Leaderboard

When i recently talked to Florian at Datsun-autowerk.com/. he reminded me of his stock of nice parts, and we made an exchange deal of some things. So i got this nice delivery of NOS (New-old-Stock) parts today, and some extra: It includes a set of inner and outer door handles: Various Door stoppers, hatch stoppers, door lock mounts, etc.: A heater valve and a clutch Cylinder piston: Inner door steps, Door seals, some rubber stoppers and seals: And it also included a nice Japanese Real-X 1/72 300ZX Z31 Model car (thanks for the freebie, mate!) And also a set of nice Japense market Fairlady Z brochures, which were still missing in my collection! Thanks as usual for the excellent service, mate! And stay tuned. another nice Parts delivery is on the way, i bought some more Documents from Datsun Switzerland, and on sunday i will pick up something Cool for the Datsun fans, which i've been searching for for quite some years. And i guess i should visit the bodyshop again soon to check out the progress there.

Yeah, I need to get under and take a more detailed look. My initial glances are that it appears to be solid, and the mechanic that looked at it for me when I bought it didn't see anything when he had it on the lift. I am looking into getting one of those portable lifts (maybe tomorrow if there are any good sales) so I can get under and take a look. If not, I have four decent jackstands and just need to verify the jacking points are in good enough shape to support the car. Of course, this will be after all of the requisite holiday festivities, decorating, and other activities. Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, BTW! I am happy to be part of such a great Z community and keeping our cars and hobby alive!

I've been in a few Tesla's, and they weren't very interesting to me at all. I got a demo of the 0-60 acceleration in either Insane or Ludicrous mode (can't remember which), and it was quite surreal, but it didn't compare to accelerating an IC engine through its gears, even though it happened in a third of the time. Silly developments like this one tell you that there are people who will never see electric cars as a replacement for their IC-powered toys: "For those who find electric cars a bit boring, Toyota engineers are working on a realistic-feeling fake manual transmission as a possible feature. To be clear, a manual transmission on an electric car would serve absolutely no purpose. It would be just for fun, an add-on for people who like shifting gears in their gasoline-powered cars." I've also seen articles talking about manufacturers adding engine-like sounds to their cars. It's hard to imagine the people they're aiming these "innovations" at being "fooled". I'm an electrical engineer. I've spent most of my career in software businesses. In my opinion, auto manufacturers have always botched up electrical systems, and have been even worse with more sophisticated electronics, and (especially) user interface design (post-physical dials, buttons, and switches). Modern "infotainment" systems are abominations. It's one of those glaring hypocrisies that we levy heavy fines for distracted driving when someone touches a cell phone while driving, but expect people to adjust the cabin temperature or change the radio station on one of those things. Give me an early Z dashboard any day (even with the cracks).

So I had some time this morning today to try the dry ice method to remove the tar mat from the floors and get a better idea of the extent of the rust and other non-welded repair work. It was definitely easier than just scraping, but was more work than some of the YouTube videos would lead you to believe, unless I did it wrong. Still, I was also able to turn it into a science lesson for my kids (who were off today for Thanksgiving break) to demonstrate the difference in thermal properties of differing materials. My son seemed to think it was cool, but my daughter lost interest pretty quickly. It looks like the driver side is the worst, especially at the front. The passenger side appears to be localized along the rail, and it looks like there was a bolted repair performed on the rail. They had put in more Maxwell House coffee cans along the passenger rail with some sort of rubberized coating, tar mat, and what looked like some Bondo. Despite the holes, the floor feels solid in most places. I guess I have some grinding to do now to get rid of the rust and see where I need new sheet metal.

So we worked on Cody's car some. We got the header from Troy Ermish. He was more than willing to work with us on some fitment issues. The header touches the block near the outside edge of the bell housing. We spent some time with the die grinder and clearanced the block and bell housing. It's pretty close to the floor. Hopefully the motor doesn't move that much in the mounts Then I mixed up some blue to touch up where we had been grinding The other issue is the parking brake cable. We need to pull it over to the side but there is too much slack. So we going to try to take 3" out of it We'll see how that goes

Now you tell me.

Rubber hammer and appropriate sacrifices to the deity of your choice. Hmmmm, start at the bend I think and work either way. Just remember you are attaching it over the top lip first, then snapping it on over the bottom as you go along banging it with the rubber mallet. Oh yeah, and remove all the extra paint that may have been applied to this area on a repaint first. Needs to be stock paint thickness......

If you contract with an upholsterer, you can select just about any fabric you like. Or, if you are like me and have your heart set on a specific pattern, take this as an opportunity to learn upholstery. I'm doing that with leather so I can cover my dashboard.

Nice, much better. How is the floor pans under the seats? Your dash and door cards are in beautiful shape.

I'll still take a crappy rental over a driverless car any day. I agree gas will likely only get more expensive, especially if the Government and auto industry pushes us to electric vehicles. I'm still on the fence with those too. Although the instantaneous power and torque provides almost unmatchable acceleration over gasoline powered combustion engines, I have still yet to see one that excites me enough to want to make the leap. I'll argue that there is no current electric vehicle that provides the same fun-to-drive factor as the few remaining performance cars still being offered.

You could adopt me! I'll show an interest 😁

Thanks, just ordered a pack of 20.

That would be nice. Otherwise, we, or our surviving spouses, are going to have a difficult time finding buyers for our Z cars at some point. I have three fun to drive cars (the Z, a Porsche, and an Avanti) that my son hasn't shown too much interest in taking. He recently bought an electric car that fills his need for a fun to drive car. Where did I go wrong in raising him?

I went with leather and I'm happy with that. Otherwise, I'd suggest finding an upholsterer to create a new cover.

If we look at the young people today - teens and twenty-somthings, it is pretty easy to see why this is a direction in which we are heading. Many of them do not know how to drive and don't want to. The total cost of ownership for a car is often beyond their means or not where they want to place a significant part of their income. They have found that a e-scooter or e-bike can meet a lot of neighborhood needs and they are comfortable with the economics of occasional ride-share services for longer distance needs. Long distance travel by car is boring when a cheap, off-peak airfare willl suffice and is much faster. Where enthusiasts see vehicles as inspirational, challenging, and enjoyable objects, we are seeing a new generation that sees them only for their utility value as a means of transport.

I kind of look at this as two different activities. For a lot of travel, I'd love to be able to call a car to come pick me up and drive me to my destination while I read/talk/sleep/drink a beer. This would have been especially true when I was travelling for business, and had only a crappy rental to drive. On the other hand, I like driving, so there are times when I want to go out just to enjoy driving, either as a dedicated activity, or as a side benefit while I'm going somewhere. Fortunately, I don't think driving is likely to be banned in most of our lifetimes, though gas and parts could one day get very expensive and hard to find. So @grannyknot you don't need to add the self-driving option to my car.

In case you do eventually get a driverless car for your wife and daughter, you might want to start learning Lidar repair skills if you plan on maintaining it yourself. Not much will be owner serviceable in the future.

just zoom in on your picture, 37:11, right there to the left of the 3 9 4 stuff. Standard US S30 R180 ratio for the 240 years, 3.36 to 1 I should be on CSI Calgary

Worked on the Goon some today First time outdoors in a while. It's filthy... So the engine is in and I will start trying to help him get some of the misc pulled together. One of the big things is fabbing up an exhaust. I also need to try to figure out the float levels. I'm not sure if I can set them to the same height as standard SU's?

So I was able to get the plug at the end of the EGR gallery opposite where the EGR valve would be. Looks like it's entirely jam packed with this material. From the one plug I was able to get out earlier, showing the port from the EGR gallery to the manifold, it looks like somebody soldered the ports shut and then packed this stuff into the manifold that really does seem like casting sand. ... or it was like that from the factory. ::shrug::