Richard Oben

The VIN number is on the dash so unless they replaced the VIN it is my dash. Just really poorly done, TWICE. (not advertising but making a point) I (we) am in the automotive industry, www.northracecars.com we sell a lot of parts and I personally see to the quality control, we have an excellent reputation in the Mustang 5.0 world for a reason, we ship quality parts on time and they fit. I personally make it a point to do better than what I see in a lot of the industry. For example getting a kit of parts that do not fit. My Z sway bar kit, had the wrong length bolts, not a big deal but how can they ship the kit with the wrong length bolts. We try and do much better with our parts. What I got in the way of service and product was a joke. To be honest, I am not as mad as I am dissapointed. I specifically sent a check to them to save them the credit card fees. I was patient when they had the dash for over 8 weeks the first time. I opened the box and was almost physically ill, that is how disappointed I was. On the second time, (repeating) I SPECIFICALLY ASKED FOR PICTURES BEFORE THEY RETURNED THE DASH TO AVOID SHIPPING AND MORE DISAPPOINTMENT. They just no it is fine we are shipping it. I ASKED TO UNPACK SEND PIX BEFORE THEY SHIP. The pictures above speak for themselves. This is my 4th Z and the nicest one I have ever owned. It just sucks to take a car all the way to a bare shell, spend thousands on parts, rebuild everything. New or redone interior, rebuilt motor, rebuilt transmission, all new suspension, New AC etc etc. Especially after starting with what was very very very rust free only to have the dash stick out like a sore thumb as something I cheaped out on. Really really disapointing. Would anyone seriously send it back a THIRD time, seriously anyone? JMHO, Richard.

Well I asked for my money back. Just the work money, I would eat the shipping. I got a request to have me ship it back to them and supply all the parts to fix it. Of course it would be at my expense. Well, when I sent the dash the first time I sent all the hardware and it was installed. All they really had to do was put it back and make sure it all fit. And the second time I sent it back I included all the hardware again and SPECIFICALLY asked for pictures BEFORE the dash was returned. So here I am being asked to pay more money to have them not do it right again. Once bitten twice conned I will not be fooled a third time especially when I would have to pay another 200 in shipping. His response has been for me to pay for shipping for them to do it wrong a third time. In short I will never ever ever recommend them to any ever. What a joke, two attempts to get it right and now he wants a third but will not refund my money. Sorry, I will send another dash to a reputable company before it goes back to this guy. JMHO, Richard.

I would fix the valve cover first, it may be leaking enough to run down the engine and look like the rear seal is leaking. Start simple. After the vavle cover is fixed, take it to the car wash with some Gunk engine degreaser and hose it down. Then drive and look for the leak. HTH, Richard.

The reason I went to DR is the feedback I read on this forum (not blaming the forum). The car has been a lot of work and is coming along to be one of the nicest around. Very rust free 70 240Z, the only replacement metal is the dog leg on the quarters all the rest of the metal is original. This is why I am so dissapointed, the dash does not meet the look of the rest of the car. What really irks me is I ASKED FOR PICTURES and got nothing. I went so far as actually calling when I got the Fed Ex notification to tell Pete SEND ME PICTURES before it ships. I did not want to go through this again. He said it was already in the box and he forgot to take them. NO EXCUSE, PERIOD. As for the gauges were very tight. I can not imagine doing this worl without the gauges. If the rest of the dash is any indication of the quality not one of the gauges would have fit had we not sent them with it. Heck he had the glove box and the latch and it doesn't fit. JMHO, Richard.

Dash was not twisted by me or them. It fit and bolted up perfectly back in the car. The area to the passenger side of the glove box was not cut down enough when the pulled the old cover off and put the new cover on. It is just too thick in that area so the door will not close. It is much more apparent in person. In the pic the guy is holding the door as far up as it will go, the latch is at least a half inch from lining up. And they had the latch with the dash, no excuse in my opinion. Cheers Richard.

Thanks for the input, as you can imagine what I am not wanting to have happen is get a system here that does not fit. I want a quiet system and restriction is not my major concern. I want it to look pretty close to stock or maybe the monza tip at the back but nothing too loud, I just want it to fit. I will check with MSA and see what they say. I am also close to Black Dragon so there would not be any shipping charges. Cheers Richard.

9070 is factory air (I know dealer) and factory automatic. I took the exhaust off of the other series one rust bucket I have and it hits the transmission pan and will not seal at the manifold. The system is rusty and not in good shape but it leads me to wonder if any system is going to fit right with the automatic transmission. The auto is rebuilt and in the car and running so I am not changing it. Let me know of your thoughts. Thanks in advance, Cheers Richard.

Yes the dash is in the car. I had to get more stuff done, body shop already has the car as of yesterday. We can pull it out in about and hour. I will figure out later where to send the other dash or what Pete is going to do. Without the dash the car would not run or have gauges. Before I put the hood and fenders on I wanted to make sure it ran and stopped and all that stuff. I can tell you that there is more wrong than right. This is after the second attempt: This is what in the later cars is the cig lighter, on series one cars it is not used. The first repair was worse. I have those pix on another data card and my wife has hidden it. If anyone really wants to see the first attempt I will dig them out or you can email me. Richard 'at' northracecars.com Cowl fit The door to the glove box this is as high as it will go. For now I will bungee it from the back without the paper glove box. to hide as much as of the misfit as I can.

Well I guess I will be the voice of dissent. I sent my dash series one (HLS30- 009070) to Dashboard restorations. The did a lot, I mean a lot of stuff wrong. The lighter hole not used in the 70 dash was made a lighter hole and looked like crap. Duh, it was set to be a hole where there did not used to be a hole, no texture in the bottom and stretched very thin. The leading edge by the defrost vents is not the right shape and the glove box would not close. The bad part is I sent all the hardware and all the fittings and all of it came back in a bag less the fasteners of course. Had they tried to fit anything but the gauges none of it would have fit. Pete sent us a mold to try and fix the new lighter hole that project failed miserably and I have really good guys working on the project. So I had to send it back, Pete did pay to ship it back and back to me and do the repairs. I thought it would be a good outcome. At his instruction I took masking tape and put on every complaint I had about the dash and sent it back. I sent pictures of the other series one car I have (cracked but the parts that need to be made to look right on my dash look good on it). I insisted Pete send pix of the repairs BEFORE shipping back to me for approval. This would gaurantee no more issues. What I wanted was a restored dash, nothing more. No pix were sent and the repairs are less than acceptable. I had not problem paying but not getting what I paid for is not acceptable I am now almost a year out from the time I sent it in the first time, with all the shipping waiting, shipping, frustration, waiting and shipping. I am out over $1,000, yep a thousand bucks with the shipping and $850 and I am still not even close to happy. I left him another voice mail and have sent pictures of the old dash the restored dash and the parts car dash. Still no response. Nothing since last Thursday. My wife who is easy to please (married me ) is not happy and the 6 or so people who know cars all feel it is sub standard. So again it is not just me. In my opinoin his first attempt was poor, his first restoration was slow and not very good, like I said lots of mistakes The repair attempt was half hearted at best and his failure to send pix as requested was a outright ploy to not have to fix the problems he knew were still there. I will never send anything to him again and would never recommend his service to anyone. Poor communication and poor follow up were just an add on to a poor job done in the first place. I have pix and if anyone wants them I will send them along. My next step is to get my money back and try to find someone who can do the job right and start over. I am considering using the other series one dash I have and have it done. Very unhappy and very dissapointed. Let me be clear, I paid with a check to save him the credit card fees and I really wanted this to all work out for the best but it is apparent that is not going to happen. It has nothing to do with the money, it is about doing what you say and doing it right. I run my own business and if I treated people like this I would have been out of business years ago. HTH, Richard Oben, owner north racecars inc. www.northracecars.com (not a solicitaion, just verifying who I am)

I saw this late but to remove the old sound deadoning get some dry ice. Smash it in the bag is comes in and spread it around anywhere you need to get rid of the sound stuff. USE HEAVY GLOVES or you will burn you hands severely. The stuff comes off instantly and all you have to do is pick up the pieces. HTH, Richard.

OK, no one seems to have the part that bolts to the transmission. If someone would be so kind can they take some measurements for me. I need to know how long the arm is from center of the nut on the trans to the center of the link and the approximate offset. It appears to be about 4 inches and an inch of offset. Please if you have an Automatic transmission Z car can you get these dimensions so I can make the part I am missing. Thanks in advance, cheers Richard.

