charliekwin

Unfortunately, nothing. Instead, I've been attempting to replace the power steering pressure hose on my wife's Escape. In the rain. Cursing the Ford engineers who decided to put it where they did.

Done with that part! Did a little more shaping of the gauge pods and the curved section and at some point you gotta say it's good enough. And now, it's finally good enough. I'll shoot some emails to some local vinyl wrappers and see if anyone would even want to take this on, but probably will be ordering the flocking stuff.

I wouldn't be surprised if the switch was added to replace a bad fuel pump relay. I would start by removing all the custom work and getting things wired up properly then run through the EFI tests as suggested.

More sanding, more filling, more sanding. But the effort is paying off. I sprayed the dash again today and it's 95% there. I built up the center gauge pods since they'd collapsed over the years, but the one for the clock has too much of a rounded profile and needs some reshaping. There's a couple areas that need a little touching up, but aside from that, the dash is looking good. I'll probably end up flocking it, so in the end, it may all be overkill. And, Merry Christmas to me! The wheels were a gift, the tires I bought for myself. Aesthetics are not this car's strong suit, but the new wheels maybe bring it up from hooptie to beater.

Merry Christmas to me! Went with 225/50/16 rubber, compared to the 205/60/14 that was there before. Fills out everything nicely and I hope they don't rub. I'm short on lug nuts, though, so no driving yet.

It's somewhat counter intuitive, but it's actually easier here to get smogged with a swapped engine than with a modified one. With a swap, you go to the referee, get approved, and get a sticker. Whenever I get around to the engine work, I'll probably go with an L28ET, even though I prefer the idea of a hotter-than-stock L28.

You'd think so -- based on how, ya know, reasonable that sounds -- but no. The two main components to the smog check are the sniffer and the visual inspection. In California, you must pass both. With the visual, in order to be smog legal, any emissions-related modifications (which is basically everything that connects to the engine) needs to get a CARB sticker. That's an expensive, long-term proposition, so generally only the major aftermarket manufacturers will bother with it and only for parts where there's a good market. For everything else, parts are sold as 49-state legal or for "off road use only." Needless to say, there is not a single part for the 280z that has a CARB exemption. For people with non-legal modifications, the usual way to pass is to either find a shop where they don't tend to care about the visual inspection and/or will pass you for a couple hundred bucks. For us Z owners, there's also the possibility that the tech won't even realize a modification is made.

That's gonna look great! Not gonna lie, I'm a little jealous that I can't do the same sort of stuff over here without running afoul of emissions laws.

Looks like I've got another project to take care of over Christmas break!

Not tremendously heavier. I don't have a scale (or something to compare to), but probably only a couple pounds more. The foam and shell don't weigh much by themselves...I'd guess the wiring and gauges make up about half the weight of the complete dash.

Not dead, but have been pretty busy with work, family, other projects (you know what's not fun? Replacing the AC compressor in a G35!), and just haven't had time to do much on the car. Not that a bunch of pictures of a dashboard being sanded are terribly interesting And that's mainly what's been going on. A week or two ago I finally had it in good enough shape to start (overly, heavily) applying filler, which just means more sanding. It's getting pretty close now but hard to see some of the contours and details so I sprayed on a light coat of some rattle can primer to get a better look. There's some blemishes to fix and some shaping to do, but I'm feeling good about the progress. I'll have a week off after Christmas and maybe can get it finished by then.

Nothing. Alright, I guess the fun's over. Look: the 280zx *comes* with a 2.8L inline 6 (helpful hint: the "280" part of the name comes from the engine size!). The only 2.7L engine Nissan ever made is the TD27, a turbocharged diesel inline 4 that wasn't used in the US. Pretty sure your car don't have one of those. So you may not be, in your words, "retarded," but it's pretty clear that you know basically nothing about the car you just bought. Before you start asking questions about what you should do to it, maybe you ought to figure out what you actually have first. Then, if necessary, you can start working on ways to improve it that get you to whatever your goal ends up being.

