LanceM

I've alread cut in and luckly there isn't much going on inside and what was is taken care of. I just didn't want a glue on panel, I want to fix it right and once. I will check out tabco, thanks for the tip. Lucky for me I have this ace body guy available, he said that if they are weld in he would do both sides for $100 ready for paint! I've seen a lot of his work and when he is done you won't know they were repaced!

What started out to be a little rust hole had turned into the usual monster. Luckly for me my neighbor is a high quality body man that has a very good neighbor discount, at least for me Anyway the part I need to replace it Item 11 on page 25 of the VB catalog. His question is: is this a replacement panel (glue on over the top of the existing panel) which I guess is a common thing for a lot of replacement panels or a cut to fit and weld in panel? His preference and mine are a cut and fit panel but I need to know before I order and so that he can give me an estimate. Hopefully someone has gone this route before and knows first hand.

Just did a 5-speed swap today and got mine off no problem using a standard Craftsman combination wrench, box end to break them loose, open end to take them off. This was on a 240, is a 280 different?

80-90W would probably be fine, I looked in the Chilton's manual and it dosen't say. Takes 1 liter.

Ligonier Indiana, I think I own the only Z. Road salt killed them all 20 years ago. You go to a pick and pull around here and you have to show them a picture, then they laugh and say "you still got one of those!!!" I've also heard " never heard of them" show them the picture and they never seen one either.... Why are all the parts I want in CA and no one wants to ship!

Looking in my Haynes tech book on Webbers the # after the DCOE is a series # but dosen't really seem to make any sence... They are lumped together and apart, and the only referance to the series # is to accelerator pump stroke and float level settings and they don't go in number order smaller to bigger, other than that there is no mention of series # for any other time in the manual. For sure sounds like time to call an expert to make sure you order the right thing.

Around a pound per square foot, not bad and acceptable to me. I have shaved weight in other ways so adding this back for some quiet I figure I'm still ahead of the game both ways.

What I bought is not Dynamat brand, but is suppose to be the same thing as regular Dynamat but like half the price. It is really nice stuff and is very easy to work with. I am happy with it and look forward to driving with reduced road noise.

Bought some dynamat substitue from McMaster carr and have been installing it. Goes in great and forms well to conturers. I have a question though for anyone that may have used something like this. On something like a door where would you put it for best effect? I think that if I put it under the interior skin it won't fit right because of the thickness of the dynamat. The inside of the doors was coated years ago and is rough, I don't think the mat will stick to it. Any suggestions?

I think the broken rear stud is a common problem on many L series engines, my is broke, gone, but no leak.

I wouldn't recomend an E-31 for a turbo motor is what I probably should have said Now for my NA 240Z, well I've been looking for an edge.....

The E-31 is an early 240Z head, NA and will produce probably the highest compression ratios available using a stock head. Around the block, Hmmmmm, pull it out of the driveway, kick it in the A$$ and call a tow truck to get home....

I'm not much of a turbo guy, but they but everything I've read says that they tend to run very low compression compaired to NA cars. I would think that once the boost comes on you wouldn't get around the block...

It will fit, how long the engine last with 10+ compression ratio is the question!

First off thanks for your first post cause second, OH MY GOD, I had a little of that problem on the passengers side of my car but the drivers looked fine, till now! I thought I'd better have a second look all around and took my trusty stab it screwdriver to the driver's side, poked right through the wheel well into the rocker and just finished up raking out about a pound of road silt! How does it get in it there??? Just when I thought I had all of this kind of stuff taken care of! I'll tell you one thing, that screwdriver is going to get a workout as we go everywhere else that "looked" fine and do some stabbing!!! Ed was probably right on metal size, I was guessing and haven't had any experiance in having to form pieces, I think that is about to change....

I wonder if it wasn't another "dealer" option. I bought my 73 240 in 79 with 50K showing, I'm the second owner but never met the first owner. It has Z seats but the inner panel is cloth and had a design in it that matched color wise with the orignal color of the car. I find it hard to believe that someone would go to the expence of having the seats reapolstered in that short of of time period. The job looks factory and they are still in good shape except for 30 years of being sat on. I've always wondered myself...

Ok, Looked at your pic again then my car to be sure. Pull the dog leg trim panel off from the inside and take a look with a good light down through one of the holes there. I think you may find that you have some serious problems inside. probably a hole through from the front of the wheelwell into that lower rocker area. I don't think there is a drain hole there so if anything gets in it stays and rots... The problem with that area is that I don't think there are replacement panels available, you either have to fab something up or find a good doner car to cut the inner/outer panels from...

