BadDog

cool thanks :-)

I've got my car apart, and am about to install my new header... but I can't find anywhere if I'm supposed to use hi-temp silicone in addition to the gasket or not... please advice :-)

Silly me I left my camera home, and I wasn't about to drive 1.5 hours round trip just to get it :stupid: I imagine the ZACNY, ZANY, and ZCCR sites will have some pics up soon....

Yep, that was me Yes, next year will be fun I may go to the Big One in NH next year, too

Sure was! What fun! ZZTom, I saw your plates, but can't remember if we met... I met up with CoastGuardZ and 2ManyZ's, and some other great guys

Cool! Just look for the car pictured <----- Here :-)

Welll the "show" half starts Saturday morning, with judging results to be announced by about 4 I think. You may miss quite a few Z's if you don't make it until Saturday night. There *is* the autocross Sunday though :-)

I don't think so, I looked for it for a while myself... but I think if you search the archives here, you're likely to find plenty of advice

Have you tried Motorsport? I didn't order a "master kit" from them, but they were able to piece together an order for me that covered pretty much every rubber bushing in the front end, replacing them with urethane bushings. HUGE improvement I think the parts were under $50 or so, and to have alocal shop put them all in was about 1.5 hours of labor....

SportZ had a great article on how to do this. I followed it and came out with pretty good results You might want to call them and ask for a re-print of it; that's what I did and ended up subscribing Anyway, to just do the steering wheel, not re-painting the spokes, you lightly SOS-pad the plastic while soaking it in warm water. You don't want to take off too much of the "patina" (years of grime from hands using the wheel), because that's what makes it look more like wood Basically, you're trying to remove the gloss and even out the finish. When it's all dry, you lacquer it with a semi-gloss clear lacquer. I couldn't find semi-gloss and had to use gloss, but it looks fine. BEing the nut that I am, I put about 15 thin coats of the stuff on ROTFL But seriously, this is an awfully simplified explanation of what to do. Call SportZ and ask them for a re-print of the issue that has the article in it :-)

I can't believe nobody's posted it in here, but it's coming up next weekend in Syracuse, NY! www.northeastzadventure.com/ Probably the bihggest Z gathering in the northeast... we're supposed to have a 350Z Track edition directly from Nissan. TV Tokyo is probably going to be there as part of a spot about the new "Fairlady Z". We're planning a tribute to "Mr. K" by spelling it out with Z cars, and having all the owners sign a shirt and group photo for him :-)

For the "correct" ones, you'll want the ones with the Z in the center. I have a decent set that I've been thinking of selling, but I think I'm going to sell them with the original wheels and the almost-new tires on them as a set. I too thought of keeping the original hubcaps. Mine are good, but a little faded so I wondered about a "almost perfect" set. Every set I saw like that on e-bay went for over $200 One day I saw the wheels my car has now on there, and that was the end of that :-)

Ah yes, good point. Zip ties tend not to get so gooey... or I could use a wire hanger

you guys crack me up.... And yes, I bought some wire to replace the wire completely, to rule out problems along the wire itself. I tested the coil's resistance when this problem happened and the coil was within spec, so I think it's fine. The resistance on the wire was really high, and didn't change much when I moved it around looking for a short. Seems like if I keep it away from the exhaust manifold, it's fine (I think I'll electrical-tape it to the distributor, just above the set screw (where it sits most of the time, until it gets knocked loose then gets hot)

OK it looks like I'm just talking to myself here, but for other's future reference: The resistance at the coil was within spec the last 2 times this problem has occured. When I tested the wire going from the negative coil terminal to the distributor however, there was a ton of resistance. Once the car cools down, it's gone. I'm attributing it to the PO's splicing of the wire, or to the wire occasionally moving and getting close to the exhaust manifold and/or coolant inlet thereby getting the wire really hot.

Well as far as I can tell, the readings are normal right now. Guess I'll have to take my multimeter with me and wait until it happens again...

