grannyknot

Nice, always fun to stick it to the man.

Absolutely it's worth saving, I agree with the others, if you have it done by someone else it could get expensive but if you are willing to get filthy dirty you can learn to do it yourself and save lots of money, in the end you will have a solid car that you saved and I can tell you that first drive after putting it back on the road is a pretty wonderful feeling. Have a look through the archives, there are dozens of threads where someone just like yourself repaired extensive rust and brought their Z back to life, the peanut gallery here on this forum will talk you through the whole procedure.

I know, how about you do that first and let me know how it goes? I guess there really is no danger in it, nothing in there that will get harmed by water, I might try that. I got the Shopvac on it today and it certainly looks cleaner. I'm in love with my car?

Yes sir that's structural, your 1st and 3rd pics shows that the rail going under the D/S floor has been repaired before but they probably just patched over the rust and so it kept spreading. Whatever shop you take it to make sure they don't do the same thing, that rust has to be cut back to clean metal and new metal welded on not riveted like the last repair. Collision shops probably aren't your best bet because they like the work that is under insurance, they may not even want to do that job. The repair might be able to be done with the engine still in place but the carpets and seat on the D/S will need to come out. I just looked hard at the 4th pic and you can see they riveted a patch on the that entire rail, probably won't be very pretty once those rivets are removed. You might want to take it to an automotive restorer and get a quote, it could be a bigger job than you originally thought.

41 yrs, it deserves to be cleaned. But yes, once I get started... So that yellow pre-filter is missing from my canister, I wonder how long it has been gone. I might try to drip some ABS solvent in that seam around the outside to see if that cap loosens a bit.

Thanks John but Elliott seems very competent. Elliott, I was thinking about what you said and you could do it by using steel plate in the shape of a sideways T, 3/16th" it would probably weight 4x as much as the air horn box but you could do it.

Very nice considering you worked around the engine, are those Sean's headers?

You could get a welding tank full of Nitrogen and fill it with that, no humidity, no oxygen to react and age it. It would be in stasis, preserved for eons.

How does one do that? Is it possible to open it up and clean the filter on the bottom?

@Obie 280Z your engine bay looks pristine, any other pics you want to share?

That's good to know, I was thinking about buying some new ones if I don't paint my old ones. When having run into that problem before there are a few ways to solve it, scissors or tin snips can work well if the material isn't too brittle, a dremel with a grinding stone works but usually leaves lots of little bumps that have to be sanded flush. The best method for me was a belt sander, a hand held unit mounted upside down in the vice or a bench mounted it doesn't matter, you just use the leading edge of the drum to remove the material, so your panel is on an angle (tangent) and you move it in one smooth stroke in the opposite direction to the rotation of the sander.

Thanks, I had never seen a Z with that inset before so wasn't sure.

Thanks Capt., where does one buy fusible links, are they sold by wire size or colour? The connector caps for the fuel injectors are working but in rough condition so I was going buy new ones and splice them in but @240260280 suggested going to the wreckers and look for Audi/VW. I got enough to change every connector on the car for $10. Passat's had all the right stuff.

I'm thinking about changing the interior vinyl and panel colour from Off White to Black, the door panels will pose the biggest headache but I was wondering about the "basket weave" on the 77 seats, is it fabric or cross hatched vinyl? Could I use all vinyl seat covers from an earlier year or are the 77 seats so different they need a specific covers? The car came with a fabric insert in the seat covers but I'm not sure if it is stock or aftermarket, Thanks

Great idea, thanks that problem is solved. Lots of hard work went into it and I'm grateful to be able to have access to it. One thing I noticed, it doesn't give fuse ratings or fusible link ratings, how can you find out the proper fuse for a circuit without the math? My fuse cover is missing. It can't be any worst than this Prospero diagram for the early 240's, I stopped counting all the mistakes on this thing.

Picked up the wiring harness poster from the printer today,

I'll bet you were one step away from being intubated, scary. That will teach you to pour your beer into a glass.

Ahhhh, now I see, I thought that the whole flange was welded on. So this spare tire is pretty much dedicated to have a can of compressed gas to fill it up, what is everybody using? The original can has something sloshing around inside but I sure wouldn't want to depend on it.

Sounds like it's all coming together, exciting! That is a very cool shift knob, never seen any thing like it.

As long as the tree is okay that's what matters?

OK guys how the heck do you get this panel out without breaking it, how did they get it in? Starting in 74 Nissan stopped offering White as an interior colour and switched to Off White, I have also seen this colour called Beige and Ivory. My question is has anyone bought these seat covers from MSA and what do they really look like? Is there anywhere else that makes a stock looking Off White with the fabric in the middle? http://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/40-2651

That's my safety strategy, the crumple zone on my Z starts at the firewall and ends just behind the seats.

Now you done it, you can climb into the hatch area and remove the vinyl panel on the hatch and reach up and push the latch that is actuated by the thumb cylinder lock, that should pop the hatch.

You could just unbolt the rubber vibration disk joining the steering rod to the steering shaft, that would give you lots of room to maneuver. Edit, Jim, you beat me to it by seconds.

That is a beautiful diagram, I'm going to put that on a stick and take it to a print shop to see if they can make me a full size copy. Thanks again.