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Last Wednesday, I completed the final phase of my fresh motor rebuild with the AC system upgrade to a new Vintage Air Sanden 508 compressor and replacement of the air drier. (my system was already converted to r134a by Nissan years ago) All went well, drew down a vacuum and let it sit overnight - no leaks, charged the system with 27oz of r134a, and now have 42 F air out the vents. Below are the original and new flex line hoses I needed to complete the hookup to the new compressor. Parts needed are 2' of number 8 and number 10 ac hose, a #8 135 degree o-ring fitting with service port on left, #10 135 degree o-ring fitting with port on right, 90 degree #8 flare fitting, and a straight #8 step up to #10 fitting. I was able to use the hydraulic crimper at the local Prairie Grove auto parts store. After cutting the hoses to size and test fitting, be sure to mark the clocking on the 90 degree line at both ends before crimping. The AC lines are not very twistable. Only other issue is I extended the compressor clutch wire about a foot in length as it was just long enough to reach the stock wiring connection and wanted a cleaner look to the wiring. Below is the air drier mounted in the stock bracket with new switch. Compressor mounted and running with stock belt and tension provided by stock idler adjuster. Note the reason for the left / right 135 degree compressor fittings. Could not clock the compressor 90 degrees for better access as the low side fitting comes too close to the frame rail in that position.

It's about a month away, and I've officially started training for the event. I figure the sooner I get familiar with the foreign environment, the better. Less shock to the system that way, right?

I see a few of you noticed that I recently sold my Z of 43 years on BaT. I accomplished what I set out to do and felt it was time for a new adventure. I'm not sure what that will be yet, but I'm looking around. Anyway, I have a number of original parts left that may be helpful to someone. I'm going to try to run a continuous ad that will be revised as I dig out parts. My intent is to support the community with needed parts, not make a lot of money from the sales. Take a look from time to time. Best of luck with your projects. Dave

Recently, I have noticed a decline in the movement of my passenger side windshield wiper. I had time to investigate it today, and found the source of the problem. The passenger pivot arm that connects to the linkage was slipping and not allowing the wiper to sweep more than a few degrees. After getting access and removing the pivot assembly, I discovered the two welds that connect the shaft to the pivot arm were broken. There is also a spline on that end of the shaft, but had worn, probably sometime after the welds failed allowing the shaft to slip. Cleaned it all up, welded the shaft / arm, lubed and cleaned up both driver & passenger sides, the entire mechanism, all is well in the wipe world again. 😊 Before repair of the 2 welds seen below

Seems like there's enough information out there for people to make a choice. That was my point in the post with the vaccination-risk comparison. The same people are coming up with the same arguments, here on the old car site. Anything can be rationalized. Just ignore the data and do a Google search. One of the great ironies of the situation though is that the ones that are claiming their independence are the ones that will most likely need help. And the ones that are trying to help will be the ones that are the most independent. Kind of absurd but that's where we are. Good luck to both sides. Edit - also amusing that two vaccinated patients dying, and two professors (actually just one) are being used to argue against millions of real life data points assessed by hundreds of well-educated professionals who actually work in the area under discussion. But that's how rational minds work, they rationalize.

Yes, of course health is a personal decision. But my Z car friends won't catch your anal sex by standing next to you in line at Starbucks. In fact, by standing next to you in Starbucks, here's a partial list of things they won't catch from you: Your cancer. Your drug addiction. Your heart disease. Your obesity. Your diabetes. Lots and lots of people die from those, but the difference is YOU can't take me or my friends down with yours. And not only that, there isn't a vaccine to help prevent any of those. If we had a vaccine to reduce diabetes, I think it would be very popular and I don't think people would be diving for different corners because of it. I think I put my thoughts on the matter into reasonably good words earlier: https://www.classiczcars.com/forums/topic/63698-covid-19/?page=67&tab=comments#comment-621155

My older sister got me to eat a brown colored Crayon, said it was chocolate. I hadn't had a good clean wipe since 1973.

