Zeddophile

rather odd that the number isn't stamped on the firewall though.... sounds dodgy to me, but if the number on the build plate comes back clean, why complain, I guess.

rumbling noise could possibly be a wheel bearing.... Hard to suggest anything else without being able to hear it.

it should be stamped on the firewall just above the brake booster, I believe, unless 240s have it in a different spot to 260s. If the car has been sprayed, the numbers may have been filled....

Probably means that whoever swapped the gearbox in knew how it worked, or took a guess that the drive gear needed to be swapped. Either way, glad to be of assistance.

The speedo gears have nothing to do with the gearbox from memory, other than the body type - the actual cog is tied to your diff ratio. Which will be why you were given a different gear, as your car was originally auto, and therefore should have a different diff ratio to a manual car, unless that too has been converted. Nissan would have assumed it was factory manual, and given you the speedo gear for that diff, but your car most likely still has the auto diff. Have a look at this link http://www.geocities.com/zgarage2001/, the section headed 'Fourth' talks about the different speedo drive cogs. You may be able to correct your speedo by using a different cog to counter the effect of the tyres.

there is quite a bit of rust in there Gav, those doors are quite bad and that bit near the fuel filler will be more extensive than you think, due to the fact that there is a second piece spotwelded to the back of it which is pretty complex (trust me!). Like others have said, don't bother spraying it until you have the time/funds to repair all the damage - its just not worth it, because you will find so much coming through in the not too distant future that you will severely regret it.

Link to a very useful calculator for determining alternate tyre sizes (especially useful when changing rim size!). http://www.miata.net/garage/tirecalc.html

I believe the first 240s had a four speed, but more likely yours has come out of an old stanza/1600/180b something along those lines.

David, I still have my bonnet sitting in the garage - no vents in it though?

If you want to roll your gaurds at home, a baseball bat or piece of water pipe will do the job (maybe with a piece of rubber wrapped around it) - just get someone to very slowly drive the car (or push it, if you have a good flat area to do it in), and lever off the tyre with your rolling implement - doing multiple passes is much better than trying to go the whole way in one go. Be careful though, if you are doing it right, the pipe/bat will turn with the tyres movement, be prepared to let it rotate (basically you just hold a firmish downward pressure and let it rotate in your hands), otherwise you could tweak the gaurd or your wrists. The other way is the gadget that seems to be sold everywhere these days - it bolts to your wheel studs and has a telescopic arm with a rolling wheel at the top - if you hunt around a little, you'll find someone who has one. they are a bit expensive to buy for a single use, and you have to keep resetting the length of the arm, as wheelarches don't generally follow a perfectly circular arc. Website for gaurd roller - http://www.guardroller.com.au/ And yes Evan - +12 in theory will clear the suspension better than +16. However, not all rims are equal, and as such, one may have a thicker edge than the other.

the backspace you can work out fairly closely from offset and rim width. the offset doesn't neccessarily change with the width of the wheel, unless the manufacturer of the wheel wants to bring the centreline of the wheel in or out. I have a staggered set of Volks in my garage, 16x8 and 16x7, both are +25 offset. Backspace is measured (from memory) from the mounting surface of the wheel (ie the back of the part where the studs go through) to the back edge of the rim. Offset is measured from the centreline of the wheel, to the mounting surface of the wheel. Which means, if you have a rim with +12 offset, the mounting surface is 12 mm towards the front (outside edge) of the rim. If you have an 8 inch rim, with +12 offset, take half the width of the wheel, add the offset, and you have your backspace. Or near enough to. In this case, its about 113.5mm. However, the thickness of the rim edge may be also a factor, when calculating backspace from an offset. Either way, it would go pretty close, if the maximum backspace is indeed 113mm on a zed. Obviously, when you have negative offset, this is subtracted from your half rim width figure to work out backspace. Ultimately, without physically sitting the rim on, you won't really know if its going to fit, all the calculations will tell you is whether its worth trying. However, with 8 inch rims on the back, its going to be a tight squeeze between gaurd and spring seat - you'll almost certainly want to roll the inner lip of the gaurd up.

