LanceM

I'm pretty certain that the car came with cast iron from the factory. Few engines come originally with chrome from the factory, the only one I can think of off hand is the old Pontiac 455. Chrome rings are harder than cast iron and will last longer but can be a bear to seat. I've heard of cases where chrome rings never seated. I would go with the cast iron, that's probably what you would have gotten from the dealer if he still stocked them. Properly fitted they should give you good long service.

What kind of rings are you wanting to put in if not cast iron? Chrome?

I think the colors are important more than the style or placement of the stripes. Done right I think they really add to the cars styling, but in the wrong color they seem to pull your eye away from the lines of the car and it seems to become just another car with stripes...

Does it start and run well at 10? Then that's a good place to set it. If you want to play a bit and see if more is better read my post above and work from there. Every car is different, what is good for one won't work for another.

Gee I didn't think the 5 minutes it took to make the adapter much of a bother Just kidding If you don't have a welder then buying one is the way to go. That's one of those items I never looked to see if they sold! I've made so many over the years I think I have one that will about fit anything. Always seem to have old spark plugs laying around and a bag full of fittings, must be something about being handy and cheap, or cheap and handy, or maybe it good that I'm handy because I'm cheap :0

That price is about right for new, you may be able to save $100 by shopping around. Your best bet is to watch ebay, typical price going there is around $700 or so for used. Thing to remember is that in order for the webbers to work well you need to do head, cam, and exhaust work. Otherwise you will just have an expencive engine decoration that gives you poor performance and bad gas mileage....

Depending upon the tool you use to remove the keepers you may or may not have to remove the cam. In any case you are going to have to hold the valves closed somehow. The tubing as mentioned above may work but I don't like the idea of sticking something in a cylinder that I may not be able to get out. I once used the old trick of using clothes line in the cylinder to keep the engine from rotating while trying to break free some flywheel bolts, damn clothesline got cut and I had a hell of a time getting it out with out pulling the head! Won't ever do that again!!! My suggestion is to take an airline coupler (quick disconnect male end) and an old spark plug. Knock the porcelin out of the plug and weld in the coupler. Place it in the sparkplug hole, remove the rockers so the valves are closed and then pressurize the cylinder with your compressor. As long as the air line is hooked up the valves will stay closed. Do your work then move the adapter to the next cylinder. That way nothing gets into the cylinder but compressed air!

Good deal that is all that it was. In my pre z life (chevy, pontiac) we always spun the pump useing a drill and an old distributor shaft to get things primed along with we always packed the pump with light grease (vasileane?) to be sure it would prime. I'm sure the writer didn't mean to leave it out, sometimes there are just things you take for granted that everyone knows, even though they don't! At least on a Z you don't have to drop the pan to get to the pump!!

Not the same thing in this case, I don't think. It's one of those "you'd have to see it" items. It was a 3 armed flat plastic disk with a bearing ball at the end of each arm, this fit between the breaker plate, for lack of a better term, and the mounting plate, allowing the vacumum advance to easily move the breaker plate which is spring loaded to apply down force between the breaker plate and the mounting plate from below. Sort of a micky mouse arrangement looking at it now, but then, they probably didn't figure anyone would be using it 20 years later. The plastic has become brittle from years of heat and just age, I'm sure when it was new it was much more pliable. Since I have locked the breaker plate in place it wouldn't have been used anyway and the brass shims give it a much more stable base than what it would have had with the plastic anyways.

Never mind, figured it all out. I cut a brass shim to replace the plastic, now that everything is even I can see that there is no adjustment. Seeing how things are suppose to be I'm amazed that the car I took it out of was running! If one more little piece of that plastic part had come out, the distributer would have crashed! Sure am glad I decided to take it apart and clean it up first, I would not have been happy to have installed it and then have it break down the road somewhere!!!

Well I've got a 81 ZX dizzy (modual on the side) that I want to put into my 240, I wanted to clean it up before I install it. I took it apart and found that a plastic bearing holder? had pretty much come apart/disappeared. What is this for? It looks like it is part of the vacumum advance. Can I just put a shim in the right thickness and forget about it since I'm not using the V advance? And are they're any adjustments I need to make when I reassemble it? My manuals only show 240-260 so there isn't anything this new in them...

I am currently polising a set like that. To get the centers polished you have to sand the milling marks off. It isn't as hard as it sounds and really dosen't take long. Using wet dry paper wet I start with 320 and work up to 1500, from there I use Mother's aluminum polish on a buffing wheel in an electric drill, they come out looking like crome. One thing I found that was a problem with getting them to shine was the clear coat that was put on by the factory. Regular paint stripper was used to get it off first. When I'm done I will either recoat them with clear or just figure on polishing them once in a while. I did 2 wheels sunday, and they were pretty ratty to start with, I may get around to the other two this weekend if the weather stays cold and rainy.

OK, You are talking a different animal that what I was. On an empty body I would use more than 4 stands. But to pull a car off the stands pulling yourself up from a sitting position you'd have to admit that it wasn't on very good empty or full....

