Walter Moore

Glad you like it. Good luck with your choices.

I guess I stepped on that land mine didn't I?

Heh... there must be some truth to the story. Check out their forums. They have big CENSORED labels covering every place the word "mustang" or any of the Ford logos appear: http://www.bmcforums.com/cmps_index.php

I think that sblake01 may be right about the problem. (Thanks) I took the drive shaft, half shafts, and differential out of the car and couldn't find any problems. Neither could my neighbor who has his own repair shop. I offered to pay him to rebuild the differential if it needed work, so when he said that it is in good condition I tend to believe him. (Who turns down money?) So I went with the assumption that it was the transmission, and bought a used one out of an 83 ZX that my neighbor bought to restore, before he realized that there wasn't enough left of the body to bother with. Tonight my son and I managed to remove the 4 speed from the car, and there is more than 1/8 inch of play in the input shaft. It is really apparent compared to the input shaft on the 5 speed, which permits no visible lateral motion. You can feel some play, but neither of us could see any movement. At least I hope that is the problem. I am still going to have the drive shaft and half shafts reconditioned. I have no information on how old those universal joints are. They may appear to be fine now, but while I have them off I may as well make sure. In any event, the 4 speed has bad synchronizers in second gear, and I hate the huge gap between 2nd and 3rd, so I wanted to replace the transmission anyway.

Water based? In the 1970s? That is different. No car company in North America switched to water based paint until the EPA forced them to in the 1980's.

On the other hand... The buy it now price is $9887, and from the looks of the floors it has never seen road salt. Knowing what I know now about how hard these cars are to repair when they rust, If I had the money I would buy that car and keep my current one as a parts vehicle. There is something funky going on with the heater hoses. I expect that the heater core is bad and it has been bypassed, or disconnected. Of course pictures tell you nothing of the actual mechanical condition, but frankly the engine and drive train are the cheap/easy part. Nice paint...

When it runs, does the piston on the front carb move at all? Could it be that the vacuum chamber on the front carb is leaking air? That would certainly cause the car to run very badly.

Heh... Here I have been badmouthing Ebay this evening, and then I remember that my neighbor is probably going to be listing a L28 engine, and a R200 Differential from a 83 280ZX soon... poetic justice I suppose. I know the engine works, because he drove the car to the shop yesterday to pull the transmission out of it so he could sell it to me.:devious: He originally was going to restore the car and drop a V8 into it, but once it was on the lift it was obvious that the rust monster had won. Around here it usually does.

When I first got my 240Z I bought a lot of parts on Ebay, thinking that I was saving money. I haven't bought anything there in at least a year. I don't even check the ads anymore. Almost everything that is available on Ebay can be purchased from an actual business, usually for less, and almost always in better condition. There are some exceptions to that rule. Some people actually use Ebay to clean out their attic or sell off the good parts of a car that just cannot be fixed. But those people rarely have feedback ratings in the thousands...

I put it on my calendar. If I think that my 240 is up to 2 back to back 5 hour drives by then I will be there. (But currently the drive line is in pieces all over my garage again...)

Mine were rusty, and I had to heat them with a torch to get them loose. It only took a few seconds and they were loose. But I also pumped new grease in the steering rack afterward.

That is bad news. What effect does that have on you in regard to your California title to the car? I always shutter when I think about dealing with any BMV...

The short answer is yes, it is possible. There are four steel lines that run from the engine compartment to the back of the car. They all run down the right side of the transmission tunnel. I replaced these steels tubes with universal brake line that I bought at a local auto parts store. (I went to Advance Auto, but NAPA may have a better selection. The steel lines that I used, measured by outside diameter were: Fuel delivery: 5/16" Gas tank vent: 1/4" Fuel return: 3/16" Rear Brake: 3/16" Those are the sizes that I thought were the closest to the original diameters. From a generic parts store they only come in straight, 6 foot sections, and I had trouble buying couplings for the big lines. Seems to me that I had to go to an actual hydraulics supply house to get them. (Or was I fixated on using flair to flair fittings? I can't remember. Compression fittings might work just as well.) Remember that the actual brake line requires those special 10mm Japanese fittings. To actually access these lines in order to replace them I had to remove the entire drive line, engine to differential. All four lines are held together in a single bundle, so I doubt that it would be worth the effort to replace only the fuel lines. You would certainly end up breaking the others off. If you search the forums you will find several threads on companies that provide preformed lines that more or less exactly formed for this purpose. It took HOURS to bend these lines by hand, and then days to carefully route them so that I could reattach the retaining hardware. (Or at least it seemed like days... I don't like spending that much time laying under a car supported on jack stands.) By the way, if you do decide to do this by hand, buy a GOOD (expensive) tubing bender for the 5/16" line that will guide and contain the tubing while it is bending. That stuff is nearly impossible to bend with a cheap open type bender. We kinked several pieces before we discovered that you can use a table top to backup the bender. So yes, I did replace my fuel lines with universal brake tubing, and it works fine. But unless you are a master with a tubing bender don't expect it to be easy, or look very nice.

