Captain Obvious

Excellent. Sounds like great progress. There was at least one person who mounted a new style water control valve in the interior compartment, but I don't remember who. @grannyknot maybe? (This is apparently my go-to guess for someone if I can't remember who it was? )

Woof. Are you positive sure it's a metallic clanking? And are you positive sure it wasn't there before? Maybe you're just uber sensitive to noises right now? I'm (like you) am having a hard time coming up with anything that could cause that kind of noise as a result of a valve seal change. So you did all six intakes? Just the intakes only?

My biggest beef is that a lot of the pain we are feeling right now is self inflicted. We missed the opportunity to take action when we had the warning signs. Pennsylvania just instituted a state-wide "shelter in place" order last night. So I couldn't drive my Z right now even if I wanted to. So while that ship has sailed, the captain of that ship ignored the signs of the storm because he thought he could navigate around it somehow. He was wrong. It shows really poor judgment. Bad decisions. NIMBY. Poor judgment. I just can't ignore this one. It's too late to change the vertical rise in the curve, but we had our chance. Not only did we not take it seriously from the top, but we were mislead. They downplayed the whole thing. I was watching a clip on youtube where my news anchors on "F" were side by side with themselves from a couple weeks ago. A couple weeks ago they were downplaying the whole thing and making fun of the hair-on-fire broadcasters on the the other stations because they thought the other news agencies were over-blowing the whole thing. It was funny at the time because it seemed like the other stations were over-reacting. Well guess what... They were not over-reacting and we lost valuable time. So clearly I've lost a lot of faith in my news station as well. Ten weeks after we SHOULD have been taking it seriously - “It’s very mild. I’m not concerned at all. It will go away. Just stay calm. It will go away." Not concerned until the stock market tanked. Pulse of wealth instead of pulse of health. Like I said before, I've been red since day one but I've lost a lot of faith. Head in the sand poor decisions leading up to this point, they lied to us, and I've about had it. So when you say "it’s not worth bickering over now. That ship has sailed." You're right. But I don't think the captain deserves a reward for the job he's done. I think we need a change there. We seem to be taking it serious now, but we missed the opportunity to take it seriously then. The people who ignored and downplayed this whole thing are why we are in the position we are in right now.

Dave, I did one valve seal (#1 intake) in situ. I didn't take pics of every stage, but I did take a few. So here's a couple pics to go with your text. I used rope (not rubber tubing). Stuff the cylinder full and then rotate the crank to push it upward into the valves: Once you have the springs off, pull the old seal up and off: And put the new one on. Be sure to use the little straw so you don't mess up the new seal on the sharp edge corners of the retainer groove: And when I put it back together, I used a short length of rope to hold the spring compressor tool in place (with the springs compressed). That way I could use both hands to fiddle with the retainer wedgies instead of trying to manage the tool in one hand while giving a wedgie with the other. Process looked like this:

There are more speeds for the A/C setup cars as opposed to the non-A/C. The A/C cars had four speeds and the non-A/C only had three. And yes, you can move the blower resistor over. They are interchangeable and mount the same in both housings. The vacuum pot may be a little bit more complicated. I don't remember for sure, but I think there might be some welded or riveted bracketing difference between the A/C and non-A/C in that area. Might not be a simple bolt-up. Not insurmountable, but might not be that simple. I've got some HVAC parts here that I have collected for various projects, and as is so common, I probably have more than I need. Haha! How much is the blower box on ebay you're looking at. I would have to look, but I might have one from an A/C car. PM me if that's of any interest.

Sounds essential to me too. Wonder if the people at the border crossing would agree. We'll do it, but maybe just not right now. I saw that thing about England too and you're right. That's a big ask.

Assuming you're talking about electrical wiring connectors, I believe there is only one that goes to the blower box itself. There's a second one going to the blower motor, so if what you're looking at on ebay has the blower motor in place, there will be two connectors. Not sure what year you're working on, but here's a pic from a 77 if that helps at all:

What gets me is the lack of action in the beginning when it really could have helped. We really dropped the ball. I've been registered red since I was old enough, but I've lost a lot of faith in the current administration since this crisis started. It's really highlighted some failings there, starting at the very top. From the top down, we downplayed the seriousness and didn't start to take serious action until the stock market started to tank. Our finger was on the pulse of the market instead on the pulse of the people who were getting sick. Back in mid-January, the World Health Org was setting off warning flares while we were saying that we have it totally under control. It’s one person coming in from China, and we have it under control. It’s going to be just fine. And it just went downhill from there. Dropped the ball. "Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away,” We should have been working on making extra protective gear, working on getting test produced, getting hospitals trained, geared up and expanded, etc.... We seem to be taking it serious now, but we missed the opportunity to take it seriously then.

@grannyknot as if I needed more reasons to like you. If we both make it through this, I need to get back up there to spend some more time together.

Hahaha!! "should be “JFA-20”?"

