Jennys280Z

You're right, but I'm hoping that the valve adjust will get me into that zone. If I'm 16.5 pre valve-adjust I'll be happy. Believe me it's a subjective emotional affair, and my happiness is often irrational I am putting it off because I'm scared. Maybe I have an unnatural fear of working on cars! :stupid: I'm always scared to push on a wire I don't know about (like the ones under the AFM housing ). Sometimes scared to get under the car. sigh But I'm still doing stuff to the car that I'm going to do anyway, so I might as well get this stuff done. Like new spark plugs, cap and rotor! I read on this site to stick with the same brand name for both distributor cap and rotor - at the very least, to make sure the air gap is within specs. I noticed at an online parts store that Beck Arnley and Standard make the OE replacement parts, while other cheaper names like Daiichi and YEC are not OE. (hmmmm...actually the Daiichi and YEC have a higher suggested retail price than the aforementioned brands (37 vs $28) but the discounts on them are far steeper. This looks like marketing gimmickry to me though.) But isn't Bosch an OE Replacement too? I see Blackdragon has Bosch caps and rotors and their prices are good. Their prices for the clutch hydraulic parts were in-line with other stores too (about $30 per clutch cylinder). Do you guys have any personal recommendations for cap/rotor brand? It won't read different. Just quicker to put on and take off Cool! I'm going in that way, from now on.

Here are the NGK spark plug guides for us. Using the chart attached below, we see that the NGK BPR6ES spark plug (for example) refers to: B - 14mm Thread Size and 13/16" Hex Size P - Projected Tip R - Resistor Type 6 - Heat Rating (2 = hot, 12 = cold) E - 19mm Thread Reach S - Standard 2.5mm center electrode

There's remanufactured ones from Centric it looks like...though the warranty is not good. You can opt for an extended warranty from these places but I don't know how much they cost. Still, $93 after the core is refunded is cheap imho. http://www.partstrain.com/store/details/Nissan/260Z/Centric/Brake_Booster/1974/CE160-dot-88031.html?ptc=S1171391678W45d204bec356b&ptcenissan260z19741974centricce160.8803189384274brbo

Great torque advice cozye and dobber. Thanks! I'll test the vacuum out of the brake booster one more time just for consistency's sake after I change out my plugs and retard the timing to ~11 BTDC. If I'm seeing over 16.5 inHg I'll close this thread as successful and switch my focus to my valve adjustment thread. But I like the idea of going in with a T at the FPR so I'll make some little hoses of the right length for that purpose. I'm wondering if vacuum may read a little differently at that spot vs. the rear of the intake manifold where I've been testing at. xx

Little mini-update. I started and drove the car for at least 30 minutes last night. The brake pedal got far looser after starting the motor and activating the new booster for the first time. It felt pretty much exactly like switching from regular brakes to power brakes. I used to have a '72 Cutlass with regular brakes so I know how it feels to have to put some leg into stopping a car. Per cozye I will do a final bleeding at all six bleeder valves in the proper order. I still have to look see how much of a contortionist I have to be to bleed at the wheels with the car on its wheels. I've been handicapped on brakes for so long, I had a really good time driving the car with good brakes again. Thanks again to all who helped me. As for my AFM work, the car ran a little bit richer than it was before. My throttle response was good but the car lurches too much, and is still raspy sounding at low RPMs. I noticed it most of all at 1400 RPM in 3rd gear. Sounds like a helicopter but smooths out audibly at higher RPMs. Whether the car performs better with the AFM adjustment, I don't know. The motor sounded a little too "crackly" if that makes sense. Maybe with my enrichment of the AFM back to baseline, 14 degrees of advance is too much? I didn't hear a single backfire while driving last night but I swore when I was driving it, it sounded as if it was close to backfiring a couple times. I'm going to dial back to 11-12 anyway but I wondered if 14 was better when running lean, and now 10 is better for running proper air/fuel? Also my spark plugs are like 15 years old. They barely have any miles on them because the car was asleep in a garage for almost 10 years. They *look* fine but could the 10 years of storage have created an internal defect? I have some NGK BPR7ES plugs here that I haven't put on yet. I was saving them for the valve adjustment but now I am thinking about putting them on in a few days and readjusting the timing. I could also see if my brand new torque wrench actually works at low settings of torque like 15. I need to be extra careful here though. I read reviews of my particular torque wrench that say it doesn't work at lower torque settings, that is, it doesn't automatically release when it hits the desired torque. This kind of thing could cause a newbie like me to overtighten a plug and ruin my block...just thinking out loud guys. I didn't have a vacuum gauge attached at all last night. I was always connecting at the booster but the booster was connected for my drive so I was too lazy to plug it in somewhere else. I still have the "cold idle" issue. But after driving it for 30 minutes and pulling back in the garage, the idle was smooth as a razor at around 850-900RPM. No visible black smoke.

