Walter Moore

It is a 27mm, but if the front pulley is like the stock unit on an L24 you will need a thin wall (non-impact) 6 point socket. An impact socket will not fit in the opening, and a 12 point doesn't have the necessary grip. It is really difficult to get a 6 point metric stock in the U.S. that will do the job, however a 1-1/6" standard 6 point socket is easy to get, and works just fine. (1 1/6" = 26.9875mm in theory so 27mm in practice.)

Hopefully my clutch parts will be at the dealership tomorrow and I can start on my clutch replacement project. At some point I still need to replace the windshield and door weatherstripping.

Actually after the first time it bit me, the dog would have to be resurrected before it could bite me a second time...

Love the color! It looks like you have done everything right. Hope it works out for you. Is there a chance you will be at the ZCON next year? (Smyrna isn't that far from you is it?) It would be great to see the car in person.

All taxes are bad taxes... Just my opinion.

They both look good to me. (But what do I know?)

Heh! Unless your garage is really well heated spiders should be the least of your worries right now. Brrrrr it is cold!

Disconnect the hard wire to ground. The ground for the coil goes through the breaker points. When the points open the coil fires. (Counter-intuitive I know, but that is how it works.) With your hard wire to ground from the negative side of the coil you have by-passed the points and the coil will never fire.

I have never done business with ZBarn, but I hear good things: http://www.zbarn.com/70to78/used_steering.htm

You can eliminate the low hanging effect by installing the MSA muffler backwards. The actual documentation on that muffler states that it can be installed either way with no detrimental effects on performance. I left mine installed in the original orientation just because...

The late 240Z had both a mechanical and an electrical fuel pump. There is actually factory wiring for the electric pump in all of the 240Zs I believe. I know that my 71 had wires in that location that go to an un-used connector. I don't know what the MSA setup entails, but I do know that the later alternators are internally regulated so using your original voltage regulator is not possible. I don't have any details that would explain why you only heard the "clicking" sound after the alternator upgrade. Check with MSA as they may have encountered this phenomenon before. I believe that the adapter they provided may have been made by someone here on this site. Perhaps they can chime in. (Sorry, I can't remember the name at the moment.)

I am running the "turbo" pump from MSA and my oil pressure gauge always reads high also. I don't think it will hurt anything. So long as the connections on your oil cooler are solid they should take the load. I suspect that the turbo pump is the same basic pump as the standard unit with a higher pressure relief valve and possibly larger gears. The turbo motor needs the extra pressure to get the oil out to the turbine compressor bearings.

Strange poll in my opinion. E.G. Under best tire manufacturer you can vote for B.F. Goodrich, Falken, Hankook, Bridgestone, or Pirelli. What happened to Toyo, Yokomaha, Goodyear, Michelin, Cooper, etc? (Yes I know that Michelin owns B.F. Goodrich, but that is beside the point.) A similar fate awaits fans of Honda, Porsche, Chrysler, VW, etc... Pretty meaningless poll all things considered. But I confess that I do like the Blue Oval Z. I wouldn't do that to my car, but it is an interesting setup. Nice job.

Gosh! He just joined and posted his first message and is getting yelled at already. Patience...

Not a bad idea, but I suspect it would actually encourage break-ins from punks looking for the gun. An alarm is the second best defense, with a locked garage ranking as number one. Oh, and you will want glass breakage detection. That is something that is missing on most of the new car systems. A lot of the teenage gangs know not to open the doors because it sets of the alarms. They just break out the windows and take what they want hanging through the opening.

The manual rack and pinion steering takes some getting used to for most people who are used to power steering. When front wheel drive became popular most cars got power steering standard to help reduce the perception of torque steer. Before then power steering was largely optional, except on the higher end models. At least that was my perception at the time, thirty years ago.

