2ManyZs

If you can't get them to post, send a PM to Mike or myself and we'll see if we can help.

Check out www.hybridz.org The site is dedicated to swaps like this. They have a complete forum dedicated to Nissan engine swaps. You'll find most anything you need to know over there... Over here we tend to stick to the straight sixes....

I'd rather start with a non-rusted 1500 or 2000 dollar chassis than a 1000 dollar chassis that needed 1-2K in rust repairs... Yeah, 2K sounds like a lot, but as long as you don't have to worry about repairing rusted sheetmetal and spending a lot of money on labor to fix it if you can't do it yourself, you are way ahead of the curve. That's only my opinion.... but take it from me, buying a car for 750-1200 and thinking you can repair it, then realizing it's not worth the effort afterwards is wasted time and money. Granted, living on the east coast, where we see very few rust-free chassis, I'd give 2K for it, simply because I have all the parts it needs that were taken off rusted out hulks over the years so maybe my opinion is a bit off...:cross-eye

Err, you mean you aren't using a new locknut every time? That's one of the things the manual is pretty specific about....or should say, that's one thing the manual is pretty clear about, for a change....... I kinda like the way the early 240 5 speed is set up, they use a double nut, don't have to worry about staking it and having it come loose.....

Hopefully you don't work on the car after drinking the margaritas.... ROFL I've seen different kinds of spacers... just wondered if these were press-fitted over the "foot" or if it was loose.....

Guess we were both typing at the same time....:stupid: The only thing I would be concerned about at all would be if the gland nut were to be left loose or to come loose, is the "spacer" going to be able to move around under the cartridge? If it might, will it be so that the catridge is no longer fully supported or is the "spacer" fitted to the cartridge so that it can't move?

Steve, if you think about it, you can't use all the length piston...the bump stop you shouldbe using fits over the piston rod below the shoulder of the piston.... see what I mean? If you take the cartridge and put it in the strut housing, use a 2x4 across the top of the cartidge and compress it. If it stops before the shoulder at the top of the cartridge gets even with the top of the housing, you might have a problem. Now, it's highly unlikely you will compress the spring completely, but even if you do, you have the bump stop to keep the piston from bottoming...the only way the piston could possibly bottom out in the housing is if you completley compressed the spring and had no bump stop... then, it would be possible for the piston to bottom......If you didn't use a bump stop, you would run the risk of the top isolator beating on the top of the gland nut, which should keep the piston from bottoming in the cartirdge housing anyways.... See what I'm trying to say?

Much better, Mr. ZMeCruise..... Carl, I believe the 126 is for two S12 calipers only.. you supply your own stock rotors if the ones on your car need replacement....

Yeah? And......... maybe you ought to include the price? What about the spacer? You find a supplier for that yet?

The manual I'm referring to is for the 5 speed... I had a friend of mine copy the pages from a dealers manual years ago when I bought a 5 speed "in a box".... and have never gotten around to trying to put the "puzzle" back together.... I've got an old Haynes manual that has a lot of good photos and description on how to assemble the FS5C71A trans. One thing they specify in the manual is that there are different thicknesses of the circlip that hold the rear bearing which would affect the bearing spacer and the clearance issue you are referring to..... wonder if that is the case with the later 5 speed as well....

Marty, as far as the rear toe problem, the only thing you could do is to put the adjustable camber bushings in to be able to set it correctly. It's possible sometime in it's life it's been run into a curbing or hit one **** of a pothole and somewhere it's bent slightly...I guess the only way to know for sure would be to put the car on a frame machine and find out if it's in the chassis or the suspension itself. Of course, if you did that, they might be able to "tweak" the unibody enough to correct the toe problem. Or the car might have been hit in a parking lot in the rear at one time... either way, the results would be the same. As for the tire to fender clearance... you can't compare the different tire diameters like that.... You should have more distance with the 60 series simply because the 60 series is a smaller diameter tire than the 70 series,if the springs were equal that it... Try sitting both cars on a level surface and measure the ride height at the bottom edge of the rocker panel on both cars if you want to see what, if any, the difference in ride height.... FWIW, a lot of aftermarket springs I've seen have a bit of a "squat" in the rear for some reason...... One other question, were the "Euro" springs marked front and rear so that they were put on the right end? I've seen a lot of them that aren't marked...

If you look back a ways in his pics, I think you'll find one where the "peg-leg" is standing next to the correct one and the "peg-leg" actually has a longer piston then the original type. To be honest, I don't think you'll have any binding or bottoming issues, as you don't use the entire piston travel on the original one. You end up pushing the piston down an inch or so when you compress the spring enough to put the top isolator on and the suspension travel is determined by your spring lenght. These cartridges are usually used only when using coil-overs and you section the strut housing, which would be the amount of thickness of the spacer on the bottom. Seems odd though that they no longer seem to have the correct one for the original lenght strut housing and are trying to get away with using the one that is for another vehicle that they have been selling for 240's with sectioned struts.... hmm.....

I'm not sure what you mean by setting the clearance Kyle. According to all the info in my manuals, the rear mainshaft nut is to be torqued to 101-123ft/lbs but says nothing about setting any clearance. ? Thought I should add the torques spec for the counter gear lock nut is 72-94ft/lbs.

