Leaderboard

Put the show tires on and took her for a short spin in the cul-de-sac. Got the center front bumper filler installed along with the alternator and smog support that came in from eBay. Will do the luggage straps tomorrow night. Motorsport parts are coming in on Wednesday. It's coming down to the wire.

@Captain ObviousI have an A cam that I think was from an N47. I acquired it by itself without a head at some point though. It has oil holes in the lobes. Lobes are clean as are bearing surfaces. 2nd lobe from sprocket measures appx 1.585 which is the same as a low mileage n42 A cam I have on a head that I know has never been rebuilt, nor cam cut. So, if your cam is uncut and you have original lash pads, should slide right in...assuming you are able to sort out the cam tower mounting mess. If you would like to have this cam, message me with your address and I will ship it to you. See two photos.

I've not had anyone flash their brights at me at night, but they do light up your path! Here's a shot of them on my white garage door so you can see the cutoff. I have the headlight covers from MSA so you notice the reflection on the driveway right in front of my car.

Dang---- I will really miss seeing and talking with you again Bruce, Gary, Charles and Cody, Steve J., Gary W., Wayne, Mike W. and Alex and so many, many more that may not make this Zcon. Great recent memories, but more to come next year at Nashville! Yes---the torch will be carried by Rich, Bob and I! Can't wait to get with you guys at Branson!!!! Safe travels in your journey East!

Bummer that you guys won't be there ?. Looks like @Zup , @jayhawkand I will have to hold the fort on the flat top team. Will be sure to post pics so you guys can live the event with us.

Well, it has been a while, so I figured it was time for an update on the Garage Mahal. I was able to get the horse stall area concreted in this spring, so I now have 100% of the floor space in usable condition. In the first week of June, I had the asphalt drive way put in. They did a great job. I now have a lot of parking area and space to turn around with the trailer to back the race car into the barn. I can back to the whole rig in, with the truck still attached, close the door and just walk into the house. No more 45-60 minutes to unload when I get home from a track weekend. That used to really annoy the wife. The original builder of the barn came out to give me an estimate on the ceiling. He said that the trusses would have no trouble supporting a steel ceiling with R38 blown-in insulation. I am thinking about going with maybe R49 for better heating economy. I got several quotes on heating. The 12' ceiling height was not quite enough to make radiant tube heating work. They said it could bake the paint right off the cars. It needed to be at least 16' to make it work. So, I am going with a forced air unit. I just need to finalize my research to decide if I go with natural gas, or LP gas. The local gas company said it would cost me $3K to trench the gas lines out to the barn. I have got most of the wiring done. All of the wall outlets are in. I also put in a 220 line. I wired in 6 more lights for the ceiling and added 4 lights along the back wall over the work bench area. All of the lights will be 3810 lumens, so I am hoping it is pretty bright. My wife is always giving me crap by saying "Do you want to do surgery in there!?' My response ..."Exactly!!" The brighter the better in my book. I still need to figure out how to install 2 ceiling fans on the trusses. A lot of the quotes were coming in higher than I anticipated, so I am giving up on the idea of running water out to the barn. It would be nice, but it is not a necessity. All of the wall insulation is in. About half of the vapor barrier has been installed. About half of the previously installed wall has been put back up, and the rest of the wall materials have been purchased. Over the long 4th of July Holiday (took Friday off too), I put in a lot of hard work to get stuff done. So, as a little reward to myself, yesterday afternoon, I got the Z out for the first time this year and went for a drive up Route 67 in Southern WI. 67 is a nice curvy road that goes through the Kettle Moraine Valley. The Kettle is a really beautiful area and a popular destination for a car or motor cycle cruise. It feels good to get this much progress. There is still a lot left to do. That's it for now. Later, Marty

Looks to be pretty solid. Here's the link: https://fortmyers.craigslist.org/lee/cto/d/fort-myers-1971-datsun-240z/6929051886.html

And I don't think I'm going to make it this year either. It's been a good run of consecutive years, but this one is going to be a year off. For those of you that are going, please take lots of pics, mingle lots, and gather up some great stories to share with us from the event!!!

Ever drive to Phoenix? I have a roof skin down here. (and rturbo is exactly correct - you need to de-skin the sunroof. The pillars are multiple pieces of folded metal. The skin has lots of spot welds but not nearly as bad a job as I first imagined. Plus,` body lead at the four corners - melt it out and wipe it off. We've done a couple here at the shop.)

One week and counting

Looks fine to me. I have a 3 cylinder Honda Insight so I am partial to unbalanced, low power engines.

JB weld?

That looks just like my first Z! A '76 with Western aluminium wheels. That's the one with the stuck wiper vane in the AFM I got for $1,000 back in 1986. Cranked and idled fine but wouldn't take any more fuel. Took it to a mechanic and in 30 minutes he had it running like new. Charged me $20.

Thanks everyone. Your thoughts gave me the motivation to give it one more try. I was able to find one solution to the brain teaser that allowed me to mount the back plate and then then install/remove the air cleaner cover. I guess sometimes you need to let problems sit for awhile before trying again. thanks again.

Mine weren't as bad as yours so I just removed the old bushing cups and made new ones. If you want to save that mount you're going to have to cut out that rusty hole and weld in some new plate then re drill the hole, I think it is about 8-9 gauge on that tension rod mount.

Then they shall be yours.

Looks like it just broke 6 figures..

I merged the threads on this same item..

Some work I did a couple of years ago:

SMOKING GUN!!! So I was messing with trying to align the cam towers by loosening them a little bit and trying to get the cam to spin smooth, but #3 kept giving me trouble. Just didn't feel right. So I decided to pull it off completely and see what I could see. And....... Here's what my Previous Owner put in there on one side to "align" the tower to the head: And it gets worse... Notice that since that threaded "thing" is so crappy, it caused the other side alignment ring to be so far off that he had to use the cam tower bolts to jack the tower down (because it was out of alignment). it caught the alignment ring on the other side and pinched it in the gap and smashed it. Here's what used to be the precision alignment ring: The ring got smashed and actually extruded a tongue of material out into the seam between the tower and the head. Pulling that damaged ring out, you can see the dent it left in the aluminum head: At first, I thought that threaded thing was a Helicoil or something, but it was just a short stub of bolt that he drilled out. I guess he lost or mangled the original alignment ring and made that instead. Here's the two pieces that were "aligning" my #3 tower: Previous Owner strikes again!!! It's beyond me how you can't tell that something doesn't feel right as you need a wrench to crank that tower down into place and crushing that alignment ring in the process. I know the hobby is filled with people of varying skill levels, but this surprises even me.

Unfortunately I don't see a way to make it this year. Cody will be out of the country and I am getting pummeled with unexpected bills. Just don't have the money right now, even for a quick trip. Have fun and be safe!