While I was at the Arthritis Foundation’s Auto Show, I got to talking to Tim Davis about my car and how it was running like crap. I have been chasing down little vacuum leakd for a while now and was getting just a little tired of it. Tim suggested I talk to Brett from Ramey’Z about bringing the car down to his place outside of Cincinnati to put it on the smoker and find all the leaks at once. So I did and the next day (Sunday) found me traveling to Brett’s shop. He tested the car and only found 2 small vacuum leaks. So why is it running so bad? Tim showed up about that time and the two of them started asking me questions about the car and the work that had been done recently. Brett decided to check the timing and found it to be way off. A few more questions and their thoughts were that the timing belt may have jumped a tooth. So the remedy is to do a timing belt change.

Tim tore into the car and you wouldn’t believe what he found. The picture is what’s left of my timing belt tensioner.

Missing a few bearings there?

Missing a few bearings there?

It’s hard to tell from the picture but the tensioner is missing about a third of it’s bearings and the front seal was gone. Littered around the area of the timing belt were ground up pieces of what used to be bearings. I was very close to owning nothing but a parts car. Having the tensioner go or losing the timing belt would have been catostrophic to the car. As luck would have it, Brett was working on another 300ZX timing belt that day and was replacing the tensioner in that car so I got custody of the old one which was still in fairly good condition. A new timing belt went in and my car was running like a top! On the drive home, I noticed that the car had it’s power on acceleration and I also had my great gas mileage again. I usually get over 30MPG on the highway when the car is well tuned. No bad for a 6 cylinder 86 engine. I felt so relieved and confident in the work that Brett and Tim did, I took the scenic route home.

I highly recmmend Ramey’Z if you are in need of work for your Z. They specialize in the ’90-’96 300ZX but know there older models as well. Oh, they’re also responsible for most of the “Bling” you see on the turbo 300’s in my flickr photos.  If you need to have Ramey’Z work on your 300ZX, call them at (513) 348-6517 to make arrangements. When I finally get a decent job and can afford it, I plan on having Ramey’Z do the mods for my car.