stevef1972z

Progress is slooooowwww right now. Its been cold here in the St. Louis Metro area and my garage is not heated, unless I am down there with the kerosene heater on. Tools are coming together, got my new air nibbler from Ebay in late this week. I plan to use it to help cut out the floorboards to prep for replacement. Need a set of flanging pliers, you know the ones that make the lip on the edge of sheetmetal, dont know where to find one yet. Also got the welder back in house with a new spool of wire so it is ready to go. All I need now is the pan and the support and then the upper piece of frame support that goes by the tc mount. Progress, but slow. Read all the steering wheel refurbishing posts looks like I might do that since I have one laying around.

Venting here if fine. Healthy actually. Many states have run similar bills in the recent past. Dont let the venting stop here. To be effective make yourself part of the solution to the problems. Join groups like SEMA to ensure the hobby has a voice. Bills become laws when voted on by the people chosen to be in the office. Democracy works only as long as the governed are part of the government. As a country we have let the control go to the politicians. We the people have a tendancy to vote every few years and forget. When something effects us directly we become outraged. People need to be watchful at all times to keep government working properly. If not then things can spiral out of control quickly. Our situation legislatively and finacinally didnt occur overnight. It has all been years in the making. Now we pay for decades of inattention. The current conditions will make it much easier for federal, state and local governments to attempt many different laws and regulations on many areas of our lives. We, as a hobby, pay intimate attention to proper pieces is proper places, measure to the 100th of an inch a functioning part, and put undivided attention toward our projects. Applying those same skills to other areas of our lives and monitoring our government is a great place to start using those skills outside the garage.

Smoke can be from left over water in the oil system if the head gasket blew and allowed water into the oil system. Even after an oil change you will have milkshake looking stuff in the pan and all over. If you just removed the head and cleaned it and put everything back together there is a lot of water and antifreeze left in the oil passages of the block. That stuff can ruin plugs as well. Check the condition of your plugs and what the oil looks like again.

I figured it wouldnt be too smart to cut them both sides at the same time, but how about the double floor? Since the one that is in the car now is solid, I am seriously considering leaving it and adding the piece from Charlie back in. Will check out the baddog thanks!

Welcome and good luck with the car, looks like a great place to start! Before you get to banging on it too hard, check the floor pans, floor support and frame rail on the passenger side and then the drivers side, these can rot pretty quick and leave the front suspension mounting point for the torsion control rod weak. The one I bought sat a while too before I picked it up and it did not have good levels of antifreeze in it. I got it running and it spit a headgasket real quick, when I pulled the head the headgasket had rusted and weakened till it failed. Cheap fix and not a bad job to do, hope yours was stored better than mine!

No problem and nobody is busting your chops or anything, trust us we were all new once, and I still am, we really want to see you get this taken care of so you can enjoy the car.

I took the leap before I learned when I got my Z last year. You are already doing the right thing, you are here looking and learning. There is a lot on the site I wished I knew before I made my purchase. These cars rust, from the inside out, and they are incredibly photogenic. Dont trust a picture, look at the car, knock on it with knuckles, floor pans, floor supports, frame rails, battery box, wheel arches and rocker panels all are prone to cancer. The engines are downright bullet proof, though the headgaskets can fail, but are simple for even a first timer to the Z to replace (I know that for a fact!). Of course like any car this old try to find one that hasnt had the wiring harness hacked over the years. Be realistic on what your skills are and what you want to do to the car, and take the time to find one that fits you and your desire. You have waited this long, a few more months searching will make the experience much better than a sudden rush. Welcome to the site, good luck in your search!!!!!

OK hate to sound like a jerk, but what happened? Loose spark all at once? Did you do some work and then loose spark? What have you checked and done to correct the problem? Might not be the module and the folks here might be able to save you a little bit of money and give you the fix you are looking for.

I found out on my project that grounds on these cars are super important and what may have been fine before starting a upgrade or repair isnt so fine when done. Check them as well. When they ask for the date of the replacement part year its for a darn good reason and the more details the better for some of the guys here can fix a problem or lead you to the fix super easy if they know what exactly you are trying to do and what you are working with. BTW welcome to the site, its worth the time to learn the vocabulary on these cars and how to mine the site with the search functions these guys know these little cars! Good luck!

As I type all of this the car is sitting in the garage, up on ramps. After reading a lot of posts here and asking some questions that had been asked before (its hard for a new person to search the postings because they dont have the vocabulary for the car yet) I went down to check the passenger side floorboard and the floor support. You guessed it, rust. Big time. There really is no support rail and it is rusted right up to the Torsion Rod mounting point on the frame. Dug in and figured out what had happened. The floor is super solid on the inside. The PO put in a new floor, above the old one! Its a fabbed floor, but a darn good fit and solid as a rock, just not stock and no drain holes, stamping etc. He eaither bent it himself or had someone else do it. I dont know what to do about it yet. Cut out BOTH floors? Cut out the rusted section of the original floor and order a replacement floor pan and support cut the pan to fit the bad section weld it in and then weld the floor support and the front piece up to the suspension mount? Maybe cut out the original floor pan and then add the floor support and then do the next piece up to the suspension point. I dont know yet, ordered a air nibbler to help with the cut out portion to cut back to good metal on the original pan to see what I have. Any ideas? What would you do?

Well written thank you for an option to consider while working on my own project.

If you have the basic skills, tools and manuals it shouldnt be too hard to get it all back together. The first thing to do would be to do a complete inventory of what is there and what is lost. Then make and honest list of what the car needs done to it along with an honest list of what you can do yourself. Figure out how much its going to cost for the work you cant do yourself, and add a third, its always more than you think. Check the check book and the time and then decide if you want to get that involved. Use the catalogs and online searches for your price list and dont forget shipping! I am interested to see how this goes, just my opinion on what to look at. Good luck!

I decided it would be nice to put something together to track the life of this car. I have had a lot of different cars over the years from MGs to Lifted 4x4s. I sold my 1979 Z28 T-top Camaro with 435hp 445lbt/ft after I got a little bored with going in a straight line. I started looking around and found my Z. Its a 72 numbers matching car that I am 3rd owner from what I can tell so far. I should have found this site before I bought the car and I would have know more of what to look for. 4th of July weekend I picked the car up and took off with a toolbox, extra oil, water, tape, fuses and thought I had it covered. 17 miles later it started to overheat. Pulled over let it cool down and added about a half a gallon to the radiator. Its full of build up so I didnt think too much about it. After getting down to 150ish I thought I would try again. Made it 7 more miles before it blew the head gasket in a plume of white smoke. I limped it to the next exit let it cool for an hour and then limped it to a gas station to get a tow truck. Had it drug home. I made the driver pull past my house and drop the Z at the top of the hill. Paid him went to the house, opened the garage door and jumped into the Z and coasted it in the door. It didnt get towed into the drive, a moral victory! I dug through the car and the box of stuff that came with it and found a few manuals. The long weekend was over, my wife was at a conference for the week, so I came home every night, put in a couple hours on it each night. It was only a total of 6 hours worth of work but it took me about 4 nights. Once I got it running and through several milkshake oil changes I took it out where it promptly stopped running only three blocks from home. Had to hook it to the Jeep and drag it back. Tell you more later, it gets better!

Ok so as some of you know from my "Guess what I found.." post I have the same rust as everyone else. There are two floors in the car, the original or about 60% of it and a newer fabbed one from an earlier restoration that is inside the original and rather solid, but I think I am going to have to cut out the floor pan and replace the passenger side. Drivers is all there and all solid, hammer and screwdriver tested. Other than Big Dog and Charlie I was not able to find any other suppliers of the floor pans and the floor support. Are there only 2 or am I just a poor search word choser in google and the search here? Additionally I have rust at the torsion bar mount. What is the actual name for the piece that runs from the floor up to the suspension mount? Is that part of the floor support or is it part of the frame. I cant quite make it out. Has anyone just fabed a sub frame connector out of round tubing and mounting plates welded? Is this a bad idea or should I just order from where everyone else has? Sorry very new to these cars and reading all the time, but I want to be back on the road soon, may be 4 to 6 weeks, and this little project looks like it is going to be time consuming and a much more expensive than I thought it would be. Thanks in advance for any ideas or directions.

Ok tore into it a bit and I think I see what is going on. The PO welded in new front floor pans in place, left the old one with floor support and used the flashing and the aluminum foil to hold the two apart. The metal he welded in is in very good shape, just surface rust that looks a lot worse in the photos. The problem is forward where the torsion arm comes into the anchor (sorry for the wrong term feel free to correct me wont hurt my feelings). That entire section of floor support is gone, and the anchor is just hanging on the frame unsupported. It will be the larger problem. Plan for this is cut out old bad original floor. Strip the surface rust from the floor pan that were fabbed prior. Weld the new support to the floor. Lots of cleanup and inspection of the anchor point to see if it is solid, if not, then I have a big problem that may be beyond my skill to handle. Please comment.

Wow that was was helpful great direction on that post thanks a ton!

Great will definitely look that up and see what you ran into. Thank you all I appreciate the help and want to do this part right!

Good reminder for me to call Hagerty. I had a 72 Mustang Convt. that was stolen, chopped and destroyed. I got a zip lock bag with some parts in it and the VIN. I know th pain of loosing one, but eventually got back to building a few years later. Hang in there.

Thanks for the link Zak still learning the parts ropes on this care and all the help I can get from those who have had these a while I will take!!! Got to love when somebody appreciate these cars. Glad I drove it a bit before finding the problems, its got me motivated to get it together and back on the road! 8 inches of snow, 2 of sleet/freezing rain, I grab those pics when it warms up end of the week and post them of the damage and prior "work" you will laugh like I did!

John I will try and get some pics up, waiting for a few more degrees of heat, its snowing freezing rain and sleeting now. Perfect time to replace the floor and supports! Thanks James I will take a look there as well. Tex this is my first Z and I am new to it all too. Even with all of this I like the little car a lot and cant wait for it to get better.

After a blown head gasket on the way home when I bought the car, a battle for headlights and dashlights, and all out brawl to get heat, I decided it was time to look a little closer at the car and really dig in. Ignorance is bliss!!! Got the beastie up in the air and noticed some surface rust on the front suspension, and the springs were flaking, happy to see the dry oil pan bottom and trans. Not too happy about the the rubber bushings, and there is only a little life left in the rack and pinion boots. Rolled back a little more, checked the drivers side rails and floor and was really happy. Saw something hanging down on the passenger side and couldnt figure out what it was. Looked like a piece of duct tape. I gave it a tug and pulled off about a three inch square of toe board! Well that got my interest. I started poking around, literally with a screwdriver. Things took a turn for the worse. Under the undercoating was the most amazing sham job I have ever gotten caught in. The majority of the passenger side floor support was constructed out of balls and layers of aluminum foil, duct tape, and what I think is roofing sheeting. It was the sheeting that held onto the magnet when I checked the rail before I bought. I am going to have to take some shots to show everybody. The amount of work that went into faking the floor support was likely more than replacing them properly! Its a work of art. I am laughing a bit now, I was had, and I wont be laughing as loud when I am scraping and grinding try to discover the amount of damage and coming up with an attack plan. Looks like floor supports and some toe boards, probably some floor board patching too. Well it will make it more mine after a good sawsalling and welding! I have read a bit now on the different floorpan replacement parts and floor supports. Looks like I am leaning toward the Big Dog set up. Has anone bought from them recently and are the parts still quality? Other suggestions on where to locate the parts reasonably? I would like to still be smiling when I am done.

Try that in the cornbelt, my dealership just stares!

I just had to share this. Today, I went to my local Oriliey Auto Parts Store. Its close and has most of the little things I need and I can go online and order and have stuff shipped without paying shipping costs. I went to pick up the upper radiator hose I ordered in today with a couple of little things. The guy at the counter asked if he could help me, and I told him I needed the upper rad hose for a 1972 Datsun 240Z. He furiously typed away on the keyboard, scrolled around with the mouse and looked confused. I asked him to look under the Nissan lable to find it. He proudly told me that he knew his imports and that Nissan didnt make anything like that and that he could not find a Dihatsu 240Z!!! I spelled it out to him D-A-T-S-U-N and that is was under the Nissan banner, I ordered on line and it was delivered with a parts drop yesterday. He was adamant that the car was never made and he knew what he was talking about. Finally the manager came over and asked what the problem was, went to the Nissan banner pulled up the 240 got the number went back and brought me my hose. I was laughing so hard when I left it wasnt even funny!!! I dont hold it against the kid or the store, it is just funny now I have to take the non-existing car up there the next time I go to show the Import Expert!

How can i tell if my 1972 is an early or late year car?

Turned out to be the ebrake/auto adjuster lever was bent. Fine when brakes adjusted all the way in to get the drum over the pads, but one adjusted, the shoes would hang up on the lever and not return. Need to replace them, looking for them locally first will order online if I have too. Thanks for the ideas!:classic: