EricB

i'm curious... have you all checked for tires to match those rims? I was having a tough enough time here stateside just finding correct size tires for my 15x8.5 & 15x9 watanabes several months ago... I am almost thinking I should call back the place I got them from and order a couple sets just to have as stock... I can only imagine how difficult it might be to get tires for those 15x12???? Thoughts, opinions, comments?

I wish you guys could read french... it's very very interesting.... basically i'll give you the quick synopsis: In '68 only 3 cars are imported to the only toyota dealership in the french speaking part of switzerland, it's in geneva. 2 cars (a red and a white one) are sold right away, the remaining white one is kept by the owner of the dealership. It is first registered Nov 15 '68. Unfortunately the dealership goes under & the owner sells the car to the father of the current owner on Nov 17 '71. The car becomes the weekend driver in a family that from then on is fascinated with Japanese cars. His father dies in 2000 and then he receives the car - he's loved. Has every service and repair duly noted and has every intention of keeping it for some time still... Very cool, -e

Keith sent me the link to this site: http://www.geocities.com/inlinestroker/ratio.html So according to it I have an 81-3 "close ratio" ZX 5spd as I have the single ear rear mount, the bolt that holds the speedo cog in place is at 6o'clock, and I can vouch that the speedo cog I pulled looks identical to the one listed as 81-3 ZX cool... now i can order the right parts, thanks for the link Victor. -e

ok then just answer me this: Supposing my local nissan dealer parts guy is a moron and only goes by what year car the tranny I need replacements parts off of comes from, what do I tell him? Does FS5W71B = '78 280Z 5spd? -e

In the pics I've attached the one labelled 4spd is a B box on loan from fellow club member Victor Laury (thanks Victor), the tranny labelled 5spd is a gift from another club member (thanks sennavsprost) before he moved up to San Francisco. The thing about the 5spd I was given is that he thought it to be a T5 based on the "T5" stamp inside the bellhousing which I've enlarged for you all to see. What's weird though is that I had another club member send me photocopies of the tranny tear-down pages for an '81-'82 T5 FS5R90A and the illustrations don't match at all what I'm looking at it. I compared what I have here with the illustrations of the optional 5spd FS5C71A in both my '73 Nissan SM and '70-78 Haynes SM and it doesn't match either. So what 5spd is this? I need to order parts for it and obviously need to know what car to get them from... The '78 5spd that is in my Z at the moment has a bad bearing or two and I was going to pull it off and swap it with this "T5" because when it was in my friend's car shifter-wise it felt a lot tighter and more precise than mine...

yes, that's what i thought too leather is better... this is as i burned my back once again on the wife's karmann ghia vinyl seat after lunch... well we'll just have to see now if this is in the cards for my 240 sometime in the future... unlike HM the 26th, I don't have the lo# problem being probably one of the later 73s made.... Oh and another thing... vintage 60s/70s sportscar preferably carburated with leather interior... you get in and smell the old leather and fuel.... hmmmmmm -e

If you had two Zs, one with the original black vinyl interior, and another where the seats, transmission tunnel, door panels, were re-upholstered in black leather - which do you think on a hot summer's day would be hotter temperature wise? That's my contribution to the random question of the day... -e

Jim Do you mind me asking what a GTR replica with a built L28 is worth in Australia? I know roughly how much they go for in Japan but was wondering how the price you paid compares... thanks, -e

btw... just figured out... it ain't the throwout bearing... oooh no. it's one of the bearings for either mainshaft or lay shaft... youch... parked the Z now time to rebuild the tranny... -e

...aaahhh...Zs.... Dont you just love them? "When it rains it pours".... So guess what happened when I got off the same freeway onramp to get to work THIS morning... now all of a sudden the nearly new (6mo?) throwout bearing just developed a loud whine.... all of a sudden just like that... Ugh.... guess I'm going by the jyard and looking for a tranny so I can fix this one in the meantime.... -e

right on keith... will do... -e

hi keith as far as shifter bushings go, i did replace the two sleeves on either end of the pin... as for the little cup that goes on the end of the shifter (the end that goes in the tranny), well with it in place it meant that the hole through the shifter for the pin did no longer line up with the ears on the end of the tailstock it is supposed to go through... so I did away with it.. . it seemed like the cup i was given was too thick on the end ... the reason i replaced them to begin with is that when i did the engine swap some months ago i noticed i practically had no shifter bushings left at all in there.... but the Z had been shifting fine... go figure... -e

hmmm... well I do have a spare 82 5spd... given to me by a friend of mine... but it has no reverse... maybe i need to open that up and fix it in case this 78 gets worse... it's just so weird cause there was no bang, no grinding no nothing, it just sort of started happening last friday -e

Last Friday on the way in to work I noticed that on deceleration the trans started popping out of gear... it did it at the freeway offramp, then again and several times in bumper to bumper traffic on the way home that night... Because the timing was about right mileage-wise I changed the tranny fluid over the weekend, looked for any obvious issues and didn't see anything wrong... didn't really drive the car the remainder of the weekend. This morning coming to work and going to lunch just now it did it again several times. I noticed that when in fifth when I get on and off the gas the shifter jerks forward and rearward quite a bit - fifth gear is probably the gear it slips out of easiest although out of second is pretty common too... I've never taken this car to the race track. I've never done any kind of burnout or dropping of the clutch with this car. Basically I've babied both the car and the 78 5spd on the car the whole four years I've had it with never any problems... and now this out of the blue... Any clues? Ideas? Recommendations? -e

sorry duplicate post

On our USA market Zs, the only way you are going to flash the lights at anyone is with the lights already on & switching between low and high beams, there is no other shortcut as you Euros/Australians & NewZealanders describe on our cars. -e

he he... that is where i found the trust exhaust... the guy selling it apparently sold the header to one person when the auction didn't go through and i guess i was the first person to come through for the exhaust system... Ben I'd say you need to hop a plane to Japan... off-season I've seen the tix as cheap as $350RT out of either SF or LA.... And EVERY time I've ever been I've brought back much more than the standard two suitcases and never (yet) been charged any kind of excess baggage fee... One time I came back with 220lbs of car parts - the check-in lady didn't even flinch. Another time I had a set of ultra light weight 15" wheels as carry-on - no problem either. And yet another time a friend of mine came back with a 6pt roll cage, two bumpers, two sets of wheels, swaybars, etc... again with no problems... I love Japan. Wonder how the wife will feel when as part of our honeymoon there we make some stops at my favorite Z stores and I see what else I can bring back... hahaha -e

uh huh... that's what i think i noticed on my 73 too... the reason i ask is the guys at Top End Performance in North Hollywood sell a conversion to get rid of the linkage that connects the triple carb throttle to our gas pedal in favor of a cable & center-pull setup... the end that is supposed to attach to the gas pedal is threaded and apparently looks like it is just supposed to replace the ball at the top of the g.p. ...so much for that quick conversion, right? -e

Yes I like my Trust a lot - sounds great... looks even better. The only difference between mine and the one you pictured is that the tubes and muffler are painted black, leaving only the twin tips in chrome... as per all the pics I've seen in Nostalgic Hero... I saw no stamping in the steel, just a sticker that was affixed to the muffler with the Trust label on it which I removed prior to installation. Price wasn't bad either, like 60000yen for the whole thing and new too. On the one hand I wish I could have found the matching header so it would have all bolted on without any mods, then again I've also heard the Trust headers weren't that good so... no big deal.... -e