Arne

Do you have an owner's manual for it?

I checked the specs page from the parts microfiche, it listed everything except the weight. How about the Specs page from a FSM? And here's a thought - will they accept a scanned (non-original) copy? Or will they require you to show an original?

Hard to say at this point. McGinnis at Banzai claims the one piece is correct for '70-72. I'm fairly certain that the one-piece I took off the red car during paint prep was original. Add to that my assumption that the reason the one piece isn't in the parts fiche was because it was totally superseded, much like the early-style shift boot. The microfiche also shows the three-piece for the 280Zs. My copy of the fiche says it was updated in Dec. '79, well after the end of the 280Z run, so if the one piece had been the later replacement it should have been listed. For these reasons, I've assumed that the one piece was the earlier style. I could still be wrong, though...

My Series 1 (the old yellow car), the blue parts car (4/71) and the current red car (7/71) all came to me with the one-piece. I suppose it's possible that one or more of them had been replaced at some point, but all three?

Very true, Carl. The Japanese manufacturers realized that to truly make in-roads into the huge US market, their cars needed to survive under typical American conditions. And that included under-maintenance. The British (and to a lesser extent, the Italians) apparently assumed that the type of people who want a sports car would be willing to (and probably enjoyed) keeping it maintained. In a few cases, that was true. But in many cases that was false, and their reputations here suffered from it.But in my mind, that's no reason to perpetuate that bad reputation. Because even here in the USA many of those cars are now owned by the type of people they were designed for, and the lack of reliability is no longer a big issue.

Alan hit the nail on the head. It's not the British cars that are the problem, but typical American owners. People bought English sports cars who thought that changing the engine oil every 3000 mile is maintenance. Everything else is ignored until it breaks. Worse, the second (and so on) owners were people who bought the cars cheap, and often couldn't afford to maintain them even if they understood what maintenance was. We see the same issues here in the states in the typical worn out 240Z today. Alan, you commented about "extremely lax" inspections. The truth is worse - in many states there are no regular inspections at all! And in most of the rest, the bare minimums were/are checked. Consider this. In the USA, people consider the reliability of old English cars as a joke. But in England, the big issue is rust, same as for any other car of that vintage in a damp climate. Same cars, different results. Must be how they were taken care of here...

I agree with E. If the resistor or other ignition component were causing the problem, the car would run just as erratically as the tach. Sounds very much lice a dying tach to me. BTW, it's normal for the power to taper off a bit at that point, unless the engine is thoroughly modified.

I think Michael hit it on the head. I've got the tap and die set, but no longer have a disassembled car to use them on.

Doesn't much matter which it is, from an installation viewpoint. Either one is pretty much a straightforward swap into a 280Z. If you are using your existing clutch, use the throwout bearing and collar from the four speed, not the new five speed. You will probably want to use the speedo drive gear from the four speed as well. Other than those things, the rest is a straight replacement.

No, neither the location of the differential or that part of the sway bar are significantly affected by ride height.

Most Nissan dealers aren't going to have them in stock, no. My dealer gets such things for me with no shipping charges in a matter of 3-5 days.

Parts to rebuild the factory pump should still be available from Nissan. Exploded diagram and current part numbers attached.

No, but I am planning to be at the NWDOA Show-n-Shine at Blue Lake Park on the Columbia on the 10th.

The aftermarket fusebox is not a bad idea, but in reality it doesn't truly address the root problem, which is the convoluted way that the lighting circuits route the current, leading to excessive heat in the fusebox. This is a terribly common problem with 240Zs, and is best addressed by using relays to get the heavy current out of the factory wiring, fusebox and combo switch. Search this site for 'headlight relays' to see volumes of posts on this subject.

The weatherstripping that MSA sells is made by Precision. Same exact product.

Can't say for certain, but I suspect that is a "Targa Turbo" tip, which is now NLA. The 240Z model had a straight inlet (as pictured). Yours appears to be the 280Z model which had to hang a bit lower, and therefore had the crook in the ilet.

My car now is virtually clunk-free. I have to do something pretty stupid to make it clunk now. But prior to the transmission rebuild, once the car had warmed up it was difficult to make any torque change (on throttle or off) in any of the lower gears without it clunking badly. During my hunt, I replaced the following parts with new: Front differential mountRear transmission mountAll six u-joints (professionally done, not a hammer and vice job)Driveshaft balancedRear struts, with bump stopsInner rear control arm bushings I also swapped in the following parts known good from different 240Zs: Both halfshafts, several times (from two different parts cars)Rear mustache bar (from parts car, which had fresh bushings)DifferentialBoth strut assemblies, including the bearings and stub axles What I finally found was that the primary drive gear on the countershaft was moving under torque changes due to worn woodruff keys. After replacing those woodrff keys (along with all four synchro rings and all bearings for good measure), my clunk was gone. Now I expect that my problem was rather unusual. Most clunks will be taken care of by the usual suspects. But if all the normal stuff fails, don't forget to look for the unusual.

I almost hate to bring this up, folks. But I've been through all this on my low miles '71 as well. Took me many months to go through it all piece by piece. And in the end, the clunk from the rear on my car was actually in the transmission. Sound travels in funny ways through the body shell, and what I swore many times was coming from the differential area was actually in the transmission. In my case, the clunk was much worse when the transmission was warm, and I could make it clunk in first, second, third and reverse, but not fourth.

You violated rule number 1 - never adjust the carbs on a good running engine! Why does everyone figure they need to fiddle with them all the time. Once they are set properly. leave 'em alone! I second the ZTherapy video. Go through the entire routine, start to finish. Don't skip around.

Steve, I'm going to assume you've seen this thread with pictures. No measurements though. Maybe you could PM Marty and/or Jon? http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24759&page=3 By the way, when are you planning to update that avatar and sig picture?

Fair enough. Now, how far are willing to travel or ship?

So let's see if I can guess what you are after -- you want a numbers matching 240Z that can be built into a nice, period-correct weekend driver? If that is the case, don't rule out the later 240Zs. There were improvements in each production change. The Series 2 (late '71s) had improvements over the Series 1 cars, the '72s had more improvements, and the '73's were the best of all once the carbs have been back-dated. Are you willing to ship or travel for the right car? There are a lot more to choose from here on the West Coast.

OK, simple tests first. Try hot wiring it to see if it will run consistently when the ignition switch is bypassed. Do this by running a wire from the positive terminal of the battery to the + terminal on the coil. Then try to start the car with the key as normal. See if it runs. If it does, you will need to kill the engine by first turning off the key, then disconnecting your new wire to the coil. If the problem goes away, it is in the ignition wiring, probably the ignition switch itself. If the problem remains, more testing will be needed.

No, the braided hoses are gone. They were rather hard and brittle, so much so that I knew that I would never re-install them. But that's about the only OE parts that I haven't kept.

I just stuck them over the embossed logo, Randy. I didn't want to mess with flattening them until I find the correct size emblem someday, if and when.