EricB

Got it from fellow 240z.org member sennavsprost who now lives up in SF - that's why I assumed it was SF... But you're right it does kind of look like the 91 - maybe it's an older pic?

Seen over the weekend in the SF Bay Area...

oops... i replied to the thread last night but somehow it doesn't appear here - must have gotten lost in cyberspace.... first thanks for the kind words from lachlan, alan, and gav - don't worry guys i wouldn't jump into this thing with both feet without taking some prior precautions.... There are a lot of ifs and maybes for me to be able to unload my Z in a week AND get this KGC... As Alan has pointed out yes I do know what a clone GTR sells for in Japan and I know how available they are if you know where to look... The thing is when you think about all the work of going there, finding one, paying for it with an international wire transfer, understanding the red tape in Japanese car registration and how that applies to a car that is being exported, finding and organizing a reputable shipper, getting it across the ocean, dealing with US customs, getting the right import papers, getting a new title made a CA DMV, etc, etc, etc.... All of that is of course totally do-able but a big headache as you can imagine. Here (if this one really is in decent shape) we have one already here, and suitably hopped up with the right bits, super rare in the US, etc... I think of it in the following manner, supposing I did buy this car here in LA I consider it would be a lot easier a couple years down the line to find another clean Z here in LA and turn it into what mine is now than to do the whole shenanigan I wrote about above in getting a Skyline over here... Know what I mean? Now who knows, maybe I get no offers for my car? Maybe the only offers I get don't make it feasible to do the swap from Z to KGC? etc etc etc Regardless I'll keep you all posted. What you might not know and this is probably the reason I am after this one is that I already missed out on another Skyline - it was a Ken&Mary and languished in a local junkyard for a LONG time before one of the AE86 Toyota guys found it and bought it - the tragic thing is that while he knew what it was he had no interest in driving or restoring it - it sat in his yard for a while while he refused my $$$$ offer and then he got rid of it for a fraction of that to some friend of his... It had a built Turbo L28 with a lot of Nismo stuff when I went to look at it in person and was in considerably worse shape than this one (no interior, blown out rear window, no side glass)... Oh well, right? -e

Hey guys, You know me, several of you have seen my Z - you know the specs: '73 240 orange/black w/ newly rebuilt F54 L28, newly rebuilt E88 with big N42 valves, new electric fan & 180deg thermostat, new triple Mikuni 44, MSA 3-2 header, Japanese Trust exhaust (just like Fairlady 432), Japanese tail lights, Japanese head light covers, Japanese Watanabe steering wheel & NARDI hub, Euro bumpers front/rear, Classic Datsun Nissan OEM fender flares, 15x8.5 front & 15x9 rear Watanabe's with new Yokohama sticky 120 treadwear rubber, 2 ZX 5spd's, one 4.11 R160 open diff, one brand newly rebuilt 4.375 R180 with Nismo LSD, great interior with the exception of no dash pad (still waiting for those SanDiego guys to finish they fiberglass Z dash). Basically: SEE my gallery... I want this Skyline real bad but can't come up with the $$ I expect it to sell for that quickly so I want to know if someone would want to buy my Z this week so I can then buy the Skyline when the auction ends in 7 days. Ideally I would have wanted a Z and a Skyline in my garage but with this one being here and ready to go that saves the hassle of going to Japan, finding one, buying it, having it shipped, clearing customs, etc... I figure I can always find another Z here at a later date? -e

i'm curious... have you all checked for tires to match those rims? I was having a tough enough time here stateside just finding correct size tires for my 15x8.5 & 15x9 watanabes several months ago... I am almost thinking I should call back the place I got them from and order a couple sets just to have as stock... I can only imagine how difficult it might be to get tires for those 15x12???? Thoughts, opinions, comments?

I wish you guys could read french... it's very very interesting.... basically i'll give you the quick synopsis: In '68 only 3 cars are imported to the only toyota dealership in the french speaking part of switzerland, it's in geneva. 2 cars (a red and a white one) are sold right away, the remaining white one is kept by the owner of the dealership. It is first registered Nov 15 '68. Unfortunately the dealership goes under & the owner sells the car to the father of the current owner on Nov 17 '71. The car becomes the weekend driver in a family that from then on is fascinated with Japanese cars. His father dies in 2000 and then he receives the car - he's loved. Has every service and repair duly noted and has every intention of keeping it for some time still... Very cool, -e

