MikeW

Uh, that was me, not Victor. I'm taking a cruise out of San Pedro.

Yes, those are the longer bolts. Do you already have the proper (10mm?) hex key? You may need a long breaker bar as well.

From the Georgia Z Club newsletter that arrived today: "Georgia Z Club (not Nissan) will be a marquee sponsor. We will have our own 30x50 foot tent just like the other Japanese manufacturers." Let me know if you have any questions and I can bring them up at the meeting next Tuesday evening.

Wow, you are hanging off the hill. It even looks like a few houses on your street slid off the hill ... BTW, I'll be in LA the week after next for a cruise out of San Pedro ...

My advice in this situation is to not get confrontational. It may be too late after the first exchange. This is all just speculation but it may be that there are other reasons behind this, not just that they're being jerks. Perhaps you were working on your car at 11 o'clock one night and making a bit of noise while a close neighbor was trying to get to sleep. Maybe at one point you did have parts scattered and things looked a bit messy. My guess is that it's an immediate neighbor who then raised a stink and tried to turn it into some sort of code violation. While you can certainly go on the offensive and try to force them to play by the rules I think in the long run you'd be better off trying to get them on your side. It may be a simple misunderstanding. Maybe if you explain that it will only be a couple of weeks or that you'll keep the noise down or that you'll keep things orderly this problem will go away. Squabbles with neighbors can quickly escalate and become extremely frustrating.

Paint Over Rust http://www.por15.com/ A lot of us have used this and been happy with the results. There are other products out there as well that have similar applications. I've never seen an aftermarket or OEM replacement. The best option seems to be to find a good donor. We've even joked about swapping the good inner fenders with our colleagues in Australia as their battery acid is on the other side.

For those of us without Hagerty, well, "What's it worth?". My car is simply on my normal policy with an "agreed upon value" as determined by an appraisal. There are no limits like on some specialty policies. In fact, I drove the 240Z to work the last 8 days because my wife's car was in the shop and she needed my daily driver.

In addition to Ed's advice, make sure you get the later model plastic battery tray with the drain tube. I think that most battery tray area rust is from acid, not rain. Of course, a modern sealed battery will hopefully prevent the problem moving forward.

I can only hope that it was found in good condition and that the criminals were caught.

If you enjoy working on cars and want to do this as a hobby then go for it. If your goal is to end up with a very nice 240Z then be aware that you're better off buying the best that you can afford. In other words, pay $10,000 for a car that someone else has put $20,000 of work into. I know that's sad but I'm sure there's quite a few of us who have invested more than the car's actually worth. I'm probably close to breaking even on the money if you don't count my time.

Even then I wonder how they can be sure to eliminate all air pockets. Presumably they attempt to rotate the shell while submerged.

While I've never been there - or even heard of the place - a quick Google search turns up this: http://www.pgathrills.com/shop/shopping.cfm It appears that the park is closed for the season and that new prices for 2006 have not been determined yet. They do show that you can get season tickets for $67.50 each. At most amusement parks that I've seen a season ticket pays for itself in about 2 days compared to the daily admission price. I've heard that places like this make enough money from parking alone to run the place and that the ticket prices and concessions are pure profit.

If you're talking about the trim that holds the black window squeegee I found that aftermarket version (I can't remember if I got it from MSA or VB) is much thinner and cheaper than the original and doesn't go on very well. It tends to get wavy when it's installed. I mainly needed new pieces because the rubber was dry and cracking. I ended up removing the rubber from the new units and installing it back on the original trim piece. It would be much better to find OEM replacements in my opinion.

Thanks. I've only had it for a couple of years now so I can't say how well it will last in the long run. For now it looks really good. In my case, the interior was originally tan and a previous owner had dyed it all black without me even realizing. After 20+ or so years the black was rubbing off in spots but I can't say that it was all that bad. I carefully tried to remove as much of the black as possible using acetone and cotton balls. I then prepped it all as well as I could using SEM soap and then SEM vinyl prep (at least on the vinyl). So far it seems to be holding up well. I just did a quick test for you. I turns out that I had some extra plastic panels. I had dyed one of them before realizing that it wouldn't fit in my car. The right side rear quarter panel plastic has a bulged out area that covers the expansion tank. This was apparently re-designed at one point because the first panel I dyed wouldn't fix over the tank. I needed a panel with the bigger bulge which was quite obvious when I compared the two side-by-side. I just took that piece and had to rub on it fairly hard with some coarse sandpaper before the gray came off. Since I have extra dye it will always be easy to touch it up in case it does get rubbed or scratched.

Wimp. Just push the pedal harder.

Uh, that's actually my interior. The carpet, headliner, and seat covers are "silver gray" from Too Intense: http://www.toointenserestoration.0catch.com/ The door panel vinyl, pillar vinyl, and plastic panels in the hatch area were all dyed with SEM Medium Gray #15393. The dashboard was restored by http://www.dashboardrestorations.com.au/ and they used a small scrap of the seat cover vinyl to match the dash color. Here's a better shot in my gallery: http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=11942&cat=500&ppuser=3294 You're correct, the flash does throw it off a bit.

But wouldn't it be cool to be able to go sit in your car and pretend you're actually driving ...

It seems that you're not the first to ask this question. A google search for JB Weld Australia turned up a bunch of hits. One of them mentioned this: "I have found that Australia wide at any Kmart that has a paint section, you can buy JB weld for just $16."

That's what I did. Frankly your floor pans look pretty good compared to mine and most of the others I've seen. Once you get all of the tar off you can use POR-15. Be sure to follow the directions. When you use the marine clean and metal ready you need to rinse with water. It seemed really weird to me to having a running garden hose on the inside of the car but that's what you really need to do. Much of it will go out through the drain holes but I also used a wet-dry vacuum. It really gets the water out quickly. After the coats of POR-15 I used Dynamat and then another layer of foil backed insulation for an additional sound and heat barrier as well as a bit of padding under the carpet for comfort.

As I recall there's a difference somewhere along the line regarding the under-seat straps. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I can't remember the details.

It reaches the dome light and rear window defroster fine but there's still too much slack?

Aren't there bendable tabs that hold the harness in place along the floorboard just inside the door opening?

Hey, I used a "liquid glove" product when I did the same with mine. Works great. However, I can certainly appreciate just paying someone else to do the work.

They actually look good to me already. The lip part is the easiest to do. Have you thought about doing them yourself?

I don't think any kind of filler material would be strong enough. Those bolts require a lot of torque to keep the mechanism in place. I don't think you'd be able to weld them closed without damaging the sheet metal of the body. Why not just tap them up to a slightly bigger bolt size?