I think you are yet to see the really bad part. I would sugest cutting into that and see what is going on inside, maybe more than just a little sheetmetal replacement. If the pic is where I think it is, there could be a whole lot of work waiting inside.... I would guess 14 gauge, .080" thick. 16 gauge is .062.

I have mine apart there currently and no foam, nothing but steel in the whole compartment besides the wiper motor. My whole area there was a nightmare, found that the mice had been using it for a bathroom for the 15 years the car was stored!!! Pulled out 5 pounds of $hit and after hours of cleaning, scraping, sanding got the mess and rust cleaned up. I am using a rust converter made by Permatex, Don't know if it is available in NZ but in my limited testing seems to work well at stoping rust.

I have 235/60-14 all the way around on 6 3/4" rims, no clearance issues.

Got me on that one, I was thinking old days, bench seats, long shifter handles, cut it off and weld on a bolt screw on a knob and reach over the seat to shift! Not Z, where the knob could stick out of the console and be in easy reach

Don't know what the stock lenght is but a shorter shifter will make for faster shift times, but it will also reduce your leverage, not that leverage should be a problem with a healthy transmission. To visulize what a shorter shifter will do for you, draw a 10" diameter circle and divide it in let's say 4's for the example, measure between two of the points where they cross the circle, now draw a 6" circle and do the same thing. By using a shorter shifter you have effectivly reduced the circle and so reduced the travel between two points. I remember in high school a guy had a shifter in a chevelle that was pretty much a ball sticking out of the floor, talk about a short and fast shift! If I remember right he blew alot of second gears too! With the Z's short stick taking off an inch or so will probably make it feel crisper but if you are young with good reflexes your shift times probably won't change enough to notice time wise. One thing I would think about is if the stick was shorter would you have to lean forward to pull to second or push to third? If you would any benifit would probably be lost.

Yes scary and nuts, like I said "don't try this at home" It didn't make it through the gallon of gas before it froze up. Man was it screaming though, had to be running 12K + with WOT and no load! And it ran for what seemed like a long time, we figured it would just over rev and blow, when it didn't we ah, sort of started running It didn't blow either, at least nothing sticking out anywhere, it just stopped, dead in an instant. We never looked but always figured we spun some of the main bearings. Ah to be young and wild again, well ok, maybe not So Texasz, your experiance shows that the only thing to do is a leakdown test if it is on a stand. Probably the best test anyway since the results are more specific if there are problems that need to be figured out.

Here's a link to a homemade leak down tester http://www.xs11.com/tips/misc/misc3.shtml Perhaps you know someone who has a compessor you could borrow? Looking at the leakdown tester I would say that the air volume required is extreamly low, perhaps one of those 12V ones for blowing up tires would be enough to get the job done without a big outlay of $ and be useful later on. Or another thought is a small air tank, they are not that expensive and you could fill it at a gas station as required. Here's a wild thought, since you'll have it on a stand with the flywheel off you can't use a starter, how about a 1/2" drill driving a socket on the front of the crank? With all of the plugs out and checking the compression on just one cylinder at a time I bet the drill would turn it fast enough. Take a cheap 3/8" extention and cut off the ratchet end so it will go in the drill, 3/8 to 1/2 adapter and plug on your 27mm socket and go! Know anybody with a 1/2" drill? If the engine is complete and ready to drop in, carbs, starter, fan, etc, something I've done and falls into the highly not recommended catagory is bolt it to a couple of hunks of 6 x 6 with a chunk under the back to hold the flywheel off the ground. Hot wire the ignition, stick the line from the fuel pump in a gallon can and use jumper cables to start it up. If you are going to run it very long a garden hose shoved in the bottom inlet works fine, but makes a mess Great way to check for bad spark plug wire Like I said this falls into the "don't try this at home kids" catagory but is a way to see if it will run. The neighbors will love the sound of that short stack exhaust I must say though when I did this it was a duration test, wired the throttle wide open, no water, and let it go. I didn't think it was ever going to quit, gotta love them Datsun engines! Don't flame me too bad here, that was 25-30 years ago, there were plenty of them around then.... OK, ya done run me out of ways to check it without putting it in a car or tearing it down..... who knows maybe one of them might really work!

Glovebox is the way to go. I also found that the plastic insert (glovebox) from a 81 280ZX can be made to work as a very nice but not stock replacement.