WillieO

I think you also need whole new indicators. Those black covers are just that there are no bulb sockets underneath. I fitted narrow fogs in the air intake gap instead. But even these dont seem to improve the lighting that much - they do pick out the kerb though. Trouble is if you use them in reasonable visibility you feel like all the other plonkers who turn on their fogs on crisp clear bright dry road nights when visibility is perfect. And on dark foggy rainy or seriously wet black road surfaces with bad visibility when you can legally use them you still dont see much. Wired mine to a light up rocker switch and relay off course. Used a hole in the dash that had been used for the electronic key for some previous alam system.

Rear shocks did it for me but also check rear rack arms and rear toe in. Mines was at 8mm toe in and wiping out tyres in 3000miles. One side had gone on mine and that side gave the sideways kick sensation over potholes and manhole covers. This was at 102K. Changed front shocks at 80K. Search on handbrake trick and on the electronically adjustable shocks for UK cars. Understand the stock shocks for import are much cheaper than the stock adjustables for UK cars.

On 235's too. No problems no tramlining. On 8.5" rims. I think its already too easy to mark a rim on the kerk and this would be even worse with 225's unless you are on a narrower rim. If its good enough for Maserati its good enough for me. Similar size coupe similar weight. Front engine GT. I accept that the tramlining effect does get worse with wider rubber but 235 is only about 4% more than 225. Its hardly definitive. Maybe the effects are more related to uneven wear and stuff like that on the previous rubber. I think mine might have a tad too much toe in as the tyres are wearing a little more on the outsides than insides. Ive 265/35 on the rear. I think this already puts the gearing out by a couple of percent so Glen if you have 285/35 you will be even further out. There's a calculator that'll show you the gearing effect. Willie

Mind Diff noise can be serious as in new diff! Unless it had a defect since new it can only come from big big mileage, no oil or a very frequent standing quarter mile sprint merchant? On an M3 it'll be a big sod with a LSD mech. Suppose a bearing could be on the way out but I would expect a Diff rebuild to cost anything between 50% and 100% of a Z auto box rebuild. Willie

Tony Run your aircon - it'll help dry it out much quicker. You might just have had heavy rain at the wrong angle that forced its way under the top hatchback lid edge seals.

Mines also a red UK II. Red with black leather. Think the colour code is somthing like AJ4 from memory.

Mind and check what it will do for your insurance premium!

Chris small word of caution - dont overtighten belts - its a good way to ruin water pump or alternator bearings. Andy Your right about the fan I forgot the additional load from the cold viscous fan coupling on start up but beg to differ on hot starting - It takes much less battery current to start a warm engine and at the same time the belt is flexible and grips better. This is from my own experience with an old sports car with an ammeter. Also correct me but I thought the viscous fan also had a bimetal spiral coil thingy that did the lock up bit when really hot so that the viscous coupling was by passed and the fan was then direct driven. Willie

Chris If its a slack belt causing screeching especially after starting it is most likely to be the one on the alternator - there are 3 belts in all under the bonnet, one to the aircon compressor and one also to the power steering and water pump. Cant remember which does which. Reason I think alternator is that just after start the alternator draws big current to replenish the battery and the load makes a slack belt slip and screech. I had another cause make mine screech, that was one of the top cylinder head water hoses springing a leak and the water made the belt slip and screech. Same can happen if the water pump fails. Water leak causes it only when the engine is well warmed up and leaking! Yours is most probably slack alternator drive belt. Willie

Eric The UK leccy differential oil pump might be good for this it is separate and small and has the thermostat as well. Maybe available from a breaker doing a UK car. The leak issue is a worry. My UK car did leak diff oil from this very source. I only noticed it by chance as it had dripped onto an exhaust after a fast run. I think the oil pick up pipe is set not too deep in the diff so it cannot totally empty your oil in case of a pipe or cooler leak. Still it took a quite lot of oil to refill my diff up. An engine is not so tolerant of low oil. Willie

Quote "I am also wondering if the problem that some people have had with bottom end oil starvation, could possibly be linked to weak oil pump relief and oil cooler springs, which would cause the oil just to get pumped back to the sump and not to the engine!" Unquote I took a relief valve apart on one of my previous cars when I suspected it was causing low oil pressure. It was a bit scored but the spring was fine. A new valve made no difference. On that car a new oil pump sorted the problem. I dont think much goes wrong with springs and relief valves. I wondered if the starvation issue is like the track use cavitation problem which encourages dry sump lubrication for race engines. A "V" engine is also susceptible on curves where hi g's (.9 +) are pulled say on a long sweeping bend. The outermost cyclinder bank will tend to well up oil in the camshaft area as the g force impedes its progress back to the sump. The oil in the sump will then be lower than normal and at the same time be at almost a 45 deg angle. The risk then is that the strainer pipe sucks air for a few seconds and bang go your big end bearings. Didnt someone here suffer bearing problems after a track day?

Mark This subject had me scratching my bonce again. Bearing in mind that the bearings must get oil under pressure first and always you cant simply have an oilstat divert oil to the cooler or the pressure will collapse when it opens. If you put the pressure divert back in then you need both pressure and temperature to be above the set levels to get oil to the cooler. The only other possibility is some kind of restrictor to restrict the oil flow through the cooler. You get back to a spring loaded pressure regulating compromise oil stat. I suppose if it only cracks open a little then the pressure would stay up but right after a 10/10ths run your oil pressure could collapse if it opened right up. Doesnt it come back to the fact that the oil pump tries to deliver oil by volume directly proportonal to rpm. The bearings need a minimum pressure related to rpm to feed them, to spray oil under pistons, feed turbos, feed hydraulic cam followers, variable timing etc but not burst seals. So you have to have pressure relief anyway above a certain pressure to bleed off some unwanted oil to ease pressure rise on seals. It makes sense that the max heat comes at higher rpm and big bhp outputs anyway. This is also where the pump has excess capacity and can easily maintain pressure, oil flow as fast as the engine can take it and also bleed some via the cooler to cool it. It means to me that the standard arrangement is correct. You just dont need oil cooling at low rpm. If your engine or oil pump was so worn it couldnt get enough pressure to divert some oil through the cooler at high rom then its over anyway. I think that this argument about thicker oils can also be false security. I used to be always worried about oil pressure on other sports cars I owned and sure using thicker oil can give higher running pressure but the flow and cooling effect in litres of oil per minute reduces with thicker oil - more goes past the pressure relief valve. If Nissan say a 40 weight oil is right for this engine in this climate then I am happy to stick with my full synthetic 0-40 weight. I'd rather have thin oil doing its job spraying on the underside of pistons and lubing the bores in this cold weather than thick oil not even spraying even if my oil pressure guage was reassuring me all was well. A lot of oil at the extra pressure is bled past the relief valve anyway and not through the engine. Just my 2p Willie

Cant say about the fronts but I did put Kenwood 7X5s in the back with some rubber gasketting and re drilled fixing holes. Much better than the crap that was fitted with gaps all around the speakers. The stock covers etc all fit back on.

Think my 20g fronts were about £85 each from 3g and the rears cost about the same. I used Mintex pads ( The castings are stamped Brembo and 3G do the machining and grooving. I think the last Scooby also uses the same stock pad design as the Z. Rears also incorporate the drum for the handbrake in the casting.

Hi Mark I agree that in theory a thermo valve is a better technical solution. Also if a thermostatic valve fails does it fail wide open like a water one? Then you really would have over chilled oil. Incidentally at what rpm would the normal pressure one open? My oil press gauge reads all over the place but in the summer I had to drive pretty enthusiastically on normal roads to get the engine oil cooler even warm. Maybe I have a lower running pressure due to 0-40 grade oil and some wear in the pump and bearings with age and mileage. I thought about 47psi would equate to something like 2600-3000rpm hot. I know it is way past that at 1500rpm cold but it has to be hot that counts. Manual says 51-65 is normal at 3000rpm. When my gauge wants to it does sit around this range at this rpm So you have to normally be at 80 plus in top or going up through the gears way past 3000rpm to be squirting some oil into the cooler. At this sort of duty there is likely to be no problem with oil temperature. I thought it became an issue at 120mph plus or in hard track use. Would be interested to hear the results with your stat. Maybe theres even a case for covering up the engine oil cooler in winter if you drive gently? Fellow tinkerer - but also learned if it aint broke then dont fix it! Willie

I thought it was with a thermostat too till someone here put me straight about the pressure valve. However I think it is OK this way as it is really at high rpm and high power output that you really need it and the Z runs with such a small oil quantity anyway - 4 litres. So it heats up fast whatever with 2 turbos and with slow traffic work the oil never gets near the cooler. Maybe high speed and very cold weather means the oil would be overcooled a little but the water cooling is thermostatically controlled anyway and would in itself keep the oil warmed by compensating and reducing the degree of water cooling if over oil cooled - if you see what I mean. Is there not a danger that the time delay with a thermostat could catch you out with run bearings and toasted turbo seals if you are in to heavy footed stuff and give it a 10/10ths roasting suddenly on a hot day after running hot but not hot enough to open the oil stat? Willie

Got my AC recharged the summer before last. Think it was R416 as a compatible replacement for R12. Defo not the 419a stuff as in my other car. They also put a vacuum on it it to remove moisture and refill with a synthetic oil as well to lub the compressor. Z aircon system runs at high pressure. The lock out operates at 30psi when your gas has gone and when running and sound can get to more than 300psi. The aircon guy thought this couldnt be right till I showed him the manual on the aircon. Incidentally on oil coolers, I also seem to have a small oil/air transmission one (plus a big engine one) and also oil pipes running into the radiator water jacket as well. Presumably that is also transmission oil cooling. Mines a UK TTAuto.

