MikeW

If you ever decide to drive your car in the water (like <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/americas/02/04/cuba.car.ap/index.html">these</a> guys) it's a way to drain any water out afterwards.

This depends completely on your goals. Do you enjoy working on cars in your spare time as a hobby? Perhaps it's something to just get your mind off of work. If so, buying a less expensive car and working on it yourself is the way to go. If your goal is simply to own a 240Z in top condition then just go buy one where someone else has done all of the work. It's a sad fact that your car will almost never be worth the amount of time and money you've put into the restoration. If your goal truly is to do a restoration yourself but money is an issue you're still better off starting out with the best car you can afford in the long run.

I remember when MSA had a catalog with no prices and a separate price book. I never liked that but figured it allowed them to change prices as needed without printing a new catalog. At this point I can't imagine anyone really needing a catalog at all, but then software is what I do for a living. It seems like they could keep the web page up to the minute with prices and availability and full color high resolution images, etc. They must not have a good internal system (parts database) otherwise getting the content on the web (even if primitive) should be easy.

I stand (or sit) corrected. I just I just can't trust this new internet thing.

13B = twin rotor Wankel rotary 20B = triple rotor Wankel rotary We do get those over here, however, as that's what's in the new RX8.

Some people are willing to pay large amounts of money for things that have no real value. For instance, the guy who paid $3.2 million for Mark McGwire's 70th home run baseball also paid $450,000 for Barry Bond's 73rd. Both are slightly used baseballs worth less than $5 to me (unless of course I turned around and sold them to someone else with no brains).

More like $101+s/h It looks like they really are slowly getting all of this stuff online. What's taking them so long? http://www.zcarparts.com/store/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Category_Code=SFC04C

Ok, so this is not really funny, but it is a little funny: http://www.5pennies.us/images/No%20Seat%20Belt.avi

I don't know about Marty but it's not really possible to get a good picture of this piece without taking the bumper off. It's just a very small piece of rubber that goes over each bracket at the ends of the bumper. It only covers the small "ear" or "tab" where the bolt goes through; the bolt actually goes through the rubber and the metal. Attached is an attempted picture from the bottom side looking up at the rear bumper end.

I don't know if HS30 models in Australia are different but my 240Z has rubber pieces only at the ends of the front and rear bumpers where they meet the side body of the car. This is to protect the paint. I'm not aware of anything like this where the main rear brackets mount to the body or where the front backets mount inside the grille area.

That's wonderful!! I'd have to say you're fortunate that more damage wasn't done. It doesn't sound too bad in the grand scheme of things. Did the criminal share your taste in music or did he leave any of your CD collection?

Perhaps you could get it professionally appraised. That would certainly help convince the buyer that the car is worth what you're asking. It is a tough question because the range of values on these cars is so great depending on condition, location, originality, low VIN, etc.

The hazard lights use a separate flasher unit that is, at least on my 240Z, attached to the panel next to the passenger's right foot under the glove compartment. The turn signal flasher is up under the dash on the driver's side.

Just remember, it's 99% of attorneys that make all the rest look bad.

I think drilling them out would be taking it to the extreme. I seriously doubt that someone would have done this intentionally. It's more likely that years of crud have simply caused them to stick and a little more persuasion is needed. I would first try spaying them thoroughly with carb cleaner and if that doesn't work I'd try something a little more effective like PB Blaster.

According to a site I just Googled for: "Stainless components have a strength typically 87.5% of the same size fixing of grade 8.8 steel"

ZMeFly: Any updates on this scary story?

Octane is a measure of how easily the fuel ignites. It's not a measure of how much power is in the fuel. Higher octane is needed as the compression ratio goes up to prevent pre-detonation (or pinging). Cars that require premium fuel do so because of higher compression ratios. If your car is not pinging on 89 octane then 93 octane isn't going to do you a bit of good. You're just wasting your money. It may be that the premium fuel has other benefits (like better additives, etc) but don't buy more octane that you need. My understanding is also that AvGas contains some lead which can certainly be harmful to newer cars (but probably not our old Z cars since they were designed for leaded fuels).

I wonder why that method worked but the normal bleeding procedure didn't. It doesn't seem all that different to me - using your thumb instead of the bleed screw.

I don't think that's how lojack works. The system is essentially passive, listening for an activation signal. The activation signal is not transmitted until the car is reported stolen. At that point the system starts emitting a radio beacon that the police have to actually home in on like tracking a bear with a radio collar. That's a lot different than, for instance, a GPS based system (like what some trucking companies use) where at any point someone could effectively watch where you've been and where you are.

My understanding is that the marine clean removes any oils or other substances that will cause the POR15 to not stick well. I doubt that you'd have any of those problems on top of a fresh coat and the marine clean probably wouldn't help with any dust that got stuck while things were still wet. I don't think the metal ready by itself has any rust prevention abilities. In fact, I think it's only really needed on clean, smooth metal to help the POR15 stick. It actually etches the metal. The rust prevention comes from the POR15 paint itself because it bonds to the metal and hardens. This hard layer is a moisture barrier which is why it prevents the rust.

I'm not aware of this dent. There is a hump the runs lengthwise right above the frame rails on either side. There are also some depressions in both pans that are probably for structural support. Do you have a picture? There are plenty of pictures in the galleries here of floorpans and floorpan rust repairs. Here's a good shot that shows the humps and depressions I was talking about: http://www.datsunzparts.com/FLOORS1B.JPG

Richard Kiel ("Jaws") was actually Jackie Chan's driving partner in the forgetable sequel "Cannonball Run II". This was the movie where Burt Reynolds was an Army general. Even Frank Sinatra made an appearance. As I recall even though it was supposed to be the same cross country race it appeared to be filmed entirely in the California desert. The original: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082136/ The sequel: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087032/

Interesting trivia: This was the first US movie with Jackie Chan (1981). He was the driver of Subaru with the jet engine in the back and night vision goggles who later got into a fight with a bunch of bikers. Jackie got the idea of running outtakes at the end of his movies from this film. http://www.lovehkfilm.com/panasia/cannonball_run.htm

That's clearly a '70 whereas the other is clearly a '73 (except for the carbs).