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Well, we at least had some company (here in the states?) making the lenses as sold by CDM and MSA. The backing is almost always a-ok (in every case I've seen), so that really just leaves us for want of new chrome strips. I would say I would be in for a pair of strips, but if the demand is as low as I imagine it to be, it would be a hard price for me to swallow for such a small part

Boy, I wish I was still in your position. An idiot PO hacked the hell out my face plate at some point. It's a real mess, and he partially cut the bottom edge even though I know he meant to just widen the opening to fit a standard head unit. I don't know what he was thinking. I've often thought about making a replacement panel on the mill out of aluminum, but there's no way it would resemble the original piece well enough to suit my tastes.

That's amazing, I wish I had the extra cash sitting around.

That's a pretty sorry way to do business if you ask me, and if that were the case, I would definitely never give them any of my money. Vote with your dollars, folks. Same reason I refuse to buy anything at Wal-Mart

At the top of the hatch window, for sure. Mounting it at the bottom of the hatch window would be a marginal improvement in visibility over the stock brake lamps. I would not mount it on the roof, that would just look silly.

I'll chime in again as I have before on this topic: I had a LOT of problems with my combo switch, almost from the time I got my car 7 years ago. I would pull up someplace, flip the switch off, and the lights would stay on! I would have to fidget with the damn thing for a few minutes to get it to flip off. Sometimes I would be cruising down the road, hit a small bump, and all the lights would go out, or at least flicker. All the parts in my switch had been destroyed by the heat of all the current flowing through the switch. Particularly scary was the time smoke started rising out of my steering column while I was driving down the road. I pretty much went the whole nine yards and got the headlight harness, the parking light harness, as well as had Dave refurbish my combo switch all at once. I have not had any problems since. I think it's been about two years now. I still need to upgrade my headlights. What I have now, I'm accustomed to, but it's nice to know that I can upgrade without problems.

Sounds very expensive. What are you planning on spending on a project like this?

They didn't get the guy that caused it, so far as I know. He was long gone by the time the pileup had happened. People like that are so oblivious, I would be surprised if he/she even knew what they had caused. I was definitely a bit shaken by the whole experience, and had to double check that I wasn't injured. I blacked out my registration/inspection stickers because my inspection sticker was 6 months expired :x I got it inspected yesterday, so it's all legal now. I usually get the inspection done in Dallas where I grew up because I know the local guy there and know he won't take it too far from the station and wail on it for fun. I always hate to see my car disappear around the corner with someone else driving it.

I agree Alan, misinformation needs to be pointed out regardless of who states it and in what context. Honest mistakes quickly become things like the massively widespread "Goertz designed the 2000GT, the Fairlady/240Z and every other good looking Japanese car" fallacy if gone unchecked. How long until someone who only has passing knowledge of Z-cars makes conversation with one of us along the lines of "Did you know the Japanese made a 432 cubic inch displacement performance version of your car? Cool huh?" :stupid: Anyway, If I ever find myself back out in LA, I'll make it a point to stop by the museum and check it out. It seems like it would be right up my alley, and a venture like that needs support from the community to survive.

