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A few weeks ago i saw a set of 240Z factory seats for sale locally. I put a bid on them because i thought they're in better condition then the ones i had, or i could use them as parts donors or sell them again if not needed. I didn't expect to win the auction but well i did.. so today i went to pick them up from a nice bloke: The seats are used, but generally in nice condition. Perfect for a refurbish: I asked the seller if he maybe had some more parts, and he said he sold his Z approx 20 years ago and is cleaning out his garage. He modified his blue 240Z back then with some recaro seats, that's why the seats where for sale, but he also put a whale-tail spoiler and other fancy stuff of the time on the car. So he also had an original trunk spoiler for sale. This comes in handy, as most of them have their bolts rusted off. this one is still quite good, so i might even use this one instead the one i once repaired for myself: Aside from the Dashboard metal cowl / trim piece thing (see first photo), he also had these units: A set of NOS door chrome mouldings. Complete with the factory "Hashimoto Forming Kogyo Co. Ltd" protectve sticker on it, etc. Definitely something you come across every day, so overall i'm happy with my purchase. I have a good set of spare seats, a nice spoiler, NOS window mouldings and a dashboard trim piece.

I was at Road Atlanta watching the vintage racing action. After the day was done, it's time to drive home. I put the transmission in 3rd gear to go down the big hill, and it's letting out a whine that I had never heard before. As I pulled up behind other traffic, I put the car in 1st, there was a really bad noise, and the car lurched. I tried 2nd. The transmission whined a painful whine, and 3rd was about the same. I decided to see if I could make it closer to home to reduce the amount of time getting towed. I could get the car moving in 2nd and quickly shifted through 3rd and on to 4th. I cruised home and only had to come to a full stop a couple of times. The 260Z will be parked for a little while. Fortunately, I have a line on a 5 speed. It's not a great situation, but I did make it home safe.

I remember Fastwoman talking about Goodyear EZ coils for bending rubber hose. That may be in the links Namerow already posted? I'm using my phone and it's a pain trying to type.

Wow. Makes me really wonder if the oil control rings were installed properly. I can't imagine they wore out that quickly, but maybe put in wrong somehow? In any event, the answer will hopefully be forthcoming soon.

Of course!! I wanted to be sure you had documentation for reassembly

I drove one backwards to get home. Had to replace the tranny. The fluid flow is next to nothing going backwards.

Give me a call. Might have something for you.

So you were taking pictures while I was doing all the wrenching?? Just kidding, I really appreciate Charles driving down and helping me get the motor out. It's really nice working with someone that knows Z's. We had the motor out and torn down in about an hour. Motor is loaded in the truck and headed to the builder in the morning. I will post up what what we find. Good day.

One other thing to note is that due to the shape of the tank the gauge comes off "F" fairly quick because the top part of the tank is way smaller than the bottom part of the tank. The fuel gauge moves much slower in the bottom half of the gauge.

So I don't want to get ahead of Ernest but I'll post up some info from today. I went and helped him get the engine out. We tore it down to the long block The intake valve stems were really clean looking. The exhaust ports looked really wet! It's a little hard to see in this picture. That is actually a puddle of oil in the exhaust port! This is actually liquid like oil that was seeping down under the gasket. Pretty much all of the ports had the same situation. The PCV hose was nice and clean. I would say all of this is coming from the bottom end and it's not isolated to one cylinder. To me that rules out a broken ring or bad ring indexing or something isolated like that. This is an issue across all the cylinders. I also don't believe the engine builder is going to be the issue. He's apparently been building races engines for probably 40+ years. If I had to guess, I would suspect the oil rings destroyed themselves. Possibly poor quality rings... Will be interesting to see what he finds when he tears it down

I also took his spare tire mount apart last weekend and replated and painted everything. The chain was tough to plate! I really should have done it in the barrel plater and I don't have enough amperage for a part that big. So I had to do it in sections and that made it sort of inconsistent. But like Cody said it will be up under the car I also started on the door sill tin at Ernest's

On another note we have a matchbox dizzy for his car. It looked pretty pathetic, so I decided I would go through it and clean it up and make sure everything was free inside it... So I was trying to get the reluctor(?) off but was afraid to try to pry hard enough to make it move. So I came up with this. I use the center off another puller and a couple of paint can openers. Didn't need a wrench. Threaded off by hand Continued on with disassembly Pretty nasty inside So after I helped Ernest pull his motor, I made use of his Vapor honing cabinet The main body has a lot of pitting but not much I can do about that. It does look a lot better though and once it's reassembled, it aught to be reasonably presentable

Work has kept me busy for a little bit. PSI coming out was roughly 4. I’ve installed new crush washers in the carb. I used Teflon tape on the outside to see where the leak was coming from and now it’s good to go.

Older cars without catalytic converters are not going to burn newer fuel as efficiently. In fact, one of the main jobs of the catalytic converter is to change hydrogen sulfide into sulfur dioxide, which has no odor. I just returned from a local cars and coffee event and pretty much every car older than 1980 smelled like it was running rich while driving past. The bottom line is our Z cars will seem to run rich when compared to their newer contemporaries . Better to run it bit rich than going too lean and risk engine damage. IMHO

I put a few gallons a year in my '72, it's 93 with 10% ethanol. To be honest the most problems I've read on here is a result of low fuel chambers. Get the floats right then you can adjust the carbs & timing correct. I tried and tried for a month then went to basics like my Dad taught me, now it's rock solid.

Since then I've swapped in the fuel rails to go with the round tops. I run 91 octane because it's the only ethanol free gas around here.

