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Zcar trouble today


v12horse

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Originally posted by v12horse

Thanks Carl, I will hopefully take you up on that offer. It won't be for a while though. Prolly in the summer is when I will tackle that project. How is your car looking these days Carl?

Summer is probably better for me also.

No change in my car lately. Still having issues with getting newly rebuilt engine to run strong through full RPM range. Need to find someone locally who really knows SU's to guide me through confirming that the carbs are operating corretly. Due to job loss, I need to do this very cheaply and can't pay a shop to do it.

Very frustrating. Haven't driven the car in a long time.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Hey guys, I was going to update you on my car. I took it to the shop and I told them about the dieseling and that I had a leaky diaphragm in the fuel pump. I was on a budget, but I wanted it done right. I thought that would help if I told them that. How wrong was I. they replaced the Balance tube with an earlier balance tube and removed the air compressor for the smog equip. in the process. They also did a full carburator adjustment, replaced the exhaust flange gasket because it was crushed, and blocked off the mechanical fuel pump with a plate.

The mechanic shop that I took it to is called Dando's automotive in Fremont, Ca. All in all I am very pleased with the work that they did besides the bill. They were very helpful and they did not do any work without my permission which was very nice because I was not surprized with the price when it was completed. The car drives better than it ever has before. My next project that I will hopefully do late this summer is replace the exhaust system including the exhaust manifold and coat the gas tank. I have never really gotton my hands dirty, but I have the microfiche CD, and a factory service manual, so I am hoping to do this work myself. Give me your guys input and take a look at the pic of my engine with the new balance tube. It is shiny unlike the rest of the engine. When I got the tuneup the mechanic used blue wires, but I wish they were black. errrr. Oh well. Thanks for all your guys help.

Regards,

Ben:classic:

post-3738-14150793752712_thumb.jpg

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Ben:

What brand of ignition wires did they put on the car? what's written on the wires? Size,Brand, etc

Was the price that they charged you out of line for the work that they did?

FWIW, I have heard mixed reviews of the work and practices at Dando's. I met a guy from our Mail list that lives in Fremont quite near you and he, without being prodded, piped up with a firm reccomendation to avoid them based on his experiences.

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I don't understand the deal with replacing the balance tube. Yea, you can tell they removed alot of the emmision garbage (which probably didn't work anyway) but why would you need to replace the balance tube?

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Originally posted by Ed

I don't understand the deal with replacing the balance tube. Yea, you can tell they removed alot of the emmision garbage (which probably didn't work anyway) but why would you need to replace the balance tube?

Cha-Ching, Cha-Ching (sound of a cash register recording a sale)???

Just Guessing.

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Replacing the balance tube isn't a true necessity, you can just block off all the unused ports of the original one if you wanted to.

The earlier balance tubes may flow better according to some, but I don't think it has really been established in print that they really do.

I think they did it more as an ease of installation, since a lot of times you will have trouble getting the lines removed and their hardware out of the old manifold in order to plug them. This way, it's just a simple matter of taking one of and putting the other one on.

Looks good to me Ben, guess you know what you'll be doing now eh? The more you look at that, the more you'll want to start polishing everything up to match since it's now running better....:cheeky:

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Carl, the ignition wires are NGK brand. I think it is a pretty well known company?

2manyzs, I don't think I am going to be polishing anything more. I am trying to give it that OEM look. It is a 260 with a lot of 240 engine parts, but I am still trying to keep it as stock as possible.

The reason I thought Dando's was pretty good was because they informed me about anything that they thought needed to be done, they were true to the price, and they got my car running better than it ever has before. Knock on wood.

Carl, if you are wondering about a carb mixture and adjustment it cost 140USD. I don't know if this is out of line, but I thought it was not too bad. Next time I am planning to watch the SU video and do it myself. I really do wish I knew more on how to fix these cars. School takes up my time, so I guess when I get out of school and settle down I will have some weekend time(I hope) for these kinds of projects.

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Originally posted by v12horse

Carl, the ignition wires are NGK brand. I think it is a pretty well known company?

Ben:

NGK Wires are great wires. Oh, sure you could get better wires, but you'd pay an arm and a leg for them. Next time you're looking for wires though, check around on eBay, there was a guy selling sets of NGK wires for Z cars at approx $20 a set plus $6 shipping, a few months ago. Extrreme deal, I thought.

I have thought of Dando's for checking out my carbs, but I have a big difficulty trusting any shops, after having been burned so many times over the years.

Let me know a bit before you plan to do your gas tank work. You'd be wise to replace vent lines at the same time if they are in bad shape. We can check'em out, so you can order whatever you need.

PS: Are those fuel rail heat wraps original, or did you replace them? If replaced, where did you get them?

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Hey dude, they probably replace that balance tube because the 260 tube sucked. To much smog crap built into the tube, so I wouldn't loose any sleep with them putting it on. Those look like 8mm plug wires and I don't think they make them in black:mad: just blue and red. I think you will find that working on your Z is easer than you might think as long as to do your research.

Rock on Z people

Matt-

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