Captain Obvious

Wait... You're saying I'm not already a geek?

It's sooooooo pretty....

And (just in case you didn't know what I was talking about), here's a pic highlighting the mods your PO made to that front panel. Someone cut the "wings" off:

The HVAC panel is made by silkscreening on the back of thin transparent film and then that thin film was laminated to a thicker transparent plastic sheet for support and contour (it's a little rounded profile, right?). On the thin film (.020 ish) they silkscreen the black outline first, then the white to highlight the white lettering, then the red and blue to highlight the remainder. Four screen passes total. And they probably started with a matt finish transparent material to get the flat front. And then after all the silk screening was done, they glued the flimsy thin sheet to the thicker acrylic material. They use the same silk screening process for making membrane keyboard overlays. Here's a couple pics of a HVAC nameplate. Front side: Back side:

Agreed. That is a nice truck.

Thanks for covering for me Site. Looks like I've forgotten most of the details! There were big Phillips screws involved though. I got that part right. And the small ones holding the hinges in place (on one side). Chase, you're in better hands than mine now. Hope you get all the info you're missing.

IIRC, getting the rear bumper brackets out of the car is not the easiest thing in the world. Might have to drop the tank? Maybe try compressing and holding for a couple minutes to test my other theory first? Back the car up against something and leave it like that for a half hour?

Site, Those are excellent pics of the hinge. Shows how good (or not) my memory is! Thanks for the reminder!

OK, really really last one this time. My theory is that your drill hole is too close to the bumper mounting flange and because of the way the mono-tube shock works you're trying to force oil through a tiny orifice and it just takes time. I think you have two choices: 1) Drill another hole further back. 2) Push the shock in and hold it there for enough time for the pressure to bleed off. This is a pic with the shock cut open. If you look closely down into the tube, you'll see a very small hole in the center of the piece at the bottom. I'm thinking you've got a mix of gas and oil in the shock tube and when you push the shock in, it compresses the gas, but not the oil. If you compress it and wait long enough, that pressure should eventually equalize? Shock cut open showing the orifice that separates the two chambers of the mono-tube design:

Sorry, one last thingc... I drilled up here. And you can see from the shock shaft that mine stayed compressed no problem: And after cutting the shock open and analyzing the guts, I left a note for myself if I ever have to do it again:

Oh, and I mentioned above that the nuts are easy to get to... That's with the whole thing off the car. I don't remember how difficult it is when the whole assy is installed. Sorry.

There is only one significant hurdle to getting the shock out of the bracket and that's the nut on the back side. It's not hard to get to, or hard to turn, but the problem is that there is nothing (except a little friction) holding the shock shaft from spinning. But once you get that nut off, it's not difficult to take the shock our or put it back in. So if you clean up the threads good and put some penetrating oil on it and then hit it with an impact wrench, it should come right off. If you put a ratchet on it, I give it 50/50 that the shock shaft will spin inside the body. Here's the nut: And if the shaft does spin, about the only thing you can do at that point is cut the nut off with a cutting disk. Big ol' PITA: I did two of them, one came off easy with a ratchet and the other did not. After my (lack of) success, I helped another Z guy do the same and told him to skip the ratchet and use an impact gun. His both wizzed off with no trouble at all.

Actually if you already drilled a hole and significant oil came out, it really shouldn't matter. But try taking that screw out first and see what happens

The bumper shocks are high pressure mono-tube struts. If you want to know what that really means, or how they work, or why it matters in this case, let me know and I'll go into the details, but the summary is... Carefully remove the little screw in the middle of the bumper mounting flange. It's holding back significant pressure. Mostly gas, but there might be some oil in there too. Wear eye protection and don't let anything fly. I suggest covering it with a rag once you get the screw cracked loose. After that, the shock should compress and stay wherever you put it. (Until acted upon by another outside force of course.)

Hahaha!!!! He's the Hoov!

Forgot to mention... Buy a length of piano hinge longer than you need and hacksaw it to length. And if the mounting holes don't line up with the holes on the reinforcing strips. drill new holes that line up.

