Stanley

Not much of an office for my structural engineering business, just a laptop for drafting, calculations, and communication, a place to sit down, and books and documents taking up too much space I'd rather have for something else. I do all the grunt work in the field, crawling through filthy attics and crawlspaces with my headlight and cam, and I'm the president, secretary and janitor. The secretary and janitor won't do their damn jobs. Wish I had a real office with a big desk, filing cabinets, a beautiful and brainy secretary and a hard-working janitor, but can't pay for one. Big plus: drink beer at work!

Congratulations on being a new Z owner. Round tops, so not quite stock. This sounds like a minor problem. You need to study the basics of the SU carbs, the FSM (factory service manual) is very good for this, and there are some excellent tech articles on this site. Chilton is also OK. Also ZTherapy "Just SU's" video for more in-depth stuff. The open port is a vent. If fuel gets too high in the float bowl, it comes out the vent. Normally the vents have hoses to the air cleaner, so any fumes are inhaled by the engine (I prefer to have the hoses lead to a container or the ground so any overflow can't drain out on a hot manifold, just my opinion though). I'd guess it's either a worn out float bowl valve (kits are available that include gaskets for the float bowl), gunk stuck in the valve, or a leaking or badly adjusted float. Maybe a good idea to pull the drain plug at the gas tank, and drain the old gas into a container. See if any rust or dirt comes out. You could put in some clean gas, put a hose on the fuel rail leading to a container , and crank it for 15 seconds to clean some dirt out of the fuel lines, and install a new fuel filter, before cleaning the valves or installing new ones, etc. The rubber tip on the valve needs to come to a sharp conical point, otherwise it's toast. Also check the filters in in banjo bolts that the fuel hoses go to; put new ones, or clean them with carb cleaner. I tossed mine, seems ok without them. Be careful and good luck.

The front float valve is about 2mm longer than the rear one, so the front fuel level can be adjusted 2mm lower without distorting the tang on the float (so the fuel levels at the both nozzles will be the same, discussed at length in previous threads). Most of kits have one of each. Sometimes the float can rub against the side of the bowl (when the float setting is fairly high), preventing it from rising enough to shut off the flow. I had fuel coming out the vent. A light touch with some sandpaper on the float fixed mine when that happened, it took a while to figure out the problem. I verified it was sticking by looping some nylon monofilament around the float and out the vent (so I could pull the float up with the fish line) and using the plastic straw to check float height. Also, if the pin in the float valve doesn't contact the tang at about a 90 degree angle it can wobble to one side, which keeps it from shutting off properly. I think the newer valves that have a skinnier pin than the original ones, so they're more apt to wobble. Fun stuff, huh? If you check out the nozzles at MSA, there's some stuff about what needles go with what year nozzles.

Da tsu to sa n ("o" as in "go"), but the tsu is written small so I think it's pronounced Dat-to-san.

A couple days ago I had a bottle of Asahi beer. After reading this post I tried to decipher the Katakana on the label. For someone who spent a week studying it (to get more out of the Japanese car magazines that use a lot of it), my Katakana is not very good, but I looked it up in the book. The kana is used for foreign loanwords and other things, it's phonetic. You need to read up on Romaji phonetic translation from English or other languages to make it easier, but to me it's way easier than Kanji, which you also would need to know to actually read Japanese. Anyway, the white kana on the red stripe says Su-Pa-DoRaI (super dry), and the red kana underneath says Asahi Bi-Ru (Asahi beer). After all that work I need another Asahi.

Excellent advice, guys. I had no clue about any of this stuff. So today I went to Hagerty's and did a print screen of the table and graph and printed it out. Also made a copy of my AAA collector car insurance, even though it's only $5000 collision , which is probably about what it was worth 6 years ago when I bought it. Lots of work since then, including complete professional suspension rebuild, new head, new brakes front and rear, pro rebuild of the beat-up seats, new paint, and lots of other stuff. And many hours of student Z mechanic (me) tuning it for performance. I went to AAA a few months back to see if I could get the collision raised enough to cover replacement in 2014, but no dice. It's cheap though, since I've been with them since the 80's. AAA has been helpful with this, but the other driver's insurance is paying.