The graph above showing a spike but not a drastic spike for the US is a function of the number of people vaccinated. The US spike is mostly driven by the SE states with Florida passionately leading that charge. 20% of new CV19 cases are from Florida. Now as for vaccinators coming to your door, that is unlikely to happen. It is and will happen in other free countries. The Philippines will require vaccination. At present they are rolling it out badly vaccinating only 100K a day or so. With 107M people, you will take until 2035 to vaccinate everyone. Their president has already said he will put people in jail for not getting vaccinated. As I assume the only medical practitioner in this discussion, I will say that unless you have a valid reason not to get vaccinated you should. mRNA tech is amazing and will likely lead to treatments that change life drastically for the good. If you don't want to get vaccinated because you heard that people get sick after the second shot, the symptoms are certainly annoying but they are temporary and death is permanent. The thing that astounds me is the contrast between the American response to WWII and the American response to CV19. My grandmother worked in a factory making C-Rations. She had previously been a housewife. She did that so there would be food for our troops. She sacrificed. This is serious. With no response at all, it would have taken out millions in the US alone. Virus' evolve. It's not done. As I said previously, it has in some cases defeated the vaccine which means if you haven't been vaccinated, you may have waited too long. Still, the vaccine seems to be mitigation and that will save lots of lives. I have no doubt that some politician is sitting in a meeting in the Netherlands saying "spike yes, but look at what the soccer event did for the economy!" Just a small sacrifice could end this. Wait too long and it can't help us. In general, I find people who act like sheep to be stupid. The problem here is we have some really bad shepherds. Get vaccinated.

It is always better to get a good clean wipe!

Does your wife know that you're using her bath towels in the garage?

Yeah, I don't like it when volunteers come to my door either, but if they have a permit, it's the American way. No different than the Jehovah’s Witnesses, or Democrats trying to convince you to vote for their candidates, or Republicans trying to convince you to vote for their candidates, or a volunteer trying to talk you into donating blood. This is nothing new. Volunteers in some locations have been going door to door to talk to people about getting a covid vaccine for months and months. But that youtube video is not at all what I got from the speech in question. For anyone who didn't watch the speech, here's what Biden said: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "We are continuing to wind down the mass vaccination sites that did so much in the spring to rapidly vaccinate those eager to get their first shot, and their second shot for that matter, if they needed a second. Now we need to go to community by community, neighborhood by neighborhood, and oft times door to door, literally knocking on doors to get help to the remaining people to protect them from the virus. Look... Equity. Equality. It remains at the heart of our responsibility of insuring the communities that are the hardest hit by the virus have the information and the access to get vaccinated. So... As we shift from these centralized mass vaccination sites where doing thousands of people a day, we're going to put even more emphasis on getting vaccinated in your community, close to home, conveniently, at a location you're already familiar with." And then he detailed a five point plan to put more emphasis on making sure vaccines are available at: 1) 42000 local pharmacies, 2) Family doctors and healthcare providers, 3) Family doctors and other doctors that serve younger people, 4) At work, work sites, or at least providing paid time off to get the vaccine, 5) Mobile clinics for festivals, sporting events, etc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My takeaway from that speech is that the large mass vaccination sites are no longer seeing enough traffic to make them viable, and it's time to close them down in favor of shifting more emphasis to other smaller more neighborhood-centric locations instead. The hope is that some people who felt apprehensive about going to the large facilities would feel more comfortable getting a vaccine from the trusted local neighborhood pharmacist or doctor that they've been dealing with for years. But because some people may not even know that trusted local neighborhood options are becoming increasingly available, we need to try harder to reach people wherever we can to get the word out. I'm sure not everyone gets exactly the same thing out of it as I do, but that's my take. So @Mike , back to questioning everything... Did you watch Biden's speech for yourself, or are you just letting some guy on youtube tell you what your opinion is? My take on that youtube video is that it's purposeful fear mongering falsely shrouded under a cloak of "humor". And as conedodger highlighted earlier, that kind of fear mongering isn't really helpful.

Methinks somebody's got a problem!

Well THERE'S your problem!!

Hysteria... 😉 😉 😉

Too bad she didn't follow that with an eraser and tell you it was bubble gum. Could have solved a lot of cleaning problems. 😎

I got her running well enough to take it for its first drive, fun little car, went for a blast up my back road. A few rattles and vibrations I have to hunt down and need a new filler hose so ordered that today. The car is filthy from sitting in the shop since the paint job but you can get the idea of what it will look like when she's all shiny again, very pleased with the height, just where I like it. Don't want to look like a boy racer.

