Arne

One of my co-workers has this on the third light of her VW Beetle. It flashes 3 or 4 times on application and then stays on steady. I asked her about it, and she said she bought the car that way. I haven't yet convinced her to allow me to disassemble her car to see what's in there....

I bought mine locally from a small mom & pop auto parts house. I'll have to see if they still have any on the shelf.

Yeah, raining down here too. I'm sitting here hoping that Bruce sent my parts by mail, 'cuz that means they'd probably get here today and I'll have something inside the garage to do this weekend.

If you had 240Z carbs, you should hook up with Bruce and the crew in Salem. But for 280Z injection, listen to Stephen (sblake01). His real world understanding of the factory injection is invaluable.

The Versa-Chem product has held up great. In fact, it does a better job than the original. I find that the repaired spots actually heat up faster than the non-repaired. I'm not sure if a single kit would have enough product, but I've lately thought that putting a skim coat over the entire grid might have been a good way to go. As I mentioned, I really like the fact that the product I used was a two-part epoxy rather than a simple conductive paint. I don't know if the Versa-Chem product is still available. But my results have been good enough that I would certainly try to find an epoxy product if I could.

Lots of us Oregonians with early Zs. Oregon may have one of the higher concentrations per capita of anywhere in the country. I have nothing to back that up, but it certainly feels that way...

In the USA, all 240Z stock manifolds have smog fittings. Not sure about the square-port 260/280Z manifolds. The downpipe you have for a '73 may not fit other year manifolds, especially the '75 and up.

The site linked in the reply above will give a decent starting point, using an L28. You do do something similar with an L24, of course. While not everyone will agree with every detail there, if you duplicated what he did, the results would be reasonably good. The only thing I'd add is that if your car is still in good, original condition, make sure you save the numbers-matching original motor for later. That can be a nice selling point should you later decide to part with it.

I use my RT mount with the stock mount below and a poly bump stop above - not the GM mount. In this configuration, the stock mount is doing the locating same as designed - the RT w/bump stop is replacing the limiting strap, but doing it much better than the original strap ever did.

Over the past 35 years, I have personal experience with at least 10 different brands of H4 lights in the 7" round size. All of the cheap, clear lens lights (technically called MSR for Multi Surface Reflector) are - as Dave noted - crap when compared to good, name-brand H4s. (I will admit to the clear lens MSRs being a bit better than sealed beams, though.)The very best I've used are Hella E-code (not the DOT approved version). Good range, broad pattern with minimal shadows. Cibié, Bosch and IPF are all quite good as well. Auto-Pal, Wipac, Lucas, Stanley and Carello are decent, but not quite as good as those top four brands. The DOT-approved Hellas are in the decent group as well. I'm not aware of any true projector H4 lights in 7" round. Indeed, an H4 bulb won't work properly in a projector assembly."Projector-look" H4 lights are a sales gimmick, and rank with the cheap MSR garbage.

The alternator upgrade replaces only the alternator itself and the external regulator. So any battery cut-off that isn't connected to the regulator or alternator wiring will still work fine. The parking light upgrade harness may brighten the dash lights some, the amount of improvement varies depending on the condition of your wiring. Some people notice a significant improvement, my car (with its low miles and excellent wiring) the diff was very slight. If you can find them, you'l often also get improvement with replacement 3.4 watt bulbs.

I have them all. The headlight relay is recommended for all 240Zs, and especially so if you are going to use modern H4 headlights. Parking light upgrade (also a relay harness) is highly recommended for all 240Zs as it helps prevent the common "melted fusebox" issue, which frequently starts from an overheated parking light fuse. The Sidemarker conversion is a safety (visibility) enhancement, does not have any reliability benefits.

Is this for a '77 280Z as noted in your profile? Different years will be quite different in this area.

Seeing the donor roof sitting there in the first picture, I strongly suspect it was done as a roof skin replacement, same as mine documented in the thread linked below.I gave a lot of thought to how to best do this. I don't know of many people doing the hole-patch job - all of the recent sunroof eliminations I've heard of have been using the entire skin. http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=30409

I could probably overlook that for 919. But first I'd need to sell the red car, and it's probably worth more to me than others would be willing to pay.

I still love 919 yellow.... What do you think a nice '71 in 905 red would go for?

Mike, yes, those are RD150s on the slot mags. My guess is that the mags were bought with the Deltas many years ago, but after driving them for some time, the owner then decided that the original Bridgestones drove better and swapped them from rim to rim. The documentation of that later swap may be missing, which is why the seller has the tire provenance backwards.

I tend to agree Mike. I figure there's probably a sweet spot in there somewhere. My car (with 59k when I bought it) might have been pretty close. Low enough that it was still exceptionally clean and original, but not so low that I was afraid to drive it. Since I like to drive my cars (not store and preserve them), the 23k of the car in question - if confirmed - would be on the low side for my comfort. But since numerous parts (especially plated parts under the hood) show a bit of age from long-term storage in a humid climate, I think I could justify driving this one and not worrying too much about the miles I was putting on it.

Yeah, having purchased a documented relatively low mileage 240Z myself in '06, and having seen Mike B's documented low miles '72 in person, it all looks quite reasonable to me.

Sheesh, people! The OP already said he didn't want to name names, so let's not try to play 20 questions here. He gave you the way to find out - check with the BAR before trusting your car to an unknown mechanic/shop. That's good advice for any car, not just Zs.

If you enjoy it, I'm all for that. I towed home a basket case '67 (pictured above) and spent 4 years restoring it. Had a blast hunting down all manner of obscure parts for it, and rebuilding everything. I think the only bits that didn't have my fingerprints on them was the internals of the banjo diff. Drove it two more years after it was done before I admitted to myself that hunting parts and restoring it was lots more fun than just driving it. Sold it in '95 and haven't missed it a bit.

Been there, done that, threw away the T-shirt. A Z is a lot more fun to drive. I agree 100%. I agree here, too. If you're going to do a color change, anything less than a complete bare-shell deal will reduce the desirability of the car to many people, and therefore its value.A non-stock color may or may not reduce the value further, depending on the rest of the car. If you are intending to keep it stock and unmodified, a non-OE color will ruin the effect, and the value will drop. But if the car is going to be modified, especially in a non-period manner, a well-done modern color is probably not too big of a detriment.

I may still have a spare set. I'll try to remember to look tomorrow.

But note that a gas charged insert will raise your ride height by somewhere between 1/2-3/4". These days non-gas inserts are hard to find. I think Koni may be the only one left, and even those are not going to ride like the stock struts did, since the Konis are a performance insert and will ride firmer. I used KYB GR-2 in mine, but knowing that they would raise the ride height, I removed and stored the original springs and installed a cut-down set of replacement springs to bring the height back down to stock. The KYBs have a good ride - firm and sports-car like, but not harsh.

We can't assume that the last seller knew, the person who made the switch could be several owners removed...