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After some of the more recent comments, I too want to be apart of this discussion. This is a unique window into the happenings both nationally and globally WRT this pandemic. I did not want to go down the political rabbit hole and tried to emphasize early on that this isn’t a political issue. It Is a heath issue highly I mpacted by politically decisions. I want to try and strip the political leanings away from the topic but I too allowed myself to slowly Indulge in those discussions. So, this situation seems to slowing be getting worse. NY is on the ropes and not really slowing much. Here are the challenges I’m personally facing and would love to hear what you all are dealing with. My wife is a medical provider, I’m terrified about her working with patients. I have 3 kids all under 12, school is closed UFN. My work schedule is such that I cannot get out of these trips unless I call is sick which I will not do, unless I’m legitimately ill. Cargo is critical to our national supply of needed goods and we are super busy. It’s all hands on deck at work. I have to go and re-expose myself to people at airports, hotels and taxis!l. I’m not thrilled about it! I’m thinking of all the mitigation measures I can take not to bring something home to my family. I began planning for the worst case in Mid-Jan. I went out and bought N95 masks before 99% of the population knew what they were. I have about 20. I may donate all but a couple to the local hospital. I need a couple for work. I’m happy to mail anyone that doesn’t have one and needs it for their job or necessary activity. Let me know. If we have people financially on the edge. Car or house payment maybe we can start some sort donation pool to those in most need here. Don’t know how that would look or be managed but just a thought. This goes back to my comment about influencing your circle. People in here are in my pseudo-circle. I’ve done my best to self-isolate, and ask my neighbors if they need anything. All I can do is keep my family safe by keeping them home as much as possible. Kids are learning new skills everyday. Haven’t touched my engine rebuild since this really popped and my kids we removed from school. I’m spending about 2 hrs a day conducting classes with my kids. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

How about calling it the "1125 Plate" since that's what none of us can ever get right the first time. ? Or... just call it the "Clock Plate"

Thought I would share this interesting Z car I have been working on to help the owner out for the last few months. It is proudly owned by a very nice, very enthusiastic older woman 100+ miles away. I brought it up to my location in an enclosed trailer with the generous help of a good friend. It has not been running for over a year and in addition, she has had some bad experiences with some shops which took advantage of her with little results. She was referred to me by one of her relatives that lives in my area and I made the trip down her way to look it over, meet her and her husband and then agreed to bring it up to my garage. When I first talked with Joyce and I asked her about the car & herself her response was ... "I like to drive fast, and I'm all about accessories" ... The car had a number of electrical and fuel issues going on which are now mostly corrected. ( I successfully got it running, -very nicely, - this week to test some new wiring & things and will now continue on to complete or correct the other modifications and some new items. The brake system also needs some attention from sitting a long while. Some of this 75 280z features are : A beautiful ** (it pops!), very high quality 2 tone paint finish. Fresh, almost no miles Datsun Spirit stage 2 street motor, electric assisted power steering, glass body kit (not my cup of tea but she loves it, and that is all that matters). ** This paint could hang with MikeW's exceptional award winning 260z and give him a run for his money.... lol New stuff going in : new Vintage Dash with full Speedhut instrumentation, Zcar Depot Fast EFI system, numerous Skillard accessories & knicknacks , and more. Enjoy the pics, let me know what you think .... Its a fun car to work on, mostly a labor of love we all have for these cars, looking forward to see her reaction when I get her baby back to her, 280Zoommmm.....................

They'll have to drag my dead arse out to get me back to work feeding the public cheap barbecue. Money's not guiding this ship.