This website is a blessing for sure. Probably the best site on the entire internet as it turns out for me, because of some wonderful wonderful people here! I'm still on the tip of the iceberg here searching for treasures posing as discussions hehe I cleaned every connection in the picture of connectors from AtlanticZ but "If it's oxidized" is a great question. For me it was immediately obvious just looking at the differences between the connectors on the fuel injectors for instance. I started out with #6 because that was the easiest one to get to and looked carefully at each connection. #6 looked like clean metal on first inspection. A light brush or two with sandpaper and it looked exactly the same. Nothing came off on the sandpaper. A big shot of Deoxit and then onto the next one. By the time I got to the last connectors the difference was huge. There was thick green oxidation covering both the male and female metal. So the idea was to get that off, and make the connector look clean like #6. The connectors on the ECU looked so good I didn't do anything but Deoxit them. The connectors on the water housing by the thermostat were obviously gunky, as was my oil pressure sensor (my oil pressure rarely went past 0 before cleaning that - now it moves much more normally yaay), so I guess the unspoken method I was subconsciously using to do this task is to apply the minimal amount of friction force necessary to get the connectors clean. Probably a good methodology to start low and come up as needed. But you're right, you need a frame of reference like I described with the fuel injectors. It's a relative universe after all. There's other connectors I want to clean that I haven't yet. I'm having a problem with one of my license plate bulbs now. The bulb was shot (filament was off) so I replaced it but it still won't come on. I see it attached to the harness but don't see any other connectors to clean. So I'm at a bit of a loss as what to do from here. I build my own desktops so I have a bit of experience related to yours as well. But other than that, that's about it for handling electronic gizmos. FastWoman is like a queen around here to me btw. I do whatever she says (unless I'm scared to).

Thank you so much you're a saint!

Good point, but a good rule of thumb is don't sand down anything that isn't oxidized. I've found you don't have to scratch the metal connectors to sand the oxidation off. If your connector looks clean enough you might not have to break the sandpaper out at all half the time. An inspection and at least a good lathering in Deoxit is worth it. My thesis for my own car at this moment is that cleaning all of the EFI connectors (sans the fuel injectors themselves) shown on that AtlanticZ page introduced a lean running condition for my car. Which led me to my AFM which led me to notice it was tampered with to run leaner. The main reason to clean your electrical connectors is you will be working on your engine's performance from a "clean slate" that could result in making diagnoses easier. Getting back to "stock" is a good first direction to take imho. I was reading on your other thread I didn't realize it was so frowned upon to just idle your car in the winter. I'll have to take mine out for longer jogs from now on.

Here are some good cleaning instructions you will want to reference before proceeding: http://www.atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/electricalconnections/index.html I had a lot of green oxi-crust in the connectors near the front of the engine including @ the #1 and #2 fuel injectors. The C-clips on the fuel injectors are a lot easier to work with than the G-clips found elsewhere.

Will my pedal get any spongier with my motor on, do you think?

Okay But I want to take my car for a test drive first. Mainly because, I have a new booster I am aching to test it fully before sending Geek the core back.

OMG those look exactly like the ones I have on my MC now.

Also, your electrical connectors are very fragile so be extra delicate with them. That's more important than losing a clip. I should have mentioned that first thing.

This will do it: http://www.parts-express.com/pe/showdetl.cfm?Partnumber=341-200 It's fun to use. Your connectors "sizzle" for a second after spraying it on. D5 worked great for me on the Z. I use it around the house too. It's fixed weak and intermittent connections on my Z, assured good clean connections on my FI, and fixed items in my household, like my kitchen timer, which was outputting garbage data even on a fresh battery till it got the Deoxit. Now it's been running perfectly for months.

See then I'm just not an experienced bleeder. Among other things, I was turning the wrench too far when loosening the valve. I do remember as I was bleeding, when I only loosened the wrench a little, I would see the tip of the tube twitch a little bit as it was submerged in fluid and zero bubbles came out. I was sending pure fluid into that jar and the fluid level in the jar has risen considerably. After bleeding each side of the master cylinder twice, I went into the car and felt the brake pedal and it was still spongy. But, after bleeding many more times (was only pumping the pedal three times between bleeds) I checked the pedal and it's maybe tighter than ever. Doesn't this assure me that the brakes are successfully bled? How else can you notice air in your lines if not with a loose pedal? If you think my brakes will only be 90% of what they could be if I don't bleed my wheel cylinders or something....then I'll bleeping do it. And yep, one of my earliest questions about the brake booster was whether I could take it off without removing the MC from the brake lines. I didn't get anyone saying I could, and none of the manuals suggest that I can, so I just went with it being something I had to do. I didn't want to do it. Brake fittings are one of my most hated of all gizmos.

Cool! I was sorta thinking that might be the case.