I use Castrol RS 0-40 full synthetic also with no probs for the last 2 years or so. It is in line with the hand book recommendations for this climate. Also I think I read here that the car clock goes iffy when its own internal battery is at the end of its life. If thats true then its prolly a Lithium battery with a life of about 10 years tops. Maybe even possible to crack it open and wire in a replacement. I had the fuel smell too. Just turn the ignition on a cold morning when the rubber is hard and look under the bonnet. The fuel pump pressurises everything before you even start the engine. I looked under and was shocked to see how much fuel was trickling from the rear of the engine. If you're a smoker then dont near a Z that does this! Cause on mine was the rubber pipe under the fpr that goes to the fuel injector rail. Not easy to see and not easy to tighten either.

Hi Peter You cant check the oil in the compressor because it is mixed with the refridgerant. If you change your compressor you will lose the gas anyway - I think to protect the ozone you are supposed to get it discharged into a storage tank for disposal! The guy who did mine said there wasnt much left and just let it fly. He then vacuumed the system to purge moisture, pressure tested it and refilled with replacement for R12 or whatever and new synthetic oil with flourescent dye to help find leaks if any. Running aircon every week or so even for a short time is always worthwhile because it makes sure seals dont dry out and the oil gets circulated through the compressor bearings. Aircon is a "dont use it you loose it" accessory to a certain extent if left off for months and months. I think AndyZ's your man here!

There is a joke about an Aberdonian - read Scot if u like but thats beside the point. Her husband died so she went to the newspaper office to take out the cheapest obituary she could find. They had a special price on only 4 words. The 4 word obituary she wrote was "Peter Reid, Peterheed, deed" translated Peter Reid, Peterhead, dead for you southerners. The newspaper office felt that this was just too tough and unfeeling to bear and offered her 3 more free words to expand on the obituary. So after some thought she re wrote it to say Peter Reid,Peterheed, deed, Volvo for sale. Says it all really - get yer z back! Willie

Andrew Warren Get that "small" amount of bubbles fixed asap. I had same and once you do the dentistry it goes to about 2 - 3 cm of dodgy metal extraction - trust me the bubble is the tip of the iceberg - dont leave it too long. You'll find the inside edge of the wheel arch in the rear the other side of the bubble also holed once you start checking - and its double skinned there - just right for trapping salty water in the seams. Only my offside was affected - hard to explain - maybe not enough paint in the wheel arch when new I've mostly done the waxoyl trick now but I'm still not convinced I got it everywhere - except over myself. Even the sills seem to have partitions in them. The waxoyl keeps going cold and thick (like myself) and wont spray - that was in summer too.

Places to watch are: Rear of sills - the thick anti stone chip stuff can hide rust - look for soft bubbles in it - bad sign - drain channels from the T tops run through here and can get blocked and instead fill sills with water. The front inner wings just near the top shocker mounts especially where the seam with the wing proper meets it andNissan uses mastic. There is a plastic rivet near there also that partially fixes the plastic wheel arch liner to the inner wing - I found that that traps muck on mine and was beginning to rust around the rivet hole. The rear wheel arches - They are double skinned and can trap muck and salt especially with wide rear tyres that throw up loads of muck this time of year. I hear even it sticking! Around the fuel filler pipe road salt can gather and perforate it - once you learn where these places are you tend to get keen with the hose and blast away any gathering muck. Mostly all recoverable / repairable stuff I heard on here too that somebody had front cross member rust under the member thats under the radiator. Probably true that UK cars suffer more - mine had although finish still looks superb. On balance pretty good rustproofing but you might expect even better in a £36k car when new. Willie

I've changed my uk stock rears for stock replacements and seen it for myself. I played with the actuators too. They turn a 1/4 turn that turns a blade down the shaft of the Tokico shocker and stiffens up the valving. If you are driving on a bumpy road the effect is easily felt. It really stiffens up the rear. I think that this might be used to lessen understeer on the track if you find that a problem. Though never tried it myself. I find the stock settings plenty stiff anyway with 18" wheels - the smaller tyre sidewalls already sacrifice some ride comfort. The switch on US ones was down by the handbrake - probably convenient for tapping into the handbrake warning lamp circuit to switch it manually but I dont know how you would stop the warning lamp coming on. The section on the rear shocks in the manual shows the diagram but afaik only the diagnosis circuit - handbrake light on = stiff. I've also no idea if or how the ecu ever decides to stiffen it. It would seem a good idea when you are accelerating hard to stop squat or at v high speed though. Willie

Others may know better but I would expect that the cylinder that wasnt firing would just have run cool and the unburnt fuel would have been burning in your cat making the light come on. The cat would probably survive and hopefully the fuel in the cylinder wasnt so rich as to wash the oil off the cylinder bores increasing bore wear. Still it was only 500 miles. The spark plug or plugs affected might have got fouled a bit with unburnt fuel deposits but if she's running fine now it means any deposits got burned off.

Glenn I think you'll find you have 265/35/18 and 235/40/18 - same as me. These are standard sizes on many porkers and even the new Maserati coupe. Watch out for rear toe in being out of spec. When I first got mine it felt wayward and munched the rear tyres in no time. It had had new rear rack arms and not been set up properly. result was 8 - 10mm of toe in and wicked wet handling especially in heavy rain. Feel across the treads for feathering indicating excessive toe out or in. Willie