"COVID-19, and what to do about it" now this is what we should really be discussing here. I will list what I have been doing: - maintain physical distance when I must be out - politely correct people when making incorrect statements about this pandemic - politely remind others to maintain physical distance when I notice it not being followed - check on my elderly neighbors, or others that need help - offer help to friends and others I know that are in self isolation - follow the advice of medical professionals (not politicians) - minimize needless trips outdoors - thank the first responders, medical staff, shop people etc. that I meet/deal with I write this as I work from home and feeling lucky that I have a job. Hopefully I don't seem disingenuous. Mike

Even though every member of this forum agreed to keep politics on the shelf, I believe this one thread is actually therapeutic in a way. These are extraordinary times and this thread is sort of acting like a pressure relief valve I think, better to tap out a paragraph here then grow an ulcer while in isolation. Besides, there are some very insightful and objective opinions on this thread, objectivity is the first thing to fly out the window when fear sets in. Peace and good health brothers.

For years, literally years and years, I have been frustrated over and over again when setting up timing on our L series engines. Whether it’s a fresh engine setup, or after removing and replacing the distributor drive shaft after routine maintenance, I’m very often off by one tooth. “So what” I proclaim, I’ll just adjust the timing by rotating the distributor a bit more. But nope, the slots in the plate are never long enough to allow that. Or I have a custom setup and need to put the distributor in a specific orientation, but can’t because the timing plate won’t line up as needed. I’ve had many customer cars in for various work, and often find the drive gear alignment is out have to sort out their timing issues. They may have been running crazy retarded for a long time and didn’t know how to fix it. I’ve often resorted to cutting and welding on extensions to the plate to give me more rotation. Ugly, but it worked. Whatever the reason, being too lazy to drop that sway bar one more time to get the oil pump off, or having a custom setup, or needing to get just the right base to suit the upgraded ZX E12-80 distributor you just bought but now can’t use, wouldn’t it be nice to just have a distributor timing plate that allows more adjustment? Maybe even cover any all possible Nissan distributor replacement options no matter your specific situation? No need to find the “right” base? Heck, just not caring if you have the drive shaft alignment EXACTLY right when you put the oil pump back on, would be worth at least 6 rolls of toilet paper, right? Maybe even a BIG jar of hand sanitizer! Not a week goes by when someone has been begging for help with getting the timing right here or on any of the forums or facebook. How often have each of us posted the famous picture looking down the dizzy hole with the correct tang orientation? You know the one. Well, I’ve had enough. I “Fixed” it. Even put an “A” and and arrow to show you which way is “Advance”. So what say you experts? Is is this worth making more of? Suggestions?

Isn't that a banana hammock? Eeewww.....

Here's my OE '72 bumpers on my 77 using @EuroDat brackets. Can't get much closer in my opinion.

Update on U-Joint install: Yes it was easy to change them. However, 500 miles later, I can feel play at the rear half shafts (so the U-joints are starting to fail). I guess everyone was right then, the OEM joints were much tougher than today's aftermarket joints. I got a MOOG u-joint. Finally, I opted for a CV conversion so I will never have to deal with this again.

Sanding is going awesome! Slow but the results are good. So satisfying to see the roof sand out flat...!

To add to the body of knowledge

Thanks, will do most of that when possible. I’m concerned about eating the catered food we get. It’s usually things like sliced veggies and fruit, cheese and sandwiches, all fresh. So I’m packing canned tuna, crackers ramen noodles, nuts and microwave soups. I don’t know the status of the places preparing food, especially the foreign countries so I’m taking extra caution there. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Ready to begin wiring, engine and trans install at my good friends before it comes back to my house for final assembly.

I'll absolutely give you a high-five! With the current exchange rate, does that work out to a high-seven and a half or something by the time it gets to you? I love the crisp body line down the whole side. Especially where bodywork often muddies it out over the rear wheel arches. Looks great!

