AussieZed

Hi folks, Due to changed circumstances I am now trying to finish my 240z on a SERIOUS budget, using as many parts from my 260z 2+2 parts car as possible. I have my 240z shell and the doors are ok, but they are missing all of the interior parts - window crank, winder, rails and stuff. Has anyone tried adapting 260z 2+2 parts into the 240z doors?? Any advice really gratefully received.... R.

Looks like a great basis for a project ... very jealous of all the bits and pieces that came with it. I'm at pretty much the same stage with my 240z, so looking forward to seeing how your build progresses. If you want to compare notes at some stage give me a buzz... often in your part of town. R.

Wow that is a beautiful car. Do you know what the colour is?? R

Super inspiring to see your car come up so nice from a home job... hope I can do as well (I'm learning to paint as I go too) - my primer went on today..... That colour is awesome!!

The Galileo Movement is an advocacy group ... even it doesn't claim to be a scientific agency. The founders (a chemist and an engineer) are both open about the fact that they oppose the carbon tax due to its economic consequences (their opposition to climate science kind of arose from that). If you are interested in the breadth of opinions, then balance the last youTube video with this one... also from a group of advocates If you are interested in a relatively dispassionate overview then check out... http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLA4F0994AFB057BB8&feature=plcp The Galileo Movement video itself is pretty dodgy, from the presenter (a Bachelor of ECONOMICS?? couldn't they do better than that??), through to some of the ratios and statistics (which would make the atmosphere unbreathable, if they were true) right down to the basic premise.... a little bit of something can't do any harm, right?? Except when you are talking about balanced systems, when even a tiny increase in one of the counter-balanced forces can have dramatic effects.... There are much better counter-arguments to climate change than this one.... and I haven't found the one of those that has convinced me yet either.

Yeah that bothers me too... the big boys always dodge the costs and pass it on to the little guy....

Great post Gav ... I hadn't seen it. Someone said to me the other day ... if you ask someone the question 'what would it take to convince you that climate change was happening' and they reply 'nothing could' then you should walk away, because then it's about beliefs and not facts. An interesting debate from the BBC which brings up the 'carbon dioxide is good for plants' argument mentioned above. Carbon dioxide is good for plants and will increase rates of photosynthesis and growth where there is sufficient water and nutrients to allow it. Sadly in most places plant growth is limited by nutrient availability, and plants simply can't grow faster. Even when nutrients can be added drying trends more than counteract any effect of increased CO2. R.

Because the car had been left without any protection for so long, I am being particularly thorough with the rust treatment. I am using the Motospray rust converter and 'primer' (which is why the car looks purple in the pic) ... sanded the car back, applied a coat of the converter, sanded it back again, and repeat. I am also using a Dycraft rust converter that comes in a rattle can... blasting it into all of the little corners which are inaccessible in any other way. I've found with previous restos that it gets into box sections really well, and was ideal for the 'seam' on the inner side of the roof skin on the zed. Later today I will sand back the converter again and then apply the etch primer/sealer. I'm going with a black primer because I want my top coat to look darker and 'deeper'.

The K9 was certainly a spoiler - underfoot every time I turned to do something!! And yes, rather than my 240z being HUGE, that is a particularly short spaniel....

Hi all, Since I have actually started work on my 240z I thought I had better start a new build thread. The history.... I bought a 260z and partially restored it over a couple of years, but had a yearning for a 2 seater. I did find one in NSW (for $500) and bought it back to Melbourne, but it was beyond my abilities (NASTY rust) and I flicked it on to another club member. Then, about a year ago, I saw a 240z shell with matching numbers engine on eBay ... I bid, and was lucky enough to get it. So a quick journey from Melbourne to Adelaide and back put it in my garage. The car is a 1972, and was garnet blasted a number of years ago, so has a lot of surface rust. The actual structural rust is pretty minimal - some damage to the passenger floorpan and firewall, with rust extending into the chassis rail. There are some minor issues in the rear quarter and in the front clip. Easter 2012, I finally got around to starting work on the car. Sanded the main panels back and did a rust treatment before sanding again. Got to love the line of that rear fender.....

