zKars

Not sure this is helpful. Under just the right conditions of light and angles, I can see remnants of home marks, but overall they are remarkably smooth. First four are all cylinder 1. Last two are the notches cut in #1, and 3td last is cylinder 6

Yes pictures are definitely in order here. Will comply shortly, I hope they convey the smoothness. Long block is block/pistons + head, short block is block/pistons only.

Back to the original topic (harumph….). I’ve a L24/N42 combo in a 72 with crap for compression. 100-20-20-20-50-90. Oh oh…. This was an engine free spinning but not run for 10 or 20 years, cold with 10cc of oil added through plug holes, cranked until engine got oil pressure, which was almost immediately. Not number matching block, so something someone stuffed in. Block number is 90xxx, chassis has 160xxx mi. What’s left of it… So why the poor or absent compression? Did someone not notch the L24 block for the N42 exhaust valves? Bent valves? Not likely, #1,5,6 has SOME compression. Pulled the N42 head, its been rebuilt at some point, clean, all new exhaust valves some new intake valves, AND!!! the SHINIEST smoothest almost 99% no more hatching on the cylinder walls that I have ever seen. Stock 83.00 bore. This thing must have 500,000 miles on the short block. No matter what block I’ve seen (not rebuilt) the stock hatching is plain for all to see., Not this thing. Good new might be, fresh hone, fresh rings, and it might just drive away happy. Oh, and bores had been notched. Someone new enough to do that when this N42 head was put on, but didn’t bother to check the state of the bottom end. I suppose that’s why I’m parting out a rusty 72 now…..

It’s all yours for the price of shipping. Including the main box if you want it.

Maybe I saved the apparently important parts after all!!

That looks nearly identical to the Heath unit. Even that little red terminal board on the end of the leads looks the same as what I saw on mine before I un-ceremoniously chopped all the connections off the coil. The distributor was still using points, I was kind of expecting to see some old optical coupler stuffed in there, but no, still depends on the points to trigger spark. Definitely first generation stuff.

Here you can see the Model Number and serial number. Just barely. CP-1060 is the model number. https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/heath_capacitive_discharge_ignition_cp_1060.html https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/heathkit-model-cp-1060-capacitive-discharge-ignition.929262/ This tag is about as sun baked and faded as the rest of this 72…. Best I don’t look at the google links, I don’t have time to be soldering a Heathkit oscilloscope or something silly…

Heathkit has a place in my life for sure. My Dad and I built a number of kits in the late 60’s including, if you can believe it, our first color TV. Then shortly after we added the remote control option. It was an low ultra sonic transmitter. I could hear the beep tones when you push the buttons. The volume and channel knobs were powered and turned by a little teenie weenie fan belt and motor. You could see the knobs spinning from across the room! It definitely drove me to being the hands on tinkerer and eventually EE that I am proud now to be.

In the most recent Z that’s in getting parted, I found what must be the absolute pinnacle of ignition technology. Ok, maybe I’m thinking of 1978 , but anyway…. Anyone remember the brand name “HeathKit”?

If you hear air sounds from the booster, but the booster is just rebuilt, right? then not likely the diaphragm is leaking, then maybe the check valve in the line to the booster is leaking.

Assuming you mean a few hundredths…. 0.0625 is a 1/16. The reaction disks just keep biting people in the a z z as when you pull the rod forward or out to adjust the tip length, the disk often follows and drops down into the body of the booster, then you put the rod back in and don’t notice the extra 1/4”. Other than that, make sure you bleed the master as well

Did you check the clearance between the end of the brake rod sticking out of the booster and the inside of the master where it will touch? I’m guessing there is way too big of a gap. Should be 1/32 or 1/16 max. Also check and make sure the reaction disk is in place.

I should have a couple. Let me look and see what’s there. I actually need a 240 lower valance three piece set for 11292 if anyone has one…..

Small addendum to complete the thread. After hooking up the stock mechanical fuel pump, and getting the car started last night (another victory to discuss elsewhere) the dang thing would run for about 5 minutes then run out of gas. Change pump, same thing. It took several rounds of back purging with compressed air into the tank, then circulating the 20 litres of fresh gas I bought from back to front using a nice big external 12v fuel pump to finally get the line to flow freely. There is likely still some spooge in the tank that was getting sucked up and partially blocking it, but its fine now. Hopefully it will dissolve in the fresh gas. Point here is, it might take several days and persistence, but you too can save a gas tank. Now if it’s rusty, that’s a whole ‘nother ball of wax. Or flakes.

No one has asked how I shook the tank when it was full of thinner. Tank is in the car, right? Take rear wheels off, stash under car. Place floor jack under diff. Jack the back end way up, let the back end down as far as I dare. Jack the back end up, let the back end down. Etc etc etc. Got a great arm workout! If you jiggle the jack handle side to side, the whole car wiggles a little too. Front end was on jack stands too.

