2ManyZs

Well, now that I can look in the FSM, I was off a little on the turns lock to lock. The FSM says 2 3/4. I measured the stock and short arms I have. Stock overall length is 7 1/2 inches approx. Short ones are 7 inches approx. From the body of the strut where they meet the steering arm to the rear of the arm where the tie rod mounts is: Stock- 2 1/2 inches Short- 2 inches Not much difference, unless you measure them you won't be able to see it. I think with the short arms the turns lock to lock was 2 on the IT car I had, right now I don't have one together to find out for sure.

Back in the old days, (see, there are others who can say that) I was a diesel mechanic so I had a good start on a complete set of tools. Since that time, I have had a bit of a tool fetish, so now I have some tools that I have never used. But it sure beats not having them when you need them. I did mine in one afternoon, both sides, that included disassembling the struts and control arms, sandblasting and painting and then re-assembling them. If you don't have the tools to do the job, you will be much further off sending them to a shop or a friend who does. BTW a cheap air chisel is worth it's weight in gold for this job. You can usually buy one for less than 50 bucks with a couple different chisel attachments. If you don't have an air compressor or access to one you are up the proverbial "creek".

If you only drove it 12 miles without transmission fluid, it probably hasn't done any permanent damage yet. Just don't drive it till you have refilled it and then it's time to find out why the repair shop took the plug out in the first place (if they did). The drain plug on the bottom as a 1/2 inch socket head, the one with the square head is used on the fill plug, the drain plug should be one with a socket head so that it can't get ground off in the even of an "off road excursion" or whatever. If it ever did get the square head ground off, it would be nearly impossible to remove it. I have used Red Line's MTL(Manual transmission lubricant) in all my Z's since I raced years ago, it is a bit lighter viscosity than the mineral based lubes and it is a bit easier to shift with it. It is a bit expensive, but you should only need two quarts to fill the trans. You can get it from Pegasus Racing supplies(I put their link in the web-links) or any other racing parts supplier.

As far as merchandise from this site, t-shirts, hats, etc. We are working on a store to be in operation in the next month or so. Mike(Administrator) is going out of the country for three weeks and we will be back to work on it as soon as he gets back from his "vacation". Not sure where you can find other logo merchandise without doing a search for it. Another possibilty is finding shirts and such from clubs for the Z and 510. Plenty of clubs have their own shirts to advertise their club.

Biggest downfall I see trying to use one on a Z would be the fact that you would have to fabricate the crossmembers to mount the front of the rear and the rear crossmember for the coil over shocks you would need to use. Not a good thing if you want to keep the Z in somewhat original condition. If you are planning extensive mods anyway it is feasible. I have an old issue of Hot Rod magazine where they took a Z and put a V-8 in it and fabricated a four link and used a 9 inch Ford rear end. It was a really sweet looking car when they finished, with the body mods they did it was a good looking car, even if it was in Hot Rod.

If you don't there will be plenty of people here interested. Seriously, for that price, if it is a one owner, with 90K, no major rust problems, even in non-running condition it is a good buy! Z's have none of the Lucas electric problems, but they do suffer from rust issues, something you should already be used to with Triumphs.

Since I'm not at home and don't have a FSM in front of me, I'm guessing here at about 3 to 3 1/2 turns lock to lock. I've got the short arms on mine at home, I can take a measurement if needed so you can compare the stock to the short ones. only problem is I won't be home till Tuesday morning. :tapemouth

Pretty sure the front fenders are a simple bolt on. The rears would be bonded on or screwed on with sheet metal screws more than likely. It would be best to leave most of the rear stock quarter in place since it is structural, not sure if they would have radiused and rewelded the fender lips or not. Depends on how good of a job they did when they installed it. Might be able to remove them fairly easily unless they are bonded on, that would make it much more difficult than if they were just screwed or riveted on and then molded into the existing quarter with bondo or fiberglass. They had a wire mesh screen in the rear quarter vents if I remember the original kit correctly, and I think there may have been screen in the front fender vents in front of the doors. Sounds like it might be at least worth taking a second look at the car just to see how it was done and if you could take them off easily. Fiberglass is easier to "play" with than steel, at least you can cover small mistakes easier.

Don't know what it costs now, but years ago it was one of the only body kits available and it definately wasn't cheap when JCR sold it. Take a look and see if this isn't the same one. www.showcars-bodyparts.com/240z.html Look near the bottom of the page for The California Z.

Have you tried calling MSA? They may have a supplier for them, sometimes they can get parts that are not listed in the catalog. If not there, try Bonzai Motorworks or Too Intense Restorations or one of the other site listed in the web links under Z car businesses.

It's a pre-muffler or resonator, whichever you want to call it. I think the first of the Z's that had a catalytic converter was the 79 ZX.

I would suspect the neutral safety switch first. The inhibitor, thermo and thermo relay probably can be gotten rid of as well as the kickdown switch, the kickdown solenoid and the neutral safety switch. However I wouldn't pull any of them until you find out where the open circuit is to allow you to start the car. I'd look into the neutral safety switch as the one most likely to be causing the no-start problem. Once you get the car in running condition again, you can try to take off one unneeded switch at a time, so that you don't end up with another open circuit. You may need to jump the switches with hard wired jumpers to get rid of what you don't need. BTW, the diagrams I have don't show a yellow wire to the coil. Has this been added or been modified? Only two I see on all the diagrams are a black ground, and a black and white hot wire. The solenoid you are hearing click may be the accessory solenoid on the kick panel. Sounds like a good job for Daniel. Wonder where he's been hiding lately.

