Captain Obvious

Oh, OK. Didn't recognize it as the turn signal because mine is very different inside. Not surprised it changed over the years. Here's what mine (from my 77) looked like inside: A blower motor change is on my list of things to do to. My current one still works fine though, so it's lower priority.

So you and I got just single nuts, while Jim got: And yes, that's a real product. And in fact, I've even seen it on the shelf with my own two eyes at one of my local food stores.

There have been several discussions about your exact lock problem in the past. I can't spend a lot of time searching right now, but if you do some digging and searching here about locks, you'll see threads that talk about that issue and some ways to fix it.

Good point. Discussing shades of colors is always a tricky thing. Could simply be the camera. I didn't get any photos of what I have yet, but I will when I get a chance. Another question. The switch with the burned contacts... That's for the passing light actuator on the end of the turn signal stalk, right? I don't have one of those.

Haha! Show off. Go ahead... You deserve to.

Haha! OCD and insomnia? A bad combination! I never bought a Z off the showroom floor so I can't possibly know for sure. And you're right... Not a big deal.

The normal saying is "pics or it didn't happen", but in this case, I trust you completely. And thank you. Nice pump. Does the check valve work?

Looks great. I did the same thing with my headlight switch and the lettering came up much nicer than it was when I started. It was hard to believe how white they got after all these years. What I thought was faded yellow paint was, in fact, murky brown muck covering bright white paint. In fact, no competition intended, but I think mine came out better than yours did. Mine may have been in better shape to start with? I know I used an old toothbrush just like you did, but I don't remember what I used as a fluid. It may have just been water, or it may have been the lightly ammoniated window cleaner, or it may have been armor-all. I'll snap a pic when I get a chance, and I believe I've got another spare stalk still dirty in a box somewhere. I'll try to recreate my success and if I can, I'll let you know what worked for me.

Before I clicked my connectors back into that holder, I filed the retaining lip tab things down a little. Not enough that the connectors pop out by accident, but enough that there's not as much drama in the future if I ever need to get them back out again. Been so long that the details are fuzzy, but I may even have carved off some (but not all) of the retaining tabs. And unfortunately that was before I started taking pictures of everything so I don't have any shots either. I do know that there was no way I was going to go through that again!

Bonus points and hazard pay if you can get a shot of you riding one of those awesome looking remote controls.

I haven't seen nylon insert style locknuts on the (stock) Z either. All the suspension stuff I've ever messed with were the distorted-thread style. In fact, I don't think I've ever seen the nylon insert style used on the suspension of any vehicle ever. It's always one form or another of the all metal distorted thread style. I'm no Z genealogy or history expert, but if you've got nylon insert locknuts on your suspension, I'm skeptical that it came from the factory that way.

What Zed said. For those of you who have not had the pleasure... Getting the connector shells out of the holder block is a royal PITA. With enough time, contortions, and small thin bladed instruments, I succeeded at getting mine apart, but it was a frustrating ordeal. Something so seemingly simple and ordinary, well.... isn't. So if you're planning to pull the main engine compartment harness out of the car, be ready to deal with that.

That's exactly what I was thinking. I was wondering if the squeaking you had was from not having the bolts tightened down proper. Glad to hear (get it?) you got it figured out.

Haha! I love that Pinto pic.

Jeremy, Lube on the ID of those bushings is OK. In fact, I would recommend it. You don't need it in there for the lubrication properties (because there shouldn't be any relative motion), but it will help with corrosion resistance and to help keep water out of that area. And a little lube on the end faces where the big washers contact the rubber wouldn't be a big deal either as those surfaces do slide. I would use silicone lube though, not anti-seize. If you get the rubber bushing "wings" in the proper locations and torque those big bolts down tight to spec, you shouldn't have to worry about the bushings spinning in the bracket. Are you sure the squeaking is coming from the rear inner bushings?

Maybe it's just camera angle. I just took a look for other similar pics and it could just be from the way the camera isn't dead-on towards the end of the shaft. If it rotates straight and you can't wiggle the top around with a pair of needle nose, then maybe it's an optical illusion.

I just took a fresh look some of the FSM's and I didn't see that plate adjustment procedure documented anywhere. I didn't know what to do with them either, and it just seemed to make sense. It's nice when you guess right! Chris, Yeah, that distributor drive shaft looks funky to me... Isn't there some kind of bearing boss feature on the top of that shaft that is supposed to locate in a hole in the front cover? It's been to long since I had mine out, so I don't remember the details, but I can't believe they let the top of that thing flail around. There's got to be some kind of bearing surface. Maybe the oil pump drive shaft is too far down? Is that even possible?

