2ManyZs

I was expecting a whole lot worse..... That is minor damage when you consider what could have happened...

Looks like what Alan said, someone with little or no experience with a mig welder was trying to weld up a hole and only succeeded in sticking the wire....:stupid: Better safe than sorry, you really need to find what else might be hidin gunder the undercoating... Only then will you know for sure how much you are going to have to repair/replace...:disappoin

If the timing is changing, it's got to be in the timing chain or in the distributor or distributor drive. First thing I would do is pull the valve cover and check to see if the timing chain is loose, if it is, you'll need to pull the front cover and replace the chain and tensioner. If that is OK, pull the distributor cap and check to see if the shaft of the distributor is OK, also look for any loose pieces of plastic or ball bearings from the advance plate.... Those are only a couple things that could be causing the timing problem, if that is really what is wrong in the first place...

All I can say is OUCH!!!:cross-eye It looks bad, but it looks repairable.. If you notice the reinforcement panel just above the T?C rod mount in the inner fender itself, it is a common rust area. I've seen many cars with this panel rusted completely through to the engine compartment so that is not a real issue. It does look like the car at one time or anohter might have had some damage, either by a garage lift, running up on a curb.. hard to tell what may have caused the cave-in of the frame rail. Looks like at the very least you'll need to replace the under floor frame rail and then have someone cut you a panel to replace the reinforcement panel in the inner fender. With that in place they could then re-weld the seam to mount the T/C pocket. Most of what I see can be repaired fairly easily with some patch panels and welding. However before you do anything, you'll need to remove the undercoating and search for any more rust. You might end up finding some in the floor pans themselves as the rust may have gone from the frame rail into the floor pan. Once you have the undercoating removed, you'll be able to get a better asessment of the rust damage as a whole. It isn't going to be cheap, but at least it's in an area that is fairly easy to fix and replacement parts are available... however, where you are, I don't know what the prices or availability of those replacement panels will be. Here in the US, MSA has most everything you'd need.... Also, if you are doing this side, you might better do the other side at the same time and see what might be hidden under the coating on that side as well. If you have seams that are compromised on one side like this one at the frame, inner fneder, T/C mount they could possibly in the same shape on the other side..... :disappoin

It could still rust, especially if there has been moisture trapped inside the frame rails etc... by the undercoating. FWIW, Eastwoods has a fairly good undercoating remover, if you are trying to save the paint underneath, I'd give that a try. It's a two part system, you use one aerosol to remover the heavy stuff, and then another to remove the tar remnants that will end up just smearing around... It's supposed to be safe to use on paints, and I used some on mine with the factory undercoating and it left the paint in good shape. It's a bit expensive, but better than scraping if you are trying to save the paint... www.eastwoodcompany.com

It's not that funny.... The less I drank and the more my ex-fiancee drank, she went from the good to the bad, and then the ugly....:tapemouth :stupid: :sick:

I haven't used Amsoil, but have used the RedLine synthetics... I'd go for it, if for nothing else, piece of mind... But, you should replace the seals and gaskets before you change... If you seals and gaskets are worn, the lighter weight synthetics will more than likely cause you to have a leak where you didn't have one before.

Is this what he's on?

Bad enough all the damage, and it just had to leave a "calling card" too....:sick:

If the right side rail is rusted so badly that it separated, you've got a ton of problems. If it has rusted to that extent, you better check the inner fender and firewall area as well. You should be able to buy new frame rails to replace the rusted one, but you'll end up having to patch the T/C rod mount back in if the plate that holds it on the inside of the rail is rusted and compromised. If one rail is that bad, you might as well go ahead and replace both frame rails. It's not going to be cheap, there's quite a bit of labor involved if you have someone else do it for you.:disappoin

http://www.geocities.com/zgarage2001/engine.html

Any hood up to 78 fits, the 77-78 have the vents, that's the only difference.

Here's the pic... The top pic shows what you don't want to happen. The top pic would need a thicker lash pad to correct.... As far as doing it while the engine is running? You doing one of those Zedrally type porting jobs?

Can you define normal Mike? Guess some people might try it while the head is still on the engine in the car, especially those who don't have an engine hoist or stand........

