With the 1977 280z's engine out of commission it was time to rebuild it or replace it. I happened across an ad for a wrecked 280zx that still drives on Craigslist. The car was located in Angier and after a whole bunch of haggling and waiting for him to find his title I finally went and took possession of it for a cool grand. Not a great deal but considering an engine rebuild would cost me in the order of $2100 this was a cheaper way to get me back on the road for now.
I showed up to get the car and it was at his friend's house. I met these two young guys probably not much older than twenty with a ton of puppies roaming around and two large dogs chained out back. There was also a cute pug with a football who insisted on playing to the point that he would bring the ball up to your feet and drop it. He would then proceed to stare at you and as soon as you moved he attacked the ball again. This was ceaselessly repeated. Fun to play with but that much energy was bound to end up on your nerves eventually. Throughout the course of my visit at least three different young ladies wandered outside so I'm not sure what the living arrangement were there but they may have been siblings, otherwise they are doing something right it seems. The car was just sitting in their backyard beside what seemed to be a later 70's muscle car (not my type so I didn't pay much attention). They also had a full garage of mustangs (at least 1 foxbody) and trucks (2 trucks and a Cherokee?) probably about 8 or so vehicles in all and it seemed like at least half of them were running! There body panels and car parts scattered around the car including one of the original seats (The car had cheap racing seats "sorta installed" which meant two loose bolts). A glance into the car revealed more car parts in the rear including the bumper. The previous owner (PO) said front left had been smashed in by a hit and run. He parked it on the road and came back to find it in the yard. From the looks of it we can only assume it was a large truck or something else with a large clearance because of the skid marks on the top of the fender.
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| Front Right Fender |
This pushed the body of the car down and to the right. These cars are unibodies so that creates some issues that will be brought up later, luckily I'm not getting this fixed up to be a driver as of now. I may find uses for the frame which I do have a salvage title on (Because racecar?), but those are not even in sight right now. Here are some pictures of the car when it was picked up.
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| After being driven home (luckily the hood is still bolted on). |
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| My parents followed me in the van in case of issues. Wasn't that nice? (They live 2 hours away) |
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| The missing fender. (which came home in the van) |
The drive home was an interesting one. To start it off the ignition switch apparently does not work so the PO wired in a push start for the car below the steering wheel.
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| The push start is the button to the lower left of the wheel with the white ring around it. |
They crank and get ... nothing. So they bring up the Cherokee to jump the car and still nothing. At this point he realizes that the button is not wired in which would be this yellow wire that was laying next to the battery as shown below.
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| No, I'm not exactly a hand model |
Once they get that hooked up the car finally fires up and dies. They do this a few times and then finally just rev it until it warms up and then it falls to an rough idle. This remedied some when the owner reaches down and adjusts the air cleaner so that it properly mated, not encouraging but hey it's alive! Pretty amazing after having looked at this.
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| It's pretty hard to see but the fan shroud has been pushed so far back it is actually compromised by the pulley and belt. Also note the fantastic improvements to the car such as the air filter, metal fence like trim, and the dancing girl. |
So after getting the title signed over, collecting a few more car parts and a jar of bolts.
[Picture of the bolt jar]"Here! Now you can put it back together!"
It was time to drive it home. Very carefully. However I wasn't careful enough. I made it to the end of his road and when I pushed the clutch in for the stop sign it sputtered and died. Note to self: Use gas when idling. No problem right? I'll just start it back up! Well maybe not. The wire for the push start had not been fastened well enough and had fallen off. So we push it to the side of the road and my dad rooted under the crushed hood to re-secure the wire and we were back in action. Now to the gas station as it was running low. One thing I love about this car and I just might steal it for another car is the gas gauge Once it gets below 1/4 of a tank there is a secondary gauge that gives you more detailed increments.
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| Hard to see but that small scale under the larger gas gauge has lines that are 1/40th of a tank. |
Once my dad and I got to the gas station and gave it some gas (it was below 1/8th of a tank) we checked the oil... about 2/5 quarts low! Another interesting fact, this car's low oil light apparently does not work. (I never saw the temperature gauge move the entire ride home either) The ride home was pretty uneventful until I came to a stop light and took my foot off the gas and the car didn't slow down. The gas peddle had gotten stuck to the floor! Luckily it is a five speed so I just hit the clutch and then tried to pry the peddle off the floor before the engine blew. I'm pretty sure the engine hit redline and it blew a huge cloud of black smoke out of the back but luckily it didn't blow a hole in the block or anything noticeable so I'm hoping it did no major damage. Fingers crossed....
