
Everything posted by davewormald
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Suspension Cleanup and Refurb
I'll check that out. I might as well order the rears at the same time, even though I might not get to those for a while. Thanks!
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Suspension Cleanup and Refurb
I wasn't very clear with my comment about the bolts. It was meant to be a sarcastic remark that the rust connection between the hubs and rotors was strong enough that the bolts holding them together seemed superfluous. I used a properly Canadian solution of a hockey puck under the inside end of the hub while pounding directly on the rotors with a hammer. My original problem was that I couldn't tell where the rotors ended and the hubs started. Once I found images of what they looked like individually, I was more confident taking @grannyknot's advice. I haven't tried to take the studs out yet, but will probably need to do that in order to clean the hubs up properly. Thanks for the suggestions on how to do that @Mark Maras and @Racer X Back to my wire-wheeling and part cleanup ...
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Suspension Cleanup and Refurb
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Suspension Cleanup and Refurb
Thanks guys! Hopefully at some point tomorrow morning I'll be able to announce successful separation of hubs and rotors. After that I have a lot of wire-wheeling to do. And I have to order replacement shocks. I think I'm just going to go with the KYB's. I was thinking about the "new" adjustable Koni's, but I'm never going near a track, and always found the car's ride plenty hard. I'm assuming the softest adjustment level of the Koni's is roughly the level of the KYB's. Any thoughts on that?
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Suspension Cleanup and Refurb
OK, great, that's the sort of coating I was thinking I would do. The entire underside of the car was sprayed with some sort of thick protective undercoating (which seems to have been effective), but it's a giant mess on the suspension components. The bolts holding the rotors and hubs together came off nicely using a 1/2" breaker bar after many applications of WD40 Rust Penetrant. The Milwaukee air impact gun seems like it might be good to have around, though. The hub/rotor assemblies are coated in surface rust, though, and I can't tell where they're actually supposed to separate. "Gentle" coaxing hasn't pulled them apart yet and I'd like to understand where to apply pressure without doing any damage. Can I just leave the four bolts loosely screwed in and tap on those, or ...?
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Suspension Cleanup and Refurb
As part of what will probably be a multi-year effort to get my 04/71 240Z back on the road, I'm cleaning up the front suspension. I've removed the struts from both sides and got a little help from a local garage to remove the springs. Since the attached picture was taken, I've removed the gland nuts and old cartridges (they were the Made in Venezuela type that I've seen mentioned in this forum). The combination of crowbar and 24" pipe wrench can be quite persuasive. I'm going to replace the cartridges, but while I'm waiting for those, I'll clean everything up and would like to paint/coat things before re-assembling. Last summer I cleaned up the gas tank and POR-ed it inside and out (two different treatments, of course). While I was at it, I did the front stabilizer bar, which I'd already removed. Any thoughts on what type of treatment to give the strut casings, backing plates, hubs (business parts excluded) and even springs? I don't have paint spraying tools, so brush or rattle can solutions are what I'm looking at. Should I be concerned about having paint in the middle of the connection points between the struts and calipers, etc.? One separate question. Is there a trick to separating the rotors from the hubs? I've removed the bolts, but haven't wanted to pound on anything to separate them.
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Z's on BAT and other places collection
Black Label is a classic, without a doubt. Up there with Red Cap and Old Vienna! Many of these were consumed in Z-Cars back in the "good ole days".
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Z's on BAT and other places collection
I love low sodium vodka. Sent from my LG-US998 using Tapatalk
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Z's on BAT and other places collection
Please allow me to be the first Canadian to jump in here and claim the Caesar: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caesar_(cocktail)#:~:text=The Caesar was invented in,Calgary Inn's new Italian restaurant. I believe there are a few western Canadian members here who will probably tell me to keep my eastern paws off their drink! For years one of the worst things about flying on US airlines was not being able to get Caesars. Bloody Mary's are boring. Of course Canadians have long tried to brag about our beer (as compared to US beer), but that was mainly because they didn't look any farther than Bud or Coors. The US led the way with craft brewing and still has more craft breweries per capita than Canada even with ten times the population. As a beer fan, I'm grateful. Molson and Labatt are fine, but nothing to brag about these days. Of course Europeans (especially those crafty Belgians) have had it over us north americans for a long time! Should I duck?
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Datsun 240Z Registry of America - Phillip A. Ray
Thanks for that @Terrapin Z. I should have checked first. I'll check now with Phillip (I don't know him from Adam) to see whether he has any concerns with me posting the list here. He regularly suggests that people invite other Z owners to register their cars, so hopefully it's a two-way street.