Scary stuff. Hope I'm concerned over nothing. That photo looks a little worse than mine, but 6.6K, wow. I never thought about value before, since I plan to keep and drive the car, not flip it.

Don't know if this will help, but there's a little trick that will let you know if the float level is where you set it, when the car is running. With the sight glass tube attached (or with the lid/float assembly removed, however you set it), get a little plastic straw from can of carb cleaner or something, pull off the vent hoses, and put the straw through the vent fitting. It will rest lightly on top of the float. Mark it (I measured 5mm above the vent) with a marker or scotch tape, etc. When the car is running, measure it again. It should be easy to see where the floats are when it's running.

About two weeks ago I got rear-ended, the driver's insurance company accepted full responsibility. Doesn't look too bad (still street-legal and drivable), but I took it to the body shop that repaired and painted it when I got hit a few years ago; they removed the rear interior panel and pointed out that the floor pan is pushed in at the spare tire area. They (body shop) said the insurance company might total it, in that case I would get a check and a salvage title, and would be able to fix it and pocket a little cash. I might not have any options, but I'm wondering what having a salvage title would do to the value of my Z. Not that it's a show car or professional resto, it's just a reasonably clean and good-running daily driver.

Looks great Mike, lots of improvements, thanks for your efforts. Especially like being to see new content for a week or more, so I can catch up if I haven't been around for a while.

2.5 psi is a little low and 5.0 is a little high, book says about 3.2 to 4.2, both carbs get about the same fuel pressure/flow unless the rail is blocked. If it's a Mallory low-pressure pump I think there's an adjusting screw on the pump, 3.5 to 4.5 psi or something. Maybe those regulators are crap. Both carbs same fuel level at the nozzles. Hold sight glass next to nozzle to check. The old emissions needle, the new needles, and the modified needles all look the same to me, even with my glasses.

Once the evaporator is removed, it's possible (with contortion, a small extension mirror and/or a small camera) to see the core, valve and hose fittings well enough to see where the leaks are, by the corrosion and coolant stains. As mentioned above, maybe the core is OK. If and when I get around to doing mine, I'll probably put a restrictor in the heater line, to reduce the chance of future problems. Got that from a Mustang site. Sounded like most Mustangs from certain years blew out the heater cores from too much water pressure at high rpm.

Removing the evaporator was easy and made it easier to work in that area. My heater valve is all corroded and the hose connections leaked until I plugged the engine fittings. Need to replace the valve and hoses; not happy about that.

McMaster-Carr These are what I used for the 1/4" and 5/16" fuel lines. Figured I'd need F.I. type clamps for the heftier USCG fire-resistant, ethanol-resistant fuel hoses. Bags of five. Only one grade of stainless, it's the larger rolled-edge worm-drive clamps that have two grades. One grade is less shiny, that I used for the 5/8 and 3/4 coolant/heater hoses.

McMaster-Carr has those clamps in two grades of stainless.

Fabric friction tape no good? Damn, I just bought some to tidy up the coil/distributor harness. How well does the insulation on the 40 year old wires hold up in the engine bay? Don't know but I'd guess it gets sort of brittle and could crack, leading to shorts or corrosion of the wire, especially if the harness flexes while driving. For my 63 Chevy truck, nice new harnesses are available for the entire vehicle, not too expensive. It has a lot less wires, though.