You can see a stud is crooked in the photograph of the booster above, before putting the MC on. Did Parts Geek geek me on a bad part at a reduced price? Anyhoo, I'm also thankful for running into this bit of advice! http://www.ehow.com/how_7585213_remove-key-lock-datsun-280z.html

Yeppers. A can of compressed air is good to have on hand too, as you can blow out loose particulate matter after sanding but before spraying. The metal clips are already on your connectors, "locking" them in place. Make sure you don't drop any when removing/installing them. The coolant temp sensor and thermotime switch have G-clips which hug all four corners of the connector so they are more difficult to remove/install. A tiny slot screwdriver is the best tool I've found for removing the clips. Make sure you don't drop them in the engine bay or lose them when you have them off the car. Irreplaceable devils, they can be.

Sage advice cozye! My FSM says only to bleed at the master cylinder. Which is what I did. The brakes are tight, tighter than ever maybe. The pedal only goes half way down if that, with just typical foot pressure. I want to run the motor and get some motor vacuum through this new booster, and (if my motor even starts ) make sure my part isn't defective. It's making some noise and that bothers me a little. It'd be as good as silent vs. the noise of the engine running though. Also the studs on the front of it didn't look straight (normal) to me. One of them seemed to be protruding from the face of the booster at a slight angle. The bolts went on easily enough though, so I dunno. You've got me wondering Cozy, with the motor running, will the brake pedal get a lot softer than it is now? And also, how many times might bleeding be necessary? In the bleeding operation shouldn't I expect to see gradually less bubbles with time? I figured with the air that I introduced from having the master off, bleeding both front and rear 2-3 times would have been sufficient. I ended up doing it 7-8 times and there was as many bubbles the 8th time as the 1st. Though they took awhile to come out in the jar (because they had just begun traveling down the tube as I opened the valve). I think the thing that gave me difficulty was the bleeder screws on the master seemed to get loose very quickly. So much so, that if my wrench on a tight bleeder was pointed at 10 'oclock, if I took the wrench to 1 or 2'oclock I was already introducing air. No further than 12'oclock, or I wouldn't have a successful bleed. There must be some negative pressure built up seems to want to suck air in through the valve and push it down the tube. Maybe I'm just kidding myself and am interpreting my experiences wrong. I'm a newbie and I'll have newbie problems like this...which is why this website rocks, btw. :classic: How much torque should I put on the firewall bolts and master cylinder bolts btw? I didn't torque anything down so to eliminate noises maybe I should apply a "final" tightening on everything? Anyone with a guesstimate of torque for these?

Unless I can do that by hand, I'll just find the cylinders to buy and replace the ones I have now.

I just bled the brakes. Well I think I did at least. I think I was opening up the bleeder screw(s) too much and letting air into it while bleeding, so I had to repeat the process too many times. Presuming I did this, it seems that the air intake through the bleeder expelled out the jar easily enough. The pressure from the fluid in the system was likely pushing it out quickly like that. But, I gave up in frustration when bubbles wouldn't stop coming out. But then I felt the pedal with my foot and it feels tight. *shrugs* I heard a weird groaning sound coming from my booster the first few times I bled the brakes (we pushed on the brake pedal) too. I hope that's normal. I haven't had any motor vac going through it yet. Will connect my battery and start the motor in a few days *crosses fingers*

Per Tom Monroe, an L-block that burns a quart of oil every 600 miles or less is unacceptable oil consumption. Thus, a quart every 1000 or so is fine. Through proper maintenance you could improve that further without worrying about rebuilds yet.

Thanks cozye I'll check them out. I have BlackDragon's prices as a frame of reference so far. If I buy a new master cylinder, slave cylinder and hose it'll cost about $70 plus shipping. However, they have rebuild kits for the cylinders. If I buy the repair kits and the hose it's only $35 plus shipping. There are no pictures of just what these repair kits are...but if it's simple stuff like rubber washers and o-rings and stuff I could probably do that myself, right?

argniest, buy some Deoxit D5 Electrical Contact Cleaner. It costs money. But just do it. Inspect your electrical connectors closely. Some 320 or 400 grain sandpaper...I wrap little pieces of sandpaper around the tip of a tiny flathead screwdriver and it works great. Deoxit both ends of all connectors. Pull them off and on a few times after spraying, then just leave them doused in the cleaner as you install their locking metal G-clips. PS It takes awhile for it to dry so don't start running your motor right after using this stuff. http://cgi.ebay.com/Caig-DeoxIT-D5-Series-Spray-100-Contact-Cleaner-NEW-/330516786337?pt=DJ_Gear_Lighting&hash=item4cf455eca1 Note the title says D5 but the picture in the ad shows D100. I've had great luck with the D5, and have used most of the can. I'll buy more if this one runs out.

Ramps scare me. Okay? I admit it. But I don't like how high my jack stands makes me jack my car up either. I feel safe when I'm under the jack stands (though I've learned i have a mild claustrophobia) I wish I had an elevated surface that was also really long I could easily drive up onto. Or better yet, one of those garages like they have at Minute Lube where I can stand up straight and access the bottom of my car! Why don't they rent garages like that out by the hour, btw? I'm sure crazy people like us would fill that niche of the market.