helpingafriend

long story short, my friend got me a set of alpine stars racing gloves for christmas. He said it was because I helped him pull the engine on his Z31, but it's a pretty expensive gift so now I kind of want to get him something.

so basically I'm looking to give him a gift for his birthday, around 100$ and I kind of want to get him something for his car.

he payed 1200$ for it and it's his first car, so the thing is pretty beat up. He blew the engine last summer, so I helped him pull it out in hopes of rebuilding it, we ended up getting it all apart, but now he is going to have to get another engine for it. Asides from that, the T tops are leaking, bumpers aren't in great shape, interior is in questionable condition, aftermarket steering wheel is kind of crap. I don't know too much about it, but it's the V6 and I believe it doesn't have rear seats. (he's going to put the new engine in it this summer, so he's not scrapping it)

I know 100$ isn't alot for something car related, and I apologize for the lack of info, but what would you want for 100$ for your Z as a gift? floor mats? new aftermarket wheel? something specifically related to the Z31 that I don't know about? gas card even?

any help is greatly appreciated.

zxguy1986

Welcome to ZDriver!

He sounds like he loves that Z and will be doing a lot of work on it. Until about 5 years ago, I had a perfect copy of the original factory service manual for my '86 300ZX. Then a Nissan dealer's mechanic ripped it up and lost whole sections of it somewhere. (He was a boozing loser who had no idea how to work on my Z anyway... A true Nissan basket case)

I think even if you could find one used on-line, an original factory service manual for your buddy's Z will be a mess of torn and missing pages. The paper was very thin.

So, you could go to XenonZ31 Reference and download the complete service manual in PDF. If you take those files on a thumb drive to a professional copy shop, they can print it all out double-sided, punch the pages and bind them with those plastic spiral edge bindings. They look like black plastic springs. It's all too thick on copy paper to get into one volume, but 2 or 3 thinner volumes with a good table of contents on each cover page would work great. (Print the elect circuit diags on 11x17 and bind them in that way.) Pile it up, figure out the right order, make the tables of contents and get it bound up.

I did this for myself and it cost me just under $100 for the works at a FedEx Office copy shop here. Wrap the books up in hot gift paper - and he gets a gift he will really appreciate and use for as long as he has that great Z.

helpingafriend

oh he loves his z with a passion, I didn't know those manuals were that rare. He's got one in pretty decent condition front to back. he found it in the trunk of another Z at a scrap yard... it's what helped two 19 year olds with no prior mechanics experience pull the engine and tranny XD

thanks for the suggestion though, that's exactly the kind of thing I had in mind, it's just too bad he's already got one.