My ignition is cutting out, sometimes hot, sometimes cold. Sometime it'll run for 2 minutes, sometimes 45 minutes. After about 10 minutes, the car will start again. I thought I had it figured out last week when I noticed a semi-loose connection for the coil, the + wire. That wasn't all it was, but I've deduced that when it happens, the circuit fo rthe coil is open somehow. How do I know? Well, during that 10-minute or so wait, I can disconnect the positive lead to the coil and reconnect it and nothing will happen. When the car is ready to start, I'll see a little spark when I do the same thing. Chilton's says the way to check the coil is to check the primary and secondary circuits with an ohmmeter. FOr the primary, you pull the positive and negative leads, set the meter to 1.0, then connect the probes to the primary terminals and resistance should be between .84 and 1.02. For secondary, set it to 15,000, remove the coil wire to the distributor, and connect the probes to the center terminal and the negative terminal and the resistance should be between 8,200 and 12,400. Does that sound about right? It sounds like this test would definitely determine if it was the coil itself, because there's no other wiring involved...

Sone of a gun, that was it!!!!!!! I guess this is another one I can chalk up to degreasing my engine.. and I had *everything*that could be covered, covered when I did it! :stupid: Now I've got to figure out a more permanent solution than a couple inches of thick speaker wire tentatively jammed into place :stupid:

Well a new alternator hasn't changed anything... I pulled the voltage regulator to see if I could check it, but I don't think it's original, and it's all sealed up (no coils like the Chilton's manual shows). I did however find while checking/cleaning wiring connections that there's a wire corroded so bad from the hiring harness that it won't stay in the connector block. Does anybody have a pinout or diagram of the connections from the wiring harness to the voltage regulator? The wire that is bad is a yellow wire coming out of the wiring harness that runs along the top of the frame rail. It's part of a group of wire that go into a plastic connector, with a single (blue?) wire going off to a diode mounted next to the regulator, before the connector. Of the wires coming out of the other side of this connector, all connect to the connector for the voltage regulator, except one yellow wire which goes to the firewall (to the ammeter?) I'm wondering if I should just splice around the first connector for this one wire and see if it solves my problem?

How about a long-winded take on BMW's slogan (watch out for their lawyers!): Datsun 240Z: The Ultimate prototypical-1970's-inexpensive-Japanese-GT-cum-light-weight-sports-car Driving Machine :cross-eye :cheeky:

Oh, OK, I just wanted to make sure I wouldn't fry my regulator or something :-)

so it would be a bad idea to put a 50-amp alternator in? That's what Autozone can get for me tomorrow (Duralast?)... along with a new regulator (Wells?) and a battery..... I guess what I don't get is if it's my alernator that's bad, and it's only putting out 30 amps, why does my guage read so close to 60? I also noticed a discrepency between what their "tester" equipment showed my RPM as (read it from the Negative battery cable somehow???) and what my tachometer said, i.e. he goes "let it go down to 800 RPM" as his machine reads around 1120... I look at my tach and say "my tach says around 800 right now"

My amp-meter was almost pegged all the way to work this morning, so I went over to the local Autozone to see if my voltage regulator was bad. We ran the diagnostic, and the machine said the problem was a "bad diode pattern", which the mgr interpreted as a bad alternator. At idle, the ampmeter is right in the middle, but bounces when the turn signal is on, dips when headlights are on. Past about 2,500 RPM or so, the ampmeter is reading about +50 unless I turn on the headlights, which knocks it down a little bit. They said my alternator is only putting out about 30 amps right now when it's supposed to be 50... They can get me a new alternator tomorrow, which is fine. I'm just wondering whether I should drive the car home tonight (30 miles or so) and put on the new alternator at home, or leave it at work, borrow a car to drive home in, and put in the new alternator in the parking lot tomorrow. I'd be more comfortable putting it in at home, but I don't want to run the risk of boiling my battery by driving it any more than I have to. On the other hand, I don't want to screw up my car when trying to install it tomorrow and have to have it towed all the way home.... And should I get a new regulator and battery while I'm at it? The battery looks pretty old...

Just wanted to check... I was thinking about installing Pertronix or Crane electronics to replace the points, so I wanted to make sure. The "problem" I was referring to has been resolved (I think). I first thought I had vapor lock or my points or coil were wearing out, but I found that the + lead to my coil was kinda loose - the crimp sleeve had slid down the wire a couple millimeters, and when the wire got hot, it stopped working so well :stupid:

Here's a shot that includes the wiring harness and coil. It looks like somebody did some splicing for some reason or another, which is one reason why I question what distrib I have...