mdbrandy

The snipers will move in in the last 45 seconds and triple that price.

I've finally got my 1978 280Z parts car just about stripped. For right now, I'm keeping all the parts, but I'm about ready to get rid of the shell. I'm keeping the battery tray area, and Chloe wants the spare tire well, but I'll cut out anything anyone else wants - free. Just for shipping if you want it shipped. Most of the normal places are rusted out. Floorboards, rear quarter doglegs, ledge under hatch are all toast. Seat rails look good, rear quarters are good except for the dogleg area, front fenders are good except for the normal area right behind the wheel. I've stripped the hatch of mechanicals and glass, but it has some rust through right at the bottom. Roof is good. Under cowl area is amazingly clean. Any sheetmetal in the interior back of the car is good. Hatch apparently never leaked. Anyway, tomorrow morning I drop the suspension and start carving what I need out of the body. If I don't hear from anyone, then it'll be off to the crusher for the rest of it. Any of the bigger parts should probably be picked up in Champaign, IL to make it worthwhile for you. I could keep some things for a while, but I'm out of space, so not too long.

What's missing? If you're talking about the hand throttle, they are very difficult to come by. That's mostly because almost no US market cars had them. Only a few of the earliest 240Z's had them here. And most of them actually had them removed by the dealer because they were believed to be hazardous by US drivers! Anyway, if you're talking about the hand throttle, don't worry about it. Your car very likely didn't have one to begin with. If you're talking about the choke handle, there are a couple on e-bay right now.

Actually on the SIDE of the center console? You got me. I can't come up with anything like that.

See the attached picture. The lever on the left is the choke. The one one the right is a hand throttle, which you will not have.

From your description, it sounds like the choke lever.

Probably depends on your wireing harness connection. I just took off the one on my 1978 280Z parts car, and it has a plastic connector with two spade connectors in an "L" pattern. I believe the earlier ones had a single bullet-type connector (my 240 has been disassembled long enough that I don't remember anymore, but I think so). I assume that guages get the same signal from each of them, and I believe that the block "screw in" is the same, so it probably comes down to the connector type. FWIW

Boy, I wish there was something like that around here. Even though I do most of my work on the Z's myself, it would be nice to have Pro's to do some of the harder stuff. Nobody around here wants to touch restoration work.

Ben's right on the bushings. The shifter in the '78 280Z I bought 6 weeks ago was very sloppy although the actual shifts seemed tight. New bushings from Midwest Z, and it is tight all around now! Wish they weren't just little plastic jobs though. Bet they don't last but a few years...

If you decide to cut and weld, I am madly trying to get my '78 280 parts car apart so I can get it out of my garage and my new 280 into the garage. That portion of the right rear fender looks pretty good from what I can see so far. If you want it before I have the carcass carted off to the recycler (hopefully within a week or two), it's yours for the shipping. By then, I should have virtually everything stripped off the car. But listen to the guys in the previous posts. They know a lot more about body work than I do. Cut and weld might not be your best bet.

Make sure your wheel wells are in good shape too. I had a '75 280Z that at the end (just before I sold it), I could barely drive because of the fumes. I believe it was because, if you took off the interior left quarter trim, you could see the road down through the wheel well past the radio antenna . Kinda hard to seal that off with rubber... Wasn't obvious from out side the car. Had to get into the wheelwell and look. FWIW

Cool link Chloe. I hadn't seen this one before. Thanks!

What year Z is the new dash from? The wiring harnesses did change over the years. You could, however, take the harness out of your original dash and put it into your new dash. That ought to solve your problem.

It uses a bimetallic coil that opens and closes oil passages depending upon temperature.

The factory manual for my '78 mentions silicone oil, so the description in the link is consistent as well. Thanks for the link!

Thanks. I started that other thread because this one was getting kind of off that topic. ZmeFly then posted the definitive answer!

I have no pics of me IN the Z, but here's one UNDER the Z. Be warned. It's not pretty....

Very true. Obviously, the "normal" fix for this is replacing the clutch. I have the factory manual and about 5 other manuals of various types on Z's, and NONE of them even gives a good diagnosis section for the fan cluch, much less how to repair it or any actual data on it. They all have the same very nice drawing, and a description of the theory of operation, but nothing else. Oh well, unless the real data surfaces, then using the wrong oil weight can't hurt it much, since it doesn't work anyway! Just a waste of time to rebuild if it doesn't work after...

I still couldn't see it until I cropped and blew up the pic. I finally see what appears to be the red dot...

ZmeFly, thanks for the tutorial. I'll jerk the fan off my '78 parts car and see what I can do to rebuild it. If that goes well, I can swap it out with the problematic one on the running '78. I like $5 much more than the costs for the other solutions!

That data matches well with the graph I posted. So I guess it was the right graph! The quotation Daniel posted from Peak seems to synopsize most of our discussions well. Thanks!

Excellent! Now we know :classic: .

Daniel had stated that a 100% fill of antifreeze would freeze before a 50/50 mixture, and I had a hard time believing it. From the graph I found, and from the fact that several different antifreeze manufacturers state that they do not suggest more than 67% antifreeze, I conclude that he is right.

I'm starting a new thread, since the other one discussing cooling kind of went off on a science tangent.... I drove home tonight (about 10 minutes, 7 miles), and the engine temp gauge indicated that the coolant was up to temp. Upper radiator hose hard and hot. Open the hood with the engine still running and look at the fan. Spinning, but kind of seemed to be slower than it should be. Turned off the engine and immediately tried to turn the fan by hand. I could spin it with one finger. Sound bad? The factory manual is useless for this - gives you the theory of operation and then just says to check for oil leaks and bent bimetal, and replace as a unit. Is this thing really repairable?