Yesterday driving up I-35 in central Texas, traffic was dense, moving at about 75mph (typical for that stretch of road). It was so dense, that maintaining a responsible following distance was all but impossible, because people would constantly cut in if you left any room at all. From what we pieced together afterward, some idiot in the left hand lane decided he wanted to take an exit AS he was passing it, so he cut across both lanes of traffic to get to it. Chaos ensued. All I personally saw was a truck pulling a low trailer swerving across both lanes with dirt and debris flying everywhere (unsecured junk he had in the trailer, like a big blue Igloo cooler, for one), less than a second later, everyone was standing on their brakes, and I was suddenly coming up against a wall of cars. It all happened so fast, there was no time to think. All I remember is a blur of getting on the brakes, and hearing tires squealing all around me, realizing I was not going to be able to stop short of the car directly in front of me, so I instinctively swerved into the poor excuse for a left-hand shoulder as I continued to brake. My tires were completely locked up on all four corners (as I discovered by following my skid marks back later). Taking my foot off the pedal to unlock the wheels would have gone against all the instincts that were in control of my actions, even though the rational part of my brain says I could have reduced my stopping distance. As my Z skidded to a halt, and a cloud of white tire smoke blew past my car, I continued to hear screeching tires, and metal-on-metal crunching and grinding. From the driver's seat, it looked like I had at the very least smashed into the concrete barrier on the left hand side. I wasn't sure what I hit, but I was reasonably sure I had been involved in the impact. After a few seconds, it seemed everything had come to rest. I didn't even bother trying the driver's side door - all I could see was the concrete barrier. I climbed, with much difficulty, into the passenger seat, and got out of the car. Miraculously, no one had been seriously injured. The guy and his wife in the Saab next to me (totaled) had both their airbags deploy and they both got out under their own power and seemed fairly coherent. I think their seat belts kept them from taking the airbags in their faces at full force. A few other vehicles were also damaged beyond reasonable repair as well, and there were a lot of people wandering around in a bit of a state of shock. All told, there were about 10 cars that were piled up, and there was somehow a small buffer zone between my Z and all the other cars. I was boxed in, but somehow unscathed. I looked the car over from stem to stern, and could find no evidence of the impact I though I had surely sustained. The front tire was about an inch away from the concrete barrier, without even a skid mark on the sidewall. The fender was only about 2 inches from the wall. Now, I'm not a religious man in the slightest, but this was an extraordinarily fortunate outcome for me. Not that being held up for several hours on a freeway in the middle of nowhere in 100+ degree heat is a GOOD thing at all, but that it could have been MUCH worse for me personally. There were a number of large trucks and SUVs involved, which, had I been caught between them, I would in all likelihood not be sitting here typing this to you today. There were so many factors that, had they been different, things would have had another outcome entirely. For instance - the day before I left for my trip, I went to check the tire pressure on all 4 corners. The mechanic I had last had the car at decided to fill all my tires up to 45 PSI, which I lowered to 30 PSI cold, as I normally keep them. This undoubtedly played some role in traction, for better or for worse, which let me end up in that tiny pocket in the middle of all the destruction. Also, it occurs to me that if I had used better brake control and not locked my brakes up, I probably would NOT have swerved to the left to avoid the car in front of me, and I would have been sandwiched between it and the truck that had been tailing very closely to me previously. I calmly waited for what seemed like hours for the state troopers and EMS to do their jobs and get things organized. The local news stations, being the vultures that they are, showed up to film the ordeal. Even one car of rubberneckers slowed down so a passenger could take photos of all of us on the side of the road. Some folks have no sense of decency, I suppose. Once the cars blocking me in from the front were towed or rolled away, the troopers let me go on my way, and I drove away with a renewed sense of caution on the roadway. Every idiot I see pull out in front of me, or coming up behind me could be the one that kills me. I had this mindset for a number of years, and I always felt it kept me safer. By assuming everyone else on the road is irrational and giving them a wide berth, I saved myself a lot of grief. I had somehow forgotten that over the years, and become as complacent as everyone else on the road. I could have potentially avoided this whole situation by taking a much more defensive posture to my driving yesterday. This experience has definitely put me back on guard while I'm driving, and I hope it will remind some of you of how inexplicably stupid and careless some of the people you share the roadway with are. Treat them as such! Don't ever give them the benefit of the doubt - the cost is too high when they let you down. Anyway, this has come out to be a long enough post as it is, so without further adieu, here are the photos I snapped on my phone's camera.

I'm kind of curious how this changes things for street driving... Yesterday I was involved in an 11 car pileup on the freeway, and through some miracle myself and my Z came out unscathed. When it all came to a stop, I was completely penned in by totaled and moderately damaged cars, and I actually came to rest 2 inches away from the concrete wall on the side of the freeway. I'll have to post the pics later, it was quite an amazing stroke of luck that I wasn't crushed between the other much larger vehicles out there. Anyway, I had no trouble locking up the brakes with the stock setup. I know, I know, locking them up is bad and extends the stopping distance, etc, but what can I say? It all happens so fast, much too fast to THINK, and easing your foot off the brake pedal when there is a wall of cars coming at you at 70mph goes against all your instincts. I followed my own skid marks back a good 50-75 yards at least while we were waiting for help to arrive. Wont this brake upgrade just make it possible to lock the brakes up with less pressure on the brake pedal? I'm a little confused now, as I now feel that there is no shortage of one-shot braking power with the stock setup.

