Captain Obvious

Haha! If you're anywhere near as good at counting the beans as you are with the stuff that you really enjoy, then you must be pretty good at all of it! I'm not worried at about you opening up your first motor.

I'm pretty sure you know this already. but one might point out that the order of operations here is extremely important.

I thought you were a numbers guy, not an electronics guy? I mean... Seeing your place, one would never guess that, but isn't that the case?

I think that knowing what you're up against (literally) and hearing about the experiences of people who have drilled beyond the plug should be enough. Just be careful and pay special attention to when the drill bit breaks through the other side of the freeze plug. It's only a sixteenth of an inch thick.

Your original carbs (the flat tops) had integral return springs built into them. Your current round tops do not have integral springs and require two external return springs (one for each carb) instead In normal round top configuration, those return springs attach to the heat shield mounted below the carbs. Do you have those return springs installed? Can you take some decent resolution pics of your carbs and post them here for scrutiny?

Be very careful dealing with the front plug. There isn't a lot of room behind it and if you just try to pivot it in place by knocking one side inward, there isn't enough room to swing it to get a grip on the other edge. So because of that, sometimes people drill through them and run a screw or something into them to act as a handle. HOWEVER. More than one person I know has damaged blocks by drilling through that front freeze plug and kept on drilling into the cylinder jacket. Don't do that. I drilled through mine (very carefully paying special attention to when the drill broke through the other side) and then I tapped the hole and used a piece of threaded rod attached to my slide hammer to yank the plug out. Looked like this:

Yeah, I don't know what the deal is, but the number and size of the core plugs is an issue. Seems like it would be simple, but it's not. Everyone seems to think that the same kit fits everything from 70 through 83, and that's just not the case. Here are my (relatively disorganized) notes about freeze plugs: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ On the F54 block, there is a total of eleven freeze plugs required. I had originally said there were ten, but I edited this post to show there are actually eleven. Nine 35 mm One 40 mm One 50 mm I bought (a quantity of two) Sealed Power part number 381-8027 sets off rockauto Jan 2020 Each set contains 1-50mm, 1-40mm & 7-35mm plugs. I had to buy two sets to get enough of the 35mm plugs. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ However, I just took a look and that Sealed Power number is no longer available on RA, and actually has a very low web presence anywhere. I still have the bag un-opened somewhere and I will snap a pic or two when I find it, but it could take a while. It would probably just be easier (albiet more expensive) to buy more than one kit of the other more easily available kits. You'll have plugs left over from buying multiple kits, but at least you'll have plugs.

I took a quick look at the parts diagrams and couldn't find the vacuum water cokk, so I can't help you with the part numbers. I can answer the other question, however... The water cokk is controlled by the temp slider lever allowing you to control the temperature of the heater core. The vacuum cokk shuts off ALL water to the core whenever the system is switched to A/C (regardless of the temp slider position). Once in this mode, the slider no longer controls the water through the core (since it's off completely), but instead controls the temperature switch that cycles the A/C compressor. So, yes... They are in series, but they serve two related, but different functions.

And about cleaning out the block... I made a little adapter for a garden hose that shoots a thin jet and I was able to stick it deep into the core plug holes and flush junk out. Kinda like a power washer, but just at tap pressure. Looks like this:

That's the same head gasket I went with as well (11044-P9600). I like the round holes for the head bolts better than the large oversize rectangular cut-outs of the previous version. My thinking is that I want as much meat as possible between the water jacket holes and anything else. I got mine from Riley at Lynchburg. Out of curiosity, where did you find yours?