So some of the LEDs (SteveJs suggestion -thanks) that I ordered, came early, the clear version is (as luck would have it) still not scheduled to arrive until 4/21. I tried the red version (brake Light Failure) and the green version (turn signals) and you have to be patient - there is no abundance of clearance when installing the LED into the socket, but it fits. I then plugged the sockets into the respective holes. They install as they should and you will have no trouble with them bottoming out in the gauge causing the socket to become dislodged due to vibration ...etc. I was going to wait for the clear to finish this portion of the dash effort, but I am not the most patient person and I noticed all of the socket holes have green filters. I ordered 10 green and used two. I need 7 to light the tach, speedometer, and the 3 gauge set. I decided to populate the remaining 7 with the green LEDs. Could not stand not knowing what it would look like so I wired the lights to a battery. Yes the dash is upside down as I am testing the harness. And yes the gauge faces have a fair amount of dust on them but you get the idea. The wiring on this car separated the 3 gauge set lights from the speedometer and the tach with regard to the dimmer. When I was redoing the harness I tied all 7 bulbs to the same ear on the dimmer - so they all dim at the same rate. So these LEDs are a lot brighter than the incandescents. If they are too bright I can dim them down. I don't recall anyone ever claiming that the z gauge incandescent lights were overly bright. Once again, thanks SteveJ - I appreciate the help. regards, ron

Thought this day would never arrive! Can I get a virtual high five from the forum please? High build (Valspar DTM prime and seal mixed 4:1:1) ready to sand in a couple hours and fill any last minute pinholes with putty. Then on to a mix of 4:1:2 for a seal coat before paint!

It’s laser cut. And it does need a way to indicate top and bottom. The “A” is still an “A” when it’s upside down.... Maybe it should be “R” . Maybe time to buy that desktop Laser engraver I keep getting badgered about on FaceBook. Name Possibilities: Time It! Dizzy Disk TimeBase TimeSlot AnyTime! AnyTooth That thing with the slots.....

Either because of the NRA or other related political forces, it appears that gun shops have been deemed "essential" in the states I've heard of. I personally haven't a clue what the justification is, but there has been a huge upsurge in firearms sales. I debated this online on another forum, and the best justification anyone could offer was "... it’s not zombies I’m worried about. It’s our own government in this state and others wanting what I have!" I suspect that vaguely paranoid feeling and distrust of "gummint" is deeply rooted in many. Personally, right now the last thing that would enter my mind related to safety is adding a firearm. I hope those here are focused on preserving the health of themselves and their family, and on doing so in positive ways.

The Creatures = Siouxsie and the Banshees side project, whose roots are in England.

This here is the tab that you see when you take the ring off. The sender body has the matching notch.

Looks great. It will go much faster now!

Fourth rep positive. Like a contagious virus is getting around or something...

Are you sure that it will actually lock down in a backward direction?

I used EuroDat brackets, too. I had to shim the front bumper a little bit so it wasn’t quite as tight to the body, but that was easily done with some SS flat washers. Turned out well on my ‘75 280Z.

I videoed one running at idle:

Is the arrow in the picture correct? And the orientation while driving is as shown? And is the picture taken with the engine running? There's no fuel even at the outlet of the filter, to pass through to the carbs. You can get a bubble in the filter if it's on its side, but fuel will still get through, like Mark implies, if the filter outlet is covered. The carb's float bowls will fill until the float valve seals. Try to separate your filter problem from the running problem. They might not be related.

No, I never really got that far. I only needed it for one small project and the numbers just didn't work

I'd like to see that in person one day. Did you open up your gauges at all? Pepper and I are just going through some gauges - cleaning, re-spraying the white inside and the black if necessary, and polishing up the scratched lenses.

$20USD is like $1000CAD whooo hooo!

I have a couple of requests so far, and I've started the shipping process to send them out. I've done a bit of postal shipping estimates to the four corners of the lower 48. The packaging I'm using a bubble mailer, 24x18x1cm, 0.14 kg for the large plate. It's the same no matter where it goes. Given the usual payment method of paypal, I decided a flat $15 USD charge no matter where you are in the USA is the price to play for the few of you that will be the testers. Postal rates in Canada vary greatly, I'll quote actual rates as needed, and we can send cheaper e-transfers. In the spirit of the current reality, I will also disinfect the package contents before I seal the envelope.

