DJZ's 280ZX

[DJZ]

Got the two other alternators home and the pulley doesn't fit either of them! One is a Mitsubishi alt and the shaft is too small, the other is an LR170, the shaft is the right diameter and it's long enough but the offset is wrong. I pulled the one off the car and had another look, it's an LR180, with the nut off one of the other alts the pulley actually fits and seems to line up reasonably well, so it's on the car now.

[nzeder]

Hmm the LR170 might be from a CA18DE that I had a long time ago when I was going to repower a 120Y coupe that I had. Sorry about that DJ

[DJZ]

All good man, they could all be RB alternators, the one on the red top motor that I've got is different again. To be honest I can't even remember where or what the one on the car came from, I'm running an RB25 front pulley so that might have something to do with it too.

[DJZ]

Got this thing probably it's last warrant for a long time, it's starting to get rustier and rustier, warrant guy found one of the hose clamps coming off the turbo was loose as well so that's a boost leak I didn't know I had sorted! Seems to be going okay with the new pulleys on it, adjusting the cam timing has made the idle a bit lumpier.

I cut the lock stoppers off the control arms the other day, it's much nicer to drive now, I can actually do a u turn in a 2 lane street and get into car parks in one go. I've left it just stopping inside the rack at the moment, I'm not sure if it's a good idea or not but I don't hit the stops very often, I'll sort it out one day.

[DJZ]

Swapped the front bumper today back to an original one with the Central 20 lower skirt I've had hanging around for ages. It's a bit funny having a stock front bumper back on it, putting the skirt on was one of the first modifications that I did to this car after I bought it.

I still need to get a bit of rubber for the bottom edge, it's supposed to have one I think. I had to cut a strip off each side in the wheel well, I don't think it's made for cars with big wheels. I rolled the front guards at the same time as after cutting the lock stoppers off it's been slicing up the front tyres a bit. I still need to swap the indicators to the half orange/half clear ones and put the number plate on.




This is one of the sample cars on the RS Watanabe website that has the same front skirt but it's a facelift car with the later model bumpers. The ribbed part down the bottom is a rubber strip.

[DJZ]

Recently I've been having trouble with my:




So I found a NOS one on eBay and bought it. The one on the car was leaking so I siliconed it up the night before the Southern Cruise maybe two years ago? It was cold that time of year so it's basically been stuck on hot for two years, I've been putting off changing it due to the cost of the valve but after driving to Hanmer on Christmas day which was like a 30 degree day with the heater on hot in a black car I thought it was time to do something about it.

[classicdat]

Recently I've been having trouble with my:




So I found a NOS one on eBay and bought it. The one on the car was leaking so I siliconed it up the night before the Southern Cruise maybe two years ago? It was cold that time of year so it's basically been stuck on hot for two years, I've been putting off changing it due to the cost of the valve but after driving to Hanmer on Christmas day which was like a 30 degree day with the heater on hot in a black car I thought it was time to do something about it.

I was talking to Gwendy after that cruise, did she say get a new ... or a new Girl?

[DJZ]

Uggh what a mission! Decided to change the heater valve today and 5 hours later the car is back together. After draining the coolant out I changed the thermostat to a genuine Nissan one at the proper temperature (76.5 degrees) as I had an 82 degree one from Repco in there from when I built the motor.

Changed the heater valve itself which wasn't too bad but then it wouldn't operate properly, it would move to cold fine but wouldn't move back to hot unless I helped it so that meant pulling half of the dash apart to pull the heater controls out, where I found the control cable was bent, somebody has tried to move the slider from hot to cold while the valve was siliconed up.

Found a spare heater control unit in the garage but the loom had been cut so I combined the two units into one functioning one and put it all back together, I also moved the cigarette lighter plug to the other side of the radio panel and put a blanking plug in it's place. I also found a one way valve so I connected up the vacuum source to the heater controls (it controls which vents are open) which is now kind of working but not properly, which is better than it was before.

Exciting!

[DJZ]

Decided I needed something meaty to do so I've pulled the gearbox out to change the clutch to the twin plate.

Thought I'd weigh the clutches, this is just with the bathroom scales:

Aftermarket "cro-mo" flywheel & RPM clutch = 14Kgs
Twin plate clutch with the billet NZ made flywheel = 13Kgs
Twin plate clutch with the Japanese flywheel Iv'e got = 12Kgs

I'm just going to install with the NZ made flywheel as that's what it's already been run with, I'll save the Jap flywheel for the next motor.

[DJZ]

Even though the people that sell them say the clutch can be used with the original release bearing I don't think it's a good idea so I'm going to replace it. Tilton recommend a bearing with a contact diameter of 44mm, the one that came with the clutch is about 52mm, the original is about 58mm which means it's pressing about half way up the clutch fingers.

The one on the left came with the clutch but it's rooted, the one on the right is the original one I was using. I'm going to try and find one like in the 2nd picture.






The clutch is in so I just need to get the new bearing and put the box back in. Hopefully it's assembled correctly!