Worked on a couple of TR6s in the years. The biggest problem in my opinion is the thrust set up. People have a tendancy to get in the car push in the clutch and start the car, In a TR6 there is no oil pressure on the thrust and it is two peices at the back of the crank. They all end up with crank end play that eventually pushes the crank far enough to break it. On to the Lucas bashing: Lucas: The real Prince of Darkness Warm beer comes from Lucas Refridgerators Three positions of a lucas light switch On off F li ck er. Lucas the inventer of the inadvertant intermitent wiper, it did not work when it rained. You can buy smoke for lucas wiring. Once you let the smoke out it has to go back in for anything to work. Positive earth, WTH? JMHO, YMMV, Cheers Richard.

Well I got the linkage but apparently I also need the part that bolts to the trans. I have the nut and washer on the trans but not the tab that goes on the transmission. If someone has one I can buy great if not I can make one but I need some dimensions. Mostly distance between holes and amount of offset. Thanks again to R. Clarkson for the linkage, I need you to send me another email so I can pay you for the part. Thanks in advance, Cheers Richard.

Series one hatches will fit but have the vents in the hatch which would not be correct. Series two cars would be fine, HTH, Richard.

Nice work, Cheers Richard.

That should do it. If I find mine I will return it to you for free. Let me know how much you need for it and the cost of shipping. My email is richard @ northracecars.com Thanks in advance, Cheers Richard.

Kind of late to this thread but I would also check to make sure the coil is working properly. As things heat up coils can heat soak. Coils are cheap so give it a shot. HTH, Richard.

In all the moving around and back and forth etc etc. I appear to have lost the linkage that goes from the shifter the side of the Auto trans. The rod of about 12 inches or so (no jokes here please). So if anyone has one and knows where it is I am a buyer for it. Working on getting it running and knowing it is not in gear would be a good thing, . Email if you can I have a tendancy to forget to check PMs. Thanks in advance, cheers Richard.

This stuff is great, I was cleaning my 70 air box up and found some discolorations. Thanks to you guys I bought the paint and just masked the gaskets. Looks like new and I have the decals on order. FYI, I just painted the outside, no need to mess with the inside as no one will ever see it was my thought. Inside is in great shape. No need to buy more stuff than needed. This car is expensive enough to restore. Saving a couple of bucks by not replaceing perfectly good gaskets made sense to me. Ont that note, the PCV hose is crazy expensive. Cheers Richard.

There are many idiocyncrsies on Z car wiring. Most of them are not a big deal. For example there is something on the Oil Pressure gauge that regulates the alternator. BUT if you keep the stock stuff it is fine. There are good diagrams available in color format from various places and some of the print outs are pretty good. I have wired more cars than I can count. Used Painless, american autowire, haywire, I squared and probably some others. I would not want to wire a Z with any of them. Get a new fuse box from Motorsport if you really need one and work with what you have it will be easier than starting from scratch. There is a lot of good help here and better yet it is willing and better still it is free. HTH, Cheers Richard.

Not overkill at all. We did the entire underside and all the suspension parts. The inside was ok so I left it stock except for the floors. I had very little rust and plan to keep it that way. HTH, Richard. PS sorry for the dust.

Get the darn thing running and finished (9070). Huge goal, as it appears I have less time than I thought. But I would like to take it to Nashville. Cheers Richard.

I live close to BD and have an HAZCC discount. The catalog is great the parts are OK but more times than not I am not happy with what I got. I got boots for the rack, they did not fit. I was going to replace fenders even though mine were pretty good, easily distracted by new parts. The new fenders were going to take more work than the ones I had. I got a brake booster from them and it was crap and did not fit. To this day I have a credit with them and have not found a use for it yet. Like others have said the parts are the parts they list but some of the stuff is not up to what wanted. I have not done any of the small part stuff with them. I have had better luck with MSA generally and they are almost 2000 miles away. JMHO, YMMV, cheers Richard.

Johnny O. I will have your hinge if a 12/71 will work. I have a parts car that is not beyond repair but would need a lot, I mean a whole lot to fix it. I am taking what I need and will have a bunch of stuff to pass on for very reasonable costs but it will be spring before I get that far. Maytin, see above, I will have one of those also. Bonzi I have 3 control panels the best will fit in 9070 and the others will be sold. I have one complete with the OE radio and antenna up down, I was shocked at its good condition. Uncle I have two of the vertical defroster glass, one is missing a tab but I think that would could be repaired. The other is going in 9070. I think having a parts car is going to help a lot of people. Cheers Richard.

Agreed, restored it is what you did. Way too many people say they restored something when all they did was repaint and some interior work. To me if body did not come off of the frame or the tub get blasted it was not restored. The proof will be in the pix you took along the way. JMHO, YMMV, Cheers Richard.