MikeW

Here's the source photo with better wheels. I'll be taking a lot more photos and uploading them to my gallery later this week when I get the car back from the painter. He's buffing out some runs in the clear coat ...

Ok, how did you like mine?

Thanks for the info. I had my car appraised recently and the guy said that Eastwood makes a deep scratch glass polishing kit that would probably fix my original windshield. At this point it's worth the $46 to find out.

I've had good luck with SEM products on vinyl. However, their vinyl dye does claim to work on carpets and plastic as well as vinyl. http://www.semproducts.com/ Hopefully someone else here will have had experience using it on carpets and can offer a better opinion.

I went through a bit of a hassle to get the title for my car only to find out later that you don't even need a title for older cars: http://www.dmvs.ga.gov/motor/titles/required.asp

The problem is that sometime in 1972 Nissan added an intermittent setting to the wipers. This in turn caused a change in the connectors. I bought this later model combination switch not knowing the difference for $26 on EBay. It's in much better shape than my original and I'd like to use it instead if I can get the connections right. Civ104 obviously has the same issue.

Yes, that's how it comes out. I didn't respond earlier because I was afraid that your 260 might be different than my 240.

Well, it looks like most of this thread is suddenly gone; I guess it got too out of hand. Anyhow, I spent way too much time on this to let it all go to waste and in any case this kind of brings things back on track ...

For what it's worth I have exactly the same issue and will be working on it soon. Let me know if you make any progress and I'll do the same.

I guess I need to subscribe. Last night I heard about an upcoming article where they plan on taking a bone-stock 240Z out on the track for a test and then spend just a weekend "upgrading" it (presumably with a lot of the stuff many of us have already done). They will then test it and compare the results.

As far as I know the bumpers where unchanged from 70 to 72 (apart from a minor difference in the front brackets on very early cars). The bumpers on 73 models stick out a little more.

SEM is the brand name for a line of vinyl and plastic dyes. The color soaks in instead of forming a layer on top like paint. http://www.semproducts.com/

Jason, why don't you come to the Georgia Z car club meeting next Tuesday night at Hooters in Norcross? People usually start arriving shortly after 5 and get some food and look at cars in the parking lot before the meeting starts at 7:30pm. http://www.georgiazclub.com/

It really doesn't matter. A dimmer switch is just a resistor. It's actually a rheostat which is a variable resistor. The less resistance the brighter the dashboard lights. If you simply bypass the dimmer switch the lights should be as bright as possible. If doing so makes the lights acceptably bright then you might consider getting a new switch; otherwise there's simply no point; the problem is not in the switch The switch in question is beneath the tachometer. The equivalent switch beneath the speedometer resets the trip odometer.

It's possible that the rheostat (dimmer switch) is defective. You might try shorting it out to see if that makes a difference.

The Motorsport Auto catalog lists the shipping weight for a starter motor at 14 pounds which probably includes some packaging. I'm not going to pull mine off to prove it but that sounds about right to me ...

I'm fairly certain that the pistons should have flat tops. There appear to be semi-circular impressions from both the intake and the exhaust valves. I may be way off base here but I once had my timing chain tensioner break which caused the chain to slip. As I recall it bent some of the exhaust valves but I ended up replacing all of them to be safe. I admit that it was entirely my fault. I was replacing the head gasket and did the block of wood down the chain guide trick but apparently didn't wedge it in tight enough. The tensioner is spring loaded as well as controlled by oil pressure. It must have come out enough to cause too much tension on the chain. I therefore had to use a bit of force to get the timing chain sprocket back on and this extra force must have weakened the tensioner. It broke a few weeks later as I recall.

I don't have an answer to your blowby question but I'd certainly be concerned about what looks like piston/valve interference, i.e., a timing chain slip sometime in the past.

The $99 VB windshields are certainly aftermarket and I'd have to add another $100 for shipping. Instead I called a local place and they delivered it the next morning for less than the total from VB. However, as I explained, that windshield was not quite the right size and shape. It was close but not good enough. The original windshield went back in without a problem.

Nope, 2.5 mph faster.

I'd add: Coolant system (including water pump) U-joints Fuel pump Fuel filter

The people who specifically value very early ('69) cars would probably have no interest in one with a turbo L28 motor unless the matching numbers original engine was part of the deal. I find it somewhat amusing that they say it's ready for paint. Clearly it has been primed. However, the pictures obviously show that it has just been rained on. That's about the worst thing you can do to it.

I recently bought a new aftermarket windshield to replace the original which is pitted and has scratch marks from where an idiot P.O. ran the wipers apparently with no blades. Since the person painting my car pulled all of the glass to paint it I figured this would be the perfect time to replace the windshield. I called a local auto glass place and they delivered a PPG brand windshield the next day. The good news is that the car is now painted and looks great; the bad news is that when they tried to install the new windshield it ended up breaking. They said they've broken them on the way out before but never while installing a new one. They couldn't figure out what went wrong until they compared the old and new by laying them on top of another. From top to bottom they look identical but the new glass was about a half inch narrower at the top and about a quarter inch narrower at the bottom. The glass itself was noticeably thinner (perhaps 2/3 as thick). If that's not bad enough the real problem seems to be that the new glass wasn't curved the same; it had a slightly different bow. The weatherstrip didn't want to stay on and trying to coerce the whole thing into place is what caused the break. Fortunately the old windshield was still Ok and we put that back in for the time being. Is this a typical problem with aftermarket glass? Should I look for a different supplier? Is the only real answer to find an OEM Nissan windshield? I'm guessing they're a whole lot more than the $175 or so I paid if I can even find one.

I sense a business opportunity here for someone. An agent in the US could receive the eBay shipment and turn around and ship it out of the country for the cost of shipping plus enough to cover the hassle of international shipments. Multiple products could be combined into a single box to reduce the costs involved.

A co-worker of mine just attended a similar event sponsored by GM here in Atlanta. What impressed me about this is that they had all makes of cars, not just GM cars. He got a chance to drive a new Corvette, Chevy SSR, and Hummer H2. These 3 models required having a professional ride along but other cars could be taken out all by yourself. http://www.autoshowinmotion.com