Walter Moore

The other possibility is that the intake seat on the #4 cylinder leaks back into the intake manifold. But you should see that on a compression check... unless it is a small enough leak that there is only enough leak to allow the just enough burning gas into the intake to detonate the fuel air mixture. Maybe you need to do a leak down test on the #4 cylinder. That will tell you more than a standard compression test.

Click on the Go Advanced button, and below the text entry window there is a button titled "Manage Attachments"

Heh, when I first saw the title of your post I was afraid he was driving the Crown Victoria when you "met" him...

I thought that the Mikuni/Weber style carbs didn't have a choke... But I have no experience with them, so that is just hearsay. Anyway, if you have a cylinder that is pumping out raw fuel, the car will smell really bad. I agree that you need to check for spark first. Did the #4 cylinder look low in your compression test?

That looks really good. Quite the shine you have, it reflects clouds...

Personally, since the 2.4L blocks are not readily available, I wouldn't (in fact I didn't) bore out the cylinders unless the machine shop tells you they aren't round, or are worn too much to just hone. That way if someone in the future needs to rebuild the engine they will have enough material left to get the job done. If you trust the machine shop enough to let them do the work, then talk to them about what is needed for the rebuild. Most good shops will work with you and get the job done right, because references can be the life blood of that business. You will not end up with a flame thrower of an engine going this way, but hopefully it will end up back to its original power, and the car will run for years to come.

In the photograph below, the thermostat on the left is a Stant brand after market unit. The thermostat on the right is the Nissan part for a 240Z. The difference in the size of the opening is significant.

In the U.S. EGR wasn't required until 1972 I think... so early cars didn't have the equipment. (To the best of my knowledge, there was no EGR on my 71' ) The purpose of EGR is to reduce oxides of nitrogen by lowering the combustion temperature. This in theory makes the engine less efficient, not more efficient. (Research "Carnot efficiency" to understand why this is true... ) But I believe that in practice on the engines of the 1970's they likely need all the cooling that they can get, so without the EGR you MAY need to run a richer mixture, which would be less efficient. I have read that one of the reasons that some modern cars from Europe get so much worse fuel mileage in U.S. specification form is because our emission laws require the EGR valve, which reduces the thermodynamic efficiency. I am not certain that I believe that, but it is widely repeated. If your EGR is working properly it doesn't really hurt the performance of the car, so why mess with it?

The actual "ZX" shift lever generally doesn't fit in a 240Z (at least not the early cars) so it is very likely that you actually have a 240Z shift lever anyway.

10 BTDC at your normal idle speed, which is generally 600-700 RPM. Most people do disconnect the vacuum advance (VA) permanently which may be the easy way out if you don't have a lot of time and tools to predict how the VA will react. If you have a used S130 Distributor the odds are 50/50 that the VA doesn't work anyway. To test the VA you need a vacuum source, and a dial-back timing light. You get the engine idling well below the point where the centrifugal advance curve starts, then apply full vacuum to the VA and use the timing light to measure the advance that is produced. The later ZX distributors have a HUGE amount of vacuum advance, and to make it worse the only breaker plate that is available from Nissan is for the late distributors. My personal position has changed over time. If you aren't sure how much VA the unit you have produces, you should consider leaving the VA disconnected.

If you have a hoist you should be able to lift the engine slightly and pull it forward. How did you lift the motor in the first place?

Ben, Back to your original post: You say that you told Hagerty that you would be using the car for some business trips. I have been involved with discussions on this subject at two different employers. MOST personal auto insurance policies specifically exclude "business" use of any vehicle insured on a personal policy. The agent may, or may not tell you this, but check the fine print and the exclusion is normally in the formal policy. Most of the time, if you want to use a car for business trips, even occasionally, you need a commercial vehicle insurance policy. (This is why many companies strongly recommend using either rental cars or company vehicles for business travel.) One of my children was even told specifically by an insurance company (I will not name names, for liability reasons) that they would not insure him because he worked at a Pizza Hut restaurant. He was a manager, and never made deliveries, but the fact that he worked at a restaurant that is known for deliveries made him too high of a risk. He got insurance, but the second company eventually discovered the name of his employer, and sent him a registered letter telling him that he had six months to either: A) upgrade to a commercial policy or send them a notarized letter, written by the franchise owner stating that he would NEVER be asked to make deliveries. He recently found a different job. Auto insurance coverage is based on the risk of having to pay a benefit. That risk is normally based on three factors: A) Driving history, Location, and C) Duration of exposure. The driving history is easy to quantity, but the other two become nearly impossible when business travel becomes part of the equation. If you only drive for pleasure, then the exposure time is low, and the locations are easy to identity. Even commuting to work, the locations are identifiable, allowing the insurance company to calculate their risk. But if you are truly going to use a vehicle for business, then the location and duration become extremely variable, and the assumed risk becomes huge.

First get the fill plug out and check the level. (on the right side of the transmission) The plugs are steel and the case is aluminum. There is some tendency for them to corrode in place, and there is a temperature issue as well. If the plug was tightened with the case hot, and you are removing it cold, you will have trouble. If you are not comfortable with applying lots of force to your car, or don't have really good tools, the professional approach is safer. For the fill plug I have always ended using a pipe wrench and a hammer. (or was it a crescent wrench? maybe vice grips and a cheater bar?) The drain plug in the bottom usually has a recess for a 3/8" drive ratchet I thought. In any event, do not remove the drain plug until you are sure you can get the fill plug out. Otherwise you can't refill the transmission to get it to the shop. Also you need to try the search feature, because the transmission takes special GL-4 oil. If you use the more common GL-5 oil the sulfur in the oil will eat the syncros. The most common recommendation is Redline MT-90. I recall that Pensoil also makes an oil that is safe for "yellow metals", but have never used it.

Er, aren't average quality paint and wavy body panels exactly what you would expect to find on a true 27 year old all original car? If the paint was perfect, and it had no dents or dings, I would be suspicious that it wasn't really original.

Cool, I wonder how many of those still work...

Whether they want to admit it or not, we all started working on cars without experience. (There is a Mr. Obvious statement if ever I heard one...) The trick is to learn from other people's mistakes.

They made Mustangs by the millions, but did you ever try to find a 1967 Mustang in a run-able or even restore-able condition? The stripped unit-body can cost as much as a running 240Z. My wife wanted me to restore a 67 for her after I got the Z running. I went looking for one to start from, and ended up buying a 2008 GT for her. (Less money, and more drivable.)

Check your spark plugs. I had a similar issue with my car when I first got it running. I had the choke cables installed wrong and the car was running on constant choke. After about a week it fouled the plugs so bad the car wouldn't run. If the plugs still look new, and aren't coated with excess fuel residue, then move on to the coil.

Good job Dave! Well thought out and a good implementation. The security features may need a little work, but it really isn't much less secure than the ignition switch in most early 70's cars. (The less said publicly about that the better by the way...) And $170 is a reasonable price. Personally I despise the push button start concept, so I am not interested. However for those who are less stuck in the mud than I am, this looks like a promising solution.

Coop, You mean Narita airport is operational again? That is good news. I have a co-worker who sent us an email from Narita after the quake. He was waiting on his flight and they shut everything down. I haven't been able to get back in touch with him since. Hopefully he is on his way to the U.S. Stay away from the seafood in China, and have a safe trip home.

Pretty.

I found a snippet that refers to the underlying issue here: http://www.leftlanenews.com/r32-r34-nissan-skyline-imports-halted.html My understanding is that for cars that are less than some age, (and I do not know what that age is) the NHSTA requires that the car meet all the safety standards that were in effect in the year of manufacture before the car can be sold in the U.S. One of the safety standards in place in the 1990's requires crash test data to verify compliance. Apparently a company named Motorex paid to have crash tests performed on the R33 model of Skyline, and after it passed they claimed that the results also applied to the R32 and R34 models as well. Eventually the feds discovered that there are significant differences in the unibody strength of the different models and clamped down. By then there were a lot of the untested vehicles on the road, and the people who ended up paying the price are the ones who own the car at the time it is tracked down. However, if someone was willing to pay for and sacrifice several cars for the testing then if the sample cars passed the test, the remaining examples would get a reprieve. If this is protectionism, it must not work very well; considering the market share that "foreign" car makers have in the U.S.

That is how my hood works, I have to "release" the safety catch to get it past that point when closing the hood. I wasn't able to adjust this out, but I didn't try very hard because it seemed like it was better to have a reliable safety catch than to have the hood close easily. That was a choice that I made. I suspect that you could enlarge the mounting holes for the safety catch and move it rearward slightly to make it skip past this point when closing the hood.

If you intend to buy a new radiator, get the 3 core. The difference in weight is negligible, and the difference in cooling is significant.

I ride a touring bicycle in the summer. It is a Motobecane Grand Jubilee. I've will have owned it for 31 years next month. (Which is about equivalent to 7 years and 9 months in a warm climate)