Just incredible.....maybe going to be the most impressive Nissan in the country. This will bring a new interest in the Z31!

This is a great idea. I’m in the middle of a a distributor rebuild right now (on corona hold). I’d love to put one my new motor because with my luck I’m a tooth or more off on my oil pump. Seems like no matter how hard you try to hold the pump and spindle perfect it feels like it moves as the teeth engage. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Thanks CO. I didn’t see you call. I was up at 4am last night wondering and worrying about my trip starting Sunday night. I have 5 flights over a 3 day period. We don’t have child care and don’t want to bring someone into the house at this time. My oldest is 12, he’s responsible but there concerns leaving them all alone in the house (clash of the titans). My wife, is on the hook for all urgent medical procedures, so she never knows how the days will pan out. We had a difficult conversation 3 or 4 days ago that we needed a family plan if one of us gets sick, we are both at elevated risk due to our jobs. We have two pilots that tested positive already and seeing how this virus spreads so rapidly I wouldn’t be surprised if the number was actually 15-20 or more. We share the same aircraft, break rooms, computers, and crew buses. Yep...I’m concerned. I can only take about 40 mins of the kids complaining about learning before we head to the culdesac to ride skateboards. Now they want me to build a ramp! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

IMHO, trying to keep politics out of a Covid 19 discussion is like having a conversation about West coast Datsun shops and not mention the business name, of a particular California Datsun shop who has done a lot of questionable work in the past and is still in business.

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Perfect! Couldn’t have said it any better! For the past 18 years this site has provided me a sanctuary into which I could retreat when ghosts from Viet Nam, or loss of wife, or loss of parents intrude into my life’s thoughts. These experiences are certainly not unique to me, but I always knew I could come here, or to my ongoing Z restoration project, to chase those ghosts temporarily away. I will forever be appreciative of the depth of knowledge of a select few here who have contributed to my restoration project. If I want anxiety or contoversity, I will just turn on CNN or FOX.

Sorry to see you go AV8. Nobody has to expose their beliefs on the internet though. That is personal choice. It might not be clear, but I, persoanlly, haven't picked a political side. I spend my time pointing out the failings of the person in the top office. Not because of his party, of which he actually does not belong. but because of who he is and how he is failing. That's not political. That, from what I have seen and experienced, is the main problem with politics in any discussion. People think that they have to defend everything that their "side" supposedly stands for. They don't. A person can choose parts of a platform, or all of it, or create their own concerns and see how a party addresses those. A word that is often used today is "tribalism". Individuals choose their group over their own thoughts. They look to the leader of the tribe for guidance. That's not how politics is supposed to work, in a democracy. Each individual is supposed to develop their own thoughts and vote accordingly. The "party" is just a concept that doesn't really work well. People have had concerns about the two party system for many years, because it is inherently divisive.

Looking good!

Just to keep you abreast of this side of the pond: two of my dental surgeon friends have been drafted for duty on the front line. I did ask what will they do with COVID patients’ teeth and they said they are going through a fast track cross training and their anaesthesia skills are required. Teeth are not being worked on and in the case of emergency tooth issue it is unclear what you can do and when you can be seen. But it will probably be at 2:30 - sorry, couldn’t resist a quick dad joke there! But it is a little worrying how seriously this thing is spreading. A part of an exhibition centre where they typically have Yachts on display (The Excel Centre) is being turned into an emergency hospital to cope with the expected volumes!! 100 beds by Sunday, ramping up 4000. Stay safe people and respect any guidelines on social distancing and isolation. [emoji15]

