Arne

No, it's a scam. New user, no feedback, pre-approved bidders - all the classic scam indications. He did a 5 day auction hoping to get bids quick before some one figures it out and reports it to eBay and they pull it. I reported it to eBay with a link to the B-J page on the car.

Probably true, Carl. I talked to an older lady (original owner) of a not-too-clean '73 a couple weeks ago. Car has 86,000 miles, and is totally stock. But it has rust in the hatch tray, right frame rail and left dogleg. It's eminently restorable, but being a '73 with rust, it's very hard to find a buyer for a car like that in this part of the country. Sad truth is that she'll probably end up having to sell it for a few hundred bucks to someone who'll end up parting it out. But if it were back East somewhere, it's probably worth a couple grand at least.So yeah, we're spoiled out here. If more people from the rest of the country ever start buying out here and shipping back East, our prices will go way up.

Oh. Long since gone. My yellow car had a shade-tree transplanted L28 with injection in it when I bought it. Now it has an SU-fed L24.

Say what? What clogged injector? Where did that come from?

ZX rears are different - they are not really struts, but are spring-seat shocks. They can be done much the same as a front strut.

Yes, very nice car. But in my opinion the BIN is too high, and frankly, it has already been bid up higher than I'd be willing to pay. Just like mine, it's going to need all the cooling/heater hoses replaced, fuel tank vent hoses, carpet, suspension (bushings and struts), and probably seat foam, webbing and vinyl (just because of age-related hardening). Great start, but will need work to be ready to drive. Plus, it's an automatic, which is a turn off for me but not others.

Remember that (according to his other thread) the head has the remains of a badly corroded head bolt still in it, and I believe that the corrosion on the bolt is very firmly wedged in the bolt passage in the head. The impact methods suggested may help, but I still think vertical forces will be necessary to break this free.

Hardly. FWD needs way positive offset.

All KYBs that I know of in the USA are gas-charged. I believe the only ones for the 240Zs are GR-2 - the "GR" stands for Gas Rider. If you are using the stock US spec springs, I agree - cutting those springs down is not the correct answer, using non-gas struts is the right way to go. Carl's threads on this are mostly concerning the other reproduction springs, the European Stage 1 spring set. They suffer from both the gas strut issue, as well as the possibility that the European 240Zs had different spring seat heights on the strut housings. For these slightly stiffer springs, cutting them down is required, even if you are using non-gas shocks. The long thread linked below rambles a bit, but covers most of the recent ride height issues: http://classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21115

The problem isn't the springs, it is the gas-pressurized strut inserts. The gas pressure effectively increases the spring rate and so the car sits higher than it should. From what I've seen the KYBs add somewhere between 0.5 and 0.75 inches in height. There are only two options on this - cut the springs down or use non-gas strut inserts, which are difficult to find these days. Koni still makes non-gas units, and there are a few NOS struts still on shelves out there if you can hunt them down. I found a set of NOS Mulhollands, they should be delivered by the time I get home later today.

On a 240Z, the hose from the head is the lower hose. Not certain if 260/280Zs are the same, but I suspect they may be.

Stock 240Z had 150 HP at the flywheel. The chassis dynos measure at the rear wheels. Typically I've heard to figure at least 20% loss between flywheel and wheels. Plus the 240Z rating was gross, without exhaust, no alternator, etc. So add 25-30 HP at least to the dyno numbers when comparing to the original specs. I'd say 134 at the wheels is pretty decent.

My first thought is that there may be air in the lines which means the slave cylinder won't push the whole amount of travel. Have you bled it carefully recently?

See this thread on this item: http://classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24591

I'll be watching this one, as in many ways it is similar to my yellow car, which I will be selling later this Spring. My yellow car is better in some ways, worse in others. But overall it may help me to determine an asking price.

