Captain Obvious

Well you aren't planning to put your sealed beams back in and run tests for me, are you? If so, that's certainly not necessary. I mean, if your incredibly bored and don't know what else to do with your time, I think the results would be interesting to discuss, but other than that, it's a lot of work for some academic discussions. I don't know what headlights I'm running. I know they're halogen somethings, but I don't remember the brand. Probably Sylvania. And with that said, all the real world effects of current drop and the like will diminish as the current draw goes down. So all that stuff like power being lost in switches, wires, and connectors will be much less with the LED's as compared to the old sealed beams.

I found measuring the headlight parameters to be a lesson in "real world" effects. Stuff like... If the engine isn't running, the battery voltage changes (drops) while you are trying to take measurements (because you're pulling capacity out of it). The currents are high enough that any amperage measurement results in a noticeable drop across the Ohmmeter, thereby affecting the results. Voltage measurements need to be taken both at the battery and right at the bulb. That'll tell you how much you're losing in the wiring and switching. Here's the best I could come up with... Three meters at the same time. One measuring voltage on the battery terminals. Second measuring bulb voltage right at the back of the bulb. Third measuring current draw of one bulb. Here's an example from after I finished my headlight relay upgrade. Both bulbs are lit, but measuring one side. Voltage measured on the battery terminals while under testing load (two bulbs lit) = 12.26V Voltage measured right on the bulb prongs of one bulb = 11.56V Current draw of one low beam bulb = 2.64A This is low beam: And this is high beam: If you go through the math, I'm consuming about 30W per side on low beams and about 50W per side on high beams. One thing that seemed odd to me was your current draw numbers were higher than mine. My total current draw on low beams should be approx. 5.3A (doubling my 2.64). And that's with relays installed which should increase the current because the system drop is lower. Questions are... 1) Did you have relays in place when you took your reading? And 2) What was your system voltage? (Was the engine running at the time?)

That AFM has been messed with in the past. Don't know if it's been adjusted, but that cover was definitely removed and reinstalled in the past. The glue's wrong. That said... Other than trying to verify that it's the correct AFM for the system, don't spend any time worrying about adjusting it right now. That would be one of the last things to mess with. Get the fuel pressure correct and tracking intake manifold vacuum first, Fix the PCV routing so you aren't pulling huge amounts of unmetered air. Get the AFM mounted properly so gravity has the correct effect. Search out and fix any other vacuum leaks in the system. Do all that first and go from there. BTW - I recently stripped down an 82 motor and it has the same fuel rail and regulator system as the stock 78. If you just can't seem to get the aftermarket stuff working, we can work out some sort of trade for your aftermarket stuff. I know it's a "downgrade", but it comes with the advantage of being a known entity.

Yeah... Yours was way worse. I'm relieved that mine was as minor as it was. Not that I ever need to do that again. Ever. But your experience is evidence that all things considered, I got lucky.

Looks great. So about your measured current draw values... Your original sealed beams drew 6.8 Amps for the pair and the new ones draw 1.7 Amps for the pair? If so, your new bulbs are consuming about 11W each on low beam. Does that make sense compared to the LED bulb specs? I took a quick look and they say they are 25W, but I don't know if that's for a pair, or if that's high beam, or what.

Thanks for the well wishes everyone. I took the car out today and other than the cosmetic, there doesn't seem to be any other ill effects. Wow! What a coincidence! That must've scared the crap out of the wife. (Would explain the pants... )

I think if I had been going faster, I would have swept his legs right out from under him and he would have rolled up the hood into the windshield. As it was, the only thing that happened to the windshield was the mess. I saw this blur, felt the BANG, and the windshield got sprayed. Took me a fraction of a second to even figure out what happened. I always thought you would see them coming. Not true. Never saw him coming. Happened in the blink of an eye.

Actually the speed limit was 45. I had just turned onto that road from a cross street and wasn't up to speed yet. Diseazd, LOL. Thanks for the help! Yeah, it's running great. Better than it ever has since I've owned it. Amazing what happens when all six cylinders are contributing like they should be! I took it out that night... Beautiful low humidity night. I went out and got gas and hit the deer on the way home. I checked my gas mileage and I've gained about five percent after the engine work. Another benefit of having all the cylinders firing I assume. I was all happy with myself, and then that happened.

Yeah, I didn't get away unscathed, but it could have been a whooooooooole lot worse. It was completely dark at the time and I never saw it coming. Huge BANG!!!! and a flash of brown, a couple big splashes of deer snot up on the windshield (I knocked the snot out of him), and then I saw him slide off across the oncoming lane into the brush. I was probably going 35-40 at the time. I went back today and took that pic. No fun at all for anything involved.

Last night I did this: I got off pretty easy. You should see the other guy: Say what you want about my park bench bumpers......

Ol' Blue!!!!

