Cxracer

Do you happen to remember if the threaded plug was NPT (tapered National Pipe Thread) or was is something metric? The 2 with vacuum hose attachments seemed to fit 10mm x 1.0m threads on the thread tester at OHS but they didn't carry anything with such fine threads (only 10mm x 1.25). I checked at Kragens and they thought it was 3/8" NPT and not metric. I haven't even checked to see what I could plug the larger one with.

I'm trying to plug the 3 ports on my crossover tube to delete the smog stuff on my 72 with a 75 engine and mix of SU carbs. Can't seem to find what will go into these and close them up.

I had a friend come over and he held the distributor to make sure it was pointing to cylinder 1 while I carefully guided the timing rod up into place and then put the oil pump back in. I'll need his help again when the new gasket comes but for now everything should be lined up (I hope). If the timing was off by one tooth, how far off would the distributor point? Right now it's pointing straight to the front of the car where the radiator would be. After that, I removed the oil pan and clink, clank, there was the end of the drill bit!! Now after the oil pump and oil pan gaskets show up and I heli-coil the hole to hold on the timing chain inspection plate, I'll be back where I started last Sunday:stupid: In the end I didn't have to raise the engine to get the pan off. I guess I'll see if I have issues getting it back on but there seemed to be just enought space. The only thing I unbolted was the sway bar frame mounts so I could get enough clearance to remove the oil pump. The drill bit was about 2 inches long so it might have dropped to the bottom of the pan and stayed there out of harms way, but who knows. Now I don't have to worry about it. Thanks for everyone's help. I'm sure I'll have more questions when I get closer to starting up the engine.

Ya, as soon as I took out the oil pump and the shaft dropped out I knew I was in trouble. So far I haven't cranked the engine with it out so my plan was to try to put it back together before I turn the engine. I just wanted to make sure the drill bit end wasn't in the oil pump since I would think that would quickly kill the engine.

Thanks for the tips. I might be a hair off since I haven't checked through the spark plug hold. I'm just wondering if there would be something mechanically locking the oil pan in place if I'm so close to TDC or if I should just put more force on the non-drive side of the pan to pop it loose from the block. Someone mentioned not to pry too much on the oil pan so that's what I'm trying to avoid.

I turned the crank before pulling the oil pump. I'm thinking I'll put the oil pump back in before moving the crank. Is there also a mark to line up with or only look through the spark plug hole?

OK, so far I've managed to get the magnet out from the top by pulling the valve cover and fishing around with a magnet on a flexible shaft. The magnet had an LED on the end. Best tool ever! After that I decided to pull off the oil pump before I removed the oil pan in hopes that I could find the drill bit near that opening. No luck. I could see all of one side with the LED lit magnet from the top and the other I could feel around with my finger up through the hole for the oil pump. It must have dropped down into the pan after all. I got all of the bolts off the pan and the driver side came free easily but the passenger side is not separating from the bottom of the block. I can't tell if it is being held on by the gasket or if it is caught on something in the bottom of the engine. How do I find TDC on a '75 280 engine? I've lined the single notch on the crank pulley up with the 0 mark on the timing plate on the engine. I'm assuming this is wrong, so what mark should I line it up with?

Thanks everyone for the words of wisdom. I'll be giving it a shot this week. First I'll hit all the bolts on the pan with some liquid wrench so I don't go breaking more bolts. Once the pan is off, what sort of access do I have up and around the timing chain to find the parts?

I had a bad Sunday afternoon. I would have made a lot more progress on getting my car up an running if I never went into the garage. I now have half a drill bit and a magnet somewhere in the front of the engine. I've been installing a L28 engine into my 72 240 for about 2 years now. Yes, it has been a slow project, just ask my wife whose car this will ultimatly be. Anyway, yesterday as I was prepping the inlet and outlet housings to change from 280 to 240 peices I broke a bolt off on the front of the head that was holding a coolant tube that was going from the thermostat housing to the outlet tube. It was one of the three 6mm bolts that hold the timing chain inspection port cover in place on the head. I tried drilling and extracting but even after soaking it in liquid wrench for an hour it was still so stuck that my extractor's tip broke off. I tried drilling out with a larger bit and eventually decided I'd have to tap it. Unfortunatly I didn't have much room to fit the drill in front of the radiator frame cross member (obviously I pulled the radiator and fan) and I guess the side load of the bit made it snap and it shot through the head and into the cavity where the timing chain runs.:stupid: I got the plate off and tried to lower a magnet down into the cavity in hopes of pickign up the drill bit but succeeded in having the magnet catch hold of something and pull it's self loose of the extender it was on. My question is: Is it possible to pull the oil pan from the bottom of the engine while it is still in the car? My only hope is that if I can get the oil pan off I might be able to fish the parts out from the bottom. Otherwise, I'm going to have to get a new engine and start all over. I picked up this car without an engine and my wife was conserned from the start that it was going to be too much of a problem in terms of time and money to get it running. At this point I think I have done a very good job of proving her right.:disappoin

I'm trying to put SU carbs on a 280 engine that I put into my 72 240. The PO had a 4 barrel carb conversion that deleted all the pedal to carb linkages and I now have a bunch of parts I've found but no reference as to how they all go together. Honestly, I need a good kick in the arse more than anything else since the car has been sitting in my garage for close to 2 years and I have made minimal progress. I would be great to find a few local Z guys willing to come by and point me in the right direction and help motivate me to dive back in. I haven't stumbled across any Bay Area Z clubs that are still active. If you know of any in the San Jose Area, let me know.

T-Hill is fun. I'll be going there in the miata on April 30th with NCRC (don't have my Z up and running yet) How did the race weekend go?

Hi Arne, Thanks for the pictures. Do you know if these are still availble for sale as new parts or is my only hope to dig them out of a parts car?

Nope, they only sell the boots, bolts, etc but not the actual assembly http://www.blackdragonauto.com/icatalog/z/full.aspx?Page=29 Anyone know where I can find the full assembly?

In my continuing quest to install my first engine in a car I am lining up the parts to drop a 75 2.8l engine in my 72 240z. Unfortunately, the previous owner and friend had converted the original 2.4l engine to a 4 barrel carb set up with too large a carb that ended up over revving and breaking. I am putting SU carbs onto my the 75 2.8l engine that I found but all the original linkage from the accelerator to the carb assembly is gone. I have the linkage on the carbs themselves that ends at the U shaped part with the hole in it. What I am missing is the assembly that runs from the accelerator to the through the firewall and twists the U shaped part to actuate the carbs. What I have in its place is a housing stop at the fire wall and a braded cable running though it and attaching to the top of the accelerator pedal. I am going to the junk yard this weekend in hopes of finding the right parts but I don't know what I am looking for. I saw in another posting that links for the 240z is different from the 260z and 280z so I want to know that I'll come back with the right parts. Can someone take some clear picture of the parts that go through the fire wall and the linkage that converts the pulling motion of the top of the accelerator pedal to the twisting motion needed at the carb linkage? I've attached pictures of what I have now. Also if you know of any other source for these parts at a reasonable cost please let me know. I haven’t seen them listed anywhere.

I'm finally back on my 240z resurrection project and have stripped the header and exhaust manifolds off the '75 280 engine I have. I never had an engine in the 240z that I bought to compare but I'm not sure where this tube is going to connect once the engine is in place. I am putting SU carbs on the engine and do not plan to run the water heating through the carbs since I live in CA where it is never cold enough to worry about heating the carbs. I have included a picture of the tube that sticks out of the side of the engine and attached to the intake manifold that I took off. Also, I found out that I only have 1 of the 2 brackets that bolts to the block of the engine and attaches it to the motor mounts. If anyone in the San Jose, CA area has a spare one of these brackets I’d love to get it from you so that can drop the engine in and start hooking things up.

Yes, I plan to put the 4 barrel intake up for sale soon.

Bruce, I'm on a bit of a budget right now and I'd like to learn more about carbs anyway so I figure rebuilding a set will be good for me. Should I change the needle size for the 2.8L engine or should I stay with the stock size in the carbs I have now?

Dave, My project is coming along pretty slowly but I'll let you know what I have once I get the car running.

Hi Bruce, So are the 4 screw carbs better than the 3 screw type? What rebuild kit would you suggest I get to make them reliable?

I have been doing some searching but not finding anything specific to my current situation. I'm replacing the L2.4 engine in the '72 240 I bought last summer from my friend. He had installed a 4 barrel carb intake with a carb that was too large (600CFM) and it got stuck open and over reved the engine causing major internal damage. So... I picked up a '75 280z engine with the fuel injection intake on it. I want to pull of the FI and install SU carbs (after reading opinions here on the site). I now have 3 different pairs of SU carbs and intakes (don't ask). They all seem to have different intake headers and spacing and I'm sure they all will need a little TLC so I intend to get a rebuild kit from Z-Therapy but I only want to deal with rebuilding one set. Can anyone tell me the best set of carbs out of the batch I have to rebuild and install on the 280z engine I have based on the pictures attached? The intakes say E46, N33, N36 on them but as far as I can tell they are all "round top" style SUs. I intend to strip off as much of the emissions stuff to simplify things since my car is CARB exempt and I live in CA so cold weather starts aren't too much of an issue.

That would be great to get me up and running. I could even give you my FedEx account from work to make shipping them down easy. I'll figure out how to send you a PM.

Yes, that was a typo. It's a 75 280z engine. Since I don't have an ECU from a 280 and I don't want to deal with all the issues of getting the fuel injection running I will stick with carbs. At this point I just want to get it up and running and then I will start looking at fixing up the paint etc.

I bought a 72 240z over the summer from my friend who had it parked for a couple of years after breaking his engine. The engine is out of the car and I have a 280z sitting on an engine mount on the side of the house that I plan to put in the car. Since the engine has been sitting for a couple months I noticed an oil leak so I plan to do some maintenance on it before I attempt to put it into the car. When I picked up the engine the guy I purchased it from said it came out of a 95 280z with 55K miles. He was swapping in a V8. Does anyone have any good suggestions on what service work I should do on the engine while I have it up on the stand? Also, the original engine had a 4 barrel conversion and I have read that this may cause problems on a standard street driven engine. Also since he had a 650CFM carb (which cause his engine failure) I would have to buy the proper 390CFM carb. I wondering if I would be better off finding original side draft carbs and intake header? It would be great to find a few early Z car experts in South San Jose that might be willing come by and take a look at what I have and point out what I might need to get the car running again. Thanks, Andy

Well I had to call off the sale. My house sprung a leak and it looks like I am going to have to take my fist full of dollars and plug the hole! :mad::disappoin

I was able to call DMV today and found out that the car has $380 in back reg fees and penalties!!! (No lean against it at least) It doesn't look like it is going to be cheap to get it over the hill from Santa Cruz to my house. All told with the price of the car, back reg, towing, etc I'm looking at more than double the sale price of the car (almost $1,200) for a car that isn't running and needs a lot TLC to get it up and going. What would you do?