Just let it run out. It is highly evaporative and won’t stick around long. Blow compressed air through to get it all I suppose. I’m hoping whatever is left in the gas tank will add a little octane boost!

The fuel pump and carbs were simply dry. No Goo. Just needed to cleaned and lubed and set up again. Hope to hear VROOOM today. Next challange might be the coolant system. Found this. Might now be a good sign….. Having spare parts like a speedo cable I could adapt is the key to this, but if you don’t have one, any speedo cable from a junk yard car could work just the same.

Pretty soon a stream of lacquer thinner started to flow. I ran a litre or so of the stuff through a couple of times and called it good. Clearing the tank line was the same deal. I put a section of hose on the tank outlet, about 12 inches, just so that it would curve back out toward the wheel well so it was easier to feed the line in, and just drilled without the funnel and filler for a bit since that is just a short section of hard line in the tank. That too work lickety split and the line was freed up. Air pressure blew out the rest of what was left. Yahoo! Now the goo in the tank was taken care of by 2 gallons of lacquer thinner poured in and sloshed around for a couple of hours and drained out, then put back in, drained out, repeat a few times.

After about 15 minutes of drilling, and pushing it in and pulling it out, I saw some magic at the other end of the line. A slow and steady drip of goo coming out of the other end! C9116DD0-8DCC-46B1-BB93-33EA809B0F06.MOV

Now the pretty pictures cause you’re getting bored of my lengthy explanations….. Now I have to explain something. While I could drill the line, it didn’t clear it. I had to then move to stage two, which was to hook up my lacquer thinner soak funnel and line, then drill down through that, which got the thinner down into and distributed through the fuel line. 11D0252B-B714-45B5-8269-D969D272A91C.MOV

Last week I was parting out a rotten old ZX and one of the things I pulled out and tossed was the speedo cable. Got one of those in stock already and they don’t work on S30’s. Then I start thinking about the rotating core wire. You don’t suppose…….. I go grab it, and have a look. Its pretty long, like about 7 feet long, and has a diameter of about 1/8” or so. real flexible, but the end has stiff part about 1” long that ground down square, like they welded that section to lock the spiral outer core to the center so it would grind down without fraying. It’s too long to make any decent turn in the fuel pipe. Dang it. But if I cut it down to about 1/4” of hard square end it might! Chopped it off, and I chuck the other end of the thing in a drill, and start stuffing the chopped off end down my fuel line. Well I’ll be horn swaggled! That thing digs in and heads on down the line making all the bends along the way.

So my usual approach with fuel line blockage is Lacquer Thinner. That stuff eats fuel deposits like nothing I’ve seen. With a blocked line, you hang up a funnel with a hose into the hard line in the engine bay, fill it with lacquer thinner and wait. And wait, and wait. Eventually the stuff will eat through the goo and clear the line. Eventually 24 hours later and the level of thinner in the funnel hasn’t moved much….. oh oh….. I start thinking of alternative methods. And start the process to remove the tank. Easier to the thinner wash and line clearing with it out. My mind wanders to ways to stick something mechanical into the line to drill it out. Try a hunk of stiff wire, but only goes a bout 2 inched and then the line does a 90. Nope. Think Roto Rooter with the snake. Nah, ain’t nothing that small around. Is there? Hmmmmmm

One of the issues I constantly deal with during a restoration is a gummed up fuel system. Not unusual that it ends up with new hard lines and/or a new fuel tank when things are just too far gone. I try to restore the existing lines and tank when ever possible, but it can be a time consuming and often fruitless endeavor in the end. Yesterday I came up with a new method that allowed me to save both a tank and the main fuel line from replacement. Sometimes it’s rust in the tank, sometimes it’s old fuel that has turned to solid or semi solid black tar or even hard crystals mixed with that tar. In yesterdays case, it was semi solid black tar. I have 11292 under the knife right now, it has sat a long time without attention. (20+ years). Tried to blow air back from the fuel filter end to the tank, nothing. Oh oh…. I pulled the drain plug with a big drain pan ready to catch whatever might come gushing out, but there was nothing. Initially. I looked in the hole, and it was covered with something black. WTH. I grabbed a stiff wire and stuck it in there and poked around and shortly I had a very very slow drip of incredibly viscous black goo begin to ooze out. Wonderful. Let that drip for a while, not very exciting. Took the rubber hose off the tank outlet pipe and then blew shop air into the line from the engine bay end. Nothing. Crap. Pushed a hose on the tank outlet pipe and tried to blow air into the tank. Nothing. Crap crap. Hard line plugged, tank outlet line plugged. Tank filled to some extent with something just like Northern Alberta Heavy Crude. My old nemesis is back to haunt me….