grannyknot

Man, I got t move back to the west coast where all those plentiful inexpensive Z's live, I'd buy them by the bunch.

Jim, this is TTT's, you can see how little they have moved the center hole off of center and that allows 1.5 degrees of camber. What kind of compound would you use to take the place of the rubber?

There are a few different aftermarket upper strut mounts available that allow you to change camber but all of the ones I have seen remove the vibration insulator of the stock unit and allow the road vibration to come up straight into the body of the car. So, what if I burned out the rubber of the stock insulator and reposition the inner cup that holds the bearing and top of the shock so I would get 1.5 degrees of negative camber then filled the cavity where the rubber was with something that would do the job? The liquid urethane that is used to secure modern windshields is the first thing that comes to mind but I'm sure there are a few things that could work. I would have to calculate the amount of offset that would result in the camber I want and some way to hold the inner cups in that position while the compound cures, any other problems that anyone can see that I might run into?

I remember something about those mounts being for a modified engine putting out more power, is that right?

RHD cars had the steering shaft on the other side of the engine but the header would be in the stock position, that header could have been made for a 280z where the brake switch assembly is up on the firewall and you may have to do that. Is the steering shaft actually touching the header? You might get away with a shim under the D/S engine mount and/or you could also cut and weld a notch into the header pipe.

On my first Z I painted the brake and gas lines and it worked pretty well but it was easy to chip the paint during installation, on the next Z I just made new brake lines altogether.

I love it just cause it's so silly, he should have put duallys on the back and edited the video so you don't hear it stall.

Mark, you installed the brake lines while the car was still on the rotisserie? That is completely cheating! Wish I had thought of that. Hey take lots of pics when you do the coil over cutting, I think I have that job coming up and would appreciate any tips. Looking very good.

No they are different but that's good idea, I could get a second long shim, modify it to fit and have lots of extra material to play with. Yes, as a few others have also mentioned. I would much rather look like dimwit #2 and know why the engine failed than rebuild it again not knowing the cause. You know Philip now you have me thinking about the piston rings again, all the rings and cylinder walls looked good so I moved on to other possible causes. I'll get the builder to check the ring to wall clearances while he's in there.

That's great, I know exactly what you mean. I have found the tailgaters are almost always male 16-40 yrs and are checking out the car and yes they get way too close for my liking. The ones that hang back don't appreciate the aroma of the raw fuel and burnt oil coming from your tail pipe, catalytic convertors are great things and have really cleaned up the air but if you didn't grow up with the smell of real exhaust it is hard to appreciate it.

I still have no idea why those first 3 look like that compared to the other 3, you call it lean looking, someone else told me they were too rich. To me it was just an oily surface feel, the valve guides on those cylinders feel and look the same as the other 3 that is, virtually no wear. The exhaust ports were all identical as well, no visual difference. That shim was partially covering the only oil feed out of the pump so whatever percentage of oil it was stopping the entire engine had the same amount restriction. The are 3 feet on the oil pump, one of the shims is like the long one in your post and goes under 2 of the feet, the single shim that I so expertly placed goes under the 3rd and most important foot. I will certainly be making modifications to that shim that prevent it from shifting again.

I actually have one of those later tensioning devices from a 7 series but they are just a spring loaded arm that quietens down the chain, I wouldn't want to rely on it. Neither me nor the engine builder could find anything else it could be, the oil pump is working perfectly, there are no obstructions in any of the oil feed lines, if I hadn't just noticed the faint circular imprint on that shim I was ready to accuse the builder of not replacing five of the bearings.

Agreed The shims job is to adjust the the tension on the oil pump chain, new chain, new pump you only need one shim, a worn chain and pump you need to stack a few. Certainly not one of their best designs and I managed to find the worst possible position for it.

I figured out what was blocking the oil feeding the bearings, there is a thin metal shim/gasket that mounts between the block and the foot of the oil pump. The main oil feed flows through that foot, somehow the gasket shifted before being tightened down and blocked about half of the flow and even though the gauge showed good pressure there wasn't enough to protect the conrod bearings the way I was driving the car. However there was enough oil to protect the cams, the valve guides and six of the seven main bearings. I hate when I have to say this but all the glory for this screw up falls completely on my shoulders, with the engine hanging from the the engine hoist I should have laid on my back to torque those bolts instead of on my knees with my head upside down, I just didn't notice it. I met with the engine builder today, he says the crank is bent and that it is actually cheaper to replace it with a good used one than fix the original, it seems that when other owners of my engine get theirs rebuilt they go for the later model crankshaft from the 3.8L engine and so there is a glut of 3.5L cranks on the market, my builder has 3 of them on the shelf. And the moral of this story just shows me to always stay original and never modify, it's cheaper!

Interesting to see it laid out like this, a black dot is a Z that sold a grey dot is a Z that didn't meet the reserve.

I still have the filter, it is a cartridge type. One of the guys in our local Z club works for a trucking/fleet reliability Co and said they have oil and oil filter analysis, he wants me to bring it over so they can dissect it.

Finished the tear down, the head looks good, can't explain why cyl #1,2 and 3 appear oily compared to #4,5 and 6, there is no scoring of the cylinder walls and all the rings are in good shape and the pistons all look dry. So conrod bearing #1 spun, 2,3,4,5 did not spin but are trashed, 1-5 bearing shells are a copper based bearings. #6, the shiny silver coloured bearing on the far right shows normal wear for 5000 miles. In fact to my eye it looks like #6 are the only bearing shells that were replaced during the rebuild. I'm going to take the block back to the builder and ask him to explain it to me. All the main bearings are perfect except #2 which is badly worn, I ran a wire through every oil feed line in the block and the crank and there were no obstructions, all clear passage ways.

Removed both cams today and the journals and bearing surfaces are perfect, no damage and the cams are farther away from the oil pump than the conrod bearings. There has to be an obstruction in the oil line going to the crank. On these engines the head consists of to two pieces, the top piece is the timing or cam box and the lower piece holds the the valves and spark plugs, I'll have the lower head off tomorrow.

The engine was rebuilt by a BMW pro, I reassembled it and then drove it for 4000 mile then I kept the engine and tranny and parted out the rest of the car. So far I have put a little less than 1000 miles on it while it has been in the Z. Built an adapter plate so I could mount it on the engine stand, there is no bearing material up near the cams so that is a good sign, I have all fall and winter to fix it so I'll go slowly.

Got the engine out today, here is what's in the oil pan, removed only one main bearing so far #4 in the middle and it is perfect, but the conrod bearings on either side of it are spun, The oil pump is in good shape, only a bit of soft metal transfer from the bearing material and it comes off with a fingernail. Glad to see my modification to the pump wasn't the problem. So something must be clogging oil passage way in the crank. I'll have to tear it down, see if the crank can be saved, so far from the bottom of the engine the cylinder walls look good so maybe I can get away with just replacing the bearing shells.

That is their primary job, they eat a wide variety of garden bugs, very useful creatures. I have to admit that I have wiped out tens of thousands of wasps and hornets before studying their life cycle and eating habits.

They will be vacating the hive in the next few weeks and you won't see them again, they haven't bothered you up to now have they? Just saying we need the pollinators.

The only part of the seal that wears is the inside lip, change them all.

It mentions you get a rear deck, trunk lid and windshield header but says nothing about the reinforcing the car would need to make up for the lack of a roof.

Dizzy is short for distributor