that does look ridiculously easy, and i can understand exactly how it works, having looked closely at the pins in a lock barrel before. Not as much fun as the oldschool methods though.

device called a spot weld cutter - has a small drill in the end, and then a solid boring bit behind that (or more like a holesaw if its a cheapo one). Have tried drilling them, takes absolutely forever, and you need a large supply of drill bits. Have shattered a blade on the first weld I tried to drill with the cheapo holesaw cutter, no good. The solid bit, however, goes straight through, and the small pilot drill in the end is replaceable on the one I have. Got it from Snap-On for around $35, from memory.

easy conversion, cost is a gearbox, pedals, clutch, flywheel, spigot bush, and your time to install. I have manual pedals if required, no gearbox though.

personally I'd run a knock sensor on any tuned vehicle, regardless of setup. However, if you are tuning it on a dyno, with someone who has equipment to detect knock, and don't plan on fiddling with the tune after its been set, you probably could go without, if its tuned properly (IE. Safely.) and if fuel in New Zealand is consistent octane rating all the time. However, for mine the safety net of a properly setup knock sensor is probably much more valuable.

yes, i'm curious as to what you were doing when you fitted them - its about a 5 min job per seat, the bolts are easy to get to.... Unless you have non standard seats? If you had to reassemble the backs onto the bases, thats a little different, but still easy - long as you assemble them tilted forwards.

yeah, its pretty easy. Used a couple of blocks of wood on top of the cheap trolley jack i had, to get good bit of height, stuck the stands under the sides, and away you go. Used the trolley jack to roll the box back and lower it, and a bottle jack (or scissor jack, if you have a jap car as a daily) to hold the back of the engine up.

I'd be guessing one or more of your sensors (probably mostly throttle position!) is giving a different output to previous... I highly doubt disconnecting the computer will reset it, you will probably have to reprogram it. Perhaps try disconnecting the TPS, and see if it idles normally then... will probably run like a dog under drive conditions, but at least you'll be able to drive it to somewhere to get it retuned, unless you can retrofit the old TPS (assuming it makes a difference). However, I believe (from memory) L28 TPS's are of the ON/OFF type, while I imagine the ford item would be an potentiometer (varying voltage output from 0.5v to 5v, depending on throttle opening), which for precise tuning is probably a better setup. Obviously you'd want to check both with a multimeter before taking my word for it though! Can't think of, off the top of my head, any other sensors which would make that much difference, but then again I've never seen a NAPS manifold.... The other possibility is maybe an intake manifold vacuum leak, but usually that would cause low and hunting idle.... If you have a map sensor, check that its correctly connected, and if its an airflow meter check that you haven't altered it in some way.

one option you have for head removal is to hook an engine crane up to the lifting points on the head, and lift away... once you have a little bit of tension on it, either bounce the car a little or hit the head with a rubber mallet.

Is the fluid black and/or smell burnt? If so, that would point to burnt clutch packs etc, which could be pretty major. If its not, it may need a service (filter change and band adjustment, if it has adjustments). An auto service should not cost very much to do, as there isn't a lot of work involved, and may make quite a difference. May be worth a try...

i would expect the fuel to be quite lazy on a mechanical fuel pump - after all, it drives off the camshaft, so at cranking speed its not going to flow much (since a electric fuel pump for carbies run around 4-5psi). Carbies run mostly off the fuel bowl inside them, which is controled by the float - which is why people recommend to change the fuel tank when you do an EFI conversion, as carby fuel tanks generally aren't baffled (any fuel surge is supposed to be soaked up by the fuel bowl). You shouldn't need to rewire the tacho for a 280zx coil (i don't believe), just make sure its wired correctly. If it was running well last week, and isn't now, to me that would be even more of a pointer for an electrical fault of some description, and coupled with the fact that aerostart won't fire it.... However, its looking to be a bit of an odd one... You should (i think) be able to see fuel squirt in the body of the carburettor if you operate the throttle linkage with the airbox off, which will tell you whether or not fuel is definitely making it to the cylinders. Although, if aerostart didn't make any difference, I'd say the problem isn't fuel. How was the spark at the plugs? It should be a fairly bright blue spark. Are you sure you got the points adjustment spot on? even a few thou out can make the car not run, on some vehicles. Basically, if you have good spark, fuel and compression (hopefully a given with a rebuilt motor!), and the timing is right, there should NOT be any reason for it not to fire on the average carbie car. And I can't think of anything on a zed that would stop it, it has no ecu or no other electrical inputs it relies on..... I'd suggest possibly cranking it over with the plugs removed a few times (disconnect the low tension wire from the coil to prevent spark), in case its well and truly flooded, in which case hopefully that would clear it. Only thing I'm not sure about is whether that would suck more fuel out of the carbs, but its worth a try I guess.... The one other thing that comes to mind is the fusible link that gave Sulio trouble a while ago, but I'm not sure if it would have this effect...

Sounds like a spark or timing issue..... Holding the leads a short distance away from the plug tends to amplify the spark (don't ask me how, it makes no sense to me). Check that your timing is correct (will probably have to static check it, since its not running!), check the coil connections. Maybe try temporarily bypassing the ballast resistor, see if that improves things..... As Paul said, points could be an issue, as could the coil.... You've rebuilt much of the engine, by the sound of it, but you haven't mentioned any work done to the ignition system, other than leads and plugs. I'd probably start by lifting the dizzy cap off, have a good look at the rotor button. Crank it over while holding the coil lead about a centimetre away from the rotor button (obviously after removing it out of the dizzy cap, and holding it in a well insulated manner - they can give you a nasty kick). If its okay, you should only get a small yellow spark at best, if you get a bright spark your rotor button is probably tracking to earth. Make sure the contacts in the cap aren't all corroded, and that there is no moisture inside the cap. Then check your points gap while you have the cap off, and adjust if necessary. If you find nothing there, then the next thing to examine is coil/ballast resistor. If you don't yet have a workshop manual of some description, now would be the time to buy or borrow one, I would say, as you are probably going to need various specs, depending on exactly which equipment you have. The only thing that I can think of under the dash which may affect the ignition system is if you have interfered with the tacho wiring. From memory, the 240s are inductive pickup tachos, and I think they require the tacho to be in the circuit for the coil to work properly....

psi? very confused now, torque specs are normally in ft/lb or Nm... and setting the Nm figure on the ft/lb scale is bad, trust me As far as getting it out - left handed drill bits can sometimes get them, but not everyone has those lying around in their garage.... Ask your mates for, or buy, a set of stud extractors - they have a left handed twist down them, and are tapered (generally, but there are a few variations). You drill a hole in the middle of the bolt, then screw the stud extractor in anticlockwise, which when it locks in starts to unscrew the bolt. Failing that, try tapping it around with a centre punch? Or if you have a little stub sticking up, grab it with vise grips..... But definitely go for the stud extractors or 'Eze outs" first.

I don't know Evan, you might get hooked on that Honda noise - my mate has a CRX with nothing more than a cold air intake on it, and the sound it makes from about 4,000rpm up to over 6,500 is pretty addictive - and distinct.

I think that you'll find 2mm rather thick to use when repairing Z panels - the standard panel will probably disintegrate before the weld has properly penetrated the replacement section. I was using 1mm mild steel on mine, and that seemed to be about 25% thicker than the stock panels. 2mm might be good for chassis rails (haven't chopped one, so don't know their thickness), but for any body panels/firewalls/floor 1mm is ample - and believe me, 1mm mild is bad enough to form into the right shape sometimes, 2 mm would be an absolute prick. Unless you are pretty good with a welder, I'd stick with mild steel - stainless can be quite tricky to do, and really needs to be very clean.... also not too sure on how paint sticks to it? You can get stuff called 'Zinc rich weld through primer' which is a black paint in a can, spray that on both sides of your mild steel repair section, and on the edges you are welding to, and its supposed provide extra protection against rust forming on the weld.