Mark Maras

Wait a minute, the earth can't be flat and hollow unless we're living on a bagel.

@wheee! Have you considered fabricating a couple of pieces to extend the drip rails (rain gutters on both sides of the hatch) that stop a few inches short of the rear of the car? Easy to do and they would stop water from collecting on the hatch latch panel.

Ah, memories of a Z in the snow. Four wheel drifts were a lot of fun until the snow got too deep.

Looking much better. Are any of the hoses touching the bodywork? I can't tell looking at the pics. If you've inspected the fuel pump wire insulation, it looks undamaged and there's no green patina on the wire ends, I'd leave it alone. It's always a good idea to keep the wire connections clean.

Wow, the things one discovers on this site. TFC is about a quarter mile from my house. Thanks

Ahhhhh, the smell of gear oil in my bedroom. Many good first time mechanical stories. Another one being refreshing my first S30 trans on a 4' x 8' piece of plywood in my apartment bedroom. It was successful but my girlfriend (short lived) didn't appreciate the aroma that remained for about a month.

Wrestling trannys always brings back the memory of my first clutch job on a friends car. We made multiple attempts to stuff a cast iron 4-speed into an early Mustang. After about four or five muscle searing tries, we discovered the parts store had sold us the wrong disc. From that point on I always slid the disc onto input shaft and made sure there was no binding of any sort.

No plastic pads on the steel forks. They have 180` of contact with the synchro.

The engine support goes under the pan. The clutch alignment tool will fit through the pressure plate fingers. I've always turned the output shaft to align the splines with the clutch disc. Back in the seventies, before clutch alignment tools, (One had to use an input shaft) I successfully installed two clutches by sticking my head up in the tunnel and aligned the clutch disc by sight. I eyeballed the clutch disc splines to the center of the pressure plate fingers. It worked so well the first time, I did it again later.

@tleverettReviewing my notes, the bushing kit is Dorman #38397. I seem to remember they were for a Mopar of some sort. They're reported to be used for door hinge bushings and shifter bushings in S30s.

If my memory is correct, Wheee came up with this fix. If the sending unit has electrical continuity (check it with an ohm meter), submerge it in CLR for 24-48 hours. You'll be amazed and it will be usable as well as looking good.

If you don't want to separate the rods from the pistons, weigh the assemblies. It's not as good as weighing items separately but it will give you more info.

If the fork isn't broken from hard shifting, "abby normal", premature wear usually comes from resting one's hand on the shifter while driving.

I'm guessing it's the longitudinal ogee curve along with the tiny MOON eyes.

No need to go any farther than your local auto parts store. Measure each flexible hose you want to replace. Add the lengths and round up to the next foot. Cut the new hose to fit and replace any suspect clamps with new ones.