Zedyone_kenobi

I was cleaning up the Z interior the other day and decided I was going to try to refresh my stock gear shift knob. But as I tried to unscrew it, the whole shift lever turned, and seemingly never came out. I am not familiar with what the bottom end of the shift lever looks like without the boot, but I know whatever is under there is original and has had 37 years of light use. (69000 miles). how does the base of the shifter connect to the tranny, and is there a fix for the shift lever spinning, as I would rather it be firm and fixed in place.

update: I received my half shafts from the shop and apparently the ujoints were in pretty bad shape...the guy told me that they looked to be starting to score the inner races they were so bad. Funny is I did not feel any slop at all but he showed me how there was some. Guess it never hurts to get an expert on it. So half shaft ujoints are all new! Had to build a shed this weekend, so I was not able to do any Z work. Bummer. I did get my mustache bar clean and found my old brazing torch. So those stock bushings are living on borrowed time.

I guess I should not mention my elevator! haha

When I bought my car, it came with an extra set of 4 bolt round top SU's bolted to an E46 manifold. I need the room in my garage for new tools, so this needs to go. Is there anybody who needs a set of round tops. The PO told me they were in working condition when they were removed, but I have NEVER verified this. They do appear to need to be cleaned. I can take pictures of them if anybody wants to see it. I would take any reasonable offer, hopefully I can help somebody out.

Its in my other clunk thread!.. Sorry Frank...the cliff notes version is this. I was crawling around under my car and thought to check out the transmission mount. Well I can push up on the tranny an easy 1/4" and the mount stays on the cross member. Its obviously shot. I think that this is where the sound was coming from all along, and it makes sense, as the sound did seem like it came from the center of the car more than the rear! Parts are ordered. I will get a picture of the current mount when I take it off next weekend.

Well put gents. I have something to think about. As my bushings in the mustache bar currently look brand new, I may not replace them. They are not cracks and are even still a bit soft and rubbery. THe PO said all the rubber was replaced. I have found that to be only 80% true, so I have to check everything. I will decide what to do later. I think I found my clunk and I am pretty sure it had nothing to do with the mustache bar.

UPDATE: Possible smoking gun. I took my half shafts to a driveshaft shop in town. Seems three of my ujoints had a little slop, so I went ahead and replaced all 4. Apparently there is a technique to feeling the Ujoint out. So that will be done next week. But the real story is when I climbed under my car to clean some parts. When I looked at the transmission mount I found out that I can pick up on the tail of the tranny an easy 1/4 inch while the mount stays motionless. I think this may be the culprit I have been searching for. If its this easy for me to push on the transmission and do this, I would wager that torque from the engine can do much more. It also explains why it sounded like my clunk was coming more from the middle of the car than the back. I will order these parts today along with some steering rack bushings, why rack bushings? I don't see any way to remove the steering coupler without moving the rack forward to gain some room to slide it off. I was going to do an easy steering coupler swapout with the urethane bushing I bought, or so I thought!!! But the job will take more than the 45 minutes I thought it would. now we are moving the whole rack forward. Nothing is every black and white! Are we having fun yet! I know I am! This is why I wanted a project car. Also, when its said and done, I will be able throw my ITG's on there once I find a way to get all the stock vacuum plumbing figured out. Seems even the smallest job grows on this car, but I think I have at last found what I was looking for. The tranny bushing seems easy as pie, so when I get all that done, I will post some pics of the painted parts and the install. Oh, what the heck. EUREKA!!! Just felt like screaming that.

Well I have decided that since I already ordred my poly mustache bar bushings, I may as well install them. I know I need to leave my stock housings in the bar ends, but I need to know exactly how to remove the rubber from inside the housing. My clever use of the search button has produced a trick that people are burning the bushing out of the collar. Also described as heating it up and then forcing the rubber out. Can somebody elaborate on this before I take my torch and just melt the darn thing out!

Looking forward to those days Frank. Hope to get her put back together by end of October. Nice driving weather in October

I have ordered two ITG air filters for my stock SU's on my basically stock L24. I am not looking for HP of any kind from this, but I am wondering if I will need to adjust the carbs any. I ordered air horns to put inside the ITG's so it will be as close to stock as I could make it. I still have the stock air box with a new filter, just in case, but I wanted to try this out for a while. I am asking this as my car starts, drives and idles perfectly right now. Wondering if I am opening a can of worms. I would imagine that the SU's can handle it as they self meter for the most part.

My question is what is the use for the car? Are you planning on racing it. I see your soon to have a stroked 3.2 in your signature. If the car is just going to be on the street, then why the need for 245's. That is a huge amount of rubber on the road. Going too wide on a car can sometimes lead to ill handling effects in steering feel. I guess it depends on what you are looking for. I find that sticking with a tire that will fit perfectly and then buying the stickiest tire possible often leads to better results. As light as Z's are, the tires are not worked as hard and I think you can get away with 225's quite nicely. I have 205's on mine, and they look 'the business' in my personal opinion.

just my tools, my Z and my shelves... fridge to come later.

I was strongly considering ordering new inboard rear control arm bushings. I mean I am practically there already with the front diff mount off the car, the rears are just 4 small bolts. I think I will do this. Heres the reason why. As mentioned, my rear diff feels exaclty like the diff I ordered. Now there is no guaranty that the one I ordered is any good either, but the chances of them both being bad in exactly the same way, (or rather what I perceived as bad) is extremely slim. So since I found no smoking gun, I am left scratching my head what to look for next. I will take a look at the inboard rear control arm bushings. Pics to follow.

