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My first comment since joining last April. I would like to share some of my experiences owning my Z if I may. I have owned Christine (her nickname) since 1978 and she currently has 176,898 miles under her hood. She is in better health than I am, however I'm pushing 85 1/2 years so she does have an advantage. During the 38 years I have owned her the only mechanical failure has been a water pump which I replaced about 25 years ago. In the process of removing the old pump one of the bolts snapped off inside the head. I installed the new pump minus that one bolt and the pump has never leaked. Within the last two years I had the brake system rebuilt as well as the A/C which still uses R=12 and works great. She still wears her original white paint job and red interior. I replaced the orighinal radio for a stereo/CD unit and recovered the seats. Everything else is original including the dashcover. She has never slept outside except on a trip to Canada. I have owned many automobiles in my lifetime, but never an automobile as reliable, beautiful and fun to drive as Christine. How she got her name? About 15 years ago (yeah its been that long) I took her in for a tuneup and valve adjustment. I was so impressed how she was running I couldn;t wait to get home so I could have my late wife drive her. I backed her in the garage and asked Shirley to come out for a test drive. She was never enamored of the car because she felt the Z was pretty fragile in the event of an accident. I finally got her to come out and the last thing she said before she got in the car was "i really don't want to drive your stupid car!" I half kiddingly told her to be careful with her language because car's have feelings too. Well, she proceeds to turn on the ignition and the car gives off the loudest backfire which just reverberated throughout the garage. Shirley had a white knuckle grip on the steering wheel. She finally let go and bolted out of the car. I got into no small amount of hot water laughing at what had just occurred. She never drove the car after that day and we never spoke of the incident after that day. Christine had never backfired before that day nor has she since. God's truth. From that day on we referred to her as Christine after Stephen King's novel of the same name. Like i am sure all of you, I love my Z. Not only for the precious memories but also because I think they are special automobiles from both a design and well as a mechanical aspect. Thanks for listening. John Petkovich

On history ch right now tanner picks 240z for life car. S7 Ep 04 http://www.history.com/shows/top-gear/season-8/episode-4

Wish u were here, we could tackle this together, since it does sound like we are tackling similar problems! Misery loves company ! Your right it does sound like an inconsistent connection. I'll give it a go, and see how things work out! Hope your project goes well too! I will post some photos from the show. It is my first and it should be a blast! K

As Zed Head says under the horn pad is just a spring loaded sandwich if you will, that connects the circuit to ground. A simple emery sanding of the plated should fix that. Also on the back side of the steering wheel is a spring tensioned contact that rides the outer ring on the wheel. This is how the signal is passed to the harness in a way so you can turn the wheel and not be twisting a wire, those contacts also need to be cleaned / sanded / filed. Might need to pull the wheel to get at the back side. I suspect that is the problem. As you can see on the wheel in the pictures it gets corroded and loses the contact. This contact is connected through the three prong terminal going to the turn signal side of the switch. The Red/Black wire can be checked for continuity to the sandwich plate as the horn button is pressed. I wouldn't expect you would need to buy any parts to fix this unless one or more of the above pieces is broken or missing. It should just need cleaning. My 2 cents.

There's not a lot to the "mechanism:". A spring holds one metal piece away from another metal piece. When the two metal pieces touch, the horn beeps. If it beeps it should keep beeping. Was your mechanic really focused on it or did he just make an offhand comment? And how was he making it beep? Not really clear that you had the complete assembly together and were pushing it as a normal horn button, or doing something else. I thought your horn button was falling apart anyway.

I circled in red where I think your problem is. you left a wire disconnected maybe. Follow the power path. The wire you're looking for is white and thick and will have a ring terminal. Here's another page from site's link - http://www.atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/wiringdiagrams/75_280z_wiring.pdf Edit - had the wrong year before.

I've been working on this car for 3 years. I wouldn't describe my work as fast. ;-) I spent 20 minutes last night blocking a 2 inch by 1 inch depression with 600 grit sandpaper. Believe me, I'm going slow.

Have you tried bypassing the horn switch? Temporarily connect the horn to the battery with a jumper wire to be sure it functions properly. That would eliminate a bad horn as a possibility.

Excellent. So make sure you keep us posted on the original problem and what the behavior is after you figure out what you're going to do about that thermostatic valve. This would be the first well documented case I've been close to.

never thought of that! have to give it a try one of these days

Haha! There is much disdain in machinist circles for those who use their drill press as an arbor press. Similar to the amount reserved for the people who use their calipers as adjustable wrenches.

The antenna trim screw probably adjusts the value of a small variable inductor of capacitor. I'm not sure if I'm understanding your findings or not, but there should be no visible physical mechanical change as you rotate the screw. The other problem sounds simply like a broken connection. Is it something that you can't just resolder into place? Can you take some pics of the area of concern? And as for off the shelf or not... Even if it was off the shelf in 1970, it's not off the shelf anymore. Things have changed.

I like the pinstriping. It looks really sharp

Namerow has kindly offered to swap my '70-71 knob for a '72. So it looks like I'll hold off on the filing.

That's a nice early Z, I would recommend you don't modify the car in a way that is not reversible. The really early cars are some of the most sought after and hence the most valuable. The RB won't be easily reversible. The car should be plenty of fun with the Mikunis, a good cam and proper tuning...have fun