Captain Obvious

Worst one I've seen is behind the rear interior panels over by the fuel expansion tank and the other side by the speaker. The pee from the little bastages rotted out the wheel arches in my ol' 260.

Haha! Yeah, I know. LIttle embarrassing. I try to help out on stuff, and the only pics I have are how NOT to do it. I should be able to put a "don't do this" on the pics... Give me a little bit.

Hi Mike, Unfortunately, I don't have the pics to re-create it. The only pics I have are of the INCORRECT orientation. By the time I figured out the correct details I was in too much of a hurry to get my car back together to take pics. I've got pics of the Delco kit, but the only pics I have of the bushings installed on a rod are the wrong way. so I can recreate the rest of it, but not the installed pics.

Exactly. If your C-7 and/or C-8 were green with corrosion, then that can certainly cause the problems you're having. I cleaned both of mine up really well, added some contact cleaner/lube, tightened up the contacts a tiny bit, and I've been happy since. I've made mention about it before, but here's a basic Classic Z Car repair axiom... "You get a spare moment, clean some connectors."

That perforated vinyl material looks very nice. As for how it's attached to the roof, I think it might depend on the year? I know the pillar designs are different depending on the year, but I'm not sure about the headliner itself. "you don't want to have both hands pushing up to hold things in place, your head stuck to a glue patch and your foot caught under the clutch pedal and your tool an inch just out of your grasp..." Clearly the voce of experience!

Yeah, the headliners I recovered had "head dents" upwards creating two large recessed areas above the passengers heads. The vinyl was a pain to stretch down into those recesses without wrinkles. The headliner material was much more forgiving. I'm not sure I think it would look better in ALL cars, but I definitely think vinyl would look better in a Z. Then again, how often do you look up in the car?

Glad you didn't spend money on that. I've been through the same thing with other people selling used wheels. Many people don't know how to measure them and advertise incorrect sizes. The width is measured on the inside of the wheel where the tire bead seals to the rim. In general, the wheel lip thickness is "about" a half inch thick per side, so even if the only measurement you have access to is the outside dimension, you can usually infer about an inch narrower than that because of the lip thickness. And as for the height... I use the middle of the lip where the tire bead makes contact. I'm not positive if that's the official measurement location or it it's really supposed to be the diameter of the hole in the center as you said, but those two locations result in measurements that are close enough that you can't make a mistake. The solutions are quantized.

Those are 14x7.

I've done two headliners in my past, both on the same kind of car (but not a Z). I did one in vinyl, and the other in traditional foam backed headliner fabric. In the end, I think the vinyl looked much better, but the foam backed headliner material is way easier to work with. Much stretchier and more forgiving. In fact, all of my reluctance to work with vinyl stems from that job.

Crap. Forgot about this one. This thread was recently referenced in a tension rod question and I wanted to change something I said above... I thought the proper way to install the bushings was with the thick side facing the frame and the thin sides towards the washers, and after further review, I do not believe that is correct. I believe the correct orientation is with the thin side towards the frame and the thick side towards the washer(s). I had even taken my bushings back out and reversed them but didn't take any new pics. At this point, I think this thread promotes incorrect info and leads to more confusion than assistance... @MikeIs there a way to delete the whole thing?

For diagnostic testing, you can completely eliminate the hazard switch from the system. I did this once or twice to drive around with no center console while still having functional turn signals. Goes like this... There are two large connectors near the passengers feet that connect to the console. On the wiring diagram, they are C-7 and C-8. The one in question is C-7 and it contains the supply and return wires that lead to the hazard switch. Unfortunately, C-7 and C-8 are both black, so I can't use color to distinguish between the two, but for ID, C-7 is a ten cavity shell and has all (or almost all?) locations populated, while the other connector C-8 only has maybe five of it's cavities populated. That should be enough info to identify C-7. Disconnect C-7. You should be able to do that just by pulling the rug down. You don't need to take the console out. Just move the rug out of the way. On the car side of C-7 (not the console side, but the car side) jumper the green/yellow to the green no stripe. Note that there are two green wires, and the one you want to jumper to is on the same side of the connector as the green/yellow. By disconnecting C-7 and jumpering those two locations together, your turn signals should be getting full power even with the hazard switch completely removed from the system. Should help narrow down the fault location. Here's a pic showing what to jumper: I've had problems in the past with corrosion creating intermittent and poor connections on C-7 and C-8. I suspect it was instigated by moisture from a heater core leak sometime in the past before I owned the car. I cleaned up all the contacts in both those connectors and my problems went away.

I don't know anything about the ZX axles, but I can provide a little input about greasing. I think a zerk would be overkill, and I found from experience that you can actually over-grease the housing. First time I did bearings, I packed the entire inside of the housing with grease. I even used a long needle and injected grease into the recess after the whole thing was together until it oozed out from between the bearing balls. It was "stuffed full". Completely full. It was a mistake. It was very very stiff and hard to rotate. So stiff, in fact, that I ended up taking it apart again and removing most of the grease. If you look at the amount of grease they put in there originally, you'll see that they didn't "stuff the housing full" of grease. I don't know if my experience is typical, but I packed the balls and added a little more for good measure and called it a day.