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Datsun 240Z Registry of America - Phillip A. Ray
As far as I know, Phillip uses Facebook for simplicity and there's no reason not to make the registry list available to everyone. I've attached the latest version from Oct 23rd. If anyone's interested in adding their cars to the registry, but doesn't want to join FB, let me know and I'll post the form here. I'm pretty sure Phillip would be happy to have any and all cars in his list. Personally, I like reading the short blurbs people include when they add their cars to the FB group. As everyone here knows, there are certainly lots of interesting background stories! I might try to find a bit of time to compare this list with the ZHome list and maybe create a delta. I don't know what the data-verification requirements are for either site, but maybe it makes sense for them to share the data and improve both lists. I don't think either one claims to be "canonical"? I also don't want to "step in anything". 240Z Master Registry.pdf
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Wire Harness Question
When I first re-connected power after my car sat in my garage for 20 years, I pulled all the fuses and connected a trickle charger instead of an actual battery. It's limited to 3 amps, so seemed pretty safe. I then added one fuse at a time and tried each circuit. Surprisingly, the 3 amps was enough to do a high level check on a lot of the circuits. Once I'd done that, I pulled all the fuses again and connected the battery and repeated the process. Prior to doing all that, I'd spent quite a bit of time at the back of the car repairing wiring that had been chewed by mice, so I was pleased to find that everything worked.
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Sourcing Parts in Canada
Over the course of the summer I pulled pretty much all the "auxiliary" parts off the engine, cleaned/refurbished them, and re-installed them. The cleaning was made gooey-er than usual by a late-1990's trip to Toronto's cottage country with the oil cap removed. I can report that a fresh oil, sand and grit mixture remains fresh for 20 years. The engine isn't exactly clean, but it's night and day better than when I started. I've used several of the suggestions from this thread for parts, including crossborderpickups.ca, which I've since recommended to several others. Thanks guys! Anyway, yesterday was a big day in the garage: https://photos.app.goo.gl/re6ZWjiwKuRkZgZx7 First start in about 20 years. The observant will notice a few missing sub-systems and some "non-OEM" parts. I also learned what the fuel return line does in the 45 seconds or so I let the engine run. Who'd have thought that a fuel return line would return fuel to a non-existent gas tank? One step at a time! So many of the discussions in this forum were helpful, but I'd be remiss if I didn't single out a couple of the very long, sometimes comical, threads about carburetor adjustment. You guys display admirable patience! I'm happy to report that the "bend the float tang" per the FSM/Haynes manual method got me this far in one go. We'll see what happens from here!
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Sourcing Parts in Canada
Excellent. Looks like they have several of the parts that I already need, including clutch master and slave cylinders. They were leaking even back when I was driving the car and the master is now completely seized. Hopefully their inventory is up to date.
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Sourcing Parts in Canada
It seems amazing to me that Nissan still has some Z parts after all these years. Nice to know, though!
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Sourcing Parts in Canada
I've been lurking in the community learning a lot of stuff over the couple of months, but this is my first post. I live west of Toronto, Ontario. I have an 04/71 240 that I bought back in 1994 (I'd had a couple of 240s and a 280ZX back in the '80s). The car came from Georgia, but I don't know much more history than that. I drove it summer and winter(!) for about five years, then garaged it when it started to get some visible body panel rust in the usual places. I managed to keep the car out of my mind until a few months ago when someone told me what was happening on BaT. I don't have any expectation that my car will ever be worth what some of those have gone for (and I can't imagine selling it), but just reading about Zs again got me re-addicted (Hi, I'm Dave and I have a problem). I started poking around at the car and was pleasantly surprised by what I found. I decided to carefully see if I could get it started after 20 years. Fortunately there are good threads in here to help avoid disasters. I'll spare you all the mundane details, but after several weeks of prep, I turned the key with the plugs in and connected and it came close to starting before flooding. So, here's my first question (I already have lots)! Where do Canadian Z owners source parts? I'm going to need lots over the next couple of years and I'm sure some of you guys can save me a lot of wasted time and money. At this point I need a valve cover gasket and carb rebuild kit. It's easy to find US suppliers of parts. Is that the best bet or are there Canadian (even Ontario) suppliers of some parts? I'm happy to take this conversation offline if it's not relevant to most members, but I figured I should introduce myself and say thanks to all the fine people in this forum who've been so generous with their knowledge, and their descriptions and pictures of their work. I'm no mechanic, but I think I can do a lot of the basic stuff to get this project going. I've loved Zs since 1984 when I sat in my first one. It feels a little bit like magic to me that I have one sitting in my garage!