28Zero

it said "grid" Cause it takes time to get everybody all lined up and ready to go in groups. It's non-competitive, just a track touring. Shouldn't be much more than 60mph on the straights. The track's tons of fun, I've been on it twice now in my 280z. :devious:

my 280z has the two bar lower grille.

My biggest time sinks in the Z so far is to track down that faulty voltmeter as the cause of the electrical short that's plagued the car since I got it. The "other" is that I had to replace the rear wheel bearings cause they had rust in them. That required quite a bit of work in finding appropriate tools (large die cutter) and spending good money on the torque wrench. Spent lots of time getting that rust out of the hub too. Also needed to replace the fan clutch, oil temp gauge, install a rear bumper. Now the car's in to get the 4 speed trans cleaned out, clutch replaced, BCDD fixed, among other things. Cheers!

Some good places to catch glimpes of Z's are the 80's TV shows. I've spotted several in the Knight Rider show, first season.

While I don't know how it would have happened in your case, but one thing that caused a very high idle in my 78 280z was a stuck booster control valve. Once the car warmed up, there was no getting it back down. Hope that helps. Cheers, James

It turns out that the high idle was because of a stuck boost control valve. The inside gets a little rusty and presto, stuck valve. Mechanic found it easy enough. (I haven't done any research to find out where this boost control valve is, anyone know?). Cheers, James

That's what I thought. Anyways, it sure will be sweet to finally have a car that powers along like it's supposed to! Cheers, James

Howdy. So I took my '78 280z in cause I was having electrical problems that I just couldn't seem to shake (bad voltmeter gauge, of all things). The guy then calls me to say "the work is done, and did you know that 5th gear is gone?" "Yeah, I thought there was no 5th gear, that it was an option". "its a 5 gear trans, and 5th is gone, reverse is hard to get into" "Yeah, reverse has been finicky". So now I've gotta spend $900 to rebuild it. And probably replace the cluch as well. I knew that the trans needed some work, but I didn't know it was a 5 gear trans and not a 4 gear trans. So did all late 280z's come with a 5 gear trans? Cheers, James

My first car I bought was the 280z (two years ago at the beginning of the summer). Then I realized there's just no way I'm driving that through the winters here! So I bought my other car off my brother when he went into basic training in the Air Force. It's a junker 1990 Grand Marquis that had 45k miles on it when we bought it 5 years ago. Odo broke at 64k and I suspect it's got roughly 85k miles on it. But man, those winters are brutal on it and it looks like a 185k mile junker car. Looking to buy a different beater car, one with better gas milage. :devious: Cheers! James

The 280z 2+2 from "Bruce Almighty" is for sale at Volo auto Museum: http://www.volocars.com/showroom/showroom_d.php?id=11904&nhs=0&make=NISSAN&show=&model=&eyear=2006&syear=1900&sprice=&eprice=

MDbrandy, If you're the one who was driving around a black Z around Champaign in 2003 then you're the reason I bought a Z in the first place! Summer of '03 was my last semester there for my dual masters (architecture and construction management), and while driving my beater to the grocery store one day, I nearly broke my neck with whiplash when I saw my first Z (looked like a black pearl edition?). Thanks! Cheers, James

I'm estatic when I find another 1st or 2nd gen Z on the roads. If I'm driving my beater car I always wish I was driving the Z instead (unless there's snow). Anyways, I find that nearly all 350z owners have no clue to the history of the Z. So I only wave to the 300z or 350z if they seem to realize what the older Z's were. Cheers, James

well guys, I've given up and planning to take the '78 280Z to a reputable Z repair shop (Z Repair in Des Plaines, IL) next wednesday unless someone can explain to me the circuitry of the alternator and the fuel pump relays and how that "short" works, enabling me to finally figure out what I need to do to get this car back on the road! Cheers! -J

Sorry, I meant "coils" instead of "resistors". anybody have a clue? I'm at a loss to even figure out what to check next or if I need to replace a relay. If I do need to replace a relay, which one? On a semi-related note, if you have a manual '78 like I do, and if the wiring diagram is right, it appears that the Fuel Pump Control relay's WB wire (upper right hand corner next to the L wire) goes through the firewall to the C-4 connector, splits apart with one going down to a small connector, becomes the G73 wire which then goes back across the firewall and goes to the EFI main relay, right next to the Fuel Pump control relay! Seems like this could be simplified. Cheers, James

Well, I'm stumped. After taking apart the dash to get to the voltmeter & unplugging that, it didn't solve anything. So today I went back at it, only to determine that the short goes away if I unplug the Fuel Pump relay or the Fuel Pump control relay. The blue wire goes to the control relay, through a 62ohm resistor to the white/black stripe wire that goes to the fuel pump relay, through another ~64 ohm resistor and then to the ground wire. So it seems that the blue wire which is connected to the positive wire (via the alternator) goes through two resistors (via the relays) and then to the ground. Isn't this a permanent short then? Or am I totally off in reading this wiring diagram? Cheers, James