FastWoman

I'm guessing that might be the fuel pump wiring. If memory serves me, the grommet on my car has a rubber "nipple" on it that seals tightly around the wire. Then I THINK I remember wiring tree tape wrapped around the nipple, making it very water tight. There's always silicone calk. You can get 3M's marine-grade 5200 in black. Good stuff. Very tough. Peace, Sarah

Try stringing a wire directly from the battery to the fuel pump, at least long enough to get you home.

Meats, you can buy a FSM used on Amazon pretty cheaply. The going price is about $80, as I recall, but I got mine for $24 in fairly marked up condition. (As long as the info is in it, I don't care whether it's pretty.) You can also find FSMs on Ebay. If you're old-fashioned like me, you'll appreciate having the book to lay out where you're working. Of course it's not as compact or as cheap as a download version! As I recall, the fusible links do jump between white (which is from the battery) and white/red (which runs to the various systems). Of course having ordinary wire in place of a fusible link is not a good thing. I'm wondering whether your fuel pump is going bad and fails when it gets hot. You might try testing it by running it without the engine running and seeing whether it keeps running. Try jumpering from the battery directly to the + post of the fuel pump (which won't risk overcurrent damage to any of the wiring in the car), and see what it does.

Just to be clear, I have a dash cap (a half cap). I pulled my tach on two occasions from the front. It took me a few min to carefully work the tach past the cap, but it can easily be done with a bit of care.

That probably beats anything anyone else on this list will get for Xmas!

What Steve and Tomo said! I don't know how the 240's tach is removed, but I suspect it's the same way -- one screw at the top front of the bezel, and one on the lower side behind the tach. The dash cap is a bit of a pain, but with a bit of care, you can shoe-horn the tach past the cap with a thin, well-worn screwdriver that you slide around the outside of the tach.

Is there any sort of coolant flush that would dissolve out corrosion, possibly freeing up any blockages? Maybe something acidic? It might be something a radiator shop could help you with.

I believe my quarter window louvers have been claimed! :-) Merry Christmas, all! Peace, Sarah

Good lord! More to the point, what did the problem turn out to be, Gibbie?

I'd say you can plug it in and try it. Your alternator should put out about 14.5V, give or take. If it does, then the VR is doing its job. The electromechanical VR is the correct type, BTW, at least from a restorative point of view. The solid state VR is probably the better unit from a standpoint of functionality. Personally, I'd pretty-up the solid state one and use it, stashing away the electromechanical one for later use.

The tach can jump (at least sometimes on some cars) when the cylinders misfire. That can cause premature termination of the spark, such that all the pent-up energy rings at high voltages in the ignition coil. That results in double-triggering of the tach. If you straighten out your running problems, the tach will probably stop jumping. It sounds like fuel starvation to me too. It could also be a failing fuel pump.

Yeah, that's what the VR from my '75 looked like (on the right). Your original part must be a solid state unit. It sort of looks like the difference between the old electromechanical VR in my Mustang and the solid state unit that replaced it. Is the electrical connector the same? Same color codes in each connector position?

After a lot of soul searching, as well as consultation with my better half (who also drives the car occasionally), I'm thinking the car alarm approach is not the way to go. My biggest fear is that the car is driven off and taken on a destructive joy ride. I can recover from a broken window, mangled door, mangled ignition lock, snipped wires, stolen stereo, and/or mangled center console. My insurance would cover it, and I would get back to where I was. What I can't recover from is a totally trashed car. I've decided to go with a (not so) simple engine enable mechanism that will not have the obnoxious attributes of a car alarm. Just for fun, I'll also wire in a dummy "deafeat switch" somewhere that triggers the horn on a self-keeping relay that is only deactivated with the real enable mechanism. I've decided the sound of the Z's horn is unique enough, and I'd be well notified by the thief's error. At that point I'll be hitting speed-dial, and the race will be on. Will the thief get past my friends at the end of the block? Will the sheriff head him off at the pass? Lots of guns and law enforcement where I live. Living on a peninsula with one way in and one way out has its advantages.

Well, if it walks like a duck, acts like a duck, and quacks like a duck....

Yeah, I agree that it's a broken exhaust manifold stud or a blown out piece of exhaust gasket material. That happened to the 318 in our boat. It sounded like a valve problem, and my immediate thought was "Oh no, I'm going to have to rebuild a head." (It really sounded bad.) However, a bit of poking around quickly revealed the problem. The sound was apparently from the manifold tapping against the head with each exhaust stroke. Obviously it got louder as the engine was put under load. If you do have an exhaust leak, it can erode material from the head and manifold over time, and if you let the leak get bad enough, you'll have a possible carbon monoxide or fire risk.

Sounds like a restoration to me, but then again, I'm not a purist.

Nah, you don't want to be the ubiquitous kid in a Honda with a loud muffler. That would be sooooooo cliche! (No offense, BeeBee!) No, there's something very cool about a vintage sports car, whether American, Japanese, or any other nationality. Good choice!

