2ManyZs

You only have four bolts holding the inner control arm mounts, those usually do not break. Other than that, it's just a matter of unhooking the sway bar, e-brake cable housing, and brake line, half shaft, and it's off. Best bet in your predicament would be to have it pressed out at a machine shop with a good press. They might find it easier to use a hacksaw or sawzall to cut the spindle pin and then press out the pin from each piece individually(just enough room between the bottom of the strut housing and control arm), but I'd take the whole thing and see if they can do it that way first.

In a Z? None that I know of.

I doubt if it can be made to work, I'm suprised it even fires up. Couple reasons, there is no "chip" you can change in the ECM, you have to use the complete ECM. Doubt the harness connections will match up, even if the connections worked, the ECM's are not the same. Each engine has it's own specific ECM. Plus, ZX's had sensors for the FI that 78's didn't.

Or, depending on which head you have on the engines, if the exhaust ports are both the same (square or round) you could just swap the long block of the ZX motor into the car and run the 77 intake etc as a whole. Might even be easier if the head ports don't match, to swap the head from one to the other instead of messing with the wiring harness and possibly having more trouble down the road... Of course, this also depends on what is wrong with the motor in the 77...

Pull the rear cover and dump the lube oil in a large flat drain pan so you can swirl it around and check for metal shavings. Then you can visually inspect the teeth on the ring gear for wear or uneven grooves in the face of the teeth. Check for excessive backlash by spinning the input shaft with your one hand, and see how much slack is in the pinion gear/ring gear. Then you can spin the output shafts and listen for bearing noises. Only 36K on it, it should be OK, but, to make sure it was a well serviced 36K do those checks, refill with new gear lube and it ought to be good to go. Replacing the rear cover gasket is the only thing you should have to do if it doesn't show any obvious signs of abuse or neglect. Then, after you drive it a little, check for leaks at the side flanges and front pinion seal as they may have dried up and become brittle if they didn't have any grease on them while it was sitting.

hehe, ain't tellin all my secrets....:devious: I just happend to remember we just had a thread on it and what forum it was in...then I opened the thread to make sure it was the right one and did a copy and paste of the URL....

EScanlon can probably give you a good estimate, but you'll have to supply a little more info, such as type of paint, type of reducer you used etc...

That car has been discussed a couple time already. http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=11630 Price is too high for one thing, and there's a couple other things that don't quite add up...... I noticed he did get a bid at 25K, yet it keeps getting re-listed, so obviously he thinks it's worth much more than that. The highest we've seen one of the Z Store cars sell for was around 18.5K on Ebay, and it was a much nicer car, with no "oddities"....

If it just started suddenly, I doubt it's vapor lock, unless you still have the water line connected to the intake that is. Sounds like either an ignition problem, bad tank of gas, fuel filter clogged, plug fouled, plug wire shorting across another wire..... if it were vapor lock, it would have been doing it all along, or at least to the point you would have noticed it. Probably end up being one of those things that make you slap your forehead and ask yourself, "Why didn't I think of that"....:cheeky:

http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=12123

If you look here and download the L engine calculator you can play around with different combinations for a close estimate of the compression ratio. http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1292&highlight=L+engine+calculator Looks like the E-31 with the flat tops L-28 bottom end should come out to about 10.25:1 or so. Not too bad, but you can lower it easily enough in a couple different ways. Beware though, the HKS head gaskets are pricey, like about 150 or so each....:cross-eye I'd shoot for about 9.25-10:1 for a good street engine, but you'll need to upgrade the ignition for that to work reliably. You could always use an N-42 head or an E-88 and save the E-31 as they are one of the rarer heads. N-42's are very easy to find as they were on the 280's and there are plenty of them so they are failry cheap. It's a good head, has larger valves already, and only needs a light shave to put up some good compression numbers.

I've been here since 78....I've been going to SP since the mid 80's and raced in ITS there from the fall 89- Fall 94 and still go up now and then. I remember the Z club being there a couple times over the years, but I was too busy at the time to spend much time looking around....:devious:

The E-31 is the more desirable, with the early E-88 a close second. The E-31 has a slightly smaller combustion chamber and a little better chamber shape. With that on an F-54 block with flat tops, with larger 280 valves, would make an excellent street motor. Especially if you upgraded the cam a bit with headers and the other usual mods. Your car sounds like my 71, I didn't know the original owner or his son he passed it on to, but the next two owners were also brothers....