I’ve decided to back out of this thread. I can’t stand the politicization of everything in my Iife...it was one of the reasons I loved this forum.. Society has managed to shove a hot political fork in every walk of my life and I quite frankly find it depressing. Political bickering just makes me unhappy. It’s divided the country in a bad way, divided friendships, communities and neighbors. People do unspeakable acts to others because someone wears a MAGA hat or someone else has a rainbow sticker on their car. It’s not want civilized, loving, and good people do. I don’t like to play in those waters. I don’t care who you love, what you believe, who your God is or who you choose to support politically. I chose to judge people by their individual character, morals and how they live their lives and this is what I teach my kids. We have one part of the political spectrum that demands “Tolerance” from others but they have no tolerance for people who don’t think like them. Any speech is okay as long as it agrees with “their” world view. We fail to recognize that most people are more alike than different. We are too busy focusing on how we differ. When we don’t agree we choose the label people to socially isolate them from society and discredit them many times unjustly with terms like Racist, homophobe or any laundry list of names. Once I realized that I have little influence on what happens in Washington and that I should spend my life force focusing on my family, friends, faith and the things that make me happy, my life is more fulfilling. I can’t watch the bobble heads on any news organization, they all have agendas and I don’t want to be told what to think. I can make my own opinions with out Don Lemon or Sean Hannity telling me what to think. Enjoy the political football. If you can’t laugh at this video then maybe you are taking things too serious. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It shows the rate of Test Kit Production which is very important. However, it has no relevance to Mortality rate. As for news articles: https://nypost.com/2020/03/17/86-of-people-with-coronavirus-are-walking-around-undetected-study-says/ “Stealth” coronavirus cases are fueling the pandemic, with a staggering 86% of people infected walking around undetected, a new study says. Six of every seven cases – 86% — were not reported in China before travel restrictions were implemented, driving the spread of the virus, according to a study Monday in the journal Science. https://www.bmj.com/content/368/bmj.m1165 In an open letter to the authorities in the Tuscany region,1 Romagnani wrote that the great majority of people infected with covid-19—50-75%—were asymptomatic, but represented “a formidable source” of contagion. “The percentage of people infected, even if asymptomatic, in the population is very high and represents the majority of cases, particularly, but not only, among young people. Isolation of asymptomatics is essential for controlling the spread of the virus and the seriousness of the epidemic,” he said ___________ For what it is worth, I am an engineer and would consider myself an expert when it comes to data and statistics. I have made my living from it for the last 35 years. An expert in that I have made presentations to rooms of NASA scientists and engineers just to name a few, so I am extremely comfortable with data and charts.

I see a hole and an A. Maybe you could come up with a name that reflects that somehow? You could change the "A" to a "Adv" so it would make it clear which way was up. How about the Uni-Disk? For the universal-mount distributor disk. Or "Z-Disk" just to get the "Z" in there somewhere (even though it works on other cars).

I like it. A quick fix for many who have messed up engines. It also is nice for folks who upgrade from points to ZX and didn't get the right base. Plus: Bling!

A while a go a i scored an (incomplete) set of old Nissan / Datsun Microfiches of the 240Z / S30 chassis in germany for almost nothing. I tried to scan it using a flatbet scanner is some suggested but the results were terrible. When i found out that my company (beeing a several hundred years old machinery company) has several of those in the mechanical department, i asked if i could borrow one to check my microfiches. and today i brought one home: Microfiches are like Dia's, a kind of minimized drawings or part lists on a film type piece of plastic. The microfiche reader is more or less a projector. You insert one of the film cards, which is labelled for example with "S30 Chassis": And then you can zoom in. By moving around the card you can check the different sections. and then zoom in more and more until you get the page you want: Like for example the steering section: The data in the microfiche is nothing special. it's available in digital form (Nissan FAST or E-Fast software), printed form (Parts manual / R-Drive parts lists) or even as scanned versions of the Microfiches. However it's fun to tinker around like they did back in the day and i will sure have my fun during the COVID-19 Lockdown time to go through the microfiches and check for some data i didn't know yet. Since those Microfiche readers are for sale cheap, im thinking of buying a second-hand unit just for fun and for having the parts fiches accessable directly in the workshop.

It's finally time to move the jig ... lets see if the dolly plan worked .... custom lifting tool .... ...caster bolted up ... repeat ... easy peasy ....