tlorber

I'm guessing a faulty connection at either the starter or ground.

Steve, if you are going through the hassle, I would give some serious thought to different seats. I understand the desire for originality, but like many upgrades to these cars, better seats make a HUGE difference in drivability. My long term plan is to complete the installation of some '93 300 zx seats I picked up. But for now I'm running Miata seats. These look like they were built for the car, but more importantly, they enable you to use the steering wheel to actually steer the car instead of using it as a lever to keep your butt in the seat when taking hard turns. The original seats lack both the side bolstering and the bucket on the bottom portion to effectively keep you planted. You can always keep the originals around as garage seats, and reinstall them if you are ever so inclined.

Harry, assuming there are no clearance issues with the hood, it looks like you could weld a 3/4" extension onto the bottom of the firewall bracket, then drill holes in the extension and put the bolts through it. That would enable you to raise the pivot hole up the 3/4" or so that you need to capture the shaft.

Johnny, do you have any pics of that setup? Especially from the rear to show how the 8" wheels align with the body? Thanks.

This is on open, public roads that are pre-driven to ensure their passibility. They also endevor to avoid or warn about johnny law, but there are no guarantees. As I mentioned, there are a couple of cars being shipped from the east coast. However, seeing one from New Zealand would be truly impressive!

280zx's are fairly common-you should be able to find one. However, they will probably need a rebuild. This will cost $400-$600 at a shop, or you can buy a rebuild kit for around $130.00 and do the work yourself. If you find someone trying to sell an entire car that has a difficult time, ask them if they will part it out.

Just a reminder-and this will be the last post I promise. They currently have about 85 registered parties - 3 of them Z's from what I understand. For those of you in California or neighboring states, get your taxes done now and go for a drive!

I had my '73 done by North Hollywood Speedometer. The original thread may have been a post I did a while back. As I stated, I took in my tach and they replaced the guts with new solid state that recognizes signals from different sources (wave forms). This means that you can use the original dizzy, a newer electronic one, pertronics-whatever. I asked them if they were SURE it would work when I brought it in and they assured me it would. They were right- the thing has been bulletproof for about a year now. Rather than trying to find a replacement on ebay that may be just as bad as the one you have-or from a different year, I strongly recommend having the original rebuilt. The new electronics are also much more accurate than the originals ever were.

Have you tried hooking 12v directly to the pump? Just to see if it will push fuel through? My car is a '73 which doesn't have all the cut-offs but it sounds like the later Z's have a series of sensors that tell whether the motor is running. If you can jumper around these to provide a "yes" condition to all, and then one by one remove the jumpers you may be able to eliminate the problem. Where in North Hills are you located? I spend a fair amount of time in Van Nuys.

This site may help. Scroll down for some pics. http://www.geocities.com/inlinestroker/ratio.html

Is there a spring below or above the spool?

As Dave said, it's relatively simple to rebuild a turn signal-it's even simpler to just buy a reconditioned one from him, and you know it will work. However, you may first want to play around with the hazard SWITCH to make sure it is fully disengaged. I know that after turning on the hazard switch (on my late '73) I really have to mess around with it to get the turn signals to work. The electrical signal appears to travel to or through this switch unless it is in the exactly correct position.

I agree with putting the tranny in and seeing how you like it, and then going from there. If you want to convert to an R200, a 3.9 will be easy to find but will involve swapping other components, or you can try to find a 3.9 R180. I used a 3.7 R180 that I got from Bill (Blackface Benny). It is about 5% taller than the 3.9 and I really like the combo with the '82 five speed.

This thread makes me want to get my kill switch project into high gear! I'm thinking of a switch for the dizzy, the fuel pump, or both.

Pay particular attention to your final drive (differential) ratio. Trannies and diffs are meant to be paired together. I would imagine that in an automatic, you probably have something near a 3.5. Stock manual ZX's had a 3.9. So if you put in an '81-'83 five speed (which is THE period correct tranny for your car) your problem will NOT be running out of rpm's on the highway. If anything it will be too tall at the lower end. Not by a huge amount, but still something to consider.

He forgot to talk about the phetzer valve.

yeah, are you sure you had the throttle open when you did the compression test?

Colorsanding...still colorsanding.

Here's a link in case you need more info: http://www.geocities.com/inlinestroker/ratio.html

I vaguely recall reading something about pulses and firing order that made the triple SU's less efficient than the twin setup. Since the writeup was clearly beyond my limited scope of comprehension I didn't retain it all.

Mature? I see no need to be insulting.

Thanks, E. I couldn't find the tail light connection so I pig tailed a new one to the body. Next time I have the car on the rack I'll look for the frame rail connection underneath.

I don't know. I think that makes her a keeper.

OK, so I think I can further refine my question here. The light circuit does indeed need to be grounded, just not at the point where the light screws into the body. The wiring diagram shows a ground somewhere near the RIGHT rear sidelight marker, but I can't find this on the body (I have the vapor recovery tank out). Does anyone know where that point is?

Can someone please verify this? I was wet sanding the car yesterday, so I took off the rear passenger side marker light. After putting it back I had no rear lights, brake lights, nor rear side marker lights. After messing with the light a bit and re-establishing a ground, all the lights came back on. So the question is, are all these lights SUPPOSED to be reliant on the ground of one side marker light in order to function? If so, that had better be a pretty good connection.