Factory spec torque is 57-65ft/lbs..... FWIW, any type of oil is fine on mag wheels nuts, since it's a closed nut design. Stock type lugs should use some type of anti-seize as the stud has threads exposed beyond the nut. If it is not exposed to the outside elements, oil should work just fine. The extended shank nuts like are used on the Libre's should have anti-sieze on the outside as well, I've seen them corrode at the point of contact with the wheels to the point they begin to pit the lug nuts and darn near impossible to break loose. They have two points of possible problem areas for corrosion.

Hehe, I used the search box... and I remembered a post or two on the same "mystery box" on the firewall. If you've de-smogged the car totally, it isn't needed, and you could have an open circuit that has somehow become a ground.:paranoid:

This might help, but your wiring colors don't seem to match the one I'm thinking of, the relay has something to do with the throttle valve for emissions....or seatblet interlock, or........ http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2984&highlight=seatbelt+warning+relay

You ought to do a compression and a leakdown test both, just the compression test won't tell you the whole story on the engine. If it tests out in fair shape, go find an F54 block out of a 280ZX non turbo, and rebuild it while still being able to drive and enjoy the car. Look for one with a P79 head, as you'll get the flat top pistons in the F54. You either have the early, more desirable E-88 head on your 71, or perhaps you are lucky and have an E-31 (depends on what a PO might have done with it). Either way it will work well with the F54 especially if you change to the larger 280 valves, and the result will be 25+hp if you don't do any other mods. Then you will have a much better base to build up the engine than by using the stock L-24. Building it a piece at a time will save you money in the long run, and you'll be able to enjoy the car instead of look at it sitting in the driveway without an engine until you get the new engine put together.

Me go to San Antonio? No thanks.....been there, done that.... Besides, with the price of fuel and gas now, it would be cheaper to have it shipped by truck.

Throttle body injection is what you see on older GM cars, where the throttle body looks almost like a carburator sitting on the intake, yet, it is not a carburator. Instead of having jets, etc.. they usually have 2-4 large injectors that dump the fuel into the intake runners. The air and fuel both are metered in the throttle body on a TBI system. The aftermarket Holley Pro-Jection systems are a TBI system, like this. Z's have a port injection system, where the injector shoots the fuel directly into the intake port on the head, with a separate injector controlling each cylinder, while the air mix is metered before the intake.

Actually the biggest hazard with using an impact gun on lug nuts is putting them on, not taking them off. Most 1/2 inch impacts have too much tightening torque and will either stretch or break studs, if it doesn't strip out the threads in the lug nuts first.

You won't know how much you'll need to spend until you take the head off and have it pulled apart to find out if any significant damage has been done or not. It's too difficult to tell by just veiwing pics to be able to accurately diagnose the extent of any possible damage, if any. You'd need to pull the cam, rockers, valves etc to check the valve guides, seats, cam bearings and all. I don't know if Motorsport Auto still offers the rebuilt heads like they used to or not, but they used to offer fully rebuilt heads for about 450 plus a 150 core charge. I believe these were rebuilt by ATK, which, according to what we've heard isn't supplying the rebuilt engines like they used to. So, the best thing to do would be to call MSA and see, it might save you time and money in the long run.

OK, can we all be sick now???:sick: :sick: :sick: :tapemouth His problem is pretty obvious by looking at his site... college kid with a BS (bulls--t?) degree in boomboxes..... :stupid: Bet he's off his "meds" too.........:devious:

That's one of the main reasons I want to chop the top off the 240... LEGROOM! Besides, I've got to use two cars to make one anyways, so as long as I'm cutting......:devious: Second reason is I already have plenty of spare Z parts.....:cheeky:

You've got some major oiling problems, also notice the lobes of the cam on the #2 exhaust and both lobes on #3 cylinder. They look like they've gone without oil for a while compared to #6. I hate to say it, but I'd pull the head and have it checked out throughly. It's possible the valve guides have sustained some damage as well as the rockers, not too mention the possibility of the cam needing to be replaced or reground. If you look under #2-3 and #6, notice how there is no oil puddle in the valley in the head, only burned on oil residue, which shows it may have been getting very hot on those 3 areas due to the cam oiler not oiling those lobes.:disappoin

When you can drive the car with the top down with a "full head" of hair and it doesn't get messed up, that's towards the end of the "mid-life" crisis......:tapemouth From the little I know about the Roadsters, they have many of the same rust problems the Z's do, floor, front fenders etc.... but, since they have a full frame, the repairs can be done soo much easier. Just pull the body off the frame, and go to work. I'd like to have a 67, but I think instead I'll just hack off the roof of one of the 240's in the backyard, and listen to a 6 instead of a 4....:cheeky: