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Actually, it's #3. #1 was my son's - about a dozen years ago. He thought he could restore it at the same time he was relying on it for day-to-day transportation. You can guess how that worked. I bought it off him so he could make a down payment on a car with just one special thing: a warranty. My intent was to restore, but between running two businesses and writing a book it took me years to get to it. I had the local hot-rod fraternity's auto-body shop look at it and he said it would cost a minimum $20k, and maximum $40k. That wasn't going to work. That's when I went internet shopping and found #2, the "100% rust free" '73 north of Toronto - that's about 2,500 miles from me. It turned out to be a fraud; for instance the rockers were stuffed with steel wool and fiber-glassed over. Pictures looked good. It did, as I mentioned earlier, come with a pallet-load of parts, some of which I'm going to be offering for sale once the present car is up and running. So I stripped and scrapped that body. By now I had rebuilt my son's engine, and really wanted to get on with it so I decided to search the 'net daily for a "rust free" in a desert climate. I figured if I could find three at one time in the same area, I'd fly down -- no more long distance believing everything the seller said. I did find three in Phoenix and went to have a look. The first was another fraud. The guy told me if I sent him the money, he would save me the trouble of going down, because his son was driving a truck north and would meet me at the border. When I got to Phoenix, the guy never answered the phone. Second car was pretty decent but it did have some rust bubbles above the doors and quarter windows. Not sure how that happened. The third car was a '71 Series 2 at a repair garage and was being sold because the owner had died. It ran rough, and the interior was baked from four decades in the desert, but the body was sound. When I asked about rust the guy put it on the hoist, handed me a trouble light, and said "take as much time as you need." I looked, bought, and flew back home. A few weeks later I re-habed my old race car trailer, hauled it down there, picked up the 240, and came home. Driving alone I did 5,200 km (3,200 miles) in five days, four hours. As an aside, that road trip reminded me of how much more there is to see on the road as opposed to flying. If anyone wants to take the trip, hopefully in a Z car, I recommend turning east off Interstate 15 at Cedar City, Utah onto Hwy 14 (big signs "Not recommended for semi-trucks") and connecting with Hwy 89 south to Phoenix.It is a road meant for sports cars, it rises to 10,000 feet altitude, and is quite scenic. So that's the story of Z Car 28726, which I hope to have on the road later this spring.

Well this went quicker than I thought it would. This is the worst of the rust that was under the mat. Surface only, not bad at all. And a photo of all the tar residue cleaned off. It came off pretty easy with the Fein multi-tool - even with the 70 degree weather today.

Well that's an even better story! Hope it has a happy ending, and I'm sure we're all happy help more where we can!

Use your nose hairs.

For Wire reference just to double check to make sure they were correct to begin with. Photo courtesy of the famous Blue, now known as 240260280 here. His often referred to web page here. http://www.atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/

Greetings Z buddies.... Been a while since I posted as I have been working my website and reignited an old passion of mine with collecting mechanical watches. Guess I am getting old.. But seriously... I have finally acquired a 5 speed from a 77 280Z and have been calling around to get it rebuilt. It seems to work fine on the garage floor.. Spins freely and feels smooth... but before I put it into my car, I want to go through it completely. Having said that I am getting prices to rebuild an old 5 speed in the 900-1300 dollar range. That seems excessive since I had my 4 speed redone for 650. well the mechanic in me sort of wants to give this a try. What I need from my fellow brethren is any shop manuals specifically for the transmission.... is there a handy dandy resource to redoing these. I know some of you have done this. before I crack the case, anybody want to throw a reference or two out.

Cliff wanted to see pictures @siteunseen

If you make that trip again, get off I-15 in Nephi Utah and head south to Levan Utah. That's a couple hundred more miles of US 89 and it's all fun!

This ^ If the car has always been in dry states then you might get away without doing it.