You are correct in your assumption. Any of the series B transmissions that came in the cars from 73 - 83 will fit in a 260Z. The widely preferred version is the 82-83 5 speed because it is a "close ratio" transmission where the first 4 gears are more evenly spaced. Going from the 4 speed to the 5 speed is pretty much a bolt in affair. The only issue you will have is with the speedometer gear in the transmission. You will want to use the gear from your existing transmission or get a new one with the same number of teeth. The housing that holds the gear in the transmission body is different between the 4 speed and the 5 speed and they (the housings) are not interchangeable. The gear itself is held in the housing with a simple roll pin however and if you press out the roll pins you can exchange the gears between housings, then replace the roll pin. Oh, and be sure to drain the transmission before you remove the drive shaft, because when you pull the drive shaft the gear oil in the transmission will drain out the tail of the transmission all over the floor. And now that I think of it, the throw out bearing and carrier for the clutch have to match the clutch, not the transmission. So you will want to use the existing parts unless you replace the clutch. Speaking just from my personal experience by the way, this would be a golden opportunity to replace the clutch. I didn't do that when I swapped transmissions and now I am going to have to get under the car yet again this winter to replace the clutch.

How ironic is it that this discussion is taking place under a banner ad that proclaims "50,000 Z and ZX parts available"? But if pressed I would suggest that the hard to find parts will be the plastic lenses for the turn signals and running lights. After that you would want to save parts that are difficult to rebuild, and are specific to the particular year of car you own. Personally I expect that parts for the S30 will be generally easier to get in the future than the S130 or the Z31/Z32 because the early cars have more of a following. (And the Z31/Z32 are still new enough to be the target of future cash for clunkers boondoggles.)

Yes it is almost certainly old lead anti-knock compounds. But wow, to have a header in that condition that is old enough to have seen leaded gas... that has to be a collector's item. Most of the headers I had on daily drivers back when leaded gas was still legal typically didn't last more than about 2 years.

Metric bolt "grade" designations are different. A metric 8.8 is equivalent to an SAE grade 5. The 10.9 designation is equivalent to a grade 8. There is no SAE equal for the 12.9 class. Generally the weakest metric bolts you can buy in the U.S. are class 8.8, but sometimes we get class 4.8 bolts on assemblies from our office in Japan. Several years ago there was someone who posted a thread about his engine breaking loose from the engine stand while transporting it somewhere. I don't recall the details, but if the engine stand sees a strong shock loading there is a risk the engine will end up on the floor. Why take that risk after spending the money to rebuild the engine?

Where is the fun in that? On the other hand, it might be nice to be able to hear the radio at speeds above idle.:tapemouth

This question gets asked often enough that I decided to check the bolts I used so there would be a definitive answer we could search in the future. You need 10mm x 1.5 pitch 80mm length bolts, and they must be hardened, strength class (grade) 10.9 or 12.9. You might get by with 75mm depending upon your particular engine stand, but 80's will work if you use hardened washers to shim them. Class 12.9 bolts are generally only available as socket head cap screws, so for this purpose the 10.9 bolts are better. Do not use stainless steel, 8.8, or lower strength bolts because the engine is too heavy and they will eventually snap.

Heh, my headlight buckets have studs, but only because I bought them on Ebay, and I thought the broken off bolts were studs, which I carefully "replaced". Don't anyone else try that please. With studs and nuts you have to remove the front wheel to change a headlight. :stupid:

That appears to be a common problem with some headers. See this thread for example: http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14869&highlight=header+mounting I know it is from 2004, but the "solution" seems to be that you need to make or find stepped washers to make up the difference in height.

The car companies didn't start putting clutch pedal interlock switches on manual cars until sometime in the late 1980's. I believe it was about the same time that companies first installed the annoying shift interlocks on cars with automatic transmissions that force you to have your foot on the brake pedal in order to get the car out of park. All of that was in response to the infamous Audi 5000 "unintended acceleration" problem that nearly drove Audi completely out of the U.S. market. (At one time they had huge sales here, but the UA problem ended that in short order.)