Yep, The first and I mean first thing I do is try to yank, wiggle, and shake a car off of jack stands. If it moves at all then they are not right and need to be repositioned somehow, and until all 180 pounds of me can't push it off the jackstands trying, and I mean trying, in every way before I climb underneath. That and I got rid of the cheapies 20 years ago, bought some good heavy ones that have wide bases and could hold the car up indivually if it would balance If you have the stands in the right place you can not push it off, it is as solid as being on 4 wheels, OK yeah a forklift into the side.... I don't want anything moving except what I'm yanking on when I'm under a car! My head popping like a watermelon under a frame rail is not the last thing I want to hear in my lifetime!!!

I wouldn't want to stick my nuts not to mention my bolt in anything like that !!! Sorry just had to say it Tumbling would be a slow process, and remember that the rust you remove is the metal from the item itself. So when you are done you will have no rust but pits where the rust was. It will also remove any plating that was left on the part so as soon as it sees moisture it will start rusting again... I would have to agree that if you are thinking nuts and bolts, new are cheaper and are better than cleaned up old rusted ones.

Here's a 3.90 R200 on Ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2434251621

All stock with aftermarket wheels. The mags are ET's that I bought probably 20 years ago, don't know but I don't think they have any special offset.

I run 235/60-14 on my 240 with no clearance issues so 205/65-14 should be a problem.

Ok to start I'm parting out my 81 ZX, I wanted the tranny for my 240 along with anything else that would work. My 240 isn't stock and hasn't been for 20 years so that wasn't an issue for me. My clock was dead when I bought the car 20+ years ago and while in storage the mice took care of the carboard glove box. Well to make the story shorter, the ZX had a nice plastic glove box, came out just fine once I figured out how to fold the top down so it would come out I shove it into the 240 and it fits but damn it's too long, hmmmm this is not a problem! the 240 screws mount on the inner side, the ZX mounts in the front! out comes the marker and the saw and a little sanding later I have a very nice plastic glovebox in my 240!! Original, no, looks factory, yes, very functional, YES! The ZX also had this great digital clock with a lap timer and other great stuff. Would it fit? Well not right away Using a sander I sanded down the clear lense to fit, then the after removing the clock face sanded it to fit the lense. I had to cut off the mounting tabs that were on the clock and now it all fits together in the original clock hole of the 240! The clock face is sort of oval and so you can see into the dash a little at the top of the clock but I plan to paint the back side of the lense black to fill it evenly all around and it should look, well almost stock I mean after all it is a Datsun clock Anyway I thought I'd pass this along to you lucky guys that have pick and pulls that have Datsuns in them... Around here they laugh and tell you that they rusted away before they could smash them!

Thanks all, Pulled the shifter handle, gee that took 30 seconds and out she came! Quick clean and easy, trans is now on the floor and the engine on a stand, time to look for stroker parts Z Kid, thanks for the memorys I seem to remember that same sequence of events happening 30 years ago Luckly I used that as a learning experiance and have graduated to a safer and happer work enviroment with a hoist and big cement floor, one thing hasn't changed though, them beers sure went down good

Yeah it's a parts car, I'll try taking the shifter off as I don't have a dolly to slide it out underneath, but that is an idea. I might be able to lower the engine to the floor and use the boom lift on the tractor to lift the front of the car and pull the car away from the engine... Ideas are forming, thanks guys!

I'm working at taking the engine and trans out of a 280zx, my question is can you pull them out together or do you have to pull the trans first? I'd love to pull them out in one piece and not have to lie on my back working any more than I have to But I'm afraid that the shifter will get in the way, will it work or any tips?? I'd like to have it ready to pull first thing in the morning if I can, want to get this job done and this car out of the shop and the 240 back in before any rain comes...

Parting out my DD, 81 280ZX next week. I think all I'm keeping is the block and the tranny and maybe some bits and pieces that I come across and like. The car runs good and drives good but I want my parts If anyone wants anything from it let me know. Prices will be cheap cause what I don't take is going to the scrap yard as soon as it is hauled out of the shop, wife don't want no "junk" sitting around. It has an R200 in it that seems in great shape and seems to have some dang low gears in it, tach turns around 3100 at 65 mph in 5th, too low of a gear for me. The hood, fenders, headlight buckets are all straight and no rust, and it has T-tops. I'm in Ligonier, IN about 35 miles north of Ft Wayne if you are wanting to pick things up.

Long ago when I was a poor boy we used to cut the bottom off of one Chevy SB pan and weld it on to the cut off bottom (after some pounding with a hammer to custom fit) of another to get more volume. Not pretty but it worked and we got the pans for free.

In another case I would agree with you but in this case I'm the second owner of the 73, I bought it in 79. I've had few passengers in the Z and only a small handful that I can remember that I would have be enough of a gentleman to unlock their door I figure between the passenger door and the rear hatch those locks are about as new as they get, the drivers door and the ignition are probably worn enough that almost anything would work, and the keys I got from the ZX are pretty fresh cut looking.