MikeW

The other possibility is that as our locks wear out other keys may start working.

I had my engine sent off to Jasper Engines: http://www.jasperengines.com/ Looking at their web page price list it appears that the current price for an L24 is $2087. They currently provide a 36-month, 100,000 mile warranty so consider it as good as new. I believe you end up with your original block, head, crankshaft, and camshaft but everything else is new (not sure about the connecting rods but they do indicate new pistons). Their web page is fairly informative so you can check that out. As I recall the price includes pickup and delivery.

I was in the same position several years ago; my car also smoked a lot - most likely because I tried to do a ring job on it myself 20 years ago without really knowing what I was doing. After letting it sit for many years I simply had the engine shipped off for a complete rebuild - for about $2000. I also wanted to keep the numbers matching so this was the best option for me at the time.

Welcome. If the smoke is from oil then you need to determine if it's from the valve seals or the rings. It could be from both at the same time but the standard diagnosis is to run a compression test and then add some motor oil to each cylinder one at a time through the spark plug hole and re-run the compression test. If the compression stays the same then the oil leak is through the valves. If it goes up then it's from the rings. It is possible to replace the seals without removing the head.

Regarding the location of the compressor it is my understanding that back in the day it would have been most common to have the compressor mounted on the right side on a bracket that obscures the fuel pump. Compressors mounted on the left side tend to replace the original air pump; I doubt that dealers would have removed that.

Send a PM to DougN. He has a '66 MGB and can probably give you some pointers.

Many 280Z owners seem to want smaller bumpers but I'm not sure that's warranted in this case.

How do you know it's not original? An L24 is the stock engine. What is the build date (driver door jamb tag)? Your engine was likely produced for a car built in August or September of 1971.

The caps themselves have a sort of dipstick that lets you know how much oil to use. Like DeesZ I use the 3-in-1 20W oil that's readily available. I'm surprised that a change in oil would cause the problems you are experiencing. The damper oil really just controls how smooth the throttle opening changes. I wouldn't think that 10W30 would be all that different from 20 weight. At the relatively cold temperatures inside the carbs 10W30 should be be closer to 10 weight.

Carl, I started to suggest that as well but with the little information provided for all we know it could be a V8.

Can you post a picture of the engine?

So far no one has added anything to the "Other S30" page but I just renamed it to "Other S30/S31". I certainly don't want to offend anyone by leaving them out. I'd love to see cars from around the world included. Please, anyone, feel free to make changes like this yourself as warranted. As long as no information is lost it doesn't bother me. I would like to limit it to Z cars, however.

Is there another picture of the Z somewhere? Like all of the cars it's covered with dust but also appears to have been hit in the left front.

Done. I just added an extra tab called "Spare Engines" and columns for Block, Block Serial #, and Head, i.e., L24, 058003, E88 Any other columns you can think of? On a side note, thanks to everyone who's entered data. Someone even managed to hide the first rows on the 240Z page. I'm not sure if that was intended so I undid it and "froze" them instead so that you'll always be able to see the instructions and column headers.

Consider switching to OpenDNS (http://www.opendns.com) if you're having DNS problems with your ISP.

I say the more the better. The only question would be how to differentiate such cars. I suppose for now just use "reported by zbane" for the "Member" field. We could always create a separate sheet for them in the future.

From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wheel_sizing "Some aftermarket wheels will only fit smaller lug nuts, or not allow an ordinary lug nut to be properly torqued down because a socket will not fit into the lug hole. Tuner lug nuts were created to solve the problem. Tuner lug nuts utilize a special key to allow removal and installation with standard lug wrench or socket. The design of tuner lug nuts can range from spline drive to multisided, and are sometimes lightweight for performance purposes. A variation is the "locking wheel nut", which is almost universally used for alloy wheels in the United Kingdom. One standard lug nut on each wheel is replaced with a nut which requires a special and unique key (typically a computer-designed, rounded star shape) to fit and remove the nut. This helps to discourage theft of wheels. However, universal removal tools are available which grip the head of the locking nut using a hardened left-hand thread. The success of these depends on whether there is room to use it in the lug hole, and whether the manufacturer has incorporated a free-spinning outer casing to the locking."

The torque curve does not make sense to me. The peak (if you ignore the values near idle) seems to be around 2200. The scale is labeled N but as someone else pointed out it would normally be newton meters or Nm. 1 Nm = 0.737 lb-ft but there's no way a 103HP engine would put out 1622 lb-ft of torque. Hopefully a non-US person can explain it to those of us still using an antiquated system of measurement. As far as the date format goes I deal with it all the time in software development. I think m-d-y and d-m-y are both silly. y-m-d makes the most sense. After all, you don't tell time in s:m:h or m:s:h ...

I'll have to look at it when I get home but as I recall the switch in my '72 has a 4x2=8 wire rectangular connector and the replacement I bought is 3x3=9 wire square connector. That makes sense given the need for the extra intermittent wire. It sounds like your car is a very early '73.

There's one on EBay right now: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/datsun-240Z-light-wiper-switch-clean_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQcategoryZ50459QQihZ020QQitemZ300136899706QQrdZ1QQsspagenameZWDVW I have one that appears to be almost new. I bought it to replace mine without realizing that intermittent wipers were added for 1973 and the connector is not the same.

What do you mean by "predated"? The sheet appears to be from March of this year.

Normally the power and torque curves cross at 5252 RPM but I guess if you don't start the torque scale at 0 then the graph doesn't make as much sense.

Couldn't you tell by the flat tops?

Yes, that will be interesting to me as well. I don't think I'll make it, at least not with my car. I'll be on vacation until the 24th and won't have time to prepare.

Many of you have already noticed that I started an online Z car registry using a public spreadsheet called EditGrid. It can be found here: http://www.editgrid.com/user/mlwilliams/Z_Car_Registry The good news is that anyone can add or update this list at any time. The bad news is that anyone can update this list at any time. I just had to roll it back to an older revision; it looks like someone might have tried to sort the list and it didn't work properly. I knew there was a problem because my VIN no longer was right; it had shifted in the list. I just added instructions at the top to help prevent that problem in the future. I apologize for any inconvenience this will cause; some recent entries may be lost. Those who have already entered data may want to verify that it is still correct. All previous revisions should be available so it's always possible to view old data.