Good question, I'll check the vacuum tomorrow. The throttle return is handled by a spring mounted on the side of the TB. When I blip it I'm turning the throttle cable rocker by hand so I know the butterfly is closed, I have been looking for air leaks but haven't found any yet. Interesting, seems like it is a problem others are having. No idea if it came from an Auto car or not, I'll see if I can contact this kruked fella and send him a pic of my unit. Normal fuel pressure is 38psi and that is pretty much where it is right now, as the throttle opens up wide the pressure goes up to 43psi. Good idea, I will put the timming light on while it is hanging. The engine and ECU are from a 1991 240SX.

He shouldn't be, he was offered the going rate. https://bringatrailer.com/datsun/260z/?q=260z

The constant power wire maintains the settings of the device. He's probably losing that one. A meter or test light would tell the story.

Can’t speak for all car audio systems. Installed car stereos at a shop years ago in college. The yellow wire was always constant 12v and the red was ignition switched power. Blue was auto antenna. The power amplifiers were normally wired the same yellow constant, red switched.

Just a few random observations and comments here from the peanut gallery. I have two good friends, both PHDs in biochemistry and California State University professors. One thinks the vaccine and mRNA technology is amazing and is very pro-vaccine, the other is on the other side of the coin and won't touch the mRNA vaccine. Both far more knowledgeable than me on the subject, both have their arguments for their stance. I find that pretty interesting that both highly educated professors have such diverse opinions. Also, I have mentioned this before, but I have a hard time with the altruistic argument of getting a vaccine for the safety others being discussed on a car site. https://www.nsc.org/newsroom/motor-vehicle-deaths-2020-estimated-to-be-highest Also, looks like Dr Fauci says our vaccinations may not protect our friends https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=https://www.firstpost.com/health/vaccinated-people-can-get-delta-variant-remain-asymptomatic-and-become-carriers-but-shots-prevent-severe-disease-9800741.html/amp&ved=2ahUKEwirperotOrxAhXHK80KHfn4BskQFjAMegQIHRAC&usg=AOvVaw3iUtYVK54bUEf8WO2YJ2Sp&ampcf=1 Just some observations. Feel free to fire away.

Here's some guys with S13's that seems to have the same problem. Seems like they are leaning towards the ECU being from an automatic car used in a manual transmission application. https://zilvia.net/f/showthread.php?t=533340 I remembered stumbling on it while troubleshooting a low/rough idle on my D21 pickup years ago, but the single cam and dual cam intakes and throttle bodies are different. Turned out to be crud on my temperature sender.

Sage words from a wise man.

At The Big Shed they buy that stuff by the truckload.

