[2021] What Did You Do To/with Your Z Today?

[Diseazd]

[zed2]

Since it is 520 Day the 240Z wanted a photo with his garage mate.

Keith

 

Edited May 20, 2021 by zed2

[moelk]

Past inspection with flying colors, a tad high CO but I was allowed to tune the carbs a bit so no problem.

No more inspection needed here in Sweden for this car 1973 so that’s good.

[Patcon]

You need to put that next inspection on your calendar 1/1/2099!

[moelk]

1 hour ago, Patcon said:

You need to put that next inspection on your calendar 1/1/2099!

Yes, Wouldn’t wanna miss that😅

[heyitsrama]

I've been trying to track down some resonant vibrations in the car that happen at ~62-68 MPH. It feels like the hatch vibrating away on something, maybe its the precision seal thats not letting the hatch sit? I dont see any wear marks. Only feel the resonance on the hatch panel.

I replaced the diff fluid, went from 75w-90 to some 80w-90 that i had in the shed. I pulled the driver side axle to inspect the u-joints, i removed the u-joints to inspect for any binding, reinstalled the u-joints. I then sat around and though about what else could be the problem and realized I had a new diff mount in my parts pile, so i replaced that as well.

The resonance has somewhat been reduced, but its still present...😞

 

[Mark Maras]

 I chased a resonance problem years ago. I started by replacing all the u-joints. No luck. The half shafts didn't spin fast enough to produce my vibration. I had the drive shaft balance checked and they found it was slightly bent. They re-tubed the drive shaft and the vibration disappeared.

[pogden]

I chased a couple of electrical issues. My parking lights, tail lights, and instrument lights stopped working shortly after I took my dash partly apart for another problem. I discovered that the 15A fuse in my Dave Irwin (@Zs-ondabrain) parking light relay mod was blown. After a bit of further troubleshooting (and unnecessarily re-dismantling of my dashboard), I found the problem. While tidying up after my previous issue, I was re-tucking the wires behind the console and noticed a male and female bullet connector had fallen apart, which I just reconnected. Turns out, those connectors were power and ground for the (unused) automatic transmission selector lamp, snapping them together made a pretty nice short circuit! They have now been taped up to prevent such foolishness in the future. 

I also fixed my turn signals, which had stopped working about the same time. Basic troubleshooting was getting me nowhere, but a quick search here led me to a similar problem in which @Captain Obvious recommended the obvious: bypassing the hazard switch. As soon as I did that, the blinkers started working again. Removed the hazard switch, took it apart and cleaned the contacts with DeOxIt and my wife's emery board, tested it, replaced it and now everything is working again. 

My initial problem (the one that caused me to get into the dash in the first place) was kind of strange. A couple of weeks after getting the car running I went to start it and the battery was completely dead. It didn't take long to figure out that the alternator wasn't working. I never noticed because I just took short joy rides around the neighborhood, and apparently hooked my battery tender up often enough that the battery "seemed" to be fine. Once again, an old post on this site led me to wonder why my charge light wasn't working. I bypassed the charge lamp and the alternator starting charging! I remembered testing all of the gauge lights when I replaced them with LEDs and was sure the charge light worked then. But I vaguely remembered that LEDs are polarity sensitive and wondered if that had something to do with it, or maybe it was just the fact that the charging circuit depended on seeing the load of the charge light to work properly. I replaced the LED charge lamp with an incandescent one, and the charge lamp (and my alternator) started to work just fine. 

[SteveJ]

26 minutes ago, pogden said:

My initial problem (the one that caused me to get into the dash in the first place) was kind of strange. A couple of weeks after getting the car running I went to start it and the battery was completely dead. It didn't take long to figure out that the alternator wasn't working. I never noticed because I just took short joy rides around the neighborhood, and apparently hooked my battery tender up often enough that the battery "seemed" to be fine. Once again, an old post on this site led me to wonder why my charge light wasn't working. I bypassed the charge lamp and the alternator starting charging! I remembered testing all of the gauge lights when I replaced them with LEDs and was sure the charge light worked then. But I vaguely remembered that LEDs are polarity sensitive and wondered if that had something to do with it, or maybe it was just the fact that the charging circuit depended on seeing the load of the charge light to work properly. I replaced the LED charge lamp with an incandescent one, and the charge lamp (and my alternator) started to work just fine. 

LEDs are high resistance and not very voltage sensitive. If you leave an incandescent bulb in that circuit, you'll have a better idea of whether or not the car is charging.

[Captain Obvious]

pogden, Sounds like great progress. 

And to add a little more detail to what Steve mentioned above... The Volt warning lamp does more than just light up when there's an issue. It also supplies "bootstrap" current to the alternator system to get it up and working properly when you first start the car. As you found out, you should use an incandescent bulb in that application or things might not work right. Obviously. 

[pogden]

@SteveJ, @Captain Obvious - thanks for adding color to the charge lamp story. When I learned that the lamp was part of the alternator control circuit, I figured an LED might not be an appropriate replacement. 

Now if I can just figure out what causes my car to occasionally hesitate or jerk violently when pulling away from a stop or shifting into 2nd ... 

[Racer X]

Took a different look at what to do so I can get my brown 72 in driving condition for the summer.

I was building this engine for the car when I was married to Mrs. Racer 1.0. The bottom end was done and I had started on a head for it when we split up. Right after that I was at Portland with the race Z for an ICSCC meet and had a crankshaft break. I was leading the points in my class, and the next meet was Pacific Raceways the following week. I didn’t have time to build another bottom end, so I swapped the head and other stuff and ran it for one weekend. Took the head and other stuff off a couple weeks later and put it all and a fresh race prepped bottom end.

That was about 24 years ago.

It is an L24 P30 block, bored 0.030 over. The cylinders are eyebrow clearanced. The crankcase was smoothed and sealed with Glyptal.

The head, intake and exhaust from my race car have already been on it once, so they would feel right at home.

 I don’t plan on returning to the class I ran the race Z in again, so that setup is available.

Stay tuned, eh?