I think a direct vacuum line from the engine would work fine. You could install a little check valve in the line so that vacuum applied to that cokk would not be able to bleed off back into the intake manifold. Never a perfect seal, but would probably slow the bleed-off down to the point where that cokk would stay open. Might close down again overnight when the engine isn't running, but as long as the engine is running, that cokk would be forced open. I was only suggesting trying mouth vacuum first (before you invested time running vacuum lines to the engine) because there may be other problems as well. Your heater core might be plugged solid for example. You may have forgotten to connect the heater hoses up in the engine compartment. The mouth vacuum was just a quick way to identify one possible cause for your no heat condition. From where I sit it's the most probable cause, but not the only one.

OK. So no vacuum reservoir, no magnet valves, no nuthin'. You should be able to connect a vacuum line from the intake manifold directly to that vacuum cokk. In theory, any time the engine is running and there's manifold vacuum, that vacuum cokk should be open. If you floor it, you're likely to lose vacuum and the cokk could close, but I suspect that's the least of your worries. So before you go through the effort to run a new piece of tube through the firewall, you could test the theory with just a small piece of tubing and mouth vacuum. I don't know how much vacuum it takes to open that valve (especially one that's been shut for years and may be stuck), but if it's not a lot of vacuum required, you might be able to open it manually.

Yup. Those are the vacuum lines that are supposed to control the system. Although I'm not sure about the use of the word "start". Semantics, but for me, the "start" of the vacuum lines system is up in the engine compartment. My guess is that the ones that are there are dried out, brittle, and have lots of leaks. And what isn't leaking right now, will be as soon as you bump it. That thing in the pic above is a vacuum switch. It's a little valve that directs vacuum line to the appropriate destinations based on the position of the heater control lever. The vacuum line marked "S" is "SOURCE" and it's supposed to be the vacuum source coming from the engine. Up in the engine compartment is supposed to be a vacuum reservoir and a couple little "magnet valves" (solenoid valves) to control the routing of the vacuum. Is any of that stuff present up in the engine bay? The vacuum line marked "D1" is supposed to go to that vacuum cokk on the heater core water line. You really need a copy of the FSM. Download one and read through the A/C section. Out of curiosity, what year is your 260? In the US, the only answer would be "1974", but I think in other parts of the world, the answer could be anything from 74 to 78. I don't know what the UK got. You could probably "bypass" most of the system by running one dedicated vacuum line, but might depend on the year.

Looking at the pics, it appears that your 260 came with A/C. If that is correct, there's vacuum involved. That unconnected device is what Datsun called a "vacuum cokk", and it's purpose was to block all the water flowing through the heater core under some circumstances (like you had the A/C on). It's set-up dead-man switch style and is closed if there is no vacuum present. So yes... That could a reason you aren't getting any heat. There could be lots of other reasons as well, but I'd start with that one. Take a look at the 74 FSM (Factory Service Manual) in the Air-Conditioning section. It explains the function of that vacuum cokk. What is the current state of the system? Vacuum lines present and recently replaced? Vacuum lines present but old and leaky? Vacuum lines non-existent? No idea what I'm talking about at all?

Simple. Because: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." - Animal Farm (1945) Not to be confused with "You fukked up. You trusted us." - Animal House (1978)

OK. Then I blame Jon as well. Works for me.

Thanks for the pics. I'm guessing that white thing was originally intended for home downspout connection. To convert from rectangular downspouts to circular drain piping? In any event, it looks like they repurposed that stuff and sealed with polyurethane expanding foam. "Functional is not how I would describe it. " Good luck with the reconstruction project. Looks like most of that is removable. Just a matter of getting your hands on the right parts.

@AK260, So a little bit ago, you suggested that the optimum crank position for peak pressure was 22 degrees ATDC, but the articles we've bantered around suggest that 14 degrees ATDC is optimum. Do you know the origin of your 22 degree suggestion?

Hey Ash, Is that smaller fan housing actually functional? If so, how is the air inlet connected to the firewall hole? Can you take a pic from a little farther back to show how it's situated?

"A bad day in the yard is better than a good day at work. My labor and risking life and limb in snake infested tall grass is free."

So? How about a close-up of one of yours next to a stock one?? And just think... In the beginning, it was a pipe dream and all sounded so difficult!

Counting his, mine, and granny's? About 40.

Awesome. When you said you were going to cut off the excess material on the lathe, I was going to suggest trepanning. I suspected that if you tried a traditional outside edge cut, there was no way you were going to be able to do that mounted on a mandrel like that. The interrupted cut would have made that impossible. Either the part would spin on the mandrel or the corners would have just bent over. Seems you're a step ahead of me! Looks great!

Cool. Just make sure you're careful if there's any fluorocarbon (for example... Viton) in there. Don't get it too hot.

Bummer. I had heard about one of those in my area, but never checked it out. Wonder if they're still in business or if they dried up.