I remember that post, but I don't have a link. Here's a compendium of articles that I put together several years ago on the topic. No mention of the forming spring. but a useful suggestion for simulating the 180-degree bend using a 90-degree coupling and a section of a donor hose (EFI?) that has a 90-degree bend and the right ID. S30 Fuel Hoses & Hard Lines.docx.pdf S30 Fuel Tank Vent Hoses - Rating the factory replacements - ClassicZCars.com - 2011.docx.pdf

Try searching unicoil or unicoil hose former. Shows 90° max but maybe there are others. https://www.unicoil.com.au/product/single-unicoils/

Good grief. Don't use those aftermarket rocker arms. OEM only on these.

I didn't lube the upper outer seal to make sure it didn't cling to the hatch edge then closing and the seal bond had not fully dried, so it pealed inward - I found out today. We have rain forecast pretty much from now until Monday, so I removed the hatch, stripped all the adhesive (which messed up the new paint, since I clearly didn't let the paint cure/harden long enough) and repainted the upper trough/lip. I'm leaving the paint to harden until Monday when the rain gives over, then I'll re-glue the outer seal, and leave the hatch off until it's clearly properly bonded. I also bought the black super weatherstrip adhesive instead of the yellow I used previously. taped up the opening, then covered the car with 2 breathable covers

Nice clean looking install!

Unless you have a particular interest in going with aftermarket carbs, the '70-72 240Z stock Hitachi carbs are a great fit for your car. Everything is readily available, including manifolds, linkage, and air filter box.

Indeed, he muses about "having tea" with some of the legends of Japanese automotive industry - Honda, Toyota, etc. All of whom apparently elected not to pursue furthering their business relationship.

Just about done with the AC hardlines. Once I get the dash built up I’ll finish plumbing these up to the Vintage Air unit.

Absolutely, I’ve got special pucks I made with a notch down the middle to slide over these jack points for the 2 post

Most likely the case, damage that was done by the previous ownership. Passenger floor pan had rot where it overlapped the frame rail, right under the seat brackets. The drivers side probably could have been saved. It had some rot where it met the firewall and a few big dents I was worried would never fully come clean. Gambled replacing the entire panel would be quicker than all the smaller jobs.

If you hit the rubber grommets with a heat gun (or the wife’s hair drier) it’s gets soft enough to pull over the terminals.

Today I finished my homework, summary of transmissions. For S30 series [F4W71A] 3.549 2.197 1.420 1.00 3.164 All except Europe and AUS (optional for HS30) Oct 1969 to Aug 1971 Sleeve type [FS5C71A] 2.957 1.858 1.311 1.00 0.852 2.922 JPN(S30 HS30 PS30), EUROPE, AUS Oct 1969 to Dec 1971 Flange type [F4W71B] 3.592 2.246 1.415 1.000 3.657 JPN (S30S GS30S S31S GS31S) Sep 1971 to Jun 1978 US & CANADA Sep 1971 to Nov 1974 Sleeve type 3.321 2.077 1.308 1.000 3.382 US & CANADA Dec 1974 to Jun 1978 Sleeve type [FS5C71B] 2.906 1.902 1.308 1.000 0.864 3.382 JPN(HS30 PS30) Jan 1972 to Aug 1973 Europe Jan 1972 to Jul 1976 AUS Jan 1972 to Jun 1978 Flange type (up to Aug 1972) Sleeve type (from Sep 1972) 3.321 2.077 1.308 1.000 0.864 3.382 JPN (S30 S31) Jan 1972 to Jun 1978 Europe Aug 1976 to Jun 1978 Flange type (up to Aug 1972) Sleeve type (from Sep 1972) [FS5W71B] 3.321 2.077 1.308 1.000 0.864 3.382 US & CANADA Aug 1976 to Jun 1978 Sleeve type Anyone can add or correct if you find something needed. Even the factory manuals have some errors! Kats

Hi, in March 1971 Nissan Race & Rally manual introduced Option 3 gears, please see the attached picture. It says “Option 3 is for a short distance race, Option 2 is for a long distance race. Option 1 is for a small course” By the way GTR’s first race ( May 3rd 1969 at Fuji Speed Way) was something unusual. Toyota 1600 GT finished first GTR second. Everyone expected GTR would have won firmly even Toyota team thought the same. After the race, a few days passed, the GTR became a winner because the Toyota 1600GT had obstruction. The GTR had a Option 2 transmission. A general manager of the team Mr. Aoji said “the transmission gearing was wrong for freshman. We thought start is only once in the whole race. But we should have taken it more seriously” As we see the data Option 2 gears looks like omitting 1st gear. It requires certain techniques especially with S20 engine. You can go faster if you can maintain higher RPM. The race officials announced specific rules two months before the race, “ drivers who won Nippon Grand Prix etc can not enter this race” So Nissan team had to train freshman immediately. Kats

Hi, Alan and xs10shl or other people, can you find out what it is? A bolt for fixing the transmission case. The bolt’s head has a hole, I guess it should be used for a wire securing. But how I can do that? Two bolts adjacent each other should be tied? Or any other way? I have got this transmission yesterday, I made a gamble for this. The seller said this is Option 3, stand-by duty for a racing team. And he heard it came from Speed Shop KUBO, really? I rotated the rear end flange to see how much turn does the input shaft make. The seller and I confirmed it is close to the Option 3 ratio. Without any internal pictures, but I jumped in. I am scared to open the case, let’s see what I will have. Kats