Agreed. Hopefully no revisit. I used an OEM Nissan gasket because after all the problems I had with my motor, the last thing I wanted to do was mess around with the head gasket again. Not saying that's any better or worse than what you used, but just that "if it's good enough for the dealer"... And there is a note in the FSM about re-torqueing, with the assumption that your using an OEM gasket of course. I figured what could possibly go wrong. Go wrong. Go wrong.

As mentioned prior, there's a whole lot modified on that system, and much of it done poorly. PCV connected, but valve cover vented to atmosphere. AFM mounted sideways. Static fuel pressure instead of varying with manifold vacuum. I don't think that's a stock throttle body. Looks like they threw an aftermarket one at the car because it's supposed to be "better". What's with the short stub of tubing that comes off the throttle body and goes to where the cold start valve used to be? Which side of that throttle butterfly does that tube come from??? It looks like the butterfly may be completely bypassed by that tube? Hopefully on that aftermarket TB, it comes from the high vacuum side, because if not... Sheesh! My humble opinion? The easiest route forward is to put most of it back to stock. Either that, or you will need an expert. Pay for one, or become one yourself. See if you can get the box of old parts the neighbor kid took off and put most of them back on. Someone threw a lot of time and effort at that engine, but I don't think they did it any good.

Excellent! Sounds like great progress. I don't know if it's really necessary, but I re-torqued my head bolts after about 100 miles or so.

I've only ever seen two length head bolts*, and the positions are pretty easy to figure out... Long ones go through the cam towers and the short ones go everywhere else. Five long ones for five cam towers. *I did see in the 1972 FSM where they referenced three bolt lengths. So that's either a feature of the early cars, or a typo. I've never worked on one that early, so I can't verify the lengths.

I suspect that the oil seeps down the shanks of some of the head bolts since the tops of the bolts are constantly bathed in a violent flying oil bath. The washers under the heads of the head bolts aren't made to seal. I suspect that some of them do, but some of them don't. Or... Depending on the head bolt in question, it could be leaking past the head gasket from one of the oil galleys. I had a couple exactly as you described on my engine, but the ones that were sludgy were nowhere near the oil galley holes, so I suspect the former.

I don't think any of the bolts go down into any other cavity, but some of them are drilled and tapped slightly deeper than others. And if you're really worried about the possibility of a tip of an old bolt being broken off down in the hole, you should be able to get a look down there with a good light. The bottom of the hole is cone shaped like the tip of the drill bit that created it. If you see a ragged flat bottom, you might want to do some more cleaning and investigating.

Oh crap... So when I said crank revolutions, I meant cam revolutions. I was spinning stuff and counting, but in all the excitement, I kinda lost track myself. I changed the original post to fix that mistake. Thanks for the help guys!

Oh, it's still there. I had the head work done by Dr. Marcus Nichols at Plexicorp.

If that doesn't work, then maybe you'll need to try a tap. Not denying that there are circumstances where it's necessary... Just saying that I think it's an overused and often unnecessary procedure.

It's a plan. You just need the correct brush. And I've found it most effective to stuff the brush all the way in and then rotate it in the direction that unscrews it. That tends to bring the gunk out instead of driving it deeper. And then at the very end, give it a couple blasts of carb cleaner. Stick the straw down the hole and cover the hole with a rag while blasting And don't get any in your eyes.

I have heard it said that the bright links of the timing chain will "line up with the timing marks ever now and then" when you spin the engine over. Well... I'm here to put a number on it and that number is eleven. I lined up my timing marks and then rotated the crank to see how long it would be until the marks lined up again, and the answer is that they line up every eleven rotations of the cam (twenty-two rotations of the crank). Not being satisfied with only experimental results, I counted teeth and links and stuff. There are 20 teeth on the crank gear. There are 40 teeth on the cam gear (makes sense since the cam spins at half the crank speed). There are 110 "teeth accepting holes" in the chain. The common multiple (modulus maybe?) of all of those numbers is 440 and it takes eleven cam rotations or twenty-two crank rotations to move 440 link holes. The links of the chain will line up in the same position every eleven rotations of the cam. And because everyone likes pics... Timing chain and pulleys:

LOL. Absolutely. Never a doubt.

I'm no expert, but I wouldn't chase the threads in the block with a tap unless you really really have to. I wouldn't want to remove any metal, and running a tap in there has the risk of cutting out metal that does not need to be. I would use carb cleaner and a small round metal wire brush first before you resort to a tap. If, after wire brushing, the head bolt threads in easily all the way to the bottom, then you're good to go and it doesn't need to be chased by anything more aggressive than that. IMHO.

I'm not going to get into which direction is right for your application, but those two wires... the red and the green... Are polarity dependent and can certainly have an effect if reversed. Most (if not all?) ignition module systems use the falling edge zero crossing as the trigger. It's the most reliable point of the pickup signal.