First drive after 8 years -- Need input

[BoldUlysses]

Well guys, Oliver at Z Specialties came through and got me a brake bridge, so with that last piece of the puzzle it was time to get the Z back on the road for a test drive. Went smoothly with the following snafus:

- Braking. Very weak. All brakes have been rebuilt, new MC. Bled all starting with the MC, pass rear, driver rear, pass front, driver front. The red "BRAKE" light comes on in the speedo at the end of pedal travel. Front discs are cleared of rust (mostly), so the pistons aren't frozen from what I can tell. Fluid levels topped up. Is my brake booster dead?

- Timing. Tried to set the timing after the first excursion around the block. Warm engine, vacuum advance line plugged, inductive timing light on #1 plug wire. The problem is the adjustment range--at full stop, it seems to just reach the first mark on the front pulley, and never goes beyond into the "mark range" itself. What's up?

On the positive side, the new clutch hydraulics are working great, warm up is (mostly smooth) and the car is generally very driveable (with the exception of the brake issue). Also, the Red Line 75W90 in the diff quieted the whine noticeably.

Any input would be much appreciated. If the brake issue is something simple, I'd love to resolve it tonight so I can drive my son to school tomorrow on his last day of first grade.

[cbuczesk]

Braking - I'd remove the brake valves/splitters, disassemble them and clean them up. One is located below the master cylinder and has a wire on it. That's what's causing your brake light to come on. The proportioning valve is located on the firewall on the drivers side. I'm assuming that you installed new calipers and wheel cylinders. Did you bleed the brakes until fresh fluid came out? Bleed in the following order: LR, RR, RF, LF. The LR is actually the farthest from the MC.

Timing - Maybe the rubber in the crank damper is coming apart and allowed the outer part to slip? Find TDC on the engine and make sure that the timing mark is pointing to 0.

Chuck

[BoldUlysses]

Thanks Chuck. My car actually has the earlier braking system, in spite of being a 7/72 build. So the proportioning valve is above the rear axle. I'll look into rebuilding them. I rebuilt all calipers and wheel cylinders with fresh rubber and clips. Did flush the brakes completely in the process of bleeding them. Good point about the order, too.

I'll find TDC on the engine—thanks for that, too. Side note: Of course Nissan would design the engine so that the distributor and the timing pointer were on opposite sides of the engine, making timing that much more awkward... Heh.