JimmyZ

With the engine and tranny and front suspension out the car becomes VERY light. My car stayed straight and showed no signs of deformation. (diagonal measurements) Just be sure to support the front end evenly. Use weldable primer for your plug welds. Enjoy Jim

I wonder how the factory applied the original stuff. It looks kind of lumpy to me much like a powder mixed with some sort of adhesive. I'd love to get my rear defrost back. Mine fizzled out 18 years ago.

That's funny! Makes one wonder how many beers does it take to forget leaving something like that in the engine. Wonder how bad the guide got bent or if it snapped any mounting bolts. I've heard that the newer timing guides aren't as wide. My friend Norm mentioned that he had heard of trouble with new production guides. Maybe this is some example of a "genius" redneck enginneer creating a new anti chain flopping device.

Here's a page I made about fixing a gas tank. http://warbuddies.homestead.com/gastank.html Some of the pictures at the bottom may be of help. You should be able to remove the filler neck and/or the sending unit and use a flashlight and mirror to sort it out. Try removing the filler plug and blow air through the tubes. You may be able to hear it coming from the end of the tube. Cheers Jim

That's a VERY cool find! Wonder what persuaded them to do a Z theme?

Here's a page I made for stuff like that.. Hope it helps. http://warbuddies.homestead.com/restohelp.html

Mine was lime but I painted it red because the wife said she hated the color. I think lime is a PERFECT color for the car. It fits the era and look of the car very well. Next time I repaint it's going back to lime.

Thank God only one person was hurt. That in itself is pretty amazing. Good to hear that your Z made it through. Natural disasters suck.

What steps have you taken to isolate whether it's a fuel or ignition problem?

I'm assuming you don't have welding equipment... You can aquire a used 110V MIG welder for a $100-150. Buy a 40cuft Argon/CO2 cylinder for a couple hundred with contents. (grab a spool of .023 wire too) It's easy to learn MIG. IMHO if you get a Z... especially one like that you'll need to do some welding. Perhaps you meant that you didnt want to do major structural repair. (frame rails etc) I was astonished to see a friends fathers five year old truck almost completely rusted away from northern driving. Poor guy had already replaced his brake lines and the his oil pan developed a rust hole! The $1500 Z's floor pans are toast BTW. I'd offer him $250 and use it soley for parts. 2c

Beautiful Z! Awesome find! You really saved yourself some effort in finding such a complete and well tended car. Did anyone else mention checking the gas tank for rust or giant varnish deposits? No telling what's happened inside the tank.

Do a search on this site. The gas tank issues have come up many times. Dropping the tank is easy. Putting it back in can be frustrating. The main hassle is getting the filler neck back on. Many posts on that too.

I was around 8 when I saw my first Z and remember thinking "now there's a COOL car"! Saved up my pennies and when I was 19 bought the car I was destined for. It was such a hard road getting to the goal of owning a 240 I cried in sheer happiness driving it home. I think the guy that owned it cried a bit too... he just had to have a better race trailer though. The car has a oneness with the road and communicates so well in so many ways. I'm at a loss as to how anyone can drive it and not realize the Z experience is very special. Mine takes me to and from work 80 miles every day and I still choose to turn down offers of a company vehicle in favor of the Z. Driving it is that much fun! In 22 years of ownership I can count on one hand the number of times the car has let me down... Only two times has it stranded me and required a tow. What more can be asked? It is and was a near perfectly designed/built car. Like Heston said, they'll have to pry my cold dead hands...

Ditto what Arne said... Gotta have a flowmeter. You'll be surprised how fine an adjustment it takes to sync the carbs. (fractions of a turn) You can adjust mixture without synchronizing but it's not the proper thing to do. You'll have three cylinders using a different volume of air than the other three. Without the carbs sync'd the usual "raise a carb piston" while running method won't work well. I suppose in a pinch you could make a flowmeter with the proper tools. It's much cheaper to buy one. I have often thought how nice it would be if our Z's had vaccum nipples like motorcycles. Then synchronizing would be as easy as hooking up a set of mercury gauges and would be much more accurate. A mercury gauge set is much more expensive than a flowmeter. As far as making the mixture richer there are several things affecting mixture when it comes to SU's. Assuming the fuel system is delivering properly to the bowls,the carb parts are within tolerances and the float level is right there are two things determining overall mixture... The nozzle adjustment and the needle. As you lower the nozzle by turning the adjusting wheel more fuel is administered. This is because the needle is tapered towards the base and is now permitting more fuel to pass. If you have completely bottomed the nozzle adjustment and the car is still running lean then you have other problems. Keep trying! You'll find it's a easy/fun car to maintain once you're familiar with it and have a few essential tools. There's a certain pride/feeling of accomplishment in owning a Z. The Z will teach you a LOT as well. It's changed my life for the better and I'm not the only one.

I'll echo a lot of what Dave said and add a little. If it were me I'd do it in a certain order. As far as the throttle sticking the linkage has a few places it can stick. If you remove the linkage from the carbs do the throttle plates move freely? Isolate the linkage or the carbs as the culprit. Rule out the ignition completely before tinkering much with the carbs. Verify that the plugs are clean and the points are new and set to the right gap. Use a dwell meter as a final check of your points setting. A dwell check can also show how much slop there is in the distributor bushings. When checking dwell verify that the rpms are correct otherwise the reading will be different from specs. Be sure the condenser is new as well. Doesn't hurt to have a new cap and rotor either. Supposing that the ignition system is good... If you DON'T have round top SU's ignore the rest of this post. I'm assuimg that since it's a 72 it does have what came with it. (Round T's) Flat tops are a different creature. With a proper ignition hard starting either warm or cold indicates inadequate fuel supply. (This gets deep sorry) After installing a new fuel filter do your normal SU carb maintenance. Clean the domes and pistons and verify free travel once all the screws are tightened. For the float bowls verify that the bowls are clean and that the needles/nozzles are clean and move freely. Do a search here for setting float height. There have been some really neat tricks and specs posted. One thing that caught my attention was a 70's dealer update to the factory specs of float height regarding differing heights of front and rear floats. (I think geezer posted that one) Here is one site with a different method for setting up carbs than I've been taught. Might be worth a try... http://datsunzgarage.com/engine/index.htm After the carbs have been cleaned and inspected and the floats set, do the usual mixture adjustment outlined in haynes and other manuals. If the hard starting still occurs then your fuel rail could be suspect. Don't enlarge the restrictive orifice at the discharge end when cleaning. It maintains your fuel pressure. Remove the rail from the car fill the rail with laquer thinner and blow with compressed air. Pay special attention to what comes out of the discharge end. If anything comes out at all clean the crap out of it. If the rail won't pass fuel then no amount of tinkering with the carbs will solve anything.