Well, I happened to look in the drawer and there is another book also, How to Rebuild Your Nissan/Datsun OHC engine by Tom Monroe. It also goes into detail on how to check you contact patch on the rocker pad, basically what you want is the contact patch to be centered on the pad. You can check it with layout dye, or even a black magic marker. You need to cover the pad of the rocker with this, doing one rocker at a time, and assemble the valves, lash pads, etc with a good cam lube, and rotate the cam 360 degrees with the while the rocker pivot is threaded all the way in and the jam nut is up as far as it will go. Then you will be able to remove the rocker arm and check the contact patch. Thicker lash pads will move the contact patch toward the rocker tip, and thinner moves it towards the pivot. BTW, some of the aftermarket cam manufactures may be able to supply the lash pads, as well as Nissan Motorsports. The are available in thicknesses from 3.85-8.5mm (.150-.330 inch) in .010 increments... So you can see, this can be a very involved process.... One which I haven't done either, I'm learning it while I read it myself....:cross-eye

The book you need is the 'How to Hotrod and Race Your Datsun" by Steve Smith Autosports Publications... You should be able to get one through Amazon here on the site if you use our bookstore. As Mike said, it is a complicated affair, and is best done when you have nothing better to do for a while.... Remember one very important thing, use new rockers with the new cam, or you run the risk of doing damage to the new cam if you use old rockers. It is a very labor intensive job considering in the book it says that a difference of .015 inch difference in lash pad thickness can make the difference in your cam lobe contacting the rocker in the proper place, or having it run off the edge of the rocker pad. Basically what you need to do is adjust the lash pad thickness so the cam lobe runs off the end of the rocker pad within .010-.015 of the end of the pad. If the lash pad thickness is not right, the cam lobe will run off the rocker pad too soon and will not keep the valve opened long enough, or too late and have the valve open too long, which could possibly lead to valve/piston contact on some engines.... What you need are new rockers and an assortment of lash pads in different thicknesses, hopefully if you can get them from a dealer with the understanding you can return the unused ones and only pay for the ones you use you'll be able to do this fairly inexpensively. Then you'll need a very good light and perhaps a small magnifying glass to make sure your're seeing things correctly. One word of caution, I wouldn't try to do this with the engine still in the car.....you'd end up standing on your head in the engine compartment. If you need, I can scan the pics to show the correct and incorrect cam lobe to rocker pad contact...:cross-eye

I've used RedLine synthetics in both the diff and trans, not that it made a huge difference.. It did help the trans a bit making it easier to shift, but no huge improvement. Synthetics are a bit lighter in weight, which will help conduct heat out of the diff and trans, as opposed to holding the heat, while still giving you the protection that a hypoid oil will. Unfortunately the synthetics are quite a bit more expensive. I've used them in the race car, and plan on using them in the street car as well... Call it piece of mind more than anything.

If you are going to pull the rear cover, you'll have to pull either the whole diff, or at least the mustache bar in order to get the mounting bolts out of the mustache bar. Only way to get the rear cover off without removing the diff or mustache is if you pull the mounting studs out of the rear cover, that would be your easiest course of action. Take the nuts off that mount it to the mustache bar and double nut each stud one at a time and remove them. Then you should be able to remove the rear cover if you can get a wrench on all the bolts... Might be difficult on a couple..... Otherwise you'll either have to remove the whole diff or mustache bar.

Yup, ya know they are ripping us off if they want 9/10 of your arm, leg and first born too....:cross-eye

Funny, looking at the page on this site it says it's BSR's 240 at Lime Rock, yet the back end says it's a 280 and those flairs are obviously on the GTU 280... Here a pic of the cars on zhome, still looking for more... http://www.zhome.com/History/sharp.htm

Just happened to think, if you have a hard time finding them, try a good hardware supplier. Seems if you gave them the measurements, a brass cruch washer should be something they could come up with. Or Try McMaster-Carr, or you never know, a good farm implement shop might have something that might just work? Hard to believe, but a farm tractor supply is one of the only places you can find a U-joint for the steering shafts now...:cross-eye

As far as where to find more pics... ya got me.... I'm pretty sure that BSR sold all the old GTU, IMSA and SCCA cars back in the mid-90's. Even the Turbo ZX... I think the only car that Bob has kept is the first car, the 240 C-Production championship car that Scott later used as his break into the big time... I remember seeing an article in the old Z Car Magazine with pics of all the cars that were for sale. This looks like the 75 280 CP car that might have been the last of the CP cars that he ran, which was the last "true" Z before he started with the ZX's...and if it is, it is the one that won the CP championship in 75. I'll do some searching and see what else I can come up with....

I never had any marbles to play with when I was growing up... So how could I lose them?

Yup, Georgia and South Carolina have always had the lowest prices on gas and other fuels as they have some of the lowest state taxes on them.... Anyone else hear on the news braodcast a couple nights ago, the price for a barrel of oil has gone down 14 dollars a barrel since last month? Anyone notice a drop in the consumers prices? Half of our problems are right on Wall Street, with all these people trading in oil futures..:cross-eye

It is after all, in Funnybone isn't it?..... Maybe someone should have mentioned using glass bead, so it would just roll out the exhaust pipe easier..... :devious: