Captain_Zeros

Hah, so I'm not the only one with that same exact issue. "I know it says empty! Just freakin' trust me okay?"

This is whats going on in my '73 Z. Everything comes out of the harness by the coil. The ballast resistor lowers the amount of power going to the coil when the key is in the run position so you don't burn out your points in your distributor super fast, but the ignition switch bypasses it when it's in the start position so you can get a hotter spark to start the engine easier. (Points and a ballast resistor go together, for instance if you swap out for a 280zx transistorized points-less distributor, or some other system that recommends bypassing the resistor, then you are supposed to bypass the ballast resistor because it's designed to run at full voltage all the time 'cause it has no reason not to.) PS: just to confirm, disregard if you already knew this, but the big rectangular block is the ballast resistor and the little round can with one wire going to it is just a little capacitor (the old timey car word is "condenser") to help suppress spikes in the electrical system from the coil making and dropping magnetic fields and high voltage all the time that might, for instance, be audible through a car stereo.

The coil wiring looks and sounds right off the top of my head. The 3 way vacuum hose bit is part of the gas tank vapor recovery and crank case ventilation system, it's hooked up like so:

My car is apart right now! I threw calipers on 'em and yeah, the shoulder of the bolt is 9 mm. Edit: and yeah, there were no washers on my car, just the two bolts through from the top and a nut on the bottom of each.

these are the bits I'm missing. The smaller washers look fairly generic, and I don't think they'd have any affect on the compliance of the bushings, maybe a hair of influence on castor angle, I figure those I can probably find at the local hardware store. The big washers are my real problem. Used is no problem, they shouldn't be a wear part and 90% of my car is 40 years old so hey.

Yeah, I checked that before posting and while it's definitely plan B, I'd just prefer not to crawl around under a precariously balanced car in the mud with a half inch breaker bar if somebody here can help me out first. I was really hoping somebody had a line on new plastic ball and socket balls, as those shouldn't be more than a few bucks a piece and it's really all I need.

Welp, I miscalculated parts, and turns out I don't actually have enough of any one thing to put my car together properly. My car unbeknownst to me had a ball and socket kit put on the tension rods some time loooong before I got it, and the plastic balls are heavily worn. The drivers side ball is pretty disintegrated. I have: -one set of energy urethane bushings complete with metal tubes that goes through them (which I think is the same dimensions as the stock ones I don't have, if somebody could confirm or deny that'd be great) -one set of rubber bushings, rubber only. (what I intended to use in the first place) -one pair of ball and socket tension rod upgrade parts installed with busted balls. Frankly I don't have the budget right now to grab a whole new set of ball and sockets for $35 plus shipping or I'd do that, but the way I figure with the pile of stuff I already have I'm either A) new plastic balls (which I have no idea where to even get those if they're available) or a pair of the specialty large flat washers (anybody have spare ones? They should be a cheap part but I can't find anywhere that'll mail me a pair for a reasonable price and without buying a big pile of MORE tension rod bushings I already have duplicates of) away from having a running and driving Z again. Help?

Don't rule out vapor lock due to cool fuel lines. If the lines are obstructed much (eg, dirty filter) it can cause cavitation and little bubbles of vapor in the line that the pump can't pump just like a boiling fuel vapor lock. Not saying it's for sure a fuel issue, I don't know my butt from a hole in the ground on the fuel injected Zs, but I wouldn't rule it out so quickly without a fuel pressure gauge.

You can pull the distributor without upsetting the oil shaft no problem, and in fact it actually won't properly go in 180 degrees out because the key in the shaft is slightly off center. You can, however, put the distributor cap on the dizzy body 180 off though if yours isn't keyed (I have one that is and a spare that isn't, go figure). Only yellow wire in the vicinity on my '73 Z is a water temp sender like zKars just mentioned. Do you have access to a timing light? You can have a hard or non-start if your timing is way off. Edit: I don't think you're 180 out by the way, when I accidentally put the non-keyed dizzy cap on backwards 180 out it backfired and blew smoke out the intake and didn't even try and start, freaked me out pretty bad until I had my duh moment. Not impossible, but the first place I'd look is your timing if you're not getting misfiring.

Looks like the original braided heater hoses to me. I can't tell what exactly is leaking in your picture, is it the little short reducer piece thats about 3" long? I was able to get away with replacing that with a short piece of regular hose in a sort of inbetween size and some judicious hoseclamping, I forget the diameter. As far as the heater core hoses that penetrate the firewall, I suggest special ordering those from motorsport auto as they have some crazy pre-bends in them that'll just kink if you try and use regular bulk hose.

Funny you should mention that, I've got a very similar ball and socket setup on my car already except they're ancient and worn out. My plan is to reinstall the worn ball and socket joints temporarily and put new oem rubber on the back and see how it drives before deciding if I need to order up another set for another $35+shipping of my precious pocket change because of how easy the tension rods are to remove and work on.

Yeah, I've got new urethane bump stops ready to go in, I figured while I'm replacing some seriously haggard old shocks I'd replace the matching haggard old bushings with urethane (except the tension rods, I've heard too many horror stories for me to wanna bother risking it, they get new rubber bushings). I've enough lowness though, my Z has been riding about an inch lower than it did 40 years ago according to some numbers I looked up (I forget where) and there are already speed bumps in my neighborhood I can scrape my floors on. Thanks for confirming me on the strut bearings guys, that's what I thought was up but I wanted to get a second opinion to make sure I wasn't going crazy.

Ok, I'm feeling like an idiot here, I'm replacing my front shocks and a number of suspension bushings on my '73 240z and I keep finding references to strut mount bearings that I don't seem to have. Could somebody post a picture of how everything goes together at the top of the front struts? I have a sinking suspicion that whoever did this job last just left the damn things out. Pictures would help me see either where I ought to be looking if I'm massively overlooking things, or where new ones ought to go when I put this thing together correctly. edit: photo of where I think it might supposed to be?

AH HA! Found it, it's a T connector with the black/white ignition power cable & the green fuel pump wire with nothing plugged into it. Looks like my suspicions on my car never having the proper fuel pump wiring to begin with had merit. Thanks a bunch, it was tucked under a bracket where it was impossible to see, knowing where to look made it easy.

I have a mid '73 240Z with an electric fuel pump in it, and it's not running. The pump is tested known good out of the car, there's just no power to it from the harness. The passenger footwell relay panel does not have any of the add-on relays for the electric pump nor are there any relays on the firewall by the heater fan like another diagram showed. I found the green wire that runs to the fuel pump on the large blue connector that connects the dash harness to the body harness, and the pump will run if I jump power to it off the battery directly, so the body harness and ground are fine. Wiring diagrams tell me that the green wire splices into the black/white ignition wire somewhere between the key switch and the fusebox, but I can't find anything there, and I'm not about to rip the dash out and start un-taping harnesses to trace wires to find the splice from the green wire to the black/white wire. I can post pictures if it helps.

You don't need the expensive $5 a foot EFI hose if you're running carbs, just make sure you get hose that's rated for fuel (not just fuel vapor, but good and proper rated for fuel). The difference being carburetor fuel line that's rated for ethanol ISN'T rated for the high pressures of a fuel injection pump, whereas the buku bucks EFI line is pressure rated as well. Edit: Using EFI line won't hurt though, it's just an easy place to save a couple bucks with no harm if you're running carbs. If you're gonna run EFI then yeah, you need EFI hose, but regular old ethanol rated low pressure fuel hose is perfectly fine.

