Arne

There's your answer. SUs will do fine for up to a moderate L28 - medium compression, mild street cam and decent exhaust. If you're planning to go farther than that, you'll probably want Webers or Mikunis.

IMO, the first mod needs to be brakes. Make it stop first. Then make it handle. Then make it faster. Because if it stops and handles good enough you might get by with the L28et...

Looks to me that they fully expect you to have to connect two pieces to make the longest runs. Please post back about how these work, I'd be interested in them for my car when I paint it someday.

The gauge wiring is pretty simple. One wire supplies power, the other goes to the sender to be grounded. So either the gauge itself is bad, the gauge isn't getting power, or the wire to the sender is bad. My first steps would be to ground the sender terminal directly at the back of the gauge to determine if the gauge works, and also to use a test lamp or volt meter to verify that the gauge is getting power.

As a side note, never use teflon tape on the temp sender threads. It can insulate the sender from the ground, and then the gauge won't work at all.

When I did this for a living, I used to simply leave a teaspoon or so of the original oil in the tube. As a side note, I recall that we couldn't do this on old Volvos - mostly 240-series. Those cars used regular cartridges from the factory, and the strut tubes had a hole in the bottom. No idea why Volvo did it this way, but moisture could get in there through the bottom hole and rust the cartridge into the tube. Very ugly...

Excellent info, John. Thanks!

Definitely won't hurt a thing. Makes it a bit messy next time you do the struts, that's about the only downside. In fact, I seem to recall that even generic Monroe and Gabriel cartridges way back in the late '70s would recommend 2 oz. of oil in the tube.

Don't use a 1/2 cup or you'll make a big mess. One or two ounces is plenty. It's probably not important for street driving, as seldom will you get the struts hot unless you're on the track.

I recall test driving a brand new 280Z in 1977 or '78. While I prefer the lighter and more 'pure' 240Z these days, a nice 280Z is still a great performing car. (No, I didn't buy the Z back then. Decided to buy a house instead.)

That's what you get when you spend 20+ years in one industry - too much knowledge. And I'll likely have too much about tires forever, even though I've been in IT for 8 years now. Age? That Sears tire is closer to 30 years old, I'd say. Look at the last three digits of the DOT number, found one sidewall only. It will be in the format of 'DOT XXXX XXXX 888' where X's are either letters or numbers, but 8's are always numbers. Those final three numbers give the production date. The first two are the week, and the final being the year. Therefore 267 would be the 26th week of a year ending in 7. (Lately they've finally gone to four digits, which means there is no longer any doubt as to the year.) In the case of your Sears tire, I'm almost certain it was built in the '70s.

Hmmph. My FSM never mentions the heater at all. No pictures, no description, and it doesn't even show in the wiring diagram. I don't know what complexity the A/C adds, but pulling the heater box requires dropping the blower box, pulling some ducting and about 6 bolts that hold the heater box to the firewall. Then the heater box can be slid out to the right side into the passenger footwell. Good thought on cutting the clamp. There's plenty of room in my car to get the Dremel in there, but again the A/C may mess up that plan too. I found that most (if not all) of the foam seals on the heater box are badly deteriorated from age. You amy want to consider pulling the heater box for that reason anyway.

I just pulled the heater box out of my '71 last week. Granted I don't have A/C, so my access is better. But if I'm envisioning this correctly, the hose in question comes through the firewall and turns 90 degrees and onto the heater core nipple. And the hose clamp screw will need to be accessed from the top? So here are my thoughts, none of which are guaranteed, as I don't have A/C, and don't have my car or heater box here at work to look at. First, is there room to get a stubby or right angle Phillips in there? I use these to get to a lot of this kind of stuff. Once you get it loosened just a bit, you should be able to spin the clamp to give normal access. Another option might be to attempt to grab the threaded end of the screw with a vice-grips and loosen it that way. As with the angled Phillips, once you get it loosened just a bit you should be able to spin the clamp. (You are planning to replace the clamps anyway, aren't you?) And lastly, if the above don't work, you might consider cutting the hose off with a knife and removing the heater box itself. Sounds drastic, yes. But less drastic than pulling the dash and windshield.

I've got Toyo Proxes 4s on my BMW as well. Very nice tires.

I recognize the tire from its tread pattern. The old one was a Sears/Michelin, and I guarantee to you that they were NOT 175/65-14, as there was no such thing as a 65 series tire back when those were made. That tread design was current when I first got into the tire business in '75. It was the Sears version of the Michelin ZX, and for the most part the Sears version was only available in 80 series sizes. (The Michelin ZX and later XZX were both available in 70 series, but no 65 series at all.) The size on that tire would have been "175SR14" and would be dimensionally the same as a 175/80-14.

Factory size on the 240Z (and 260Z too) was 175-14, not 175/65-14. When there is no aspect ratio listed, the implied ratio is 80%. So in those charts, you'd want to use 175/80-14 to get the factory sizes.

205/60-14 are considerably shorter than the 195/70-14. A typical 195/70-14 has an overall diameter of 24.8" for about 838 revs per mile. By contrast, a 205/60-14 runs about 23.7" in diameter, or about 876 revs per mile. That's about a 9% difference in rpm, so that's how far off your speedo will be. (It will be reading faster than actual speed.) Proper size 14" 60 series to maintain speedo accuracy is 225/60-14. Something else to consider is that having different widths front and rear will alter the handling balance of the car. If nothing else is changed to compensate, narrower tires on the front will make the car understeer more.

FZ3 6JJ X 14 10'FZ3' is some code or identifier from the wheel manufacturer. Might be a date code, style number, or some other type of production indicator. Could be a Nissan number, or from the actual supplier to Nissan. '6' is the rim width in inches, measured at the bead seats, not at the outside lip. 'JJ' is a standard code for the bead contour. It describes the drop center of the rim, as well as the size and shape of the safety humps that prevent the tire from dismounting if it goes flat. Both 'J' and 'JJ' are common. 'X' is a separator, width from diameter. '14' is the rim diameter in inches, measured at the bead seats again, not the outer lip. '10' should be the wheel offset in mm. You'll often see this with a suffix of 'e' or 'et' on wheels made in Europe, or made more recently. The 'e' and 'et' is apparently an abbreviation for 'offset' in German, I believe.

"Bondo buggy!" I love it!

I sold tires for a living for over 20 years. So I can honestly say there isn't a concrete answer to that question. One may be better than the other for my car and type of driving, but the other may be better for you. It depends on which one best meets your needs and expectations.

Those two are the standard Koni red inserts, that can only be adjusted while they are out of the strut housing. But they should fit fine without modifications. Although I haven't installed a set myself yet, so I can't confirm that.

I don't have an SLR, but in my experience I love the large LCD. (I have a Sony DSC-V3, with a 2.1" LCD.)

So if I'm not driving my Z this year, what else other than the swap meet is worthwhile on Saturday?

I'm not surprised that those of you with modern lowering springs haven't noticed this gas-strut effect. Those springs were likely designed after gas shocks became common, and so the spring rates have probably been adjusted to take that into account. So far the complaints have all (to my knowledge) come from people using factory springs - which had their spring rates determined assuming non-gas struts. So the only people who are really having this problem are those of us who would rather not lower our Zs. Unfortunately, instead we get to have them lifted!