Gents, It’s looking like a no-go for me. I tried to schedule it in but it just didn’t work out. It looks like I’ll be in Europe while you all are exercising your livers. Don’t forget IPA’s make the worst beer hangovers and CO has many to choose from...start training now like Bruce. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I thought I would share how I went about converting my old R12 system in my 1975 280Z to R134a. My system charged up OK after sitting dormant since 1995. It still had a charge in it but not enough to cool the air. Once charged it put out about 50 degree air on a 102 degree day (good) but the old Hatachi compressor made some really nasty noises (bad). The compressor was louder than the motor while driving down the road. I worried that the dying compressor would contaminate the system and if it plugged up the expansion valve I would be up the proverbial creek without an adequate means of propulsion. I am trying to keep the engine compartment/car looking relative stock. I upgraded to a Sanden 508 compressor and then adapted it to the stock compressor bracket that mounts on the side of the L28 block. I chose to stay with the original bracket because it incorporates the belt tensioning pulley and it is stock. I know that you can purchase aftermarket brackets that will bolt up to the block (and I have to believe that they have to weigh a lot less) but to tension the v-belt you must rotate the compressor and again it does not look stock. I could have made my own bracket but it would have been similar to the stock bracket. Unfortunately the mounting ears/pads for the Hatachi compressor do not match up with the Sanden but by making some spacers and a bottom bracket the Sanden bolt up to the Datsun's bracket with no modifications to the bracket. To do this adaption you must have access to a welder, a metal lathe, some 7/8" round stock, a small piece of 3/8" flat stock and a good caliper to make some accurate spacers. First I made a small spacer out of 7/8" dia. material with a 10mm hole (you can use a 'X' letter drill) that would align the second groove of the Sanden's pulleys with the stock tensioner pulley on the Datsun's bracket. Once this is done then you can make two additional spacers. Each of these spacers must be made so that they just barely fit in position. If you have too much space you risk breaking or cracking one of the mounting ears off your new compressor which would probably ruin your day. In the first picture you can see the arrangement of bolts and spacers. You will need to purchase metric allen head bolts because of the space needed to tighten them up will not accommodate a hex head bolt. From the left I have a 42mm long bolt, a .184 thick spacer, the next spacer is drilled and tapped for a 10mm x 1.5 on both ends to allow the tightening of the two opposing bolts. The next spacer is drilled all the way thru and a 80mm long bolts passes thru it and threads into the previous spacer. Hopefully the second picture will show how all of this goes together. In order to attach the bottom compressor mounts you will need a 1 1/2" x 5" x 3/8" piece of metal that is notched to allow it to fit in the area that the old Hatachi compressor bolted to. Cut your metal, notch it and transfer punch two marks that will be drilled and tapped for 10mm x 1.5 threads. You will also need to make a 7/8" diameter spacer that fits between the two bottom ears of the Sanden compressor (get a good fit with very little clearance). This spacer needs to have both ends drilled and tapped for 10mm x 1.5 threads to accommodate two 10mm alllen bolts that are 30mm in length. You will need to make the flat plate out of 3/8 and the bottom spacer out of 7/8 diameter stock so that when the two come together there will be enough area at their intersection to complete a good weld. Bolt the compressor up to the bracket's top mounts with your three spaces and bolts, attach the flat plate to the bottom of the bracket with 10mm x 28mm long bolts, mount the bottom spacer onto the Sanden's bottom ears and rotate the compressor so that the bottom spacer and flat plate meet. Make sure your pulleys are aligned, my narrow spacer (.184)may be a little different than your application, tighten up the top bolts and spacers and tack weld the bottom spacer to the flat plate. I then pulled off the bottom bracket and tacked welded it on the back side and reinstalled it to make sure it did not pull out of alignment. It was good so I finished welded it, put it back on and checked it again and then pulled it off, bead blasted it and put a coat of paint on it. Pictures 3, 4 and 5 should help explain. Done. Tomorrow, I will start the install of a new condenser with o rings onto my radiator and how I will go about making connections onto the existing flared hard lines.

I've bought a couple of lots of die grinders off industrial auctions for $25-$30 for 8 or 10 grinders. Normally most of them work. So I have a selection now 🙂

I get all my news from social media and the National Enquirer. Are you guys bullying me? I may have to report you to management. 😛

Got my second jab today and plan on feeling horrible tomorrow.

Yes, but you have to weld the new panel on anyway.

This pic is pure sex... love that shot..

I forgot to mention, the correct length belt for this new modification is a Gates XL 9350 (15/32" x 35 3/8" or 12mm x 899mm). I barely fits over the pulleys with the tensioner pulley completely slack and when the tensioner pulley tightens the belt properly it still has about 3/4" of travel up.

It's kind of becoming background now but at least it's skewing more toward free will and choice. Those who choose to take the risk pay a higher price. Of course, though, they'll take some innocent people with them, just like speeding or driving drunk or smoking. Things are getting more Darwinian.

Thanks, guys We have a local carb shop. I spoke to them today. He said he could do it next week. We'll see what he says when he actually sees it. I have the original carb too. I think I will have him check it out too, as a spare

I have never used a low noise type. But if it's anything like the low-noise type air ratchet I have; it wont be very quiet. Maybe the low-noise type are intended to be hearing safe I was wrong... I have more than 6 or 7 . This isn't even all of them. Sorry about the rotation. It displays properly on my computer and in an editor... This is my tool of choice for spot welds. You can tell it's been hot. It's done hundreds of welds. I find a straight one is easier to use than the angle grinder because of the better leverage This is also really nice for dressing welds. A 1" Rolok The biggest problem with it is the pads go very quickly!! They are also hard to source and about $0.35 each. I normally dress welds mostly down with the 3" cut off wheel. Then fine tune with the 1" and 2" Roloks

Jim, There are hotels between your home and Colorado Springs. You don't have to be the Hulk and drive it in one day. Would like to buy you a beer. In Colorado Springs.

One month to go!!!! WOOHOO!!!!!!

or a bad day at the dentist!

Yep, weld through primer. I’m using copper, upol brand.

Haha!! Done that!!

Crap....