I had a very similar problem on my car, my 73 has an electric fuel pump by the tank and a brand new mechanical pump on the engine. The car would run fine up to about 50 mph, rev in neutral, etc, but if I tried to cruise at freeway speed or go up a steep hill it'd bog and die. I monkeyed with the distributor for weeks to no avail. The electric fuel pump's wiring was out of whack and it wasn't running and the disabled electric pump in the way was just enough of a restriction to flow that it caused cavitation and basically vapor lock as soon as the nose went much higher than the tail-end of the car, it's gotta suck the fuel against gravity. I disconnected the electric pump and ran a fuel line straight from the tank to the body hardline (to the mechanical pump) and no more problem. A help in that diagnosis was throwing an inexpensive fuel pressure gauge on by the carbs, with the non-functional electric pump in place my fuel pressure was low-ish and fluctuated quite a lot between around 2 and 3.5 psi at 1000 rpm, but with it removed from the equation my fuel pressure was rock solid around 4 psi which is right where it ought to be. Also, when it comes to the electronic distributor, I have one out of a 280zx and it had the same smashed plastic ball bearing carrier that is oh so common with those, I sourced a pair of sintered bronze oil impregnated bushings and replaced the whole ball-bearing assembly with bushings. Vac pulls it just fine as far as I can tell. I took the unit off my car though because the vacuum advance curve wasn't to my liking and I was trying to revert all the changes I made to my car trying to hunt down the aforementioned problem caused by a nonfunctional fuel pump.

After some searching, apparently it's a '73 only thing. I hooked it all up and YEP fiber optics to light the hazard switch and cigarette lighter (a little dim to see in daylight though) Who knew my 70s car had fiber optics in it.

YEP. It's a fiber optic thingy. http://www.viczcar.com/forum/index.php/topic,8393.msg82116.html#msg82116

Comes on with the headlight switch. Can't comment on the door switch because nothing comes on with my door switch (working my way down the electrical gremlins in order of importance, dome light is kinda low compared to, say, windshield wipers) New development poking around, it seems to fit quite nicely in this odd little metal can with two... wire-like-objects? coming out of it that seem to go to the hazard switch and the cigarette lighter. Possibly some kinda light-piping to illuminate those two? The bulb mount clips into it nicely but neither the hazard switch or cigarette lighter SEEM to illuminate. Am I totally off base here? (this picture is looking straight in the hole where the tach goes)

'73 240z, pulled out the tach to fiddle with it because it only worked when it wanted to, fixing it up went marvelously because all it needed was some sanding down of the copper contacts to remove oxidation. NOW, putting it back together I've got four holes in the back of the tach for two backlights and two turn signal lights, and lo and behold I've got two backlights and two turn signal lights in the dash harness to shove back in those holes.... AND ONE MORE! Now I've gotten out my mirror-on-a-stick, shoved my head in any holes I can fit it in, searched forums, the factory service manual, and a crusty old Haynes manual and I'm not getting anywhere on this. It has it's own ground wire unlike all the bulbs that ground to the tachometer's housing and have a single power wire, and uses a different kind of lightbulb (push in, instead of bayonet type). It turns on with all the standard dash backlights when I flip on the headlights or parking lights. tach backlights and turn signals (one off-camera) on left and right, mystery light in bottom center. It has a light colored plastic hole-mount type socket, and a pair of black wires coming out of it to a connector with a black wire and a red wire with a blue stripe which go into the dash harness next to the turn signal/backlight/rheostat wires. There is a bullet splice in the black wire between the harness and the large plastic two-wire plug regular dash lights use lefthand bulb, mystery light uses righthand bulb

The Datsun ignition lock cylinders wear out. I don't think there is really any "fix" for this other than replacing the ignition lock cylinder itself which is a pretty simple operation. I did this on my Z cause it made me real wary that I could fire up my car with any key-shaped object.

6/1973 Don't mind the 10 year old registration tags, it'll be on the road in no time :stupid:

Hand throttle.

Whoops, rewrote that last message too many times, left out the part at the end that said "Lets stop arguing, it's dumb" in more words than that. I dunno, guess I'm youthful and naive (21), that and I like to clear up arguments that I believe are caused by misunderstandings in subject matter. (ie, I worked within specifications of a known brand of product, there has to be either something E knows that I don't and would like to learn, or I know something he doesn't and he ought to enjoy learning)