Jeff G 78

My dad bought himself a Honda S2000 as a retirement toy and when it was only a few years old, he was in a strip mall during a terrible thunderstorm. The lot was sloped from the road down to the stores and he was in a spot near the front waiting for the rain to let up. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw an empty shopping cart rolling down the hill and picking up speed. Before he could do anything about it, the cart slammed into his car and put a nasty wrinkle in the rear quarter right at the wheel arch. After that I now always park as far uphill as I can get so a runaway cart can't attack my Z. Uphill might be closer to the front of the store or out by the road. If the store is the high point, I park far left or right to avoid the idiots who have no problem swinging their doors open and into the surrounding cars.

We have one of the highest gas tax rates in the country, yet the worst roads. Just yesterday, I saw a guy get a flat tire from a chunk of pavement that had broken loose and was sitting on top of the roadway. I kid you not, the chunk was close to two feet square and a foot thick. Every day, I see potholes that are 8-10" deep with vertical walls. We have had times when they had to close bridges because the potholes were going all the way through and debris was falling on cars below. Michigan allows trucks to carry more weight than any other state. Many times, those trucks are full of trash coming over from Canada. Yep, it's cheaper to drive it across the border and dump it here than dump it in a country with vast amounts of wilderness. Ohio has the same if not worse weather and their roads are not bad at all. Also, we have more dirt roads than any other state. There are still dirt roads here right in the middle of very dense suburbs. I'm not talking farm land, I'm talking in cities! I really don't know where they hide all the road funds, but someone's getting rich! I laugh when people from Texas, or Florida whine about how bad their roads are. They would only have to come to Detroit once and they would never complain again. Sorry to rant. Bottom line, if your roads are good, go poly, if not, weigh the options carefully before choosing.

It's funny how most of the people who recommend poly are from warm weather states. Keep in mind that road quality in the areas you drive will determine if poly is the way to go. I have full poly in my '78 and it is fantastic on smooth roads, but horrible on beat up Michigan roads. We have some of the worst roads in the US and I have to be very carefull when I'm on roads that I don't drive everyday. On the roads that I do regularly drive, I know EVERY pothole, manhole cover, frost heave and patch. On any given day, I drive in the same lane and follow the same weaving pattern to avoid the nasty stuff. My car really hates frost heaves. Any sudden wheel input will rock my car. I don't know how your Montreal roads are, but if they are anything like Detroit's roads, I would go with rubber unless you are really willing to trade off ride for handling. New rubber will be way better than old rubber and will still make your Z tollerable on bad roads. When I take my Z on a road trip and cross the Ohio line, I am in heaven. My Z responds beautifully and does a great job on rolling roads and small bumps. The minute I cross back into Michigan, I wonder why I installed poly, but more often than not, kick myself for ever moving to this crappy state with it's horrible roads.

Welcome Zforce. Don't worry, this forum is not the same as other Z forums.

Unless the camera is playing tricks, it looks to me like the LF fender is bent in at the bottom. If you follow the body line from the back of the door forward, it should continue straight on the fender, but it bends inward just below the 280Z badge. Like others have said, the engine bay looks old and cruddy and the overall condition isn't THAT nice. It might be a nice car, but it might also be a turd with a decent paint job.

Very nice Z! I'm bummed that my Z has to hibernate six months out of the year. We have had around four feet of snow so far this winter and it's only mid-January.

I never thought of using a Halloween smoke machine. I tried something very similar to this last summer, but I removed the C pillar air extractor emblems and taped the shop vac hose to one side of the car and taped off the other side. Unfortunately, I didn't have a helper, so I tried to do it simply by looking through the hatch glass with a flashlight for a smoke trail with no luck. I didn't feel comfortable getting inside the car during the test since I was using a chemical reaction HVAC smoke bomb rather than a Halloween smoke machine. I think I will try again this spring while inside the car. I did extend the tailpipe which greatly reduced the fumes in my car, but I'd like to completely eliminate the problem like Derek did.

Welcome! Where in Michigan? There are quite a few Z's scattered around the state. You don't see many but they are around.

Looks good so far. I can't wait to see the finished product.

I haven't seen it come up yet, so I thought I'd remind you that you must have 6" thick concrete under your hoist. A friend of mine built his garage with a 6" floor and after many years when he finally got a hoist, the floor cracked within a few months. He took down the hoist and had a contractor come in to cut up the floor. They found that the original contractor had skimped and the concrete was only 4-5" thick rather than the 6" he called for. Once they repoured it to 6" he hasn't had any problems.

Are you still in the area? There aren't a ton of Z's around, but way more than you'd think. Check out www.niodetroit.com . It doesn't get much traffic in the winter, but we do several events a year which draw quite a few Z cars.

Hmm, let's see. 280Z 6 Toyota 4x4 6 Toy 4Runner 6 Parts car Z 6 Spare engines(3) 18 Lawnmower 1 String trimmer 1 Leaf blower 1 Power washer 1 Snow blower 1 Dirt Bikes (3) 3 model planes(3) 3 Total 53

Ronaldo, what part of Michigan are you in?

Looks like a great Z to start with. It appears to have custom leather seats. Are they stock seats that have been recovered or some other seats? BTW, welcome to the club! You won't find a better bunch than the group we have here.

Dang. At this point I'm curious if the VIN tags even match. He really should try to contact the seller and see what's up. If the car was stolen, then he will be screwed.

Perfect wording. Thanks Mike. Hopefully, the buyer takes a look and can take action if warranted. With any luck, everything will work out for the buyer.

I'm purely speculating here, but the seller might have bought the car and once he tried to buy parts for it, figured out that he had been duped. At that point, he put it on Ebay and claimed that he "bit off more than he could chew". When asked by members here about the VIN, he got defensive and blew them off. I think he KNEW the car wasn't legit, but he was just trying to erase his own mistake by screwing someone else. If this is the case, it doesn't matter if he did it himself or bought it that way. It was his responsibility to keep the car from going back into the system.

Really? Even the 260Z is now 35 years old. Is there a difference between 35 and 39 years old? I thought most states consider a car an antique after 25 years.

Is there any way to find the buyer or notify Ebay? We KNOW this isn't a '71 240Z, so whether the seller knows it or not, he sold a car that was not as advertised.

Sorry, no such thing as an investment project Z. Most people on this board would agree that Z cars are lousy investments. Most of us could not get 50% of our money back unless we bought a car that some other schmuck already took a bath on. :disappoin We do it for the love of the car and are happy to throw good money after bad, but we all know that we are throwing our money away.

The problem is that there is no real benefit to cloning a 240Z using a 260Z. My guess is that the 260Z was a stolen car and a junkyard 240Z VIN was used to launder it. Turning a Tempest or LeMans into a GTO makes sense in some ways, but dialing a Z back three years is a bit more sinister sounding to me. He only swapped the VIN, he didn't try to clone anything. I am not accusing the Ebay seller of anything, but SOMEBODY broke the law.

I agree about the repositioned pulls, so now I lock the door if I want to put my arm on the window sill.

Nope, the doors do NOT interchange. In '77 they changed the latch mechanism.

Cool. I assume all the bad areas were PROPERLY repaired? How bad WAS the rust before it was repaired? Be sure to post pics when you pick up the car. You can look at the door panels when you pick it up, but the lock pull moved forward by several inches in '77. Unless you cut a big hole in the panel, they won't do you any good. On the other hand, if the '77 panels are in good shape, take them and sell them to help pay for the correct panels.

So, what does the car look like? Do you have pics?