MikeW

I was expecting you to say that you were unable to get a title and were therefore having to part out your car instead of driving it. All members here would get any needed part for free. What a letdown; at least it worked out for you.

My car has the plastic buckets and was produced (9/71) during the transition period to metal. Generally speaking 1972 and later model year cars should have metal buckets.

That was Will (hls30.com). He either gave up or put it on hold.

A guy from Louisiana who was at the Mitty this year used strong magnets on the back side of his headlight covers to simply hold them in place without the need for glue or tape or screw holes in the headlight buckets. His covers were painted body color and this allowed him to easily drive the car legally at night but then attach the covers for the show.

Strange physics. I wouldn't expect the speaker to fly forward in that situation. The inertia of the speaker would normally cause it to want to stay put while the car is moved forward beneath it; in other words, the speaker should actually tend to travel backwards. Also, I would have thought that the high backed seats would offer some protection in this case. Perhaps he was leaning to the right?

Another possibility is a drain somewhere unexpected. With nothing turned on there should be almost no drain on the battery (the clock and or aftermarket radio will always have power). You can remove one battery cable and hook an ammeter in series. That will tell you what your actual constant drain is. You can then put the battery cable back on, get in the car, and go through one fuse at a time. Simply remove the fuse and jump the gap with the ammeter. When I had this problem I used this method to narrow it down to the dome light. There must have been a high resistance short that didn't blow the fuse but drained my battery overnight as if the dome light was actually illuminated.

I got mine at the local auto paint shop along with the appropriate prep products: SEM soap and SEM vinyl prep. You can also order it online; here's one place: http://www.autostyles.com/sem.htm

In that case you can probably make it look as good as new quite easily.

Is it damaged or just dirty/stained? You might be able to improve the appearance of the original vinyl considerably with SEM vinyl dye.

I'd try some PB Blaster or Kroil penetrating oil and let it sit for a while before trying the breaker bar. I'd hate to try removing the oil pan while it's still full of oil. If you end up having to go that route I've seen a pump system that let's get get the oil out through the dipstick hole.

I know octane has been discussed here a lot. I buy most of my gas at a chain of stations called QuikTrip. Just the other day I went to their web site and was quite surprised to find the following: http://www.quiktrip.com/gasoline/myth.asp

Doug's car does not have the plaque. The car is in very nice shape but in no way was restored like the cars that were completed for the program. It still has the original paint.

I do believe you're right but I think the rear finisher can go in or out at any time and the quarter panels are probably easier to get in and out without the rear finisher in place. The others overlap as you say with the overhead panel being the top most and therefore the first to come off.

"Factory". The vintage Z program was a Nissan USA operation and the cars were restored by independent shops that Nissan USA contracted with. The cars were never returned to Japan where they were originally built in a "Factory". There have been long and heated discussions about this over the years on this site which is why you got such a reaction.

It's not clear to me if you're talking about the interior or the exterior or both. I can't think of many cases where the order really matters. Just start pulling things off and keep going until you're done. If you can't get something off because something else is in the way, well, you've got the order wrong. For the interior the plastic panels in the rear need to be removed in a certain order since they overlap each other and are easily cracked if you try to coerce them in the wrong order. Start with the piece that covers the taillights and work forward from there.

That particular problem is caused by the factory joint using lead solder. When the body of the car flexes the paint cracks. My body guy removed the lead and replaced it with a modern panel bond adhesive. Here's an old thread that describes the problem better than I can: http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=6190

Where is the crack? It's common to have cracks on both sides where the roof panel is joined to the quarter panel.

Just an observation: I think it will be more useful for Art to hear when you have received the magazine. So far no one appear to have gotten theirs. If people can chime in as soon as it arrives then it will be much easier to see the trend. If they are all mailed from the same location I suspect we'll see a geographic pattern of arrivals.

Here's the 350Z on the US autos.yahoo.com: http://autos.yahoo.com/newcars/model/overview.html;_ylt=AjT1mbUy.R4dBBs7LH2N6IEEc78F;_ylv=3?modelId=5266 Here's the equivalent Canadian version: http://ca.autos.yahoo.com/newcars/nissan/350z/2007/model_overview.php The only thing I can think is that there must be really high taxes on this car in Canada. For instance, comparing a Sentra on both sites gives a much closer price. The exchange rate is currently close to even so it's not that.

You don't list your time frame here but from the looks of it I'd say you had a relatively easy job. Hopefully you'll never have to mess with it again.

My only complaint is FWD but I think that's not nearly as important as some traditionalists believe. Unless you plan on sliding it around corners I don't think the difference is noticeable. Perhaps maintenance down the road would be more including different tire wear than RWD. I might even consider the coupe and, horrors, the 2.5 for even better mileage. For me it would just be a daily driver going to and from work.

Here's a higher resolution shot of the Frisselle car taken at roughly the same instant as Chris's shot above.

It seems to me that getting in and out of the car is what would wear the seats the most. Maybe the car was used for a bunch of really short trips.

I see your entries in the Google spreadsheet. Perhaps you're confused by the fact that I switched over to a different spreadsheet that allows public edits without me having to individually give people access rights. The new spreadsheet is here: http://www.editgrid.com/user/mlwilliams/Z_Car_Registry

Perhaps you can describe the symptoms in more detail. Does the whole car shake, does it happen in 3rd gear as well as 4th, do you hear any noises, does it come on gradually, etc.? With more information I'll bet that some of the experts here can give you a better diagnosis.