Captain Obvious

Nice work on the engine. Any idea what happened to cause the valve to piston collision? Also, is everything else in your shop a Honda product? They let you play in their reindeer games? :laugh:

Excellent! Cheap easy fix. SteveJ nailed it!

I took a later 280 style rack apart in my rebuild thread and it's clearly different in a bunch of ways. One thing that was definitely different was that the pinion gear did not use standard ball bearings in the later racks. And there were two ball bearings, one on each end of the pinion gear shaft. And you've got just one ball bearing at the top of the pinion? What's at the lower end supporting the "down inside" tip of the pinion gear shaft? Is there a bronze bushing down in there or do they just run the pinion shaft right on the rack casting?

Congrats on getting your inspection! Older splined style column complete assy: Exploded: And here's the internal splines discussed above:

Haha!!

Wow. I assumed that it slipped out of position some in order to get deformed that bad. I'm not sure how that can even happen! :eek: Good luck with the reconstruction.

That key is hammered! Did that just happen or did it come out that way? And too bad about the pulley crack. A buddy of mine just did that to his because his key did the same thing your did and slipped out of position as he pressed the pulley on. His pulley is a goner. On the good side... I think you have conclusively figured out why your front seal was leaking so bad!

Cool! I thought I remembered people having a hard time sourcing the U-joints. Glad to hear there's a source available!

Sounds like the spray bar had been holding on by a thread and it looks like that rearmost cam lobe may have been running somewhat dry for a while because of that. Is it OK? [vader]Do not underestimate the power of the flat tops.[/vader]

OK, I'll admit it... ^^ That made me chuckle.

Yeah, searching out where play like that is 1000 times easier with someone else inside the car rocking the steering wheel back and forth. It also helps to keep the tires on the ground so they don't move as much. I found that if the tires are locked in place by friction with the floor, it helps isolate the issue. You gotta be able to beg or borrow someone for fifteen minutes to sit in your driver's seat and rock the wheel. I'm still hoping for something not inside the rack itself. Inner tie rod ends or steering coupler would be easier to find than a whole rack. U-joints from what I've heard would be no treat to find though... Let's hope that's not it either. Here's a pic of one of Mike's new inner tie rod ends from that other thread: [ATTACH=CONFIG]69927[/ATTACH] Looks very different than stock, but it's under the bootie, so who cares? Good luck!!

Woof. So the Nissan filters aren't immune either? Wait... Is that a cupcake?

First thing... When you say you put on new tie rod ends, are you talking about outers, inners, or both? Because if you didn't replace the inners, I would look at them first. If you already did that and there truly is play inside the rack itself, I don't believe there are any easy fixes. There are only two moving parts inside the rack, and that's the rack gear and the pinon gear (and it's bearings). So what could be the problem? Rack gear worn. Pinion gear worn. Worn bronze bushings on the ends of the rack housing. Rack rod itself worn where it rides through those bronze bushings. I'm hoping it's inner tie rod ends and not with the rack "proper" at all. Lots of pics and info in this thread: http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/suspension-steering-s30/51640-steering-rack-disassembly-refurb.html I'm sure there are subtle differences between the 240 and 280 rack assy's but I suspect their similar enough that there might be useful info there even though it was for a 280.

Excellent. Sounds like you an I had the same issue... We needed to turn our squeal shims into anti-squeal shims.

Gotcha. Good luck with the project!

Glad to help. I just took a look at the FSM years I have (downloaded from xenons30) and according to the service manuals, those switches were all over the map! Earliest I have is 72 (and I don't have 75), but pretty much everything else was different every year! 77 and 78 looked the same, but that doesn't do you any good. 71 might be the same as 72, but after seeing all the other changes over the years, I'm not really confident. Here's the earliest I have. Its from a 72. Note that the diagram is turned 90 degrees from the way they depicted later years and I find it harder to read. But once you figure that out, it's not too bad. I made a couple notes to try to help: But you'll notice that there is NO connection that is hot in both ON and START. There are a couple choices for ON and there area couple for START, but nothing that covers both. They are mutually exclusive other than the hot at all times source wire. So you either need a 71 manual or forget the manual completely and just measure the connections on the back of the switch. I'm not sure what you want is available that year. Is there a specific reason you want hot in START? Not intending to pass judgment, but it seems a little odd. :bulb:

Hold on. You don't have it right yet... The wire going to what you have identified as position #14 is the SOURCE for all the other functions and it's hot at all times. Of course "hot at ALL times" include both "ON" and "START", but that's not what you're looking for. The only choice you have for a wire that is hot in both ON and START (and only in ON and START) is the one going to position 16. According to the wiring diagrams, you're after the black/white wire, and it was used on earlier years for ballast defeat when starting and on later years for that as well as powering the ignition module, etc. All that said though, according to the wiring diagrams, there was a change in the ignition switches between 72 and 73... The 72 version I have shows NO such connection available at the switch like they do in all the later years. In 72 (and presumably earlier?) The black/white wire is only hot in START, and not in ON. So... This might depend on what year you're working on? If you're working on what's in your sig, then you might not have any option.

The arrows should be pointing in the direction of forward wheel rotation, and I've also found from experience that they do matter. I had an intermittend brake squeal and when I pulled my pads, I found my PO had installed those shims backwards. I flipped them around and my squeal hasn't come back since. I was thrilled it was that simple.

There were a couple small issues with rev. "L", so Revision "M" has just been uploaded. It's awesome.

Here's the latest. It's Revision "M". It includes the two changes mentioned above (voltage regulator and illumination light in the Temp/Oil gauge): 1977 Color Wiring Diagram Version M.pdf Wayne had asked for me to take a look at it and upload it if I got the chance. Never tried to attach a pdf before, so let's hope this works right!! Thanks again Wayne!!

Agreed... It's simply astounding that you didn't jump a tooth or run a chunky bit through the chain. Murphy must have been off doing something else. You might want to watch your back.

I'm pullin' for ya!! Let's hope that's the end of it!

Yes, it's basically another injector that dumps fuel in, and it's located just behind the throttle body. You should be able to find it by following the fuel lines. The fuel line that shoots over towards the throttle body goes to the cold start injector. The cold start injector is not under the control of the fuel injection ECU in any way other than it's connected to the same fuel source. If there's fuel pressure, the cold start injector should spray even if the fuel injection ECU has been completely removed from the car. Assuming it's cold enough to warrant needing the cold start injector, the cold start injector should spray when the engine is CRANKING, and it won't do that forever. There's a temperature controlled switch (known as the thermotime switch) that will cut off the cold start injector after a few seconds of spraying regardless if the engine has started or not. Take a look in the FI literature about the thermotime switch. That's what controls the cold start injector. The ECU has nothing to do with it.

Excellent. Glad you got it back together and that the tensioner didn't take out any other parts when it snapped. Your tensioner clicked into position all right. Into position at the bottom of the front cover that is!! Impossible to go back at this time, but I wonder what happened. You think you didn't get the tensioner plunger into position correctly at the very beginning? My guess is that it slipped out and was wedged on an angle from the very beginning and that's why you had such a hard time getting the cam chain on. And it went from there. I liked your shot holding the distributor drive shaft from the top. I did the same thing when I was changing my oil pump and didn't want to mess with the timing. Looked like this: