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Hi all, just wanted to post some status of my trip to Japan. I was able to meet @kats and we took a drive in his Fairlady Z432. Man what a great car! It’s in great shape and Kats knows how to take car of his cars. We met in Kyoto as I arrived, with my family, to our hotel. Kats lives about 30 minutes away from Kyoto and drove the car up just to visit with me. He has 4 Z’s and asked me which one I wanted to see (and drive). Since I’ve never seen a Z432, it was an obvious choice. We spent about 20-30 minutes ogling the car before he let me drive it around the block. I don’t have an international drivers license, so he took the controls and we went for an extended drive around the city. I’ll post more about my observations when I am able to sit down at a computer, but I wanted to share a few pics. What a great time, and I wanted to personally thank Kats for taking time out of his busy schedule to meet with me. As you can see, it’s springtime in japan and the cherry blossoms are in full effect!

A couple of folks have asked for plans for the jig. I’ve marked up a few pics with all the key dimensions. Feel free to post here or PM me with any questions.... Hope this this helps somebody ....

First step was to dremel the loose pieces out and roughen every edge. Then filled with expanding foam which was later cut. Then sanded down the area and filled with polyester fill (same stuff used on the car). Then more sanding and covered with U-POL flexible plastic filler (mainly used for bumpers). Then more sanding and shaping. Then came the plastic adhesion promoter and the SEM Texture. Then more sanding as every imperfection was noticeable. Little areas were filled with glazing putty (not shown). Then more sanding and SEM Texture. There were several iterations of this last step prior to painting with SEM Trim Paint. I am very pleased with the results and shocked how well it turned out. Time will tell if the effort was worth it!

My body man is finally getting around to starting my Z car wall sculpture. Thanks to Zup for going out his way in getting the driver’s door. I don’t think he needed to apply the parking brake on his parts car that he got the door from to keep it from rolling away. No one will steal it either. I’ll update as it progresses. ?

@7tooZ thank you so much for the DVD. I'll be watching it and I'll see where I went wrong. I am going to toy with this end of the engine then further investigate before tearing parts off. Love the Z community!!! Thank you, Chris

I was one of the earliest users of the 123 ignition in a Z car and so have quite a bit of experience with it over the years that I have used it. I can also tell you that I had a similar advance problem at idle with my initial install. If I remember correctly, and according to the install instructions, everything needs to be at TDC on the engine. You install the 123 distributor, apply power, and turn it until an LED turns on and that's where you are supposed to lock the distributor in place. However, after some trial and error, I figured out that at idle I was at about 30 degrees advanced, and this was with a flat 0 degree advance programmed into the 123 distributor. I ultimately concluded that the distributor was not rotated to the proper point for a 0 degree advance, despite the fact that it had been installed properly (with the LED) as per the instructions. So what I ended up doing was unlocking the distributor, ensuring it was programmed for a 0 degree advance (up to about 1500 RPM's), and rotated the distributor until I was at 0 degrees as measured with a timing light. I then programmed in some additional advance at idle (I believe about 12 degrees) and double checked it with a timing light to ensure it agreed with the programmed values. So for some reason the LED install instructions did not work in my application, but by setting the initial timing of the 123 like you would a normal distributor, I was able to get it to work as expected. And the ease of changing timing curves is awesome. In any case, hope that helps. If you have any other questions on this just let me know. Mike.

Hmmm - Billing’s ain’t to far from Calgary ...

Here's some good reading. They don't have an "amp rating", generally. Probably have better luck calculating the max amperage appropriate for the wire gauge. Start from scratch. I just picked these from the internet. Littelfuse and Digikey are well-established names. SAE, of course. Omega has been around forever and used to publish a paper catalog that was basically a primer on all things electronic. https://www.sae.org/publications/technical-papers/content/650122/ https://www.sae.org/search/?qt="fusible%20link"&sort=relevance&sort-dir=desc&display=list&sector=%28"AUTOC"%29 http://media.digikey.com/PDF/Data%20Sheets/Littelfuse%20PDFs/Fusible_Link_FAQ.pdf https://www.digikey.com/ https://www.littelfuse.com/~/media/electronics/product_catalogs/littelfuse_fuseology_selection_guide.pdf.pdf https://www.omega.com/auto/pdf/ref_fusesizingguide.pdf

High bidder is the same one who led on the ‘72 that just ended, until the controversy caused a restart. He wants a Z.

I tend to agreed with terrapin and S30 regarding the format. I do get annoyed by the “oh I have or had one just like this” folks. It would be interesting to know how many of these deals fail to close and why.

Hey guys I translated the FLXW to English. Gives all the nits of the wire , but not the amperage. Enjoy....Ron

Too late, what's been seen can't be unseen! ?

Yes. You can program in the advance at whatever RPM intervals and advance you would like, which is a great idea in my book. As for the shaft drive, I could set the drive up 90 degrees out, so that the rotor sits in the correct position, but it is working for now, so I am not sure if I can be bothered pulling it all apart again right now.

Often, when a car sits for long periods of time, moisture collects at the bottom rim bead area and causes a little corrosion. I think if you pop the tire off of the wheel and clean up the wheel bead area, that should solve your leaking problem.

It went to 40K when the gavel fell. Strong money for a solid example.

I agree with Terripin Z, Part of the BAT winning formula is the week long commentary by some very knowledgeable experts on this marque (just not in the market to purchase during that time). Some, members of this forum. Bat also actively moderates the posts. I have tuned in to about a half dozen of the Datsun auctions, its a great format to sell or buy.

I like the "clean the wheel and remount the tire" solution. You likely will see the problem when the tire comes off.

@Mike I have never watched a BAT auction near the end as I did this one. I don't see the commentary being any real issue in the way of the bidders. Trolling is status quo now-a-days. The fact that BAT gives you 2 minutes after every new bid is more like a real auction, as opposed to eBay with a set end time, you get snipers. (still lots of step in bidders near the end) This is like the Going, going, gone call. The real bidders know whats going on and if they have been outbid. If they want to step it up they have 2 min. to place a new bid and start the 2 min warning again. This one went up nearly 15K in the last 10 min. Trolls or no trolls if the car is legit, the bidders know it, and act accordingly. I am glad to see it went nearly right back up to where it was before the issues arose. Briank105 had been in the mix for a long while, and persistence paid off for him. He now has a very nice example of a Z.

Yep looks like that’s the final bid. It was impressive even through all the drama. I thought for sure the trolls were going to cause the auction to end at a lower price but it seems the car stood out in the end. In my opinion, BaT should limit comments to people who actually place a bid or at least a known reputation. Mike

Leave the mirror off and you'll have "Zenus de Milo".

We've had them available for quite some time now. We offer various plugs depending on the size that you need. https://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/classic03a13/30-8004