Question: Why don't women who drive Corvettes ever get married? Answer: They can't find anyone who is man enough for them! :: (25 years ago I actually told that joke to a woman I knew who drove a Corvette. For some reason she wouldn't date me after that... ) Oh, and my Chevy pickup doesn't have tobacco stains on the door, but it does have oil stains in the bed from all the broken Datsun parts I have been hauling around in it for the past five years. (No offense intended, or taken...) On the other hand, I do wear cowboy boots, (in the winter to keep the slush off my feet) and it would take a toboggan run in hell to get me to consider a Toyota pickup. (I almost bought a Nissan, but couldn't afford the extra 10 thousand dollars for a truck identical to the S10 I have. Besides, the Chevy comes with that cool "Service Engine Soon" light that never shuts off, even after the dealer fixes it!)

I am glad that you are well enough to go home. We will keep you in our prayers. Our Neon came into our possession because it was "totaled" in a minor fender bender and was thus cheap. But the damage on ours is nearly undetectable. From the looks of that car you were hit HARD. Actually in Indiana she will have to provide proof on insurance even if the accident was in no way her fault. If she can't, they will revoke her driver's license. Several members of my family have lived through that experience.

If the camshaft was 180 degrees out and you cranked the engine with the starter you may have bent several of your valves. That would explain why you have no compression.

I hate to burst your bubble, but it is a valid comparison. The real problem with point type ignition (other than the much lower voltages produced) is that the side load of the points wears out the both the point's cam follower, and the distributor bearings. On vehicles that don't have that problem (like some tractors etc.) one set of breaker points can last for decades without adjustment. Oh, and EScanlon, from what I recall reading years ago only semiconductors are sensitive to EMP damage. Which makes some sense since static electricity destroys transistors, but has no effect on capacitors. But I DO NOT claim any expertize in the area of EMP research. I am just repeating what I read somewhere. As I said, it is not something that I worry about, only a funny memory.

Yes electronic ignition is great, but it isn't EMP resistant like points... I kid you not, one of my teenage sons was impressed by the fact that my Z had points because "Did you know that this is the only car we own that would run after a nuclear war?" :tapemouth Somehow I suspect that I would have other concerns than the Z if that happened... Just a hunch.

I strongly recommend buying the Z-Car MicroFiche CD advertised at the top of the page on this web site. For many reasons the dealers are reluctant to try to look up part numbers for old cars. But with the Z-Car CD you can find the part number yourself, then lookup that number at www.courtesyparts.com to see if it is still available. Oh, by the way, they sell Nissan fenders as well. But you would either have to go to Texas to pick them up, or pay truck freight to your house. I bought the fenders and hood for my 71 240Z at my local Nissan dealer. The parts manager was shocked (as we were loading the part into my truck) when I told him what year my car was...

Funny... Like one isn't enough to keep me busy forever...

I thought that the 351 Cleveland was a "big" block, or at least was bigger than the 289/302/351 "Windsor" motor. I remember that the engine had a cult following when I was a kid, particularly after Ford discontinued selling it in the U.S. and moved the production line to Australia. But as Exdamyankee said, the real experts on V8 conversions are over at hybridz.org

Not to hijack the thread, but well said. The S130 is the Rodney Dangerfield of the Z car world. IMHO...

Well, I found a "roach clip" in the shifter boot when I took it apart. That sounds like solid evidence that a Led Zeppelin fan sort of person owned it at one time or another. Don't let the fact that I know what a roach clip looks like fool you into thinking anything about my past now...:nervous: That would be uncalled for....:hurt:

The master cylinder lines in the last picture look like the ones on my 71. (Which by the way I was able to very nearly duplicate with a hand bender.)

Actually if it is a 1977 you are quoting the vehicle serial number, not a VIN. Particularly since it is supposed to be a Japanese home market car. Vehicle Identification Numbers, as used in the U.S. started in the 1981 model year. Try searching the forms for model designations. Part of that number should be an "S30" since that is the model designation for the Z cars. Somewhere here there should be a topic that addresses what a GS30 would be. I am not sure what a GS31 is. As for the number, the digits after the model designation of GS30 (31?) are simply a serial number. In essence it is a count of the number of cars made in that series up to that car. It is not a VIN designation, with all of the model, engine, color, transmission, etc data coded into a single number as is done on cars today. There should be a plate in the engine compartment that lists the engine serial number, displacement, and HP. (In Japanese if it really is a Fairlady.) Hopefully some of our resident experts on the home market cars help you with the remainder of your car's description. I have not heard of a home market car with an L28, but I don't know much about the subject.