S130 Fairlady 280ZX 2 seater

[hunterzed]

Hey Simon, good to see there wasn't too much of a problem with the box. At least you'll be back up and running fairly soon and fairly cheap too. Good luck.

Steve

[luvemfast]

Been playing around with an idea for a short shifter while the box is out.
Standard pivots 40mm from the ball end on the gearstick, this design pivots 90mm from the ball end.
Only shortens 1st-2nd, 3rd-4th & 5th- reverse direction though.
Pretty simple to do though, only 3 new parts and 2 new fasteners. If it works at all that is!

How far is the standard gearstick top from the gearbox? My old is cut shorter, but would make it factory height again.

[Zedman240]

Simon, just make sure your gearbox is ok to handle the quicker shifts!

[luvemfast]

Simon, just make sure your gearbox is ok to handle the quicker shifts!

I asked it and it said ok. 

How do you propose I do that?
Its being reco'd, what more can I do?

[Zedman240]

Being a gearbox 30+ years old and never being designed for a short shifter, I'm no expert but something may wear prematurely. If you had a gearset made for it, that's another story. You'd be the first I know of who have made something like this so I guess we will find out how it all goes..

[luvemfast]

Well tonight has been fairly productive as I have a drivable Z once more.
The gearbox was finished off Thursday night, I had a hard on all day thinking of getting layed.... under the car to fit it.
Everything went smoothly and I kept waiting for something to go wrong so I'd have to pull it out and start over, but it never happened. Tomorrow is the big test day for the original reco'd gearbox. I've been running a 260Z gearbox in it all this time, so will be interesting to see the difference.
The short shifter hasn't been made yet, so obviosly it hasn't been installed.

While we were under the car tonight, dad moved some cobwebs and shinned the torch under where I had been working and discovered a big redback spider..... right next to where my hand was. 
Talk about lucky huh? I squished it with some pliers......

My mate who works at Hollinger, and helped me rebuild it, asked "If I minded someone else fu*king around with my box while I wasn't around?" To which I replied "Nah man, as long as you lubricate the shaft before engaging the fork, don't damage any of the ring gear and leave it nice and clean when finished after your play. I'm cool with that." Sad but true story.
Here's some pics of the box.....

[Lurch]

Looks good Simon

Hrmm, your mate at Hollinger... also able to rebuild Datto boxes with ease?
It isn't 'Don' is it?

[luvemfast]

Hrmm, your mate at Hollinger... also able to rebuild Datto boxes with ease?
It isn't 'Don' is it?

Don's in the fitting room I think, my mate's name is Brad and he works on the CNC lathes.
But as soon as you take in an old gearbox, they all want a look at it, same as when Brad took his Saginaw 4 speed from his Pontiac Firebird. Peter Hollinger was very interested in looking and comparing, obviously his boxes are better.

[benny]

hey simon,

looks great!!! met your dad the other week, (caught him peeping over the fence checking out whats in my carport lol.. great guy!!

Ben

[luvemfast]

hey simon,

looks great!!! met your dad the other week, (caught him peeping over the fence checking out whats in my carport lol.. great guy!!

Ben

Yeah, he told me about that Ben. He lives a stones throw away from you.
He has a habit of checking in peoples yards for cars, passed it on to me. Has his eye on an R32 between your house and his.

[luvemfast]

Hey Simon, good to see there wasn't too much of a problem with the box. At least you'll be back up and running fairly soon and fairly cheap too. Good luck.

Cost about $130 in the end, which is pretty good in my books.
Didn't take too long either, thanks to some help.

[luvemfast]

Wow, long time since my last update.
Ran the new gearbox at the MSCA Winton flawlessly.
The car was perfect all day, never missed a beat. Ran a bit hot, but to be expcted when theres 2 drivers. Towards the end of the day, it did 4 out of 5 consecutive sessions. The only reason I stopped is because the fuel was running out.
Out of a field of 12 or so in the 2.5-3.2L class I came 3rd, but in the NDSOC I won the 2-3L class with a time of 1min50.09seconds. Dad came last with 1min54.97
The following month, I took the car into the NDSOC monthly meeting. When I get close the car was running like crap. after the meeting the car was VERY hot and I limped into a servo to check it. There was NO water in it at all, toppped it up and limped home. The next weekend we decided to rip the head off, thinking it just needed a new head gasket. We found that inside the water jacket of the block there was a blockage around cylinder 5 which stopped all flow to cylinder6.

Engine rebuild time.
So it got stripped bare and all parts were cleaned up. A honing tool was purchased and the cylinders de glazed. Parts were bought with an upgrade on what the budget allowed which were mainlyig cam and flat tops. The head was attacked with a die grinder and many hours, mainly to clean up the casting of the ports. A mate works in NDT and he came around to crack test the head, which came up fine.
And thats pretty much were it stands now, ready to be assembled.

[luvemfast]

Frankenstein
Engine rebuild stalled as a fellow forum Z'er mentioned that he had an L28 he no longer needed.
I pounced at the opportunity to get my baby going once more.
Only this engine had some goodies on it that I have always wanted to do.
*2mm oversize pistons from a Toyota (hence the name "Frankenstein", thanks Gareth for the name)
*.49" lift 74 deg cam
*Balanced bottom end

It came down from Brisvegas on a pallet that Ross had secured brilliantly, thanks mate 
It looked a bit worse for wear on the outside, but I had high hopes for the ineternals. Up on the engine stand it goes for inspection, only to realise it has a middle sump fitted. Oh well, time to look in my parts bin for Z bits. While the sump was off a visual was carried out and cheking it turned over freely was done, the right bits were put on. Then bolt ons were removed and taken for sandblasting to give her a a bit of make up to pretty her up. Once it was all painted and put together it was time to install it in the car as a complete assembly.
It took way longer to get in than expected, and I had to take the carbies off as they were hitting the strut tower. "Why are they so close?" oh well keep going.
Benny came over to help finish it off and when I told him that its weird that there wasn't enough room to get the carbies on. He laughed and asked if I had the engine mounts on the right side, I laughed and said "Of course they're on the right side...... Oh wait............. oh sh1t!"

[Gareth. J.]

How does it go Simon? Is the third chapter frankestein goes to phillip island?? 

[luvemfast]

So we fixed the engine mounts and fitted the carbies (now there was room) and radiator. All this was done between Ben laughing at me!
Next the fluids needed topping up, which means to remove the old oil filter and put on the new one....... Simple right?........ Wrong!
The new L28 doesn't have the mounts to change position of the filter because my car has a big power steering box, right where the oil filter is. So we had to undo the engine mount once more to get the filter off, then drive down to the auto parts store and get a matching oil filter, but shorter. Luckily the AU Falcon does just that. So homeward bound to get this baby fitted and running. Once the radiator was filled we were ready to fire her up, only now the rad is leaking water out of it. Bugger. i'll get a new one next week.
No matter, we'll keep an eye on it. Here is the first fire up
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIe2LauYd5U
The timing was set after this video, which made a massive difference.
I took it out for a spin later and it went awsome, much more power than its ever had and it is responsive too. You can feel the cam, it revs soo quick and pulls all the way to 6,500RPM.
So I can't wait to get it back on the road properly now, DECA is coming up in a few weeks. I entered at the club meet and blew the engine on the way home a few months back. So I'm pretty amped right now.
Oh yeah, my wife and I are also expecting our 2nd baby mid Oct, she's obviously the preggo one in the pic below  .