MikeW

Not without the supposedly attached picture. Wild guess: Is the emblem upside-down on one door and you were looking at it wrong?

Ah, sorry. I misunderstood. I thought you simply replaced the internal mechanism of an original clock. I find it strange that it runs for a short period of time after the car is turned off. Escanlon's opinion seems logical - that the power is being cut off. Perhaps you can verify that it runs for a short time (and even see if that time is consistent).

I'm voting for possessed. Those little quartz clocks run just fine on a couple of AA batteries for years. I'm sure they draw far less power than the original motor driving gears. Even then a car battery should have ample amperage to run a clock. How did you adapt the mechanism to run off of 12 volts (or did you find a 12 volt quartz clock)?

Where are you located? You might be better off getting someone else to do an inspection (as is customary with any used car). Otherwise I'd start looking at all of the old posts on this forum in response to other people asking the same question as you.

Mine's on the top as well (9/71). I'm kind of surprised that Datsun would have put the emblem on the bottom. The glove box door curves enough that it would be hard to see the emblem down there. Can you post a picture?

If you've spent much time at all on this forum you'll know that rust is the number one problem that affects early Z cars. It's hard to say from your brief description how carefully you inspected for rust (under carpet floorpans, frame rails, lower front fenders, beneath battery tray, etc.) but the value of the car will vary greatly depending on the condition of those things. I wouldn't worry too much about the engine. 125,000 miles is not a lot if it was properly maintained. There are better ways to determine the condition of the engine than looking at mileage alone. It would be hard for anyone here to give a good estimate of the value without seeing pictures and having more detailed information. There's a wide range of prices on thse cars. For example, nadaguides.com lists a 1978 280Z between $3575 and $8850. Even the low end is a car that's in good condition. Is there any chance you can post some pictures and provide some more details?

I'm not sure what you mean by this. I'm sure Mobil 1 is very good oil. My comment about fools was about people who go way too long between oil changes because they bought expensive oil.

#903 was an early color for '70 and '71. #115 came out for '72. I'm getting this information from here http://zhome.com/History/colors.html

I don't think you should be too sentimental about it. If you're willing to let it go for $600 then I wouldn't worry too much about what someone does with it. Depending on the condition it may only be worth that much after dismantling for parts.

Fair enough. People are loyal to various brands of everything. Ford vs Chevy vs Dodge. My father has only purchased Amoco Ultimate gasoline for the past 40 years and swears by it. Others stick to Exxon or Texaco, etc. As Stephen said the real key to oil is getting the right grade and changing it often enough. I suspect there are plenty of fools out there who buy Mobil One and are convinced by the marketing that they can go 15,000 miles between changes on that stuff.

I always find it kind of ironic when a stock car driver endorses motor oil for street cars. I suppose it all started with Richard Petty telling people to buy STP (perhaps it was earlier than that). After all, their goal is pushing the car as hard as they can hoping that it will last 500 miles. I wonder what they do with the engine after 500 miles? That being said, I did put Castrol 10W40 Syntec blend in my 240Z after a 500 mile break-in period on the rebuilt engine. The fact is I'll probably have the oil changed every 6 months even if I've only gone 500 miles but I figured after spending a bunch of money on the rebuild I might as well not be cheap with the oil. Perhaps there's no advantage and I wasted a few dollars.

I apologize for sounding snobby. That was not the intent but rather an attempt to let a new member know that expertise available here might not apply to different models.

There was a recent thread here about the effectiveness of a "grounding" system where it was pointed out that a 2nd dyno run often outperforms the first. You'd have to really be careful doing testing like this to prove the results. I wonder what would happen if you waited a day and made dyno runs before and after switching from Royal Purple back to conventional oil. You might see another 5 hp increase.

You pour some oil in each cylinder through the spark plug hole before doing the compression test. If doing this raises the numbers that indicates that some of the leakage was occurring past the rings. If it doesn't change the numbers then it's more likely a valve issue.

I would suggest visiting one of the places that cover the 280ZX as this club is dedicated to the earlier 240-280Z models. www.Zcar.com www.HybridZ.org www.Zdriver.com

If your parking lights work then it's not the fuse since the same fuse is used for both systems. The rheostat is simply a variable resistor. One option is to simply take the two wires that go to the rheostat and hook them together. That's the equivalent of full bright (and if your car is anything like mine full bright is the only reasonable setting). That will tell you if the rheostat is bad. Of course, if you have no voltage at the rheostat the problem is elsewhere.

Is it possible you blew a fuse putting things back together? Since all of the lights are out I'd guess it's a single point of failure. Do your parking lights work? The power comes through the combination switch to one side of the rheostat (dimmer switch) and from there it goes all all of the instruments which are grounded.

Too bad about the rain. I had planned on going myself but didn't want to drive the Z in the rain. I then thought about going as just a spectator but the weather forecast seemed rather bleak. I watched the local radar but finally just gave up.

My previous advice still applies: the Georgia Z club meeting is tomorrow night. There may or may not be cars for sale at the meeting but you can certainly ask around.

Those are well-regarded struts but I'd be curious about the rest of your suspension. Lots of things can contribute to a harsh ride such as tires (especially big rims with low profile tires), springs, bushings, etc. Also, keep in mind that what might seem harsh to you might be considered normal for a 240Z. Another thing that you might not have even considered is that the padding in your seats may need replacing.

I think you're referring to the rubber plugs that go in the drain holes. Those were to be used in the event of trying to turn your car into a submarine.

Missing on one or more cylinders? Check that you've got a good spark. An easy way is to crank it up and carefully pull off (and then replace) one plug wire at a time. Each time you pull one off you should notice an impact on how it's running. If you pull off a plug wire and don't notice any difference then that cylinder is not firing. If that's the case it could be the plug, the wire, the cap, etc.

When I bought my '72 back in '85 72's were considered the most valuable. The reason at that time was simply that they were newer (i.e., with less wear and lower mileage) and benefited from some of the refinements that Nissan introduced along the way. Now that these cars are 30+ years old I wouldn't expect these kinds of differences to matter all that much. In other words, a '72 is not going to have 320,000 miles and a '70 340,000 miles as is typical of late model used cars (10,000 miles a year). Condition is everything at this point. My car has 185,000 miles but on a newly rebuilt engine and was recently appraised as a #2+ car (better than #2 but not quite a #1). I'm quite happy with that appraisal because #1 cars are generally not driven and I plan on enjoying mine.

I think you're exaggerating the difference between model years. While it's true that early '70 models fetch a premium the other years aren't that bad. Have a look here to see one estimate of the variation between years: http://www.nadaguides.com I admit that these numbers seem a bit strange as both '71 and '72 are listed with higher values (at the top end of the condition scale) than '70 models. '73 models are understandably a bit lower. I would be more concerned about the condition of the car than anything else when determining a fair value.

This is where I got my seat covers and foam. I do notice that the pattern is slightly different up near the top on the sides of the headrest. Other than that I'm quite happy with the way they turned out. I'll post some pictures when I'm done with the rest of the interior.