but my little engineering brain can't deal with driving a car where the wheel is all wonky even if I know the underpinnings are working properly. Just can't handle it.

I agree completely. It comes down to the skill, understanding, and patience of the person doing the work. The best laser guided rack on the planet can't overcome everything that a hurried, inexperienced, and probably creatively uncaring tech can come up with. Technology can help make it idiot proof, but nothing ever is completely. If you are going to measure and adjust the rear alignment, then you need more than just a tape measure, but if all you can adjust is front toe, then you can get an accurate thrust angle compensated alignment with the tread measuring method. Just have to understand how and why.

I'm a theory guy, and I used to completely dismiss the home shop alignment stuff thinking that there was no way you could do something in your garage and end up with something as good as you what you could get using an expensive laser guided rack. But I've spent some time analyzing the geometry and I now believe the theory is sound. My claim is... "If done right, the front tire tread measuring technique can yield an accurate thrust angle compensated alignment." I can explain the theory, but it'll take some sketches. I'll throw something together when I get the chance.

I know you said you didn't need it. but here's a pic anyway. This is the punch mark at the steering wheel end of the steering shaft. Mark is at about 12:00. Now I don't know if all the years and all the columns had the mark, but every one I've been into had that punch:

The U-joint coupling has a punch mark too, but I'm definitely talking about the end up by the steering wheel. They say "punch mark on the top of the upper column shaft": Maybe yours is rusty and you just can't see the mark? Maybe they didn't put them on all the cars? Too late today, but I should be able to get you a pic tomorrow.

I get ya about nothing being adjusted right and being thrown for a loop. And I also get being able to grasp an unadjustable rear wheel as a fixed reference point. But that right there is part of the problem... You just set your front wheel to on an unqualified rear wheel reference source. Who knows what that rear wheel is doing compared to the OTHER rear wheel! im saying that at SOME front wheel setting, the car will go straight. The absolute details in the rear don't matter unless you've got adjustable stuff back there. 1) Make it go straight. 2) Get the steering wheel to where you like it. 3) Fine front toe in so you don't eat the outside edges. 4) keep an eye on your tire wear all around. If at some time after that, you find you're eating up a rear tire, then you need to dig deeper into the rear, but if not, then be happy. One more way to look at it? You asked if you did it right? Answer is no. You probably set everything to a rear wheel that is a little out of whack. If you did it right, you wouldn't be asking, because it would be driving perfect.

Well don't get me wrong. I'm not thinking the venture is a folly. In fact, I did my first day alingment on my Z, and it's the car that I'm most satisfied with. Now that I've had such success with that car, I'll do more of it in the future on other cars. im familiar with that string alignment page and a couple others and if done well, it works. However, on the Z, since there isn't anything on the rear that's adjustable, you may a well ignore it unless you're looking for an issue that you plan to fix. Look at it this this way... If you're driving on a flat level surface and you let go of the wheel, the car will go where nature and physics dictates. First step is to have the car go straight when you let go. Make sure you have a little toe in (specs in FSM) and get the adjustments such that the car goes straight naturally when you let go of the wheel. After that, adjust the two front sides in unison so the steering wheel is in the correct position when that happens. im not poo-pooing home diy alignment. I am, however, a believer that most of the people doing that string stuff are kidding themselves. Even that link posted above has pics of people taking measurements off a tire sidewall. Some of them even on the raised lettering. It can be done, but there are pitfalls. ill try to draw up a couple sketches if I get a chance.

I'm no suspensions guy, but here are a couple things that caught my eye as I read your post. There is a dot punch mark on the end of the splined steering column shaft where the steering wheel attaches (see page ST-3 of the 78 manual), and that dot is supposed to signify "center of travel". So in theory, unless someone has messed with the steering rack or column U-joints in the past, you should be able to find center of travel of the whole system by putting that dot at top dead center. Of course, you'll have to find which of three steering wheel rotations is the correct one, but that's something you should be able to do by eye. So you can find approx center of travel by counting revolutions or by eye and then fine tune it by putting that punch dot top dead center. Once the dot is top and center, make sure the steering wheel is installed properly such that it's pointing straight when the dot is top and center. Something else that caught my eye is that you set the front wheels for toe OUT instead of toe IN? Like I said, I'm not a suspension guy, but I thought toe OUT is reserved for performance applications and toe IN is what you want for normal driving. From what I understand, toe IN would provide straight line tracking like what you want on your grocery getter and toe OUT is used when you're willing to sacrifice stability for speed of response when entering turns. So if I understand correctly and you have things adjusted toe OUT, it would be no surprise to me for your car to be a little squirrely. I think you should have a little toe IN, not OUT. About your jackstands and strings... I'm not sure how you think you got the strings parallel to the car, but I'd be interested in hearing where you were taking your measurements from to make that claim. If it were me, I'd skip trying to get lines parallel to the car since nothing in the rear really matters (since there's nothing adjustable back there anyway). Unless you've installed some aftermarket adjustable suspension bits in the rear then you should be able to ignore the entire rear of the car and focus simply on the front. I would just measure directly to the front tire treads at front and rear of the tires and use that to dial in appropriate toe-in. Skip the strings completely as the more complicated the measurements, the more sources for error. Park the car, measure the front tire treads for toe, and keep making small adjustments until the steering wheel runs straight up and tracks straight. In theory even if something is a little out of whack in the rear, using that method should adjust the fronts to account for it. In the end, the best you can hope for is: 1) Steering wheel is straight when you're driving down a flat and level road. 2) Car tracks straight when you let go of the wheel and doesn't pull to one side or the other. 3) Your tires wear evenly and don't go bald on the inside edges before everything else. If you can achieve those three things, I think that's about the best you can do without modifications to the rear suspension bits. All that said, however, if there is really a significant difference between tires, you might not be able to get things proper at all. Might be able to get it close enough with unevenly worn tires, but I would revisit it when you get new rubber.

