mdbrandy

I started driving in 1977, driving my parent's 1971 Monte Carlo. High beam switch on the floor. After I bought my first car - 1971 240Z, I drove it for a while thinking it didn't even have high beams. I was driving along a dark rural highway one night when I accidently pulled in on the turn signal - imagine my surprize when the high beams came on! I had never seen that before :cross-eye .

I can't tell you if a 280Z bar will work, but if it will, I've got one hanging around off my '78 parts car that you can have.

At least something's changing. Indicates that maybe it isn't just on some autopilot with no one paying any attention. I noticed the mesh grille too, and just for grins sent a message to ebay@midwestz.com like they suggested. No response, as usual. Hopefully the website didn't just die for non-payment.

Here's a pic of my '70 before disassembly. The "valve" on the right goes back up to the front of the car, and feeds the "valve" on the left, which splits to the two back brakes. FWIW. Mark

Heck, I don't have a style. I'm spending most of my time upgrading the 280Z to the neglect of the 240Z. Maybe it's mostly that I'm dreading cutting out and welding in more metal to the poor old thing. Ah well, we'll see over the next 5 years or so!

Fishnet Pantyhose! :squareeye Now That's something I would not have thought of. Any specific color, type, size, etc.? How do you actually attach it to the radiator hose, or do you just slip it on?

I got tired of these types of analyses. There was a lot of guesswork on the probabilities involved, and it was always a huge deal just to justify the answers. I did nuclear reactors, nuclear waste processing facilities, and chemical wepons depots and incinerators. Rockets are much cooler :classic: .

I guess I'll never get those braided radiator hoses when NOS lower ones pass $125 on e-bay. Rats. http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7916267760&ssPageName=STRK:MEWA:IT

We usually like to say that it's "Piled Higher and Deeper"

Rocket scientist too - kind of. Ph. D. in engineering 15 years ago - did Probabilistic Risk Assessments of Nuclear power plants and such for about 8 years, and then got deeper into programming and Software Engineering. Now I work at the University of Illinois in the "Center for Simulation of Advanced Rockets". Big 3D parallel-computer simulations of solid propellant rockets. I'm the Software Engineering Manager for the group. I also teach C and C++ programming on the side at the local community college.

If you can pull it off as you are envisioning, I'm interested.

Well this is a timely thread. I spent the evening tonight dissassembling the spare 280Z rear suspension I have, in preparation for rebuilding it and then swapping it into my daily driver 280 in a weekend. Well, everything went very well, until the spindle pins. I bought one of Harbor Freight's "12-ton presses" for $99 a couple months ago, figuring I could use it for a lot of stuff. Well, it pressed the bushings out of the front control arms, easily pressed the ball joint pins out of the knuckle arms, but it won't do the spindle pins. I had it all set up, pressed, and pressed, and pressed, and it "broke the pin loose". Thought I had it then. But then I reset it, tried to keep pressing, and I actually bent the end of the rod! Must not have had it perfectly square. So, before I mess up the other end, I guess it's time to get the right tool...

Same here. Very strange. You'd think whoever took it over would already be interacting with us to pre-setup customers. However, maybe Vicky is right, and there are legal issues.

That's one of the first things I did and got nothing.

One more vote for your Z!

My essentially bone-stock 1978 280Z with L28 gets 17-19 consistently in the city, depending on how hard I throw it around. I've only had it on the highway a couple times, and it seems to get in the low 20's. I seem to remember seeing, although I cannot find it right now, that the EPA sticker on a 1978 280Z was 18 mpg in the city.

I actually know . I was searching the IZCC database of members the other day looking for other Z owners near central IL. I found a guy right here in Champaign that had a very early member number, so I wondered who he was, and I sent him an e-mail. Ends up that he's still here in Champaign, but unfortunately, in the late 80's the tranny on that Z gave out, and he just never got around to fixing it. After it had sat long enough, I guess there was no point . The parking sticker on the windshield expired in 1990, so it looks like it was probably parked in 1989 and sat ever since.

The doors themselves would bolt onto the car at the hinges, and would fit the opening, but I believe the latch mechanisms are different between the 240 and 280. You might be able to transplant the latch mechanism too, but I do not know. The Z car is a unibody design, so there is no separate frame or chasis. Once you have the doors, hood/cowl, and front fenders off, it's pretty much all one welded-together unit.

Something serious must have happened to Chloe and MidwestZ. I researched her e-bay sales, and she doesn't seem to have made a sale since about June 5th. There are several feedbacks recently, but they are for sales in late May/early June. She hasn't responded to several of my e-mails too. I will pm you MidwestZ's address from one of my invoices from her.

Actually I got the side markers, and the headlights, and the license plate light. I wanted the tail lights, but I didn't want to shovel out the hatch to get to them. God only knows what kind of stuff is living in there. Couldn't get the quarter windows, since I couldn't even get the doors open. Locks were rusted solid, and even a crow bar couldn't pop them open. I tried. I reached through the (broken) drivers window and managed to get the turn signal/ light switch assembly and the horn button. I may go back and see if I can strip some more (I should have grabbed the distributor), but last Saturday, I was Hot, tired, and very dirty after the 3 hours I spent unearthing what I did!

In general, I think the drivetrain and suspension will be OK to swap, but you'll have a lot of trouble with the interior, and things like the bumpers are totally different. The doors latch differently and have different armrests and handles, the dash attaches differently, etc. Wiring harnesses will be very different since the 77 is FI and the 240 is not. But you can't just swap harnesses, because things like the tail lights are different too.

Further question: the inside of the diff has a little bit of grit and dirt due to being stored open for some period of time. Do I have to flush it out with oil, or could I use some sort of solvent without hurting it? I'm replacing the seals anyway....

There were only 3, and I popped off the center Z caps from all of those. I already have 8 280Z style wheel covers that I don't really need, so i didn't want 3 more that are probably rusted to the wheels anyway!

Yeah, you should have seen me after I took the few parts I wanted - covered head to toe in dirt! :sick:

Don't let anyone say we don't have Z's here in Central Illinois! Found this one this past weekend here in the backyard of a condemned house in Champaign. Been sitting since 1990. Owner said I could take anything I wanted. Took a few FI parts, and a good, uncracked, unchipped windshield, but that's about it! the entire undercarriage is buried in a foot of mud and dirt! Makes ya wanna cry