Floats are the same front and rear. The lid on the front carb has 2 mm longer "ears" and uses the longer float valve. The fuel level in the front bowl should be 2mm lower than the rear carb but you can disregard this if you're setting the levels by fuel height at the nozzle; it should be the same level at the nozzles of both carbs. I use sight glass to set fuel levels, but it's still a big hassle, worth it though to get it right. If the nozzles are worn, or if the carb rebuilder installed new stock nozzles but used something other than stock N27 needles, it might cause a stock engine to run rich. Also sticking chokes that don't go down when the choke is released. Sometimes a float will hit the side on the bowl (due to bad adjustment or manufacturing defect) and not go all the way up to shut off the valve; fuel can run out of the carb or the vent when that happens. A little sanding on the side of the float fixed mine. FSM table graphs mix nut settings for various altitude and temperature for stock engine.

"what is that small pipe that attachs to brake booster outlet?" That goes to the AT modulator. You need that for the AT to function properly. There's another short curved hose that connects the steel pipe to the trans. It can slip off the modulator when the brake booster fitting is removed. I'd replace that short hose - a newer piece of vac hose is less likely to come off. Much easier when the car is on a rack or ramps.

Using the little fuel return line as the main fuel line sounds totally whack. Seems like it couldn't supply enough gas, on a grade at freeway speed for example. And it's so easy to bypass the electric fuel pump with just a piece of rubber fuel hose and a hose splicer. Besides, the car should run fine with the electric pump in line, even if it's not powered. In that case it acts as a fuel filter. Sometimes I wonder about all those vents. Why two vents on top of the tank, besides the vented cap, and one from the filler hose. One wasn't enough? And that expansion tank - wasn't it used as a fuel reservoir for the Z432's? AUS Z's never had them if I remember correctly. Some have removed the tank and report no problems. And there's the whole enigmatic flow guide system that vents the expansion tank (need to test that by blowing into it too). There's a nice tech article on this site about replacing the vent hoses. But as I said, I wonder about the necessity of all that stuff.

10 Tricks to remove that Stuck, Seized, or Stripped Bolt/Nut | Eastwood Blog Saw this, thought I'd pass it along.

Had a leaky banjo until I polished both sides with 600 grit sandpaper. Also had to use the red composite washers, the old aluminum ones needed a crazy amount of torque to stop leaking.

I use the key until it lands close to a node for a ballpark setting, then use the dwell meter on the dwell/tachometer or the digital timing light to fine tune it. IIRC, once I fried a fusible link with the screwdriver method. Question: the FSM gives a range for the dwell, 35 to 47 degrees or something like that. Should you aim for the smaller gap, since the points will wear down? Or is best performance somewhere else? Last time I set it for the middle of the range, but don't have a reason for it.

Main thing for a DD is it's a Datsun. Datsun's from that era are known to last. But any car can be a DD. Main thing for me is it's a racer that beat way more expensive cars. Bad things: radio sucks, dash cracks, CRX-Si's will beat you unless you tune it well. But it can be tuned very well. Related bad thing: it's hard to find good cool-cushions.

The Z looks very nice, and when it's parked by the 510 you have your own classic car show. I also came South from Oregon, it was last Tuesday. The 5 has some major mountains (at least they seem like high mountains until you see Mt. Shasta), 7 mile / 7% downgrades, so it's a real test of the engine and also the brakes. There are some great roads for the Z and the 510 in Northern California. The previous week I took the 20 from the 101 to Highway 1 near Ft. Bragg. Beautiful ride through the redwoods, well paved, and extremely twisty. Didn't take the Z (had a rental for car camping) but had a challenging drive anyway. In central CA, it's hard to beat Highway 1 from Monterey to San Simeon for scenery.

I expect Zed Head is on the right track, but does this happen whether the tank is empty or full? 280 fuel/vent plumbing is much different from 240 but I have often noticed fuel pressure fluctuations while driving on a full tank that never happen if the tank is 3/4 full or less. Doesn't seem to affect performance though. I have a BMW cap that's probably not vented, but I did test the flow guide valve per FSM and it was OK (after I used carb cleaner inside it), so I'd think it would vent OK. With a quarter-full tank there's a lot of air so if it still does it with a quarter tank maybe that would R/O the cap as a problem, unless I'm missing something.