Arne

People, I need to make a decision. Here on the West coast, I'm not getting any interest in my yellow Z at anywhere close to what I have in it in parts alone. If I'm lucky, I might be able to sell it for $2000 out here. Can some of you folks back East look at the pictures and description in the following links? Tell me (honestly) what a car like this is worth in your part of the country. I need to decide whether to sell it here for whatever I can get, try to advertise it on craigslist in rust belt towns, or mess with eBay. Description More pictures All opinions are welcome!

No, I don't think this is an ignition issue, so don't make any changes there yet. I agree with Gary - 20 wt. oil is absolutely the best choice for the dampers. Much better than Marvel, which is about 5 wt. oil. If you have trouble finding it, look for 20 wt. fork oil at a motorcycle shop. Since we are pretty certain your oil is not optimum, do that first, and test it prior to moving the needles. One change at a time...

This was a fairly common complaint in the early days of emission controls - it was called "lean surge" back then. "Whitish" colored plugs would tend to support this, as plugs can burn white when lean. Proper mixture should give plugs a tan color. However, reading plug color with the "enhanced" fuel we have these days is tricky at best. My stock '71 does not exhibit this to any noticeable degree. But I'm sure that the increased fuel demands of the L28 block could amplify this effect. However, if this were the case richening the mixture a bit should cure it. So with the data we have here, I'm wondering about the needles. We probably have to assume that they are stock (hard to say for certain, though), but what if they were installed a touch too low in the damper piston? In that case, at idle you'd be able to adjust the mixture to be OK. And at full throttle the piston would rise to the top, pretty much taking the needle out of the picture. But at steady state cruise, the needle would be in the jet, and if it were too low the mixture would be slightly leaner than normal. So assuming everything else is good, I'd try raising the needles in the pistons just the tiniest amount. Maybe 1/32" at most. See if that makes a difference. Don't forget to re-adjust the idle mixture after doing so. You should need to lean the idle mixture just a touch after raising the needles.

Mike, I'm pretty certain yours are true American Racing, but are probably fairly late production. IIRC, only true ARE Libres had the reinforcing spine in the spokes. Early wheels said "American Racing Equipment" on the back. Later ones (when production moved from Oregon to California) said "ARE" instead. Another way you can check - ARE Libres had a backside measurement of 3 3/4" while many of the copies were closer to 3 1/4".

Yup. Wheel width is measured at the bead seat, so yours are 5.5" wide.

Don't hold your breath, guys. Dave said he has no e-mail, which to me says he has limited or no computer access. The fact that he hasn't been back since his first post kinda confirms that theory. One of us Oregonians will try to contact him...

Not if it was blue. She learned to drive in her dad's blue 521. I think I could swing it if it was blue.

While I do lust after it, it ain't gonna happen. I can't get anything new until something old goes away. Although if it were that light blue color they used in '69 or so...

For my purposes (weekend trips and daily driver), a set of non-AR's would be just fine. I'd still like to have a set, although my wife doesn't care for them all that much.

http://seattle.craigslist.org/see/car/280858768.html

By the way, Mike - I definitely like the new wheels better than those Boyd's. Konigs, I assume?

Chris, the ones you pictured are fogs, not driving. The heavily fluted lenses widen out the beam. Driving light lenses are very mildly patterned, if at all.Yours look like Datsun-badged Bosch lights to me.

I too use Photoshop Elements. Great tool for the price. GIMP is great, but like full-bore Photoshop, the learning curve is steep. Elements is much simpler.

I believe MSA gets the premium set from Zedd Findings.

Hi, Bob. Nice to see yet another Oregonian here! The early cars in other parts of the world could have fog lights as an option, but they were never offered on 240Zs here in the states. Escanlon (in Vancouver, WA) has one of the factory fog light switches, I believe. It went in the empty hole above the hazard switch on the early dashes.

No, that's either a BMW 1602 or 2002.

Am I missing something? I don't see any 510s. Are you maybe talking about the late-80's BMW E30 in the driveway?

It is impossible to say for certain, as the factory did not always (apparently) build the cars in numerical order. That said, the other cars listed on the IZCC register that have serial numbers close to and on either side of yours were all built in 11/72. So as a best guess, that's what I'd figure.

Those are aftermarket 13" junk, nothing at all to do with Zs.

Very nice! Good to see it go to someone who seems to appreciate it for what it is. I feel confident that it will be returned to its former glory.

It's not my style, but I can see the attraction. But do remember that when the time comes (eventually) when you have to sell the car, that paint job will likely hurt the marketability of the car severely. It may be VERY hard to find a buyer.

Looking at a trade for yet another set of vintage rims. Who has a set of these? I haven't seen these in person yet, so I can't measure them. I know they're 14x5.5", but I'd like to know what size the center hole is so I can determine center caps for them. Also would love to see pics of these on a Z, especially red ones!

I know which you mean, Ron. A medium-large black oval tip. I used to run German-made Leistritz SportSound exhausts on several of my VWs mostly because they used that same tip as the 944. Sounded great too. But I'm not sure how a chrome or stainless version of that would look on a Z.

The timing of your distributor is not set, then. The timing adjustment is by pivoting the distributor on the base pedestal. When you simply bolted it up, you got lucky. The shaft index simply controls rotor position, not timing.

Yup. Doesn't matter which head casting, if you have big valves you'll need to notch the block, unless your block is already bored oversize.