I just copied the entire cd to a folder on my hard drive, and I run it from there. I knew I would lose the cd (I did), so I'm glad to have it stored locally.

My 03/72 240Z did not come with a fan shroud.

Hrmmm, doesn't acetone also break down a lot of different kinds of paint? Something to think about at least. I'm not sure how the others are in that regard. Thanks for the info, second post in as many days reminding me I need to buy more Kroil I was looking at their site today and they also have a product called Silikroil, which is apparently Kroil with silicone added to it... Anyone tried it?

Just came up from the garage and I think I found my problem... Apparently I failed to sufficiently torque the 2 bolts on each side that go up under the a-arm into the bottom of the strut housing :tapemouth I took the drivers side wheel off, leaned in to take a look and there was a gap between the strut and the a-arm, and both bolts were loose and about halfway towards working their way out completely. Suffice it to say I was speechless, and sat down to let it sink in how bad that could have turned out. A very strong lesson learned. I retorqued these bolts to 75ft lbs (FSM says 72.3). I'll definitely be getting out to check on these guys every time I stop for the next few tanks of gas at least. The passenger side wasn't nearly as loose, but I retorqued it for good measure. Doing work on a schedule makes it so easy to make a stupid mistake like that. I'm looking forward to having a real garage this fall, where I don't need to finish each project all up within one day. Thanks for the input guys.

It sounds like it was on the verge of giving out anyway, so you're lucky it happened as you were taking it apart. I had one go bad a few months ago, and I had been driving it around like that for a while. The rear end had a very "floating" or "squirrely" feel to it. My mechanic found the problem and showed me the stub axle - completely sheared off.

When I refreshed the cylinder head in my 72 6 years ago, I had a few studs and bolts break off in the head. At first I tried to use an ez-out, but things were not going smoothly. I ended up just taking the thing to a local machine shop - I spent some extra cash, but I saved myself a LOT of grief. Also, I'll second that Kroil is pretty great stuff and I need to order myself another can. I had a huge tin of it but I left it behind when I moved a few years ago :stupid:

I would put the NSX and 2000GT in the category of supercars. The 2000GT you have to keep in context of time period. I feel it was very much like the NSX of its day. The 240Z I will always consider as a sports car. A lot of the other cars on that list are... sedans... with fancy computers to 'cheat' the dynamics. I don't see how you can put an Impreza, fast as it may be, in the same category as an NSX, or any of the european exotics.

Thanks for the reply, I'll double check on that. I couldn't attach my torque wrench to that massive gland nut, so I basically judged it by the seat of my pants (or palm of my hand) with my pipe wrench. Unless the internal thread is shorter than the external thread on the Tokico gland nuts, I don't THINK I could have bottomed out, but one can never be too sure suppose. Another thing that occurred to me is that I may not have torqued my steering tie rod castle nuts back on at a high enough torque. I was just now reading online that they should be set to 50 ft-lb, and I'm pretty sure I didn't get anywhere near that level doing it by hand with small open ended wrenches.

Any ideas?

Guess I'll be stopping by Office Depot soon to pick one of these markers up, thanks for the pictures

Stainless is great, but I agree with Oiluj; I've never seen stainless shine as well as a good chrome job. It would be a tough decision if I were currently in the market for replacement...

I replaced my old strut inserts (some brand made in Venezuela) and springs (original springs) with Tokico HP strut inserts and their matching red progressive springs. Anyway, I took my car out for a test drive, and now I hear an occasional soft clunk/pop in the front end someplace. I hear it (and feel it through the car) mainly when I'm making a turn (especially right hand turns). What could the causes be? -Could I have damaged a ball joint disconnecting it? That sucker was hard to get off in each case, and required a lot of brute force to make it pop free from the steering knuckle on the strut. Also, both sides had no dust boots, as shown in the FSM. -Maybe my sway bar end links aren't tight enough? I tightened them down as much as I could with hand tools, and there doesn't appear to be any gap between the bar ends and bushings, nor the a-arm and their bushings... Exactly how tight should these suckers be (rubber bushings)? Any insight would be very much appreciated!

I just used some silicone adhesive I got at the hardware store. It was the same kind of stuff you use to seal the insides of aquariums.

Nice, I'll have to pick some up and give it a shot.