I see the fuel pump wiring you guys are talking about... So you're thinking that what gets plugged into that two position connector is some sort of 20A fuse module? Did they do such a thing on the early models? I have no hands on experience on stuff that early. I was looking at the wires leading to the Kick Down solenoid... One side of that solenoid connects to a wire who's color is inconclusive, but probably G or B/W. It looks like one of those wires that changes colors in a junction somewhere and you don't know which color won the fight. And the wire color on the other side of that solenoid isn't labeled at all, so it could very well be the other color.. Haha! So I'm just fishing for possibilities and the documentation doesn't rule it out.

I took a quick look at the wiring diagram and didn't see exactly those wires, but I'm wondering if that connector with the Green and Black/White was for something for an automatic transmission. Is (or was) the car an auto? Reason I ask is there are two devices at the top center of the wiring diagram... "Kick Down Switch" and "Kick Down Solenoid" that have at least one of the wire colors correct. And as for the large White/Red, I'm thinking that comes from the alternator?

Oh by the way... Which one's Pink? Sorry. Couldn't contain myself any more.

Yup. I agree that using the original harness connection points would certainly be more desirable, and it sounds like you've got some sort of plan in the works. So I'll wait quietly and patiently to see what you're working on.

Cool. I'm surprised to hear (or not hear?) that it's so quiet. I would have expected it to be a jet engine firing off back there. Post a pic when you get a chance?

You could still do P-n-P if you were to plug into the connectors that attach right onto the back of the headlight bulbs themselves. (And as a matter of fact, using that technique, I think you should be able to produce an auxiliary harness that would work on any 240, 260, or 280.) I haven't drawn it up, but assuming you are pulling power and ground directly from the battery with new wires, you should only need to make connection to one of the original bulb connectors. Both of the original connectors would be disconnected from the bulbs, but you could leave one hanging (or snipped off and taped up). You would, however, have to deal with the unavailability of the headlight bucked grommets which will turn to dust with that much agitation.

CAT scan!!

The usable floor level is higher in 77. I know for sure.

In 77, they changed a lot of stuff. Doors. Floor stampings. Seat mounts. Door locks. Rear wheel cylinders (and brake shoes?) Shoulder harness belts relocated to the strut towers (or was that 76) Different quarter window trim because they don't need the hole for the seatbelt. Different rear panels where the speakers go and speakers on both sides. Relocation of the seatbelt warning lamp or something like that came up in a recent thread?

I have no idea. They changed lots of sheet metal in 77. Doors, floors, seat mounts... Safety updates maybe?

My 77 has storage bins. They are just hidden under the raised deck. They didn't bother to put any door lids on the bins, but they are there. I'm no expert on the whole timeline, but thought the whole raised deck thing was driven by the changes to the gas tank and the shallower spare tire recess. On 76 and earlier, they used a full sized spare and the recess for the spare was deeper. But when they went to the space saver spare in 77, they made the recess shallower (presumably for changes to the gas tank?) and had to create that false raised deck to get over the width of the spare. Is that the consensus?

Hi Z Greek, Sorry... Meant to get back to you and it slipped off my radar. I just sent you a PM.

And just in case anyone wonders what I think about the cars condition... I see a dash that has been sun baked and baked and baked. And baked. Covers on the seats hiding who knows what! Wrong shift knob (and missing the emblem to boot). A center console that has been cracked up. A wiring nightmare with hacked harnesses, splices and wires hanging everywhere. Steering wheel missing parts, Clamshell gone and wires exposed. Typical peeling vinyl on the scuff plates and rotted weatherstripping. Looks like the radio has been forcibly removed. Maybe even a theft recovery? So my read on the car is that it was driven hard for many years in a very sunny humid part of the world and put away wet. Now it's someone's half finished project where they pop-riveted homemade floor pans in it and then kinda gave up on the project because they lost interest or money, or both. And it may have been stolen and recovered in there somewhere.

I'm not sure if any of those terms ("exaggeration", "lie", or "disingenuous") really apply here. From my experience the people selling Z cars have very darkly tinted rose colored glasses on. I've gone to look at probably twenty cars for sale and the story was pretty much the same at all of them. The owners don't see the car as it is right now... They look at it and picture how nice it could be if it were fixed. So my read on the statement "Only rust on the WHOLE CAR is a VERY small amount on the floorpan(could cover completely with less than a dollar bill)" Means "There used to be a lot of rust on the car, but it was all in the floor pans which have been replaced. So now that the floors have been replaced, the only rust is a small amount on the floorpan." Of course, we experienced Z owners know that the rust you can see is a tiny amount of the total rust that you CAN'T see, and if the floors were so bad that they had to be replaced, then there are guaranteed to be other significant issues to be found if you poke in the right spots. But maybe (just maybe?) the seller hasn't that same level of experience. So maybe I'm giving them too much leeway, but I don't see it as dishonest... I see it as inexperienced.

Couple pics of my place. This is my parts ZX in the driveway: And here's my mailbox and my street before they plowed:

Sounds like a plan. Just remember... Good connections all around. 10A will drop an entire Volt on just 0.1 Ohms of resistance. It's the law. Might want to pull the defroster relay out of it's socket, clean the contacts, and reseat? Same with the fuse? I remember fogging on the inside of the glass from my first Z, but I must not be driving the current one enough because I haven't had that problem. Of course, being my summer car, most of the time my windows are down.