Depends on how much rust you find poking around in both cars..... If the 260 is the better of the two, you could take parts from the 280 to build that up, and sell off some of the other parts you don't need and probably get you total investment down to 500 or so.... Guess a lot of it depends on if you have room to store the cars and parts, and whether 950 is "pocket change"..... if you have both of the above, go for it....

Guess I should have sold something so I could have gone.....:stupid: David, are you going to do a FATT at Summit or the Car Guys? I used to race at Summit, so if you need some pointers or help with the car, send me a PM and if it's possible, I can come up and watch someone else have fun... like I did last weekend at the Marrs race.... :tapemouth

A good "rule of thumb" is to not go more than 2 inches section width of the tire over the width of your wheel. eg. with a 7 inch wheel, try to keep the section width close to 9 inches for the tire or you'll end up with bulging sidewalls and abnormal tread wear. Most tire manufacturers will give you the section width, tread width, overall diameter for each of the tire sizes they carry so you can determine which width to get in whichever profile you choose.

He has two complete sets in very nice shape listed as well as some other interesting items.... http://cgi6.aol.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersOtherItems&userid=mr_datsun&include=0&since=-1&sort=3&rows=50

If you want a quick "ball park" figure....... I'd say 8K-9K.... give or take 1K... I'd say you could sell it in a heartbeat for 6500... but would you want too? Or would you rather keep it on the market a while and see how much you could get? A lot depends on how many other cars are in the area too....and how many willing buyers there are with the money.. but we all know you guys in Charlotte are loaded... An appraiser is a good idea, but, what they appraise it for might make you want to keep it as a lot of times, they will give you a higher figure than you might actually get if you were to sell it. There have been numerous cars on Ebay claiming to be appraised at 10K or more that I doubt were actually worth it.

The "B" type transmissions were used in the late 71 model year and after that.... The short shifter has a two piece mounting plate that bolts through the stock pivot on the trans case and moves it up away from the trans case by an inch. Your pic shows a stock unmodified B type shifter....

Both shifters are approximately 11 1/2 inches overall lenght. The stock one is 2 inches from the bottom to the center of the pivot and the short shifter is 3 inches... that is the only difference. I just measured them real quick with a tape measure, so they aren't exact measurements. I haven't used the short shifter in a car yet so I can't tell you how much difference it really makes.... it's sitting in a drawer waiting for me to finish the car....... This is only good for the B model transmission though, since the linkage and shifter are totally different for the A model. There is no kit to change the A model shifter as it would require a lot more work to change the pivot point on the early transmission since it's made as part of the shift rail itself. Not saying it couldn't be done, only that there is no bolt on kit to do it.:disappoin

Keep the car and don't move so close to the coast is what I'd do.....:devious: I guess it's all a matter in how much it's worth to you... or should I say, what is the least amount you would be willing to part with it for. Mine is in pieces scattered all over the garage, and if someone handed me 5K in 100 dollar bills, I'd hand it right back to them... because I know that it would take years to find another car that only had one small area of rust that needed to be fixed...You also need to take into account how much you would have to spend to replace the car with one in the approximately the same condition in a couple years should you change your mind and want another one.... Got anything else you are not as attached to you could sell?:devious: Here are the pics... http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=3560&password=&sort=7&thecat=500 http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=3561&password=&sort=7&thecat=500 http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=3562&password=&sort=7&thecat=500 http://www.classiczcars.com/photopost/showphoto.php?photo=3563&password=&sort=7&thecat=500

I'd have to go dig through some boxes for a stock shifter.. could do it tomorrow...... I can even give you the measurements for the aftermarket short shifter too.....

Unless he's confusing the half shaft with the stub axle.. the stub axle is what connects to the wheel, not the half shaft. If you remove the half shaft(or driveshaft from the diff) at the stub axle flange, you will see another large nut inside the flange that holds the stub axle into the strut housing which is connected to the wheel hub. After removing the large staked nut on the inside of the flange the half shaft is bolted too, you use a slide hammer on the wheel studs and that will pull the stub axle out of the housing. By your description, it's hard to understand if it's the half shaft that is loose from the stub axle, or if the stub axle is loose in the strut housing. If the stub axle is loose in the strut housing, it may have snapped in half, which would cause a lot of noise as it is just spinning with the driveshaft but isn't connected to the wheel at all.....

If my memory is right, I think it changed mid to late 72.. Pretty sure my 73 had the later style with the bushings, but that's been years ago since I had that.....:cross-eye The early style bolts solidly with a vertical bolt into a captured nut in a pocket off the trans tunnel.

Full floor pans and frame rails from ZeddFindings will set you back approx. 400 bucks.. then, figure double that amount if you have to have it done professionally. More work you can do yourself the better... Sunroofs do hurt the value a bit, since many of them leak or are a major cause of rust, plus, that hole in the roof weakends the uni-body slightly....Replacing it with steel is gonna be very costly since it's going to take a pretty good bodyman to do the job correctly. 3K with a parts car.. sounds a wee bit high, but it might be worth it, but without pictures it's really hard to tell. Depends on how much of the small stuff is still there and in useable condition, the little things can add up in a hurry when you are wanting to do the car right. If the floor pans and/or frame rails are in bad enough shape that they need to be replaced, you really need to spend some time loking it over because it may have other rust that is hidden.. do a search here in the forums for rust and you should find many threads about where to look for rust.