Thats good advice, but I would need to start looking for a R200 then right? I am not sure I really need a LSD with my stock L24. Sticky tires and throttle modulation will work fine for now, but if I can find a good posi unit to put in it, I most certainly would not thumb my nose at it. At the moment, I would not even know where to look.

Just an update... Today after I spent hours mending a fence to serviceable conditions, I decided to take a stab at more clunk diagnosing. I pulled the yoke out of the old diff and put it in the new one with the bolt just finger tight. I could still move it up radially just as much as I could with the old diff, which leads me to believe that my old diff may be okay, still hard to measure clearances just eyeballing it. I did find a local diff guy that would rebuild it for 250 plus parts. May be worth doing, we will see. It may be perfectly fine. I removed my mustache bar and wanted to look at the bushings inside those. Well it unbolted rather easily, not lose mind you, just not stuck bolts. When I looked at the rubber inside it, it looked fine. No cracks, it was still supple actually. So far the investigation has been just mechanics eyeball for now, but heres the score. half shaft u-joints feel tight as can be... no detectable slop found Front Diff mount appears to be in good shape, with the rubber not showing any cracks or damage or give Mustache bar bushings look to be rather new, not really in need of replacement I may need to turn my attention to the transmission if I cannot find anything of substance. The back end is not giving me any smoking guns.

Update. After evacuating from IKE, we are just getting things back together. I had some roof damage, my fence is in tatters, my bbq pit was beat up. All the trees in my yard were blown completely over. But it could have been worse. I had no water damage, other than a tiny leak that made some of the drywall on my ceiling start to crack, but it could have been much worse. We are lucky. We have power now, and running water. We still have to boil it before each use, but we made it back. The Z project is going to have to be put on hold for a week or so, until I can mend the roof and fence. Family is well though. My youngest did manage to catch diarrhea in Louisiana, so he is not happy. But work will finish soon enough.

Sorry to hear about your accident, but cars can be repaired people cannot. If you are interested in something other than Mitsu wheels, give me a PM, I think I can help you out. Just letting you know that your Z friends are here for you.

must resist that temptation! Must stay on target. I have a POR-15 starter kit I have yet to open.. It may be enough to do the diff, mustache bars, and half shafts...But I do not know for sure. Only problem is the kit is silver, not grey. So I may have to use something else. Not sure how it would look in silver.

Update.. Not much has happened since this pic was taken. It still pretty much looks like this. But I did manage a trip to the parts store to score package of wire, brass, and hard plastic bristle brushes. Also bought a few more rolls of towels while I was at it. I have a couple of bottles of diluted Castrol Super clean. Once I get them cleaned up, I will start the assembly process. If I still have the clunk, then we will start looking elsewhere. Is there any trick to removing the yokes coming out of the diff? Looks like one bolt holds each in. Looks straight forward.

Update, the Diff is out and what a job that was... the PO had the exhaust run under it to some degree, so there was some exhaust shuffling going around.. I Think I have reached a while I am at it situation. I may as well order that nice monza exhaust to replace my rusted one. Love the over/under look and 3" piping is just overkill for a stock L24. Here are some pics. I found some nice clear bins I am going to use to clean and store / paint my parts. Half shafts are nice and cozy. Here are my two diffs, the VERY dirty one is the one off the car, the dirty one is potential replacement, I find it interesting how many more casting numbers there are on the diff that came off the car. THere are numbers everywhere. "209" is in several places. ???? you got me.. I will post pics of all the numbers tomorrow when I get some castrol superclean do work its magic.

Well, no argument there, no the revs, but 3" is overkill if you ask me. Plus the current exhaust looks rather bad. I am with Arne on this one. the PO had the foresight to get the header jet hot coated. I would hate to not use it. Seems like a whole bunch of work to replace a perfectly good header. I agree, that a good shop should be able to fab up just the back end of the exhaust. I think that will be my direction.. Plus it will save me 450 bucks on a new header.

Is that the eurethane bushing in the background.. I just ordered these.

I currently have a 71 Zed with an MSA 6-2-1 Header that has been jet hot coated. The previous owner decided it needed a 3" pipe all the way back to the no name muffler. I have long known that I have no intention on spending life upwards of 6500 rpm very long and would like a tuned exhaust with a smaller diameter pipe (2.5" all the way back, or even twice pipes) I have read many many threads on exhausts here, but since this is my first Z, I have noob kind of question. Can I replace my header with a new one without taking off the carbs. From the look of the gasket, its all one piece and would think I would need to replace the entire gasket if I chose to just replace the header? I have my eye on the Monza header and over/under exhaust system that matches it. Its all aluminized so it should be good to go with rust. As you can see my old exhaust is rather.. um... oxidized to be nice..

WEll thats the plan Mike, I have a urethane mustache bar bushing kit coming, and I have new diff mount. I do plan on using the existing strap, as it appears in decent shape snug against the diff. I will let you know about my results when I am done.

I have been looking at parts drawings and reading more on the web here an other places. Mike, I am going to take your advice as it seems number 3 is the best method. I was initially concerned with just dropping the crossmember and leaving the back part of the rear a-arm still attached to the frame, but the more I read on it, it seems to be fine. #3 is also more attractive as its quite easy to get my impact wrench on those bolts as NOTHING is in the way. More pics to follow after I get the diff out, probably this weekend. I assume when you mean big mothers that hold the bushings, you mean the mustache bar?