Great suggestion!

After more hemming and hawing and seeing enough photos of cars with them that I convinced myself I would learn to like them enough, I finally decided on the 16x7 RBs. Santa shipped them from Hayward on Friday

The guy who had the Daily Datsun blog did what I think you're trying to do and goes into some nice detail on what's required. The domain has lapsed, but Google cache still has most of it. Take a look here: https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:vIkFSrgSaHUJ:https://dailydatsun.com/tag/horn-pad/+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

Stock brakes for now and quite a ways into the future. I'm with you moelk; the 15" Rewinds look much better than the 16's.

The Panasports are a great-looking wheel, but I just can't bring myself to pay for them. I've been through the wheels and tires thread a number of times but didn't see the gallery, so I'll definitely check that out. I didn't know about the VTO wheels, which also look like a good -- if slightly more expensive -- option. The 16x7 RB is where I keep leaning (for now, at least): easier to come around on looks than on something that doesn't fit.

It's getting close to Christmas and I've been doing some wheel shopping, but can't seem to come to a decision. So far I'm trying to decide between the following: Rota RKR: I think I like the shape/style of this one best. They're only available in 15x8, though, and I'm not sure that'll fit without rubbing. I still have the slightly-tired stock motor, and probably will for a while, so 8" is a lot of wheel. If the RKR were available in 15x7 or 16x7, it'd probably be a no-brainer pick. Rota RB: comes in 16x7, which is probably the best choice as far as fitment and tire availability is concerned. (As far as looks, I've flip-flopped about 100 times on 15" vs 16"; I could go either way.) The RB looks good straight on, but I'm not a big fan of the spoke profile. I don't really like how it curves out from the hub and back into the rim. Other options: Konig Rewinds don't get me super excited (opposite problem from the RB -- the spokes are a little too straight and plain, though I like the shape of the 15x7 better than 16x7). The XXR 537 only comes 8" wide and the Enkei Compe has a fluted edge that I don't like. Anyone want to nudge me in one direction or another? Oh yeah, wheels will be going onto a 78 that's been lowered about 1.25".

Any craft-type store will have them -- Michael's, Joann, etc. They come in a couple of standard sizes; just get the right one and it should be fine.

Just wanted to say welcome! Cool to see you're from Stuttgart. My mom grew up there and her side of the family is still (mostly) there. Visited many times!

I'm gonna shill for Costco, because I seem to do that whenever I can find an excuse to do so Costco sells Ameriprise, and I've been using them since my wife and I got married almost 10 years ago. 100/300/100 with full coverage on all our cars ($500 or $1000 deductibles) costs ~$470 for 6 months. The Z is only $58. As an executive member, I even get free towing. Haven't had to use them much -- I was in a minor fender bender several years ago that was 100% my fault (my rates weren't raised), a 3 mile tow, and a chip in my wife's windshield was repaired at zero cost -- but every interaction has been good. Highly recommended.

Yup. I have what might be a questionable kind-of plan for repainting my car sometime in maybe a year or so, so I won't need any of the stuff I just bought for quite a while. But I probably would've had to pay 5-10x as much to get everything from the other vendors out there. Too good of a deal to pass up.

Just got everything today! I think I ordered nearly every rubber bit aside from the door and hatch seals [emoji4]

Personally, I'd probably pick up a cheapo $50 polisher from Harbor Freight and see if I could rescue it, but I also have an ill-advised tendency to start big projects that I have no experience in. It's a good way to spend a lot of time and money, so that's worth keeping in mind. I wonder if you could take it to a detailer to have them polish it out?

Even without a leveling agent, it smoothed out pretty well; at least enough where I think I can avoid having to use much (if any) filler. For the final finish, I'm going to contact a couple local vinyl wrappers to see if they'll wrap it and how much it'll cost. If that doesn't work, I'm thinking about either flocking the whole thing or doing a combination where I flock the gauge section and cover the rest in vinyl.