MikeW

Exactly. Back when I was riding a lot I found that it was all I could do to briefly hit 30mph. In reality the wind resistance becomes exponential. While I could ride 18 or 19 mph for hours at a time the increase to 20 or 21 was quite noticeable. These guys in the tour end up averaging in the high 20's for hours at a time with lots of steep climbs and they do it for weeks in a row. They are quite clearly the fittest athletes in any sport. There's just no comparison. Looking at the final results I see that the guy who finished in last place, the 155th rider, was a grand total of 4 hours and 20 minutes behind lance. I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of us would lose that much time in a single day on the first long ride of the tour. Another thing to note: if your resting heartbeat is 60 or less you're considered to be in relatively good shape. Lance and other other riders often are under 30.

That was my guess. This may surprise you but I temporarily "borrowed" your engine timing pointer. Mine didn't come back from the engine rebuilders and since it's not a part that would ever go bad I've never seen one for sale. Eddie didn't have one and all of the parts cars at his place were either missing the pointer or had the later style pointer with notches. In any case, I cleaned years of grime off of it and fabricated a new pointer out of aluminum using yours as a guide. The original pointer is steel but perhaps it's galvanized or something. I was afraid that if I tried to make one out of steel sheet metal it would eventually rust. I've been meaning to take yours back and install it but I've been kind of busy. I'll try to do it this week. Do you have an idea of when he'll be done with the work?

Since I'm the one who brought up the missing engine first I think it's important to point out that we really don't know much about it. The original engine might just be nearby but out of the picture. Also, as Alan pointed out, this car would not have an ID plate listing the engine number so it really doesn't matter if it's a "matching numbers" car. Unless someone finds 00001 then this car is obviously the oldest known S30 and as such has a tremendous amount of appeal to a collector. Hopefully Kats will be able to provide us with more detail about this car in the future.

Doesn't the bottom switch have to be to the left?

What color is your car?

Well what do you know. All this talk about a plastic hinge made me go back and actually look at mine. It is plastic. What confused me is that there's a metal frame that covers most of the plastic. I distinctly remembered that part as it's what is used to secure the door to the dash. The plastic part itself is actually the entire inside panel of the door.

No. No body panel from a ZX will fit a Z.

I tested this process recently with a cheap trickle charger that doesn't have any of the fancy settings like yours do. You could probably even use your car battery itself. You could use jumper cables to the project and then hook up the charger to keep the battery charged. Another option would be to use a standard 12-volt power supply. I have no experience with the following products but it came from a Google search and will at least let you know what I'm talking about: http://www.baproducts.com/pyramid.htm Here's something similar from Radio Shack: http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=CTLG%5F009%5F001%5F005%5F000&product%5Fid=22%2D507

There seems to be a size limit of 1024x768 for images and perhaps a file size limit as well. Lot's of people have mentioned having trouble uploading pictures.

Before you go and buy one from VB be aware that a member here was making and selling these a while back. I bought one of his and can vouch for the quality. I don't know if they work with anything other than a 240Z, however. http://new.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=14897

In that case I bet they're the same rivets that started this thread. I recall trying the larger interior rivets but those don't fit.

It's a little hard to tell from the picture but are those plastic rivets in the corners?

Not strange. It is a link to this same thread but has the "pp=5" option in the URL that causes it to show only 5 posts per page hence the large number of pages.

Even a new emblem doesn't always look red so I can understand the confusion: http://www.zparts.com/events/wczn20/images/00r08f20.jpg http://www.datsunrestore.com/images/280z_fender_emblem.jpg http://www.courtesyparts.com/Merchant2/graphics/00000001/s30/98811-280ZF.jpg

I've seen advice before about keeping fumes out but I don't quite understand. What fumes are we talking about? I would think that if you've got exhaust fumes in the engine compartment then you've got a bad gasket or manifold.

I have the following book which is essentially a collection of reprints from all of the car magazines, not just R&T: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1855203952/qid=1121880179/sr=1-16/ref=sr_1_16/103-2672197-3888601?v=glance&s=books

Where is the other thread? I can't find it. Edit: never mind. For some reason searching for the text you copied didn't produce the result.

It's a shame that the engine appears to be gone.

The screws go in the rectangular vinyl-covered panel that attaches to the underside of the hatch near the taillights. From what I can tell there are actually two different size screws needed. Six of them (the four corners and the two in the middle) use larger screws that attach to holes directly in the sheet metal. The other four attach to speed nut clips instead and must be smaller for that reason. I just got through attaching mine using sheet metal screws that seem to work but would love to see photographs of the originals - along with what I think are metal grommet rings that the screws all go through. I just bought a variety of these fasteners at the hardware stored and used those that seemed like the best fit.

I notice another auction like this here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&category=42606&item=4561896277 Is it the same seller? If so, I got kind of burned by this guy on shipping. It took a long time and his claim of "As always there are no handling fees and I'll will find you the lowest price possible on shipping" is not true at all. I've now learned to never buy anything unless the shipping is explicitly stated. He also lists his location as in Michigan but he's really in Canada.

Yes. The engine should turn over fairly easily by hand with the breaker bar, especially if the spark plugs are out.

I would say that if it won't even budge with the breaker bar then don't even bother trying to use the starter as you'll risk doing more damage. I've seen people recommend squirting penetrating fluid in each cylinder and letting it soak in before trying to turn the engine over.

I've used a similar troubleshooting approach. Instead of hooking the meter up at the battery it's much quicker to do it at the fusebox. With everything in the "off" position simply remove each fuse one at a time and bridge the gap in the fuse box with the meter set for current. With everything off there should be no current flowing so any reading at all indicates a drain. I can't remember if the clock gets power through the fusebox so that might be one exception.

It means using the proper tap to make sure the threads are clean. A tap is a tool that allows you to make your own threads in metal. You first drill a hole and then use the appropriate tap to cut new threads into the hole. The tap can also be used to clean out the threads in an existing threaded hole. You can buy a tap and die set with all the appropriate metric sizes. A die is the opposite of a tap. You use it to make or clean threads on the bolt part.

Since he cut it up I'm guessing you'll have to compensate a bit for all the pieces that flaked off over the years. All the holes certainly weigh a good bit less than the surrounding metal.