My little 240z project car

clutchdust

Millionaire Playboy
Joined
Mar 27, 2008
Messages
1,728
Location
In transition
Haven't made much headway lately just because it's been pretty hot (well, that's relative for Las Vegas) but today I pulled the carb off and tweeked it a bit. I also removed the center section of my 4 hole spacer so there is at least something to balance the two sides of the manifold. The Arizona Z car manifold I have is divided between cylinders 1-3 and 4-6 and there is no external balance tube. That and yesterday I found a wildly out of adjustment rocker that was creating a hell of a clatter. Not sure what I did the last time but that thing was way the hell out of whack. So now it runs pretty well. Only problem I seem to still have is only so often after I shift to neutral from a higher engine RPM it will drop down and then kind of hunt for an idle, around 800-1200. Not sure why but I wouldn't be surprised if it had anything to do with the slop in the secondary throttle shaft. Why, oh why, can't Holley make a base plate that doesn't wear out if you look at it wrong?
Other than that, the engine is pretty strong considering it's basically just an overhauled and frankensteined 240/260 combination. The trans has a leak at the tail shaft and I hope to get that repaired here in the next week or two now that it's cooling off. I would like to get it reliable enough to drive it around town. I feel comfortable that mechanically it's sound, but it certainly has other issues. I have a pretty noticeable shimmy in the front at speed. Cosmetically, my neighbor helped reconfigure the hood and headlight bucket with the bumper of his F-250 (he has since replaced those parts for me but I haven't put them on yet). I also have a known bad rust spot and shoddy repair under some bondo on the left rear quarter. Underneath, there's some scary rust in the floorpan area as well. Other than that, it's really not in bad shape at all.
Sadly, what I want to do far out weighs what I need to do and what my checkbook can support.
But since posts like this are worthless without pics, here you go.
rightside.jpg
And here's the little engine that could:
th_SS854326.jpg
Hopefully this video comes up OK. It's a little old by now. I think I did this last year or so. This was when I was just running through a Cherry Bomb so it sounds way badder than it really is. I just kind of rigged up this throttle cable pulley system because I thought it would be fun. Works fine and makes me smile and that's what matters.
 
Nice little ride.
Never been in the '60-'70 car craze (too young?) except for the Vettes.
I got to admit the design of those Datsun is growing on me.
 
Out in the SW regions/Ca. you can still find Z's that are not all rusted out....but most other areas they are totally gone, saw one once in Md, maybe 20 years ago that was completely gone underneath, I mean GONE, the kid had just bought the car and was trying to figger out how to fix it....yeh, sure kid, no way man....:gurney::shocking:
 
Yes, rust free examples are exceptionally rare, or perfect examples of restoration. I chalk it up to the Japanese didn't know/care how to make a car last all that long because national laws dictated they must be shitcanned after 'x' number of years or 40k miles. It wasn't until they really started picking up significant market share over here that we expected our cars to last a little longer.
As this one is, it's really not all that bad, I have seen A LOT worse. The bad spot on the rear quarter panel probably has more to do with crappy damage repair than how it came from Japan. The rusty rails underneath and rust on the hatch deck lid are just standard rust spots. Fortunately, that means a couple of the classic Z car suppliers have good replacement bits ready to cut and weld in.
 
Yes, rust free examples are exceptionally rare, or perfect examples of restoration. I chalk it up to the Japanese didn't know/care how to make a car last all that long because national laws dictated they must be shitcanned after 'x' number of years or 40k miles. It wasn't until they really started picking up significant market share over here that we expected our cars to last a little longer.
As this one is, it's really not all that bad, I have seen A LOT worse. The bad spot on the rear quarter panel probably has more to do with crappy damage repair than how it came from Japan. The rusty rails underneath and rust on the hatch deck lid are just standard rust spots. Fortunately, that means a couple of the classic Z car suppliers have good replacement bits ready to cut and weld in.

Well, that's good, my cousin while in Little Rock had a few of them new...240-260 and 280...decent cars...he was in advertizing so it was a tool for him to play the roll with.....

:smash::rofl:
 
Top