I acquired a Camaro 3.6L LFX engine and 6L50 AT salvaged from my wife's car after she was rear-ended. The direct injection engine is somewhat unique in that it has exhaust manifolds incorporated into the heads and simple downpipes coming out of each side. The engine puts out 323HP on regular gas and the LFX/6L50 combo weighs less than the Z engine alone. A mild tune can lay 300HP at the rear wheels. When I acquired the drive train, I had planned on installing it in 240Z or 260Z but could not find a sound shell at the time. There is gobs of room in a Z. As proof, I ended up installing them in a 2011 Miata with virtually zero firewall modification or other body welding. These engines are readily available and now stand alone wire harnesses are available from V8 Roadsters.

I'd urge great caution on the Fairlady Z-specific data posted on zhome.com, as it contains a significant number of errors, rogue data and plain miscomprehensions. For example, the "Fairlady Z Owners Register" appears to contain data submitted by owners which is clearly incorrect, but remains uncorrected. So you get - for example - a 'GS30' prefixed 2/2 model clearly built in 1974 (directly identifiable from its body serial number) being called a "1971 model year" car, an 'S30' prefixed model clearly built in the latter half of 1975 (directly identifiable from its body serial number) being called a "1978 model year" car and a 'GS31' prefixed 2/2 model clearly built in 1977 (...body serial number again) being called a "1976 model year" car. It's a mess. The truth is that we have far more accurate and comprehensive - peer-group curated and edited - hard data and ephemera regarding the Japanese market models right here on the classiczcars forum.

No, each prefix ('S30'/'PS30'/'HS30'/'HLS30'/'RS30'/'RLS30' etc etc) had it's own serial number sequence, so - theoretically - you could line up 'S30-00023', 'PS30-00023', 'HS30-00023' and 'HLS30-00023' and the "#23" of each other prefix type alongside each other at a virtual car show. The body serial number sequences ran at different production rates for each prefix and with gaps where deemed useful or necessary, so it's best not to think of them as linear and/or directly comparable with each other.

Yes

With the Datsuns it's the oil pump and distributor drive quill that is out of adjustment. Once the oil pump is installed the drive quill, or shaft, is locked in to place on the crankshaft gear that turns both the oil pump and the distributor. (Never really put the whole picture together before). The oil pump is below and the distributor above, but they both get their energy from that long spindly shaft. So what you're really seeing is a function of how many teeth off the the drive quill is, to the crankshaft drive gear. That's why people use vise-grips or rubber bands to hold it in proper spot , before matching the oil pump to it, to get the distributor right. The oil pump doesn't care, but the distributor does. Also why there's no "180 off". We could count the teeth on the gears and come up with the various points of "off". I'm surprised we haven't done that yet.

fuel pressure 28 is correct, its tied to vacuum. 36 only when no vacuum.

You might be okay with moving the plug wires one over. Worth a try. That's pretty far off but it looks close to 60 degrees, which would be one wire spot rotation. How do I learn to braid my distributor wires like that?

I keep telling myself it will be the numbers matching L28 that was in it to begin with, albeit a little refreshed and cleaned up with new billet fuel rail and shaved intake. Now that I am going with an engine management system, I will be adding a wilder cam, flat tops and possibly a head shave and bore, ported head and intake, custom exhaust.... and so it goes! I will definitely have an L28 in there, just not sure how wild it will be. A lot depends on what’s left in the bank after the body is done. If I win the lottery, I will be calling Dave Rebello....

If you checked your timing and it is ok and you have spark at the plugs then I would grab a can of aerostart and see if it will start on that. If you spray it in the intake (air filter removed) you should be able to get it to fire and run, all be it very roughly by spraying it every second or so. Now if you can get it to do that, you have problems with your fuel delivery. That would be my next step. Work one problem at a time, solve it or cancel it out and move on to the next.

I think, and I'm sure many will back me up here, that if you bought an old sports car to work on, you have actually bought Pandora's box in disguise. Just don't get discouraged and Enjoy it!

I used to like this as well Philip but now that I have gotten older.... the brighter is better. Not too bright, just brighter.