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Hey everyone, I’ve got a 1978 280Z that I’m in the process of restoring. The plan is to make it “OEM plus” with a 3.0 Rebello. I might start a build thread for fun but for now I have the chassis stripped down and am starting to tackle the rust areas. One area of rust that I hope the community could give some insight on is the area at the corner of the cowl that meets the inner fender and windshield. The car sat in a yard in the Conroe, TX area for years and I imagine rainwater pooled up and did its thing. Has anyone had rust here before and if so what would be the best way to repair it? I also noticed that the fresh air shaft/vent for the HVAC blower motor is pretty rotted out. How bad is it to remove the cowl sheetmetal welds and tackle it from above? I appreciate y’all’s time and any input to tackle these areas!

Not sure where you could get springs. Sorry.

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Ah yes. The "right setup" would include proper harnessing (no cutting or splicing), relays to isolate the power, adequate drivers for the blubs, no flicker, and adequate cooling. Also my opinion of the right setup would make it look period-correct for the car. Overall, I believe the only real reason to consider LED is to provide more powerful light output for driving. There's no real power savings needed on a gas powered car unless maybe to support a lower rated alternator. In my case, I don't really need LED unless I just want to go down that path for fun. I also considered LED's for my Land Cruiser, because the light output is pretty weak. However, I also decided against it because I couldn't find many options that met my requirement above.

Without this the diode and alternator problems won't matter. No voltage, no charging. This can be checked with the alternator removed. Also, might as well check both pins. The top one should have battery voltage also.

Just in case I do something similar, would you have a recommendation for a modern one to replace it?

Mechanic finally managed to get the 6 spark plugs working. All seem burning correctly with no fouling. Car does start misfiring if i turn the air conditioning on. Id like some advice on replacing the ac fan, condenser and compensator so i can have an efficient air conditioning system that cools well and does not make the needle move to 3/4. We are getting there!

Can you guide me where should i buy the red interior hardware springs and molded seats? I thought at msa i could get everyrhing!

@SteveJ has come up with a viable LED solution that has worked successfully for quite a few of us here.

Hey Mike, can you please elaborate on what is "the right setup" in your mind? Are you referring to installing relays? What separates Morimoto bulbs from others? My need is reducing electrical load in the system (headlight switch connector is already partially melted) while maintaining reasonable light output with minimal fuss. The idea of using a low-current, high-output LED bulb instead of installing extra wiring and relays is very appealing to me. Very curious to get these parts and try them out for myself! If my $100 experiment doesn't work, then it's on to other solutions. ;)

The York compressor is very heavy and as @siteunseen mentioned, the compressor mounting bracket makes it very difficult to change the fuel pump. I had the same set-up installed on my '71 a few months after buying it. But, year later, removed it all and replaced with a modern rotary compressor and mount. I still have my York installation instructions and compressor mounting bracket on a shelf.

My '72 had the same type, it's a York a/c. You have to pull just about all of that off to replace the fuel pump. The smaller round thing above your circle is the fuel pump.

That is the dealer-installed aftermarket A/C compressor.

I'm not much of a car person, so the resources I know of to reach out to are... low. There's 2 Datsun 240Zs in my garage and, while neither run, one is a bit closer than the other. Figured I'd use one as an example for the other, in case I took something apart and didn't remember how to put it back together. Though, one has a part that I'm having trouble naming and it's not there on every image I've seen for the car online.

Well, the diode seems to check out. Test for voltage at the white/black wire with the key in ON when you get the alternator put back in.

Also, Japanese market variants had the option of factory stereo from beginning of production, so there are speaker holes in both sides of the interior quarter panel trims and the sheetmetal underneath them was designed to accept speaker mounts on both sides.

@SteveJ Ok, tested it with the current diode plug Here are the results: With Positive going to ballast resistor: With Negative going to ballast resistor Will get the my current alternator checked out Monday, and I will check the one I had on before I got this one. Did not find the other diode plug that I had as a spare, but will look for it on Monday. The "new" is slightly melted the white plastic on top

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I've looked at LED headlights off and on over the past few years. But honestly I don't really see a need for it. LED's are great for saving power in a house, boat, or RV. However, for a car that is NOT designed to run LED headlights, you really need to do it right. And, this won't be a $100 option. I've seen cars running around with cheap LED's and the flicker / light output is too annoying for my blood. A proper LED setup will need new drivers (circuit boards), relays, quality bulbs, and some nice wiring. The right setup also won't require cutting your existing harness and it will provide quality output. When I dug further into this venture, I found the Marimoto setup looks like a good one. But you're talking about $400-$600 for the bulbs plus another hundred or so for the wiring. Something to ponder anyway... FWIW

@SteveJ Cool, will go try that later tonight..... Thanks for the information............

Of course, there is one other possibility. I could have designed the test wrong. I dug out a diode that should be the same spec as the ones used in the plug and tested myself. I found my instructions were lacking. You should re-test with the meter in diode testing mode. You can leave the key in OFF, too. If you test from the ballast resistor to the white/black wire, you should get a result similar to this: With the leads swapped, you should see this: If you do the voltage test, you should see a little less than battery voltage as the diode causes a slight voltage drop.

@SteveJ Thanks for the information, I am going to go retest and make sure I got it right. I did check the diode plug with a meter, and it looked right. I think I have another diode plug too, so will try that and see if anything changes. So to make sure I am right, I should have the positive on the ballast resistor and the negative on the alternator plug and should get close to "0"? Am I correct that there is only one fusible link coming off the starter that feeds the car on the early z? For some reason in my brain I thought there were two..... not sure what that would be for........ Will get the alternator checked on Monday, since I have it out. Then reinstall........ THANKS so much for the information and quick response.......

The 200 ohm setting is the correct one. The reading for the first test should have been close to zero. The reading you got was >200. That means either you didn't have good contact on the testing points, the diode is bad, or something else is wrong with the wiring. The way to confirm is to put the alternator back in, connect the battery, put the key in ON, and check for voltage to ground on the white/black wire. If you don't have voltage under those conditions, the alternator won't charge when running.

Steve won’t get notified on the forum if you don’t use the “@“ before the user name. In this case it’s “@SteveJ”. Just a heads up when you are replying to a certain member with a message or response.

Here is the reading with the leads switched