Well, I agree in principal, but maybe horrible is too strong. I totally agree that modern electronic ignitions are better than points in most every way. But I'm old enough to remember when points were all we had - so I had to learn to deal with them. And they will do the job.Also consider that the modern ignitions aren't perfect either. I've heard lots of problems with Pertronix, tach issues with several kinds, and they are generally all-or-nothing. They either work or they don't, if you don't have spare parts you can't limp home with a dead EI. Ask beandip about what you do when your Nissan E12-80 module dies abruptly while cruising in 105 degree heat on I-5. And finally, one of the often touted advantages is steady and stable timing - which will not be the case if the distributor shaft bushings are worn, as is the case in many old Nissan dizzies these days. I guess my main point in this thread (which I didn't express well) is that first, the ignition system is not likely to be the cause of the small pops in the exhaust; and second, you shouldn't worry about converting from points to EI until you are satisfied the car is tuned well with the points. Introducing a completely new system when you're trying to fix a problem is a sure way to get even more messed up.

Again, from experience I'd now say that the ring of crud on the broken bolt is quite firmly wedged in the head. At this point I'd try lifting the engine slightly with an engine hoist (cherry picker or anything similar) connected to brackets bolted to the head, not the block. If the bolt is stuck hard enough that the wedged bolt will support the entire engine's weight, you can do some judicious hammer action on the block to try to break it free. That way you aren't hammering on the soft aluminum head. Don't lift the engine much, just the minimum amount to get all the weight off the ground. Even 1/8" should do.

Here's a couple of pages with decent ideas on this: http://www.geocities.com/zgarage2001/p90.html http://www.geocities.com/zgarage2001/head.html

Doug, you know I still like yellow Zs. But I don't have anyplace to keep two nice Zs indoors, just one. Just a two-car garage, and Deanna wants her car indoors too. And while she's certainly supportive of my hobby, she really doesn't want the yellow car for her main car. So the yellow car will have to find an owner who will care for it, as soon as I finish a few last things on it. I actually have a couple of interested parties, one of which I KNOW is capable of finishing it right. So no fears, it will get finished, and I strongly suspect it will stay yellow. Just won't be finished by me...

This is a fine example of someone building their personal dream car, and then finding out that no one else shares that dream when the time comes to sell it. It's sad on several levels, because regardless of what we think of it, some one has invested a fair amount of time and money in that.

Looking really great, Mike. I'm looking forward to seeing both your car and a7dz's car on the Oregon and Washington roads this Summer. Very cool!

Nothing wrong with well maintained points for a daily driver, as long as you are willing to take care of them. (And I kinda LIKE fiddling with stuff like that. Takes me back to my youth.) While I do have a ZX ignition on the shelf in my garage, both of my cars are currently running quite well on original points-type ignitions.Drove the red 240Z to work this morning - the points worked fine.

Don't worry about the points, it's not ignition related unless your spark is so weak that it's not completely igniting and burning the intake charge. I'm geussing you have the emissions equipment on the car and hooked up? If so, some (or maybe all) of this may be fairly normal. The air pump and associated fittings are designed to inject fresh air (oxygen) into the hot exhaust to continue the combustion process and reduce unburnt fuel. When you back off and coast, or or release the throttle quickly (called "drop throttle" condition in emissions parlance) there is a quick burst of unburnt fuel as the carbs don't respond instantly. The mixture is rather rich for a split second. All that unburnt fuel is hot, add oxygen and the that extra fuel burns rather violently - it pops in the exhaust. I recall lots of early '70s cars doing that when I was young. And sure enough, my '71 does it as well. Now if you don't have operating emissions gear on the car, I'd suspect an exhaust leak (allowing fresh air to be sucked into the exhaust), a slightly rich mixture, or a combination of the two.

No Enrique, that's not my point. I want the shop to take as much time as necessary to do the job right. But I would like them to be honest with me and give me a REALISTIC time estimate. If the job is going to take 12 weeks, tell me that up front. Don't tell me 4 weeks, and then make excuses. Just be honest with me.

Several places will recover old ones - assuming you can find a pair of decent, unwarped and uncracked ones to start with. Seems to me that this might be a good place for a fiberglass replacement base, with new covers from CDM or TIR. Now if only someone would tool up for this.