KDMatt

D'oh! Fergot 'bout that! I guess also part of it could've been arrogance, 'just naturally assuming that the operation of the heater was the same on all Z's... anyway .. yeheah... oops... Heh, yeah, anyway, I'm tuning up tomorrow. I've got the dizzy cap, rotor, and ignition wires sitting behind me. The sparkplugs won't be in 'til 8 AM tomorrow. None of the places I talked to stock the NGK plugs, and have to order them into the store. Lucky for me though, my local auto parts store has a bunch in their warehouse, and a phone call today will get me plugs tomorrow. Oh, also, I've got fusible link covers now. I have no fear driving in the rain... except for the fogging of the windows! :knockedou Hey, a quick question. What are some good parts to lube/apply grease to when doing an ignition tune up like I'm proposing? I picked up a small tube of dielectric grease today, thinking it'd be good to have some when I do the stuff tomorrow. What are some good places to apply it? I'd naturally assume the threads on the sparkplugs and the metal/ceramic near the top where it meets the boot need some grease... Do I need to apply any to the rotor or points in the distributor cap? It looks like there's the possibility for a lot of contact friction in there. Opinions and past experiences are greatly appreciated.

That's what I'm saying, the top lever was on "Def" The one under and to the left was on "Hot" ... and the fan switch was on "4"

Lambo door... lambo door... Gullwing would be like a Delorean Anyway, I think that just going with a basic white is a fine idea. Having a car that attracts attention is a mixed blessing... you get the general public watching your car as you go by... and you get highway patrol 'watching' your car as you go by... The more your car stands out, the more likely you are to get pulled over, that's the way I look at it.

Yeah... that sounds right... So.. the flapper isn't closing eh? ... Great... juuuust great... That sounds like a big ordeal to fix... so for now I'll just keep a manual defogger in the glove box (aka: a hand towel).

So I just took my Z for a quick jaunt in the rain, and was surprised to discover that, for some reason, the vents on top of the dash that one would normally use to defog their windows... don't do anything! I flipped the switch on the console to "Def" and flipped the temperature switch to "Hot" and the fan to "4" ... and there was absolutely nothing coming out of the top of the dash. There was lots of air coming out of the vents facing me, but nothing from on top... I was lucky I was only a few blocks from home, otherwise there would've been a serious disaster on my hands. Help me! :sick:

Hrm, they look bad eh? Well it's not like I have much choice anyway. My budget certainly does not include installing a sunroof... even though they're a lot of fun to have. :squareeye

Seriously, no need to yell dude. o.o Besides, I don't have a 240, I've got a 280!

Minus the lambo doors though, right? When it comes to paintjobs, I prefer simplicity done right. I am more prone to admire a car that's just a single, simple color with a few subtle touches than an extravagant multi-colored car done over the top... When I get the funds/time my Z is going to be repainted the same or a similar color, but with the addition of twin, black racing stripes favoring the driver's side. Simple elegance. :squareeye

, that's what I was gonna suggest. -- Is there any chance it's related to your turn signals? Like perhaps it's the right blinker that's causing the problem vs. simply turning the wheel right? *shrug* ... 'just tossin' out ideas.

I wish my Z had a sunroof...

Hrm... well I know I personally dismissed any listing claiming "auto" when I was searching for a Z... but I suppose I had that option because I wanted a 280, which are in greater numbers than 260's... I just wanted to avoid more maintenance than I needed, and I just figured that an auto would be prone to need more TLC than a manual. Hey though, a Z is a Z, auto or manual. Enjoy the ride. Also, say, whereabouts in Minnesota are you?

Well... I feel like an idiot now... As it turns out, my head unit has a mode called FIE (or something like that) which deliberately makes the volume of the rear speakers significantly lower than those in the front... so, yeah... needless to say I turned that off... Despite all that though, my rear speakers still needed replacing, so I managed to snag a bitchin' pair of 8-inch woofers from a local surplus store. So, with the addition of those I finally have a sound system I can be pleased with, at an expenditure I can be pleased with. The speakers were $12.50 a piece, and have great low-frequency sound (the car vibrates a little bit at low bass), as well as pretty good mid-range sound. I leave my front speakers to handle the high and mid frequencies. The only real drag is that I can't actually "install" the 'new' speakers because of their size, so right now they're just sorta wedged in there so that they won't move around too much. Eventually I'll probably build little boxes for 'em, but right now I think they'll be okay. Thanks for your help guys, even if I was the one to blame for this little snafu. :knockedou

Already checked the polarity of the wiring for the speakers, and there was no volume change with reversed wiring. The headunit is supposedly rated at 45 watts... I'll grab the manual and glance through it, looking for info about speaker compatibility. I already have the the fade almost all the way into the back, and the front speakers are STILL tons louder than the back ones. I'll take a look at the ratings for the front and back speakers again then report.

The rating on the back says 100 watts. ... is it possible that I just need some lower powered speakers?

I'm just looking for a dual-channel 50 to 80 watt amplifier to power some six inch 2-way speakers. Right now they're just basic Pioneer speakers, but they were damaged when the PO installed them, and got damaged even further when we pulled 'em out, so I'm going to replace them with something similar.

It's true! Every mechanic I know hates that engine! My dad's pushed his 3.8 v6 driven Sable up past 170k miles though with a head gasket replacement only once... He's also very proud that his ginger driving has earned him the right to say he's never replaced the tranny once... ever... and it's still going! Anyway, that's waaaay off topic here, but I just felt like sprinkling that in anyhow. <*presses the Z-Car relevant chat un-pause button*>

No, actually, I ran new wires. AT FIRST I thought it was cruddy wiring that was giving me a headache, so my friend and I took two hours to bypass all of it, from the headunit back to the speakers themselves. This hardly even made a difference. Then we starting thinking that maybe the speakers were the culprits. So we quick grabbed an unused Alpine motorcycle speaker and touched the leads to it... no change in volume. There's just not enough power making it back there. Now I realize, yes, my headunit is more powerful than the stock one, but like I said, I have a hunch that the stock headunit had some sort of built-in preamplifer to counter the increased cable length for the rear speakers... since that's the real issue here.... the rear speakers aren't as loud because the same amount of current is traveling through a longer cable, which results in a weaker signal at the end. ...So now I just need to find an amp I guess... Nothing for sale on ebay seems to hit the 50 to 80 watt range... which is all I need.

Well... I was just at my buddy's house tonight, and we spent a good 2+ hours rewiring the speakers in the back of my Z with 'premium quality' speaker wire to replace whatever-the-hell kind of wire there was under the carpetting and what have you. I thought the wiring was the source of my lousy sound in the back, but, ha, I was wrong. It wasn't until we had the speakers unmounted and rewired did we realize that the sound wasn't really 'bad' ... it was just 'quiet' ... then it was me who said, "hey... dont most cars usually have amplifiers in the back?" Then we realized that an amp was the missing ingredient to the equation. The head unit has plenty of power to send to the speakers in the front, but I'm willing to bet that the stock stereo allowed for some sort of 15 watt (or comperable) pre-amp that sent additional power to the rear speakers, an amplification system that was 'destroyed' when the PO put in a Pioneer CD Player. So, in essence, I'm wondering how many of you have had to deal with something like this, and if installing an amplifier is a large undertaking best left to the professionals, or a moderately involved DIY job.

Hey! Congratulations on your new acquisition. I'm 18 and have a '76 280Z as well... though mine is a bit closer to stock than yours... Mine had a tranny swap at some point during its "career" instead of an engine (at least I'm pretty sure), but yeah. Your Z looks pretty nice, and I'll bet it's hella fast too with that 'vette engine and all. The paint looks good as well , but yeah, I agree, that hood needs to go. ...and I'm not sure of the conversion factor from canadian currency to American, but I'd be willing to bet that you got the better end of the deal. Anyway, you're probably gonna hear it about a bzillion times (it seems to be the slogan 'round here), but, "enjoy the ride!"

I coulda sworn that's what I was doing... o.o Oh well, I'll try again tomorrow. I think my right headlight isn't aligned right either. I drove for the first time in near total darkness tonight, and the right headlight seems to be pointed at the ground noticeably steeper than the left one. It's not a big thing, but is there any way I can do that myself, or it one of the few things that even you seasoned Z-nuts leave to the pros?

Thanks man, I actually decided, in the moment, to only go with the rotor head instead of the rotor head and dizzy cap because the latter is more than twice as much from Nissan as what I'd pay at Checker, *shrug* ... 'though I suppose if it's going to be a serious issue I could splurge a bit and just be safer knowing that the rotor and distributor cap match. That's probably what I'll do... my Z deserves it, neh? I'm actually sort of mad that I ordered my tuneup stuff and fusible link covers together... because courtesy is out of the NGK sparkplugs... and so I have to wait an additional 2 to 3 days for them to get them in stock before they can ship out my order... which will take an addition 2 to 3 days of shipping time... So... another week 'til I get my fusible link covers basically. I'm praying our dry-spell holds until then. Thanks for the starter info too (no wrenches!). It's holding out just fine now, and I haven't done anything... It just seems to be an intermittent fluke, and it doesn't really bother me too much. Hey, also, I have a question. How do the highbeams work? I mean I know on most cars you have the lever and when you pull it back, the highbeams flash, and when you push the lever forward the highbeams 'stick' on... that doesn't seem to happen on my Z... so either I'm just dumb and can't figure out the highbeams, or my Z doesn't have any (that work).

Ah... thanks... Where abouts do you suppose I could find a new flasher unit?

The starter thing is so intermittent I don't even worry about it. When it does happen, I can usually get it to crank with a couple more attempts at turning the key... so nothing serious as of yet. My neighbor (the "Beater-Z" Guy) says I should just bang on the thing with a wrench if it won't turn. I ordered some stuff (including the fusible link covers) from Courtesy a few minutes ago (Thanks again for the link Jared!) I ended up saving about 6 or 7 dollars by ordering a rotor head and the NGK plugs from them instead of going to Checker. Now all I need are the wires and dizzy cap and I should be in good shape.

Ya know... I've only had my Z for a week... but it's such a great feeling to have one... I get looks in it, even if it isn't really "look-worthy," and ya know why? Nostalgia. Sure, maybe I'm too young to really know nostalgia as a lot you middle-aged folks do, but I get it somewhat. Having a Z is fun in and of itself; having a classic sports car is always cool, but there's something extra about the Z just because you can get looks when it's in far less than pristine condition... and maybe it's not even because the people looking find it pretty. Back in its day... well I'm sure we don't need to be reminded anymore of just how popular it was, but the whole idea is if you didn't have one, one of your buddies, or buddy's buddies, or buddy's dad, or uncle's friend, etc. did (or so I'm assuming)... If you were alive back then, somehow there was a Z woven into your life. So I'm willing to bet that everytime I catch a middle-aged person looking at my car, it's not so much because they think it's pretty, but because it reminds them of their youth, and that's a magical feeling. Your car is more than just metal, they look at it and see themselves where you are, 30 years younger. The Z is a time machine. ... and in all fairness I suppose the Delorean is too. :laugh:

Someone needs the phone, so I'll be brief. My turn signal is going a little on the wacky side. If the engine isn't running, and the lights are on, when I click it to signal right, the blinker won't really blink at all, it'll just "stick." If I turned off the lights, it still happened. If the engine was running, it wouldn't happen. If I ran the engine, but turned on the lights, the blinker would, again, stick. I decided to rev it up to see what would happen (increase the output of the alternator), the blinker resumed blinking, but I saw a brief trickle of smoke, seemingly coming from within the steering column. What's going on, and what can I do about it?