Mark Maras

Excellent. I recently saw a 240 in Portland that looked pretty good rust-wise except a hole in the left quarter panel. I'm guessing the rust in only one place was caused from sitting with that side exposed to the elements over the decades. I've not used Tabco panels. I'm assuming that a good donor car panel may need less massaging to get it perfect but may be more difficult to source. Good luck.

Yeah, clean them again. You've already discovered how it will run with fouled plugs. New plugs would be better.

Carbon on the plugs acts like an insulator. What does it feel like when it's at 2 1/2 turns?

Replacement sheet metal panels are avail. at tabcoparts.com or a donor Z. How does the rest of the car look?

Especially if you can find a Z hoarder's parts stash that needs organization.

Haven't heard from him in a while but as I recall, @rossiz mounted his relays inside.

You might want to slip jack stands under it and check the torque on the pan bolts first. "Upper pan" was just a lame, vague description of the source of the leak. That guy missed his calling. He could have been a politician.

Single model year, limited supply. Might take a few extra years to catch up to 240's and 280's in value, but it will. Five years ago I don't think many of us would have believed anyone if they had told us what the 240 prices would be today.

The hatch , tail lights, and fuel lines all have seals that can allow exhaust to enter the cabin.

Are you sure the gas smell is coming from under the hood or could it be coming from the fuel lines tucked behind the rear panels? Does the amount of gas in the tank affect the gas smell? Fuel leakage under the hood is usually easy to see.

The lower compression on the first three may be from lack of oil in the cylinders. If you started the test with a dry number one cyl. , by the time you got to number six, oil was circulating and you likely had some oil pressure.

I think I'd try a cooling system flush. At higher RPM's the engine logically produces more heat. Members who have pulled the freeze plugs in the block have reported vast quantities of grunge in the coolant passages.

I'd pull the valve cover and crank it over in stages (to prevent overheating the starter) until it gets oil pressure while watching for oil circulation to the cam and valve train. It also would be a good idea to check rocker clearances before starting. The thrill of firing up an old engine and hearing it run good gives me goose bumps. I love it.

I've used Greyhound Package Express to ship large items like hatch glass. It was about $65.00, Portland to Denver.

Don't know the extent of the damage yet, so no list yet. I'll try to find out when RedBird is going in for an estimate. I hope Jai @Redwing can get a list from them. I'm sure the body shop would like to have a source for parts.

The measurement in post #5 shows the top of the fingers being the reference point.

ZH. Do you have any of the pieces that Jai, @Redwing might need for RedBird? I've been in touch with her, getting more info on the damage. She mentioned that the right side bumper mount was collapsed. Sounds like she might need a right bumper shock along with the other obvious things. I don't think that there's any damage to the door or under the hood. Jai's going to send more pics soon. We'll know more then.

I gave up a 69 SS 396 Chevelle when I bought my first Z. A lack of raw acceleration was my first impression but I soon learned that a Z has all the power it needs, plus a little bit more, for the street. I found that the fun of rolling in and out of corners far out-weighed the fun of straight line speed. Plus, in stock form they're very reliable.

Reminds me of a t-shirt that said, "I may be old but your music still sucks."

I think I'd start by looking for a bare wire(s) down by the gas pedal and or throttle linkage. I'm wondering if there's a wire hanging down from under the dash that got the insulation scraped off and was grounding when the gas pedal was floored in the beginning and has gotten worse over a short time. Good luck.

Don't know if it would be legal but IMO the third brake light should be yellow and come on when the throttle pedal is all the way up, making it a deceleration light. In theory, that would give the driver behind a warning that one is slowing before braking. The 1/2 second or more warning would eliminate a lot of rear enders. When I was drag racing. we found that it took a 1/2 second after the light to get the car moving. Reaction time, clutch pedal travel, mechanical clearances and traction all added up to a 1/2 second. If we left when the last green flashed on (Christmas tree lights were a 1/2 second apart) we always were first off the line. Seems like that time theory would be applicable to braking too. But then, I've always questioned whether a third small brake light really does much good.

Probably wouldn't make much difference in the wintertime but being a 1/2 - 3/4 qt. low on oil in hot weather would raise the engine temp.

I've always adjusted the chokes so the cables have a slight arc in them when the choke is off. The arc in the wires, where they connect to the carb. linkages, ensured that the nozzles were all the way up. I never thought to check to see if the nozzles were all the way down when the choke lever was pulled. Didn't have any trouble starting the engine, even in freezing weather. Watch your nozzle position when the choke is on and off. They'll tell you what to do.

To quote the Black Knight, "It's just a flesh wound." It was just a finger tip. Plenty more where that came from. I was modding a chain link weaving machine at the time. Unfortunately, my Spanish was worse than the operator's English.

Reminds me of a warning that I remember in a heavy machinery operation manual. "Any primary adjustment (singular) will be followed by secondary adjustments (plural) to compensate for the primary adjustment." That tidbit of info turned out to be the most helpful sentence in the whole manual. I, of course, had to find out why.