Two choices. One is to buy a dedicated pilot bushing puller or you can try the old fashioned way. If you have a clutch alignment tool, take a gob of wheel bearing grease and put it into the bushing. Now take your alignment tool (or anything that fits the inside of the bushing tightly, a wood dowel will also work well) and tap it into the bushing with a hammer. The force of the grease being squeezed into the void behind the bushing should force it out to where you can get ahold of it. It usually works with no problems. If the bushing is really corroded, or has been set into the crank snout too far it may take a few tries, just pack a little more grease in and try again.

Hmmm, let's see. Working on my 19th year driving a tractor trailer, covered 39 states and nearly 2 million miles. Got more stories than you could ever imagine! Add a new one every day.:tapemouth :cross-eye I can't even begin to remember all of them.:dead:

Well, one thing that could be a problem. Have you replaced the coil lately? It could possibly be the coil breaking down after it has run a while due to the heat of the resistance in the coil. Just though you might want to try another one if you hadn't already. If not that, it could be the ballast resistor if you are still running one. Secondly, have you checked your points out closely? The second set of points is there to retard the timing, could be it is being retarded too much. Just a random thought. Only problem with adjusting the valve is this, if the valve springs are getting soft, you can adjust till your fingers bleed, and they won't act any different. If they are still the originals, they may need to be replaced.

Sounds like the California Z kit that Jim Cook racing used to sell. You can still find it in the autobodyparts web site. It's a pretty decent looking kit except for the square headlight , they just don't seem to fit on an early Z. Probably most people just bonded the rear fender flares over top of the existing quarters to save time and money with body modifications.

I saw a Z with a triple SU set up in the old Z car magazine. Looked pretty good, except for the fact the manifold had to be fabricted form scratch, luckily the guy that did it had a father who owned a shop that was capable of melting down scrap aluminum and cast him a new one. The car was up for sale on Ebay not long ago, but don't know if it sold or not. it really was a sweet car. If I remember right he had used a 240 crank in a 280 block for a really short stroke, high revving engine. I'll look for the mag when I get home and try to post a little more info.

Had a good looking blonde pass me on the Interstate just after I bought my new Ram, not that I was checking her out or anything. Then I noticed her tag said CULKN2! She was right!

Well George, I still have the tag but let it expire since the DMV sends out a surprise every once in a while that you have to send to your insurance company for proof of insurance. You know what my car looks like right now, so not much sense in having insurance and tags on a car that is 3 feet off the ground. BTW, it was in the newspaper recently about a girl in VA that had her tags revoked by the DMV for being offensive. It wasn't offensive to me but you know how some people are. Her tag read 3M TA3. Imagine seeing it in your rear view mirror:love: :devious: Or just write it on a slip of paper and view it from the back.

Since you say it sat for a year the first thing that comes to my mind is something has probably gotten into the fuel filter. May have been some gunk form the tank or maybe you had a little condensation in the tank. First thing i would do is to replace the fuel filter, if that doesn't help you might want to look at the old filter to see if there is a lot of garbage in it. If there is you might want to drain the fuel tank. You might also need to replace or clean the fuel pump if you are using the stock mechanical pump. It is also possible the fuel pump diaphram may have gone bad while it was sitting. There is a good start on what may be causing your problem, if that doesn't help, let us know and we can all join in with other ideas.

Depends on how many letters you get to use in Florida. Why not (your initials) 76 280Z? My last personalized tag was 71 Z CARR since my last name is Carr. Got a lot of comments on the supposed "misspelling".

Unfortunately the one hand gesture you see here on the east coast has nothing to do with being "friendly". Guess the gene pool got polluted somewhere along the line. :stupid:

IMO the Haynes is a bit better than the Chilton, but by far the best is the Factory Service Manual or FSM. They can be hard to find and they are a bit expensive, but if you need one, they are hard to beat.

Never did it before, but by the diagram in the old service manual the only thing that could be stopping it from coming out is the stopper bolt on the bottom behind the rear reservoir. If this is out I guess the only way to get the piston out to a point you can get a hold of it would be to use a little air pressure in one of the front ports. Good luck. Quite a bit cheaper to re-build the early master than buying one isn't it? I saw the price of a new one and just about :tapemouth

It will work if you have a couple thousand dollars for machine work to keep it from self-destruction. There is so much machine work to be done to the diesel crank to lighten it and balance it it is my opinion you are asking for more trouble than it is worth. A much better alternative would be to use an F-54 block with the flat top pistons with the parts you have and save yourself a lot of time, money and aggravation. You will gain quite a bit of displacement by going to the L-28 Zx block, this will cost you about half what it would cost to modify the diesel crank. If you want a good street engine don't bother with the diesel crank unless you have at least 3-5 thousand dollars to do the job right. If it isn't done right, you will end up with a very expensive conversation piece sitting in the corner of your garage.