I reckon this ought to open a can of worms... Finally getting to spend some time on the 240z. Some of the repairs definitely need steel (dog legs, sills, floor pans) but I am wondering about some of the 'pin holes' along the front edge of the roof. Have cleaned them up with a Dremel, rust killed the inside of the roof skin, and they really are just little holes. The question is, do I bog them up (which I can do myself) or pay for them to be patched. Does bog ever work?? If so are there brands I should be using or avoiding?? Appreciate any advice. Ross

My shell cost $2K with no internals.... and I don't think I paid too much, given it was already bead blasted and I could see the rust. It wasn't rust free though.... does such a thing exist?? Is your shell beyond salvaging?? R

Pretty funny. The only outstanding question is why pirates cool the planet. I would have thought they were particularly flatulent and therefore caused warming.... it's puzzling....

Hi mate, I'll have a look when I get home but I should have them (they'll be black). If you're interested you can have them for the cost of postage. Cheers, Ross

I've contributed all I can usefully contribute to this debate ... clearly people are getting angry and starting to throw abuse around rather than keeping the debate clean and useful. If anyone wants some more information about this stuff, feel free to pm me. R.

Hey folks, Yep climate has always changed and always will - but it is about the rates of change. Animals and plants can evolve to deal with relatively slow change and not with high rates. Predicting the actual amounts of warming is difficult - but the climate has warmed since the Industrial Revolution measurably and continues to do so - there will always be variation year to year, but the average trend over time is warming. The last winter was the warmest in Melbourne in 90 years. Please answer this - When the Carbon Dioxide tax comes into play - How much will the earths average temperature decrease by and how much much will it cost.? - funny that not one of our lefty politians or a single "climate" scientist will answer that !!!! It will take at least 100 years for CO2 levels to stabilise and then drop. The carbon tax is about trying to reduce the rate of increase. So climate change will continue unless we take much more drastic action than the carbon tax. But personally I'd rather try and reduce the damage we are doing than just ignore it. The estimated costs of climate change are in the Garnaut Report (it was written by an economist after all) - they are in the ballpark of 100x the cost of the carbon tax. The best estimates are .004 of 1 degree and this may take a thousand years to take effect (confirmed by that fool Tim Flannery who said "it may never rain again" - hence why we have desal plants costing billions which will be never used ) I don't quite get the rain and temperature connection here, but ok. Best estimates are a 3.5 deg increase by 2070 for Victoria. The drought of the last ten years was caused by the El nino (the cyclic warming of the Pacific Ocean) - we will now have 10+ years of wet which is caused by La Nina - the now cooling of the Pacific Ocean Yep, droughts aren't climate change. But if you superimpose droughts on a drying climate then things get really scary. BTW - the last volcanic eruption in Indonesia spewed out more CO2 into the atmosphere than what man has put out in the last 100 years.- fact stated in Scientific American journal Can't find anything which Scientific American said like that (remembering Scientific American also isn't a scientific journal). Volcanic eruptions on the scale of Pinataubo in the Phillipines are about the same as one months human sourced CO2. Also - notice the subtle change form the "Global Warming" hesteria to the new term "Climate Change" - this is very convenient way to blame every weather event of man made CO2 emissions ....(and please stop calling it carbon polution as CO2 is not a polutant) .....are you kidding me Climate change is what scientists have been calling it for decades. Global warming is a really old term the media like. Climate change for south eastern Australia has been predicting for almost a decade long dry spells (10-15 years) interspersed with extreme wet spells (2-3 years), and changing patterns of rainfall, favouring summer extremes. These patterns were first predicted in 1986. But for other places it won't warm. Poor old NZ is getting cooler and wtter. The only "inconvenient truth"is that this CO2 tax is all about the political need to balance the budget, rake in more revenue and distribute it to the labour/green voters to buy more votes. The climate change debate is perpetuated by those who have a vested interest in "green technology" - Al Gore has major shares in wind farms and other major US/UN funded green energy projects - fact. "Climate Scientists"are funded by the current government - Scientists who wish to prove the negative and there are many thousands of them, get no funding and are ridiculed as herotics ! Strange that most climate research in Australia was done under the previous right wing government - who actively sought to suppress research findings to the extent of firing scientists from CSIRO. As a scientist I would love to disprove climate change - it would make me much more famous than agreeing with it. There certainly aren't thousands of scientists who 'wish to prove the negative' (which wouldn't be a very good way to approach the science - sounds like some pre-conceptions). Across all areas of science the major scientific bodies put the percentage of scientists who doubt anthropogenic climate change at less than a tenth of a percent. That would be less than a hundred people in Australian science. Now that half the country is under water does any body notice the conspicuous absence of Tim Flannery, Ros Gaunet (spelling) and all the rest of the doomsday profits telling us we will be drinking our own urine in 10 years , not to build dams as they will never fill and to spend billions on desal plants (that consumed massive amounts of electricity thereby pumping more CO2 into the atmosphere !!!!) I don't think very many environmentalists proposed the desal plant. More a political decision, that one. As outlined above the climate predictions for Australia predict extreme wet years - the problem is that we need to plan for extreme dry ones, unless someone can find a magic box to store water in. Some facts It is now raining - and lots of it. True enough. See above. Sea levels have stabilised and are now falling Not true. No studies support falling sea levels. Arctic ice may be less than previous years but Antartcic Ice has increased significantly Not true. Arctic Ice has declined significantly, Antarctic snow pack has increased, areas of ice are within the range of previous years. The Great barrier reef is not dead Very true. Did anyone say it was going to be?? Average temps on earth have not increased in the last 10 years. Not true. Global average temps over the last decade are up 0.55 degrees - at the upper end of the worst predictions made a decade ago. In closing - it is impossible to have a logical deabte on this subject as anyone who disagrees (with the alarmists) and has evidence to prove it is shouted down and ridiculed . Not shouting you down at all - nor am I using inflammatory language like 'alarmists', claiming anyone is saying stuff just because of their political inclinations or bad mouthing any individuals. Happy to have a logical debate, but that means making sure the facts are sound as a basis for that debate. Some of the ones in previous messages are wrong. R.