I don't know how you're "really" supposed to handle those two timing adjustments, but what I did with mine was a little "backwards". I locked the R/A indicator just like you have in your pic with the indicator line centered at zero (between R and A). Then I hooked up a timing light and timed the motor using the underneath adjustment such that it was spot on and then locked down the underneath adjustment. And from that point forward, if I'm going to make any adjustments, I'll use the top adjustment. My thought process is that now that I've got it set like that, I can pull the distributor and put it back on and just use the scribe line indicator marks to get it very close to correct. And if for some reason that I want to retard or advance it a little, I can use the guide scale to gauge the relative magnitude of the adjustment. Also... Is your upper tip of the distributor shaft really off center in the hole or is that an optical illusion caused by camera angle? If it really is off center as it appears, you might want to look into that.

Haha!! OK... Who's the wise guy? I check the mail, and this package was just delivered.

I understand about wanting the extractor tools and good luck with the project. With the exception of the big ECU connector, I redid all the connectors on my EFI harness a while ago and have been very happy with the outcome. Reliable and predictable. Nothing intermittent, and nothing that I have to question as to the integrity. That kit from ebay gives you the option of splicing wires or pulling the contacts out of the housing and crimping new contacts directly onto your wires. Either way should result in better connections. Just make sure you clean the male contacts in all the mating parts. Having fresh clean female contacts in the shells being mated to green corroded pins in things like the AFM and WTS won't do you any good.

"Nut Cutter Nonpareil" Title accepted with honor. I'm not sure if neglected is the right term, but there are definitely things I had intended to do to my Z this off season that I haven't gotten to. And I'm running out of time before it's not "off season" anymore. Hopefully in the next week or so I can get some Z work done!

I like it too and can think of a couple reasons why one might want to do such a thing. Compression test? Checking the oil pressure? Making sure the applicable cam oiling features flow correctly? My question is why didn't you make the adapter so it went on the outside of the bell housing area instead of behind the flywheel? That way, the thickness of the material wouldn't matter. Was it just because the plate required would need to be wider than what you had laying around?

Yeah, that AFM connector without the retaining clip is probably why the OP's connector looks like. I did my harness rebuild two years ago maybe, and I don't think my AFM connector clip was missing, but I didn't put it back on for that pic. It's probably in the bag with the rest of the connectors I replaced. As for which cars the connectors came from? It's a non sequitur. I bought those connector shells new, not from donor vehicles. I wasn't' sure which style I would like the best but in the end (since I didn't have a rubber boot that fit either of them) I used the style with the secondary retaining lid as insurance to help hold the contacts in place.

Well of course there's a little "blackmail" in the desire to get his car working. We bought it as a severely overheated, non-running derelict, last fall with the intention of repairing it for him to drive. And I made it clear to him that while I would eventually get around to working on it, things would definitely progress faster if HE were to take matters into his own hands to do some of the work. In other words, the more sweat equity he expressed, the faster the job would get done. Not only would it be more hands turning wrenches, but his interest sparks my interest. And working with him went really well. I don't know if he'll ever turn into a hard core gearhead, but his ability to pick up the concepts of this kind of work has been excellent. I can explain things to him with hand motions, analogies, some physics, and he gets it. We were pretty deep into this engine and when he turned the key for the first time after all the parts went back together and it actually started? He was a happy boy. Haha!! And remembering back, last fall, I used his car to help me get a couple things done on OTHER cars in the family. The family truckster needed front brakes, and my daily driver Civic needed an oil pan gasket (I'm really down on Felpro at this point). I told him we couldn't put his car into the garage bay until those other two things were done since they were higher priority. But this thread is about lug nuts... This is my favorite pic. If you look closely, you can see wispy smoke trails from hot chips and some cutting oil:

I found my box of connectors and snapped a couple pics. Here's some options for AFM connectors. Original brittle shell and cracked dry-rotted boot on top, and two new options below: The bottom left has a boot retaining feature similar to the OEM connector shell, and the one on the right has a redundant contact retaining hinged door to help hold the contacts in place: Here's another shot so you can see how the hinged contact retaining lid works: