Mikes Z car

rossiz, Thanks for taking the time to post details and drawings of the layout for testing the toe, I need to check that on my car, haven't been able to understand the write ups others have done on this but yours makes sense to me (good drawings help!). I have been known to miss the obvious though. Captain, How does one establish baseline on the control arm bushings? Does that verify if they are soft enough they should be replaced? (edit later- to see if they are stuck apparently). My car doesn't have directional control the way my '71 Z did, either the rack bushings or the control arm bushings must need attention. The tie rod ends are good I believe from videoing them as I yanked the steering wheel back and forth.

Great video, though they didn't mention lower gas mileage with ethanol due to lower energy in it I have read about. I didn't know ethanol was an additional problem for small engines due to grit in the ethanol clogging the tiny passageways in the carbs. I don't know if this is true but I read that ethanol makers are going broke so they are lobbying for higher percentage of ethanol mandated for fuel to go up to 15%. Fortunately there are gas stations here who sell ethanol free gas. (ranting encouraged)

I notice about 5 of the crank main bearing bolts broke wondering how far the crank flexed as it popped those bolts off but even so the flexing might not have hurt it?

Mr Murphy's laws have been violated. Glad you escaped any inconvenience!

Not that anyone would necessarily want to but could the engine be fixed? Interesting pictures. Would metal fatigue explain the broken rod?

To me it looks like they were making sure all trapped air (some would be gas vapor) at the top of the tank is taken out of the tank and put in the evaporator tank, I assume for environmental reasons to prevent it from escaping to the atmosphere. Picture the tank rocking forward and back and side to side as might happen if the Z was going down the road or is parked on an incline as it is being filled with gas and how those vents are placed so that one is always at the top of any bubble of trapped air that might form. Why getting the trapped air out might be important I have no clue.

Holy crapola I never thought sand could travel that far. I saw a post on the net somewhere where someone lived close to a saltwater beach and they said they were always fighting rust though they didn't say anything about cars nor how close to the water they were.

Here is a related thread that may help http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/electrical-s30/52215-curious-problem-my-gauges%3B-question-about-wiring.html

This is a picture of a 1/1972 car evaporator tank laying on its side. The vent line heads for the gas tank after it exits the bottom of the fender next to the filler hose. The rubber vent line was pulled off of its connector on the evap tank before this picture was taken.

Interesting answers. Kansas. Now that is good. I guess my Z is already at risk and I didn't even know it. I better start packing to move further inland. heh heh. I didn't know fog could carry salt inland. I wonder what the film is that gets left on the windows. Just salt I guess. Half a mile? Wow that is a longer distance for salt to carry than what I thought it could do. I remember being on vacation at the seashore and noticing an outside circuit breaker box showing signs of corrosion. It was about 400 yards from salt water. Blue, I have wondered about cutting sheet metal out of JY newer cars to fix sheet metal on a Z due to better corrosion resistance.

How far does one have to park from the ocean to keep a car safe from salt water corrosion? Has anyone lived near salt water and seen corrosion from the water?

SteveJ, Was the park in the up position issue because the slot on the motor shaft was 180 out where the linkage goes over the motor shaft? Searching would be better but that is what I think I remember. Mike

madkaw, Here are pictures of the moustache bar spacing from a newer car, one made in 1/1972. Down in the pictures is towards the front of the car.

Air vent intake location: I wonder if a leaf blower could be aimed at the duct inside the car with a nylon stocking over the vent intake at the radiator to catch them as they exit. Should get a bowl full that way.

HuD 91gt, That is a very nice story and thank you for taking the time to type that in and share it! Mike

I wonder if it might be a local/distant switch for FM? If that is what it is it is puzzling that it can't be accessed with the cover on though.

That video is inspired! My first dream car, nice to see others like it. Amazing tribute. I enjoyed the enthusiasm of top gear, don't know the presenter's name. I assume at the end he was just faking the non start for the fun?

The Janitor, bartsscooterservice, Thanks for the great info, sounds like welding is the way to go. For now I am driving the car as a daily driver, great fun.

One intrepid experimenter mentioned in a thread a few years ago that they fixed the hiss by spreading RTV on the rubber diaphragm in the master vac to seal cracks in the rubber that were leaking. I don't know if the fix lasted a long time. I also don't know if they put RTV over the whole diaphragm or just the places where it cracked. I would think you would want to put the RTV on the side of the diaphragm exposed to atmospheric pressure as opposed to the vacuum side. And with that, that is all I know. The other thing is don't lose the reaction disk

That is a great close up picture! No hole in that one. I wonder if there was some sort of seal on that little round door that opens and closes when you pull open the vent that could be coming off? Doesn't make sense it would come off in round pieces though. I wonder if Mr. K would know.

thedarkie, You are welcome. I am not sure if you are thinking of fixing or replacing the sending unit and you didn't ask about this but be aware that on my sending unit I had two poor connections. One was a poor contact between the swing arm and the coil of wire it drags across which was fairly obvious. The other poor connection was between the swing arm and ground. I added a wire as per the blog below to make sure the swing arm was connected reliably to the"contact rivet" which is where the ground wire to the gauge connects. Mike Gas Tank sending unit modification - Blogs - Classic Zcar Club In an earlier post I did I said I didn't know what model car you have but just noticed you stated that in your first post. That will teach me to pay attention. heh heh.

There was one woman I dated before I got married who accused me of never having gotten out of grammar school. I assume that was a compliment. I didn't marry that one.

Great question! The picture below is the back of a 1972 Z car gas gauge. Ignoring the two large ammeter white wires (not visible in picture) whose gauge I would love to measure one connection is labeled IGN, another UNIT and the third one (the ground) has no label. I just tried connecting a 12 V power supply as indicated on the picture while a 90 ohm resistor was connected between ground and UNIT and the needle moved up to empty. A 10 ohm resistor made the gauge move up to full. For testing the ground all the way back to the gas gauge an easy way would be to connect a 10 ohm resistor across the two wires (I hope there are only two) at the tank connection to verify the gauge goes to full. I have noticed from reading posts that most problems with an erratic gas gauge reading are caused by the sending unit being bad. I fixed mine but I think a better approach is what most people do, replace the thing. I am not sure I answered your questions, if not ask more. I love killing off electrical gremlins. Interestingly my power supply made a slight noise when the gauge would thermally cycle and I could hear a slight click from inside the gauge when it cycled. I understand it has a thermal strip that moves back and forth but that is all I know about how it works. The needle slightly moved when I heard the click too. Mike

It has been my observation that many men have a well developed sense of humor, better or much better than what I usually see in women and that isn't intended to be a sexist remark. Why is that? I have pondered this mystery of life for decades. Maybe, er, it is necessary to understand women to figure that out? In that case I will never figure it out. As an example on my observation about humor how many threads have you seen on the internet like this one where women trade amusing comments? I haven't seen one yet.

Aha! The plot thickens. I went and looked at some pliers here and the ones I have are made in three pieces. The post in the middle is a separate piece. I imagine then that it is an interference fit on one end or the other, likely on the smaller end if one is smaller? I want to see another thread on an equally intriguing idea, the meaning of life...