Keith sent me the link to this site: http://www.geocities.com/inlinestroker/ratio.html So according to it I have an 81-3 "close ratio" ZX 5spd as I have the single ear rear mount, the bolt that holds the speedo cog in place is at 6o'clock, and I can vouch that the speedo cog I pulled looks identical to the one listed as 81-3 ZX cool... now i can order the right parts, thanks for the link Victor. -e

ok then just answer me this: Supposing my local nissan dealer parts guy is a moron and only goes by what year car the tranny I need replacements parts off of comes from, what do I tell him? Does FS5W71B = '78 280Z 5spd? -e

In the pics I've attached the one labelled 4spd is a B box on loan from fellow club member Victor Laury (thanks Victor), the tranny labelled 5spd is a gift from another club member (thanks sennavsprost) before he moved up to San Francisco. The thing about the 5spd I was given is that he thought it to be a T5 based on the "T5" stamp inside the bellhousing which I've enlarged for you all to see. What's weird though is that I had another club member send me photocopies of the tranny tear-down pages for an '81-'82 T5 FS5R90A and the illustrations don't match at all what I'm looking at it. I compared what I have here with the illustrations of the optional 5spd FS5C71A in both my '73 Nissan SM and '70-78 Haynes SM and it doesn't match either. So what 5spd is this? I need to order parts for it and obviously need to know what car to get them from... The '78 5spd that is in my Z at the moment has a bad bearing or two and I was going to pull it off and swap it with this "T5" because when it was in my friend's car shifter-wise it felt a lot tighter and more precise than mine...

yes, that's what i thought too leather is better... this is as i burned my back once again on the wife's karmann ghia vinyl seat after lunch... well we'll just have to see now if this is in the cards for my 240 sometime in the future... unlike HM the 26th, I don't have the lo# problem being probably one of the later 73s made.... Oh and another thing... vintage 60s/70s sportscar preferably carburated with leather interior... you get in and smell the old leather and fuel.... hmmmmmm -e

If you had two Zs, one with the original black vinyl interior, and another where the seats, transmission tunnel, door panels, were re-upholstered in black leather - which do you think on a hot summer's day would be hotter temperature wise? That's my contribution to the random question of the day... -e

Jim Do you mind me asking what a GTR replica with a built L28 is worth in Australia? I know roughly how much they go for in Japan but was wondering how the price you paid compares... thanks, -e

btw... just figured out... it ain't the throwout bearing... oooh no. it's one of the bearings for either mainshaft or lay shaft... youch... parked the Z now time to rebuild the tranny... -e

...aaahhh...Zs.... Dont you just love them? "When it rains it pours".... So guess what happened when I got off the same freeway onramp to get to work THIS morning... now all of a sudden the nearly new (6mo?) throwout bearing just developed a loud whine.... all of a sudden just like that... Ugh.... guess I'm going by the jyard and looking for a tranny so I can fix this one in the meantime.... -e

right on keith... will do... -e

hi keith as far as shifter bushings go, i did replace the two sleeves on either end of the pin... as for the little cup that goes on the end of the shifter (the end that goes in the tranny), well with it in place it meant that the hole through the shifter for the pin did no longer line up with the ears on the end of the tailstock it is supposed to go through... so I did away with it.. . it seemed like the cup i was given was too thick on the end ... the reason i replaced them to begin with is that when i did the engine swap some months ago i noticed i practically had no shifter bushings left at all in there.... but the Z had been shifting fine... go figure... -e

hmmm... well I do have a spare 82 5spd... given to me by a friend of mine... but it has no reverse... maybe i need to open that up and fix it in case this 78 gets worse... it's just so weird cause there was no bang, no grinding no nothing, it just sort of started happening last friday -e

Last Friday on the way in to work I noticed that on deceleration the trans started popping out of gear... it did it at the freeway offramp, then again and several times in bumper to bumper traffic on the way home that night... Because the timing was about right mileage-wise I changed the tranny fluid over the weekend, looked for any obvious issues and didn't see anything wrong... didn't really drive the car the remainder of the weekend. This morning coming to work and going to lunch just now it did it again several times. I noticed that when in fifth when I get on and off the gas the shifter jerks forward and rearward quite a bit - fifth gear is probably the gear it slips out of easiest although out of second is pretty common too... I've never taken this car to the race track. I've never done any kind of burnout or dropping of the clutch with this car. Basically I've babied both the car and the 78 5spd on the car the whole four years I've had it with never any problems... and now this out of the blue... Any clues? Ideas? Recommendations? -e

sorry duplicate post