True enough, personal attacks are uncool. But this isn't just about an opinion. An opinion is whether a 240z looks better painted red or painted blue. This is about scientific facts. You don't get to have an 'opinion' on whether the Earth is flat or round - it is round, it's a simple fact. Earlier opinions about anthropogenic climate change are at best uninformed, at worst, simply an act of denial. I am willing to guarantee that the people with those opinions haven't read the scientific literature. haven't spent any time reading broadly across the climate change debate and certainly aren't familiar with the underlying data. And don't point to a single web site that supports your views - anyone could do that for ANY point of view. I've spent the last 20 years training to understand that data - and the fact is climate change is happening and that the only logical conclusion for why it is happening at the rate it is, is that humans are causing it. Carbon dioxide causes climate change, humans cause carbon dioxide. Yes everyone has a right to their opinion. In this case the opinions are simply wrong, there's no sugar coating it. I like Al Gore's description of climate change as an 'inconvenient truth' - none of us want it to be true, it just is, and now we have to deal with it. It's funny how people hate the carbon tax. For almost everyone it won't cost them any more money. All it tries to do is create an incentive to use less energy - install a solar system and you will be ahead of the game. The real crime is that the people who have financially benefited from creating the pollution (largely big energy generators and big industry - with millionaire CEOs and rich shareholders) are being given a heap of help to 'cope' with a carbon price. Basically they got rich making the mess and now the country has to try and pay to deal with it. Now that annoys me... We need our cars to become more efficient (and cars like the Prius are important test beds for developing the technology to allow that to happen). That's the only way to stretch our oil reserves so that we can drive our Zeds in the future. There was a great Top Gear episode where they try to get Jay Leno to slag off the Prius - and he basically says that energy efficient cars are great, that's what will leave oil available for my classics to be driven. I like that guy's style. I drive my classics (and my SUV) - and carbon offset them. I try to keep them tuned and I try and drive as efficiently as I can (although we all fang it now and again - you've just gotta). I reckon most of us do the same and our Zeds are probably not big environmental villains. We just need to hope that we can manage oil reserves and carbon dioxide in a sensible way so that no government does do a knee-jerk reaction and ban old cars. (steps down off his soapbox). My 10c. R.

Bump.... another buyer has messed me around for months and then failed to come through on collection.... sigh Price drop, keen to see this gone. Ross

I'm going to do that really annoying thing where someone says 'no I'm not interested in buying it' BUT 'that is a really beautiful car'. Fantastic looking car, a credit to all the previous owners. Ross

Hey there, I'll take the tailshaft.... pm sent. R.