I'm pretty sure the '76 has a mode door that diverts air flow either to the heater core or to the AC's evaporator coil. (At least that's how my '78 is configured.) On the 78, the door is controlled by vacuum lines. I'm pretty sure the vacuum lines on my '78 were original, and they were cracked/broken in a few places. None of my vacuum operated parts were functioning. I strung new lines and restored my system to full functionality. It wasn't a fun job, but it wasn't that hard either. If you don't have one, you should get a copy of the Nissan factory service manual for your car. You can order one used on Amazon (my recommendation), or you can download a free electronic copy online. I'm sure someone else will have a useful link for you, as well as information more specific to the '76. Good luck!

76flz, I think you're getting some good advice here. I got the same advice when I bought a 6 cyl '68 Mustang and a partially rebuilt 302 from a friend. My mechanic informed me the 302 was junk and not worth finishing. The body was OK but had a LONG way to go. The advice I got was to find a very nice Mustang that someone had already dumped a lot of money into and was selling below their cost. I sold the '68 for what I had in it, and I found a 289 '66 (more desireable year) with matching numbers that was being unloved. I picked up the '66 about $2000 below appraisal. I added AC and PB, but didn't have to do much else. I kept it, enjoyed it, and eventually sold it for about $3000 over my costs, which made it a better investment than any of my "responsible" investments of late (in stocks and real estate). That said, I did make one mistake. The car was too perfect and required so little work that I never really "bonded" with it. My '78 Z (successor to my Mustang) is not as perfect and needs *some* TLC. However, it's basically a very nice car. Its strength is its body, which is a great match for me, since my weakness is body work. Its weakness is its mechanical and electrical components, which is where my strength lies. Therefore I'll keep plugging away happily at the mechanicals and electricals, bonding with the machine. In the end, I'll probably put in more time and money than the car will be worth, but it will be a car I will enjoy far more than the mustang. So maybe the third time is the charm -- "just right," as it were.

I've used baby oil to remove adhesive on delicate surfaces. More aggressive would be diesel fuel. More aggressive still, gasoline or mineral spirits. Then lacquer thinner. None of these will damage a polymer finish (e.g. polyurethane). However, any of them will damage old-fashioned paint to a greater or lesser extent. If it's the old-fashioned stuff, I probably wouldn't use anything more aggressive than diesel oil.

Yes, there are cables and vacuum lines that open and close doors to direct airflow to the correct places. It's hard to say much beyond that. As Dave said, we need a year.

I have no idea where you would start, but.. Yes, the fuse amps have to be the same, and the wire for each circuit has to be the same gauge or heavier. The best advice I can give you is to use new connectors from this source: http://www.vintageconnections.com/ Whatever connectors you can't find can be reclaimed from the old wiring harness with a bit of care. (It's tedious!) Make yourself a little tool to undo the catch clips on the individual connectors in the connector assemblies. The tool should be a stiff, flattened wire that you shove into the clip to release it. The connector will slide out with the wire from the back of the assembly. Hopefully you can buy new connectors to be crimped/soldered and inserted into the assembly. If not, carefully hold/secure each old connector, and spread its metal tabs, removing the wire. This can sometimes be done by jamming a small nail down the wire path, and it can also sometimes be done by spreading the tabs with tiny wire snips "clipping" between the tabs. Clean it in Tarn-X, and rinse in distilled water. Crimp a new wire into the connector, and sweeten with solder, being careful not to get solder into the mating part of the connector. Reposition the catch clip, and re-insert into the connector assembly. Good luck! I'd love to see pics!

For anyone interested in Geof's rear louvers, I have a set of black plastic louvers such as pictured in Bart's post (#45). (Hey, it's a late 70's kinda thang!) They should be pretty cheap to ship.

There are companies that can re-cover your dash, and there's even a method described somewhere on this list to fill the crack (with pretty good results). However, that's the least of your problems. If you have no auto experience, you might try having a mechanic look at the car to give you some idea what is required to get it running. I wouldn't advise disassembling the car without a plan or reason to do so.

Hi again, Leonard, Mine is a 78, not a 77, so I don't know if there are differences between our systems. There are TWO, not one, stopcocks that control water flow in the 78. The first is vacuum actuated, and it is used to turn water flow either fully on or fully off. Its purpose is to allow temperature control in the AC position without actually introducing engine heat (a nice feature, IMO). This valve receives its vacuum from the vacuum control switch (the mode switch) and should receive vacuum in any of the heat settings. The vacuum control switch can become leaky as its grease hardens and gets dirty. (Mine was leaky.) You can pull it apart, clean it, re-grease, and reassemble with minimum difficulty. Just be sure to mark all your positions. As I recall, there are a couple of notches on the valve parts that line up in the defrost position (???). The second stopcock is opened and closed gradually via the temp control wire. If you can blow air through your core without the engine running (i.e. no vacuum), then I'd say your vacuum actuated stopcock might be stiff/frozen and stuck open. It might sometimes get stuck in the closed position too. If you follow the vacuum line into the recesses of your dash, you can feel the thing and confirm by feel whether it's opening and closing properly. You'll need to have the engine running, of course.