Where oh Where has Zedyone been?

[Zedyone_kenobi]

Hello my fellow Z friends.  Boy it has been way too long since we have caught up.  I was always getting updates on Zs on BAT, those were amusing for a while. However, I had step away from BAT as it was becoming  real distraction at work!  

I still have my 71 Z and my 68 Roadster.   We bought a lake house almost 2 years ago, and our time and money have gone into a couple of boats, a 4 wheeler, and furniture. It was awesome to be on the water and enjoying life at a slower pace for a while.  I got a promotion at work (well I got a new job, with 4x the work, but unfortunately, not more money).  They made the Subsystem Manager for Propulsiton on the Artemis Crew module.  It is more responsibility than I have ever had but it is good to be part of putting American Boots on the Moon again! 🙂

 

Okay Z cars.  My poor Z went months without being driven. It had this nagging problem with the Mallory fuel pump I installed.  It would just stop working if I did not turn it on once a week. I would have to take the impeller off and un-seize it and put it back together. I even went as far as to buy a new one and replace it thinking some how I wore it out.  Low and behold, that was not the case.  It stuck again.  Each time this would lead to weeks of down time as I could not find time to work on it (as we were at the lake).  This long down time had horrible ramifications to the Z.  Turns out the pre-filter was shedding something into the impeller.  It felt like oxidation of bare aluminum, but it was not really visible to the eye.  But you could feel it.  I cut my filter apart and it was powerery to the touch. This was one of those 200 dollar Holley cartridge filters as well.  I was VERY disappointed to say the least.  So I replaced it with another standard inline filter from JEGS and it has not done anything since.  Sadly the damage was done. My car started to be nearly impossible to start and had zero performance off idle.   It was like the accelerator circuit was completely non functional. 

I had to main issues.  The junk from the filter made its way into the carbs. The needle and seats would stick open or closed. One would cause two cylinders to be non operational and the other would cause gas to sill out over my headers.  I go tinto the routine of getting the car started and having ot use a rubber mallet to tap over the filter cover on teh webers to help unstick it.  But it progressively got worse until the back carb needle and seat was permanently seized shut. MY 11 year old webers had met their match.  I know what you are thinking though!  Hey just replace needle and seats and all is well.  As Vicinni said in 'The Princess Bride', YOU WOULD LIKE TO THINK THAT WOULDNT YOU!

All those times where the fuel pump would come on and the car would not run right or all the times I started the fuel pump just to keep it moving filling up the fuel bowls but never driving it, mean I had let the gas in the carb fill up and dry out about, oh 50 times.  This had a devastating effect on my accelerator pump performance.  As in it killed it.  

 

FEAR NOT though!!!

 

This mean I got to completely take off my 11 year old Webers and finally rebuild them!!  HUZZAH!   What a great challenge.  I took all three carbs apart. Down to the last screw. I scrubbed and cleaned. Everything was completely gunked up.  Pistons in the accelerator pump were seized.  Throttle shafts were slimy and would not fully return to closed.  The crappy ethanol gas had done a number on these carbs.  Fast forward 3 weeks. All the parts are separated and labeled into old fishing tackle bins.  But scrubbing them was not going to be good enough to clean the bodies.  Many many cans of carb cleaning spray later, parts still were not really clean.  Internal passages were nearly impossible to get totally clean.  So what else was there to do but buy a 2 gallon heated ultra sonic cleaner that I could fit an entire carb body into.  I cleaned those first one by one. Then changed fluid to a brass cleaner and did all the internal bits one by one.  Swapping fluid between each run.  

 

Things looks clean and felt clean. Okay lets get this done.  NOT SO FAST said the carb gods.  I did not want to ultra sonic clean carb with the throttle shaft bearings in place, so they had to come out.  That meant I had to order new screws for the butterflies as those are peened when installed. Removing shafts from Webers is decidedly not a fun task.  I ended up getting them all out after many many taps with a soft mallet and then escalating up to a very small sheet metal hammer. Two of the shafts were in fact bent. This may have been due to my tapping (Okay it probably was), and the threaded bit had mushroomed a tad from the tapping.  New shafts were ordered and new screws to fit them.  Now, getting butterflies reassembled back into a weber body perfectly is also NOT and easy task.  IF they are even the tiniest bit off, they will not open or will be so tight you cannot acuate them.  Worse yet, when you install them snug and tighten them a bit at a time, they can go from perfectly loose to frozen in a quarter turn.  Long story not so long, I got the carbs back together after many volumes of foul language and adult beverages.  Overall it took 3 months. 

When I put them back on the car and started it up it seemed okay. Idled fine.  First drive and ALL the problems still persisted.   Still no accelerator pump action (And I checked before I put them on that this was working).  It was so bad, I could be driving at 30 mph in 3rd gear and floor it and the engine would go dead quiet and cease to run.  

You may think this is the end.... OH NO!

In a fit of rage, I did what any rational Z person would do.   I bought three BRAND NEW weber DCOE 40mm carbs and a new fancy inline filter to install AFTER my fuel pump. Yup, rage will make you spend money.

I swapped out my chokes and my jets and low and behold the damn thing fired right up and ran like a champ. I removed my Hypojets from Keith Franke and installed regular weber jets as my transition from idle to mains was worse than it had been when things were running correctly.  I think there is still some tiny passages clogged in there, so I am going to really clean the heck out of those in the sonic cleaner, that I had now bought for really no reason. May a well use it. (maybe cleaning gun brass or watches or something)

So, after all that I had a Z that was running just about like I remember it should be running.  Yeah!  Except for one small thing.  At idle I was at 11.5:1 AFR.  It used to be 12.5:1 ish.  Z's on triples like to run rich but not THAT rich.  So about 2 weeks ago I decided to check all the tuning again and rebalance them taking my time.  That has been interesting as a few more things have come up. Nothing major.  I could very easily just stop messing around with it and drive it happily the way it is.  

 

But, what would be the fun in that 🙂

More to come....on the carb front. 

Humorous point. I also have had my Z long enough now to have worn out the clear plastic shifter bushings that I put in new back in 2012 when I installed my 5 speed.  Seems like they should have lasted longer than that.  

Edited January 19 by Zedyone_kenobi

[Patcon]

Artemis mission, super cool!!!

We would love a lake house but Im not sure we'd make time to enjoy it. Just too many other things taking time

Edited January 19 by Patcon

[siteunseen]

6 hours ago, Zedyone_kenobi said:

 Humorous point. I also have had my Z long enough now to have worn out the clear plastic shifter bushings that I put in new back in 2012 when I installed my 5 speed.  Seems like they should have lasted longer than that.  

best thing since sliced bread, bronze bushings instead of plastic.

http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/shifterbushing/index.html

[Diseazd]

Oh wow……Glad to know you’re still out there Zedy. Why not just strap a set of SU’s on her and “ Enjoy the Ride”. Last time I think you were on here, your wife had just brought Zedytwo into the world! 😆 Also, somewhere on this forum there is a link to a site that sells brand new Z gas tanks for $600.00. Some of the older tanks cause ongoing problems. Sometimes I think old gas is blamed for problems caused by other issues…..Just MHO. Good hearing your voice!    Guy

Edited January 20 by Diseazd

[Yarb]

S30.World  is the name of the company.

[Zedyone_kenobi]

Did you guys really just tell me how to burn 600 dollars!! Lolol 

 

my boys are 15 and 10 now. 
 

time Flies. I spent 2 hours today meticulously adjusting carbs. Linkages to jets. All my cylinders are flowing dead even right now. I finally have my idle R 13.0:1 and it’s smooth at 900 rpm. Throttle response is crisp. I am going to let it cool down over night and see how it cold starts.  It fired up today at 41 degrees with zero choke. So I am close. 

I tried to order those brass shifter bushings. Motorsport auto was back ordered. So just put new clear OEM ones back in. 
 

Miss you guys. Z has been suffering from a lack of driving. These old cars do not like to sit  

 

 

 

[Zedyone_kenobi]

8 hours ago, Diseazd said:

Oh wow……Glad to know you’re still out there Zedy. Why not just strap a set of SU’s on her and “ Enjoy the Ride”. Last time I think you were on here, your wife had just brought Zedytwo into the world! 😆 Also, somewhere on this forum there is a link to a site that sells brand new Z gas tanks for $600.00. Some of the older tanks cause ongoing problems. Sometimes I think old gas is blamed for problems caused by other issues…..Just MHO. Good hearing your voice!    Guy

I adore SUs. 
great carb. But I recall the performance bump with triples when I went from my New Z therapy SUs to webers.  Cannot go back. 
 

these ran perfectly for 11 years with no adjustments. Only sitting still killed them 

I plan to clean them up again  one more time  if nothing else I have spare parts 

 

[Yarb]

@Zedyone_kenobi Did you mention earlier that you were using ethanol or non-ethanol fuel?

[Zedyone_kenobi]

unfortunately, all the fuel around here is ethanol based.  Very difficult to find anything besides that crap. 

[Yarb]

There are additives out there if you do the research. Carbs definitely don’t do well with ethanol.

[Mark Maras]

3 hours ago, Zedyone_kenobi said:

unfortunately, all the fuel around here is ethanol based.  Very difficult to find anything besides that crap. 

 It appears that a company called Buc-ees in and around Angleton, Texas sells ethanol-free fuel. A bit of a drive but I'd do it.

[Zedyone_kenobi]

Yah, that is about 15 miles south of me. 

I may take my truck and fill up 3-4 5 gallon jugs.  May be fine.  But ethanol really wreaks havok.

Could have bought a bunch of gas for how much 3 new webers and a sonic cleaner cost, LOL