The two wood pieces do not connect together directly. They have the hinge between them. That's because the front piece is hard screwed down. but you still need to lift the rear section to get to the spare. You could probably get a piece of piano hinge cheap at one of the big box stores if you don't have the original piece. And that jars some fading brain cells too... There is a third style hardware used to hold the hinge to the metal reinforcing strips on the wood pieces. It's smaller than M6. Whatever the very commonly used size below that. M5x0.75 maybe? Same screw size they use to hold the center console in place, etc.

Haha! Is that one yours? I'm not nearly Hoover status, but I nab good looking pics now and then just because I think they might be useful in the future.

I dug around and turned up a pic that may add a little value. This is the sloped back style false floor so the shape of the "wood" is a little different back by the taillights, but the hinge is still the same. Not my car, but this is how the hinge works:

Oh cool. You're much better off than I thought you were and you have all the flimsy brackets. So for the mounting hardware, it's pretty generic. Going from memory here since I don't have my subfloor installed like that anymore... There are two types of hardware used: If there is a threaded insert welded to the bracket, they used the ubiquitous silver M6x1.0 hex head bolt with the Phillips indent in the center. In locations where there is NOT a threaded insert, they used a large Phillips head sheet metal screw threaded straight into the bracket sheet metal. Sorry, but I don't remember how many of each. And yes, there should be a long piano hinge between the two largest pieces. The front portion (right behind the seats) is firmly fastened to the brackets, but the rear portion (over the spare tire) can be lifted up to allow access to the spare. The hinge is the joint between the two. Is your hinge completely missing? I bet it has something to do with the modification that your PO did to the "wood" piece right behind the seats. I don't think I have any pics of what that is supposed to look like, but I think your PO took some material off.

There are flimsy metal brackets that are supposed to hold the raised floor "wood" up off the metal below. Not sure you'll be able to figure out what's going on here, but this is a pic in which you can see the metal brackets: Here's a decent pic of the front most bracket. Ignore the cargo lid. That was the project where I added the cargo hatch lids to my car: Here's a relatively decent shot of one of the rearmost supports: Hope that helps? You got any of those brackety things in your unknown parts pile? Oh, and you're also missing the two narrower "wood" pieces that fit into the side recessed areas way in the back. And lastly, someone modified your front most piece. Added the speaker holes and it looks like they took some material off the rear edge.

I can't believe I never measured the length of that nylon strap. Maybe I did and just wrote it down on a piece of note scrap. I've got a pile of them. I've long replaced the blue cheapo nylon strap with a better one with webbing from McMaster. I also upgraded to an adjustable mount on one side so I could adjust for belt stretch, etc. I think I've got my original proof of concept belt in a box somewhere and I'll measure it when I get a chance. And yes... You can remove and replace the strap relatively easily without dropping the diff or even removing the cross member.

Will do. I have a diagram around here somewhere. Some time ago I created a thread about it... I bet all the pics are dead because of photosucket. In the meantime before I find the details... I had the whole engine compartment harness out of the car because I was doing other changes as well. One of the other changes I made at the same time is I converted over to the internally regulated alternator and I put my headlight relays where the voltage regulator used to reside. Not sure what year you're working on, but on the 280's, the voltage regulator is on the back side of the relay bracket just forward of the battery. That's where I put my headlight relays. I'll dig up my details and post them.

I'm skeptical about the validity of taking photos out the windshield showing how my headlights look, but if I get the chance, I will do that. I'm not sure it'll add any value without having a fixed "point of reference", but I'll give it a shot. The best thing would be to have your car next to mine and we could compare. We should figure out a way to make that happen some time. I did my 280Z relays using a hybrid method of old wiring and new wiring. I'm still utilizing the original fuses in their original location, but the switches on the steering column are only controlling relay current now, not the high headlight current. So for me, one of the nice things is that the two headlight fuses in the fuse block are still labeled correctly, one per side.