MikeW

It's likely the tachometer wire as you've surmised. It must be connected properly for the engine to run.

Which color did you not like? Here's a page showing all of the available colors. By modern color standards you may find that you don't really like any of the original colors. It's even possible that the car you looked at is already not an original color which would make the repaint value question moot.

I don't recall my specific optima model number but it came with a plastic cover that could be snapped to the bottom of the battery bringing it up to the standard height. I was then able to use the OEM battery hold-down frame as designed. If you don't have that you really just need some sort of spacer beneath the battery. What is the purpose of the plastic box? If anything an optima should be far less susceptible to acid leaking than even a normal maintenance free battery.

The positive terminal under the fender is the original configuration. I know people have expressed concern about this but it seems to me that a) the battery should be properly held down and hopefully you've got paint on the bottom of the inspection lid. Anyone using a bungee cord for a tie down and visible rust on the bottom of the lid may wish to go the other way. I'll fully admit that I recently bought an Optima battery for my car and while carefully installing it wanted to tighten the battery clamp just a little bit more and ended up finding out what a great conductor my socket wrench is. Fortunately the handle of the wrench touched the opposing clamp and not the post itself because it left a nice dent in the clamp itself when it arced. I may well want to replace my cables and clamps as mentioned in this post.

I knew I recognized that name. He's the guy that built the fiberglass Ferrari Daytona replica used on Miami Vice back in the 80's. Ferrari wasn't happy about it and later provided two real Testarossas for the show.

Yes. There were some defects in the clear coat that I wanted to remove so I wet sanded with 1000, 1500, and 2000 paper. I didn't get everything because I was worried about going all the way through the clear coat. I later realized that I was being too picky. You can look at other cars while sitting at a traffic light and notice just how much orange peal there is even from the factory.

When I got mine done the body guy said to let it sit in the sun for several days before wet sanding and buffing. This supposedly helps the clear coat cure faster. Did you get any such instructions?

And then getting it all back together properly is just as hard or harder than taking it all apart because you have to remember stuff. I suppose that's the case with many repair jobs. I had a power steering pump on a PT cruiser need replacing under warranty years ago. The pump itself is probably $50 but apparently it's an all day job to remove everything in the way and another all day job to put it all back together. I'm glad your oil leak was so easy to resolve.

I'd go to one of the coin operated car washes and use the engine cleaner option to get all the old oil and crud off. It will be much easier to spot the leak sooner if everything around it is spotless and the sooner the better. If it subsequently leaks a lot and runs down it still might be hard to determine the exact source. One problem is now that most of the oil is sitting in the oil pan it might not leak anymore while the car it sitting still. If it's coming from the timing chain cover gasket it might only show if the engine is not only running but the car is moving around at the same time. I don't have a good feel for how much the oil is spraying/sloshing around in that area while running.

I suppose I'm thinking that this could grow beyond just the earliest parts. Specific part numbers could be added followed by superseding part numbers. People often come here looking for a part number and the club microfiche is sometimes hard to read.

Have you considered adding a part# column?

Yes, I think it was paint+clear for $800. As I recall I went to the paint shop and that was the total bill. The painter picked it up later. I may have paid for primer and such earlier in the process and yes, my total price 5 years ago is very close to what you're indicating. I don't know how much body work you needed so that's obviously a big component of the labor.

The "supposed to fit" part of your statement may be the issue. Hopefully someone who's done this conversion (Enrique?) can chime in. I've never seen the back of a '73 panel but I do know that it's a lighted panel meaning there will be some extra work getting the wiring for the lights done. There may be some extra fabrication needed at the same time.

Wow, I didn't realize there was a line up from Deltron. As I recall when my car was painted 5 years ago the PPG Deltron came to about $800 for the one gallon needed to paint the whole car.

I'd consider a small drill bit at slow speed straight through the center of the broken plastic screw. You could then go with a bigger bit as needed. Sooner or later you'll remove enough plastic that the part of the clip that expands behind the panel won't stay expanded. Another option is to use some pliers like this to simply cut the entire head off of the fastener provided there's enough wiggle room to get the pliers under the head.

I went to the local paint and body supply shop and found a whole bunch of fasteners for various makes and models. I ended up using something like this which was specifically used in Nissan applications.

I'm one of those who had mine done in Australia as mentioned in post #4. To be fair even that had some issues - though I'm quite satisfied with the results. The biggest issue being the fact that the new vinyl is thicker than the original and I believe was actually added on top of the original vinyl. This makes my glove box door a tight fit as well. I had to very carefully install a NOS heater control panel which was a tight fit and fragile. The other big issue I had was getting the gauges back in. The 3 center gauges are installed from the back but were a difficult to install with the extra vinyl. The tachometer and speedometer were even worse. They're supposed to be installed from the front but there was no way to make that happen without them sticking out too far. I ended up having to carefully trim the new vinyl and install them from the back like the other gauges. The pictures posted actually aren't as bad as I was expecting from the descriptions but I'll admit an in-person inspection might be dramatically different. One final point: I just shipped the dash pad for the restoration but kept the frame and gauges. I believe I could have sent them all but the shipping and extra work would have cost more. In my case I reinstalled the frame and gauges and was able to drive the car while waiting for the restoration.

Sorry, I posted a bad URL. Edited above but here it is again: http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

Here's one of many tire size calculators on the net that will help you determine the diameter difference (and resulting speedometer error) of various tire/wheel combos: http://www.miata.net/cgi-bin/tirescgi Oops, tried to post URL of results page instead of original page: http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

There are certainly a lot of knowledgeable members here in your area and I suspect you can find someone who'd help out for a beer or two. If not you guys are fortunate to have nearby a company that specializes in these carbs.

Why even make an offer? Why not just swing by in your 240 and strike up a conversation? Datsun owners may be more than happy to talk.

I'd try to get an accurate temperature reading to be sure but every car I've ever driven when fully warmed up has read just over half way. I'm actually surprised that yours showed less than half before.

I hadn't seen that link at wired so thanks for posting it. Many of us saw the car up close last weekend at Road Atlanta. The picture in the first link you posted is of the 370Z along with Ron Carter's (a member here) immaculate replica of the original BRE #46 car which was destroyed. By the way, here's a low quality cell phone picture I took of John Morton (on the right) sitting in front of a Mazda tribute to the original BRE #46.

Very nice Ron. Doing the parade laps are always fun even when forced to stay behind the pace car and not pass anyone. I'm sure you would have enjoyed really opening it up. I'm glad to see your video since I was lined up for the laps myself when you were out there. By the way, if you didn't already know there are professional photos of the whole weekend available here. Here's the shot of your car. I paid the guy $10 just to get the image itself (didn't need a tshirt or mouse pad). The original image is 3504x2336 pixels. Attached is a downsized copy of mine to give you an idea of the quality.

I was hoping a quick eBay search would turn up a part number but the picture on this ad only shows part of the number and none of the other strut cap ads show anything useful.