The wire colors on the side of the connector you are probing aren't the same as they are on the other side, and it's the OTHER side that are called out on the wiring diagram. In other words, the wire colors change at that connector and the colors on the side you're probing are not what are shown on the diagram. That can be very confusing. I believe that green wire you are probing is actually white on the other side of the connector, and is the supply side to the turn signals. The two white wires to the right of that green (white/red and white/black) are the two outputs from the turn signal switch. And again... the colors change at the connector to green/red and green/black. Confusing. So for the first mystery... Yes. That green wire (on that side of that connector) should go hot when the key is in the ON position, and it is supposed to supply power to the turn signals. For the second mystery... When you turn a signal on, that wire goes to zero. The reason is that green wire is being weakly pulled up to a little over 10 volts. So weakly in fact, that when you apply the load of a couple very low resistance light bulb filaments, it drags that wire to zero. That green wire should be getting pulled to a healthy battery voltage, and yours is not. Could be a weak battery, a bad flasher, or a poor connection anywhere between the battery and where you're probing. My money is on a bad connection somewhere or a continued problem with the hazard switch. Knowing nothing else, I would start at the large(ish) connectors that lead to the console and supply power to and from the hazard switch. (Connector C-7)

Something else I see on those pics is that he removed the rubber bumperettes from the front. I wonder what he did about the holes... I wonder if he welded them shut and had the bumper re-chromed, or if he just used something like a chromed headed carriage bolt to fill the hole. And I would like to know what he did about the rubber ends. If he made those from a mold, or cut and bonded the originals. I've done a little silicone molding, but I don't think I'm up to the task of something that large. rossiz, I was thinking the exact same thing. I think the 280 bumpers would add a lot more protection. Still nothing compared to todays energy absorbing designs, but certainly a lot more protection than the "only for show" 240 style.

Yeah, I really like the look of the front. I think It retains the soul of the 280 while improving the lines. I'm not so sure about the back though. I like the front more than the back.

Vacccuuuuuuuum Taaaaaaaaabble... Build it. You know you want to.

On my 77 280 there are several different ground connections to the harness, and they do not all connect together inside. Some do, some don't. The ground scheme is the battery cable to the starter bolt and then they use the engine as the distribution center from that point on. There are a couple places where the engine is connected to the body through the harness, but there was no small wire going directly to the battery (exception being for the fuel injection, which you do not have). So I can't be positive without taking measurements off your harness, but I bet the concept is the same as my 77. I bet there are couple ring lugs that connect to the engine block, and within the harness those connections star out to things like the turn signals, marker lights, coil, etc. as well as connect to the body. But there may be more than one star point. I think my 77 had two of them... One on the pass side area, and one on the driver's side area.

Very sorry to hear this. My condolences.

Thanks for the input guys. I know something would have to be done about the black rubber bumper ends to shorten or remount them accordingly. At this stage I'm just wondering what it would look like. Zed Head, that last post you sent me to has some good stuff in it. Thanks for that one. I did a little searching here for the topic and came up blank. I found numerous threads at zcar.com about the topic, but all of them were for people who installed 240 bumpers, So if I can figure out how to reattach an attachment from a previous thread, here's what the front of a 77-78 can look like with the stock bumper pulled in closer to the body. I like the look: And here's a pic of the back. Looks like not only did he take out the accordion ribs from the bumper ends, but he also sawed off and smoothed the bumperettes:

I've read a number of threads about how people collapse their later model bumper shocks before installing 240 bumpers on their 260s and 280's, but I have a slightly different question... I would like to know what it looks like if I were to move my 280 bumpers closer to the body, but I'm not yet ready to throw in the towel completely on my original bumpers. So anyone got any pics of a 280 where they've collapsed the shocks but are still running the original bumpers?

Yes, I was referencing Cheech and Chong. I think I first heard that skit when I was in my teens. It's still funny now, but just imagine how funny it is to a room full of teenage boys. "Uhhh, I think he's gonna show ya JR." Thanks for that BGM. I had no idea. I thought it was all comedy.

Oh, right. So you got that part covered... I'm Blind Melon Chitlin.

That large round hole was originally connected to a hose that sucked warmed air off the exhaust manifold. I've always called it the "heat riser" connection. It's unfiltered at that point, so the only thing you have to worry about would be critters. However, if critters are looking for a warm spot to make a nest, they could simply crawl into the other oval hole at the end. Both those holes go to the same spot which is the dirty side of the air cleaner.

I'm just looking for common denominators and the black fusible link fits that category. Strongly. The reason the headlights still work throughout this ordeal is that they have their own independent fusible link separate from everything else on the car. Rear outboard red. The reason the engine still cranks and runs is because those functions are supplied by the other two red fusible links. The black one supplies power to all of the "hot at all times" fuses, as well as everything powered by one side of your ignition relay (like the flashers and the gauges). So, I'm sure you've already checked the fusible links, but you have to start somewhere. Turn your lights on to create the problem, and then while it's screwed up, wiggle the black largest fusible link. The one closest to the passenger strut tower. And also try wiggling the harness below the fusible link blocks, as well as anything area you worked on when you did the internally regulated alternator mod.

Not any more I don't!! That was many moons ago when I was young and indestructible. At this point, if I got one of those "live or death" adrenaline rush events, I juuuuuussst might be able to roll it off my chest before I passed out from the pain.