Here are my (relatively disorganized) notes about head gasket stuff. Maybe something in here will be of help. L24 and L26 versions - item #19: (From the old fische) 11044-E3100 11044-E3101 11044-E3102 11044-P3000 11044-P3001 11044-P3000 11044-P3002 11044-P3004 This number supersedes all the previous numbers and is the final listing for the early motors and its used on 240 and 260 L28 versions - Item #18: (from the old fische) 11044-N4200 - No superseding listed on the fische, but was superseded after the fische After the fische from other on-line sources 11044-N4200 - 09/1974 - 04/1980 11044-N4210 - 05/1980 - 02/1981 11044-N4220 - 05/1980 - 02/1981 (don't know why there are two of them. Might be turbo) 11044-N4221 - Supersedes all of the above 11044-P7900 - 80-82 GL (turbo) 11044-P7910 - 81-83 GL and non GL (everything 83 turbo and non turbo) 11044-P7911 - Supersedes all of the above Looks like the 11044-P7911 may have been superseded by 11044-P9600 Part Number 11044-P9600 Replaces NLA 11044-P7900 11044-P7910 11044-P7911 The original gasket was made by NRZ Nippon Reinz This gasket is made by Stone It is for the original head/block combo on 1981 1982 and 1983 S130 280ZX" And if you look closely at the gasket, you can see both the Stone logo and the Nissan logo victor reinz 61-52115-00 (they list the same gasket for Z and ZX)

I dug into this a little bit deciding which gasket to use on my F54 and I decided on OEM. My thoughts on the cooling holes is that Datsun was (forever) chasing unevenness in the cooling between cylinders and kept changing the size and existence of the coolant holes accordingly. And by the time they got the to end of the series (which is what you have), they had completely blocked off some of the holes towards the front of the motor with the intent of forcing more water to flow to the back of the head before heading to the radiator.

So just to provide a little clarity, you said that after several hours you were able to get the car to start and pull it back into the garage. How easily did it start? By that, I mean... After it sat for a couple hours, did it fire right up like normal and run fine again? Or did it take a bunch of cranking and sputtering, but then eventually after enough cranking and sputtering and rough weak idle, it finally came back to life and THEN ran normal again? Basically, I'm trying to figure out if there was fuel in your bowls when it sputtered and died. And about this part... Where in the timeline you laid out above did you try this? Is this after the 30 minute idling, but before the several hour wait?

OK, when you put it that way, it sounds like it's not working correctly. In that case, I don't have any concrete suggestions about what to use as a replacement, but I would like to talk some about the "end of the story" and what your end goal is. So... I see you are in California, and are subject to heightened scrutiny of your emissions system. I'm assuming that's why you can't just remove that delay valve completely (as you've seen on most other cars). But your (malfunctioning) valve that passes air easily in both directions is functionally the same thing as removing it completely. I'm not in CA and are therefore not that familiar with their emissions regulation details. Are you telling me that the guys at the inspection station actually TEST that valve for functionality? I mean, I could be easily convinced they compare your engine to a year appropriate picture and look for all applicable emissions equipment, but do they actually start taking tubes off and testing for functionality?

That sounds like it's working perfectly. It's supposed to be easy to draw vacuum through in one direction, and possible (but not easy) to draw vacuum through in the other direction.

The @ Mike was because there was a spammer posted something in your thread right above that. I assume that Mike deleted the spammer's post and banned the account, but he left my call-out post intact. So now the call-out doesn't make a lot of sense anymore, but not a big deal. If it were me, I would have deleted my post as well.

Here's a couple pics showing where that bracket goes: And here's a closer-up trying to get a shot of the mounting hardware: Hope that helps!

OK, got it. So getting into the details about the voltage number measurements you got... I'm pretty sure you already know this, but they don't really make sense. If you pull the all the injector connectors off, turn the key to ON, and measure across the two injector connections inside any of the connectors, I would expect to see a low voltage on all of them. But it's a little unpredictable because of the way the circuit works. One side of each connector should be connected to the battery (through the dropping resistor) and the other side of each connector should be floating pretty much as a no-connect. However, there is a capacitive load on each of those floating sides that could provide some weird numbers if you don't know what you're looking at. You could charge or discharge that capacitor through your meter and the numbers could change as you're watching them. So with all that in mind (and as mentioned above), it would probably be easiest to change the way you are taking your measurements and see what you get when you just measure from the injector contacts to a known good ground instead of measuring between the two contacts in the same shell. I mean, there's info to be gleaned from what you already did, but without being there and seeing what type of meter you're using and watching the numbers for stability, it would be simpler just to re-do the measurements and reference everything to ground.

Were all the injector connectors pulled off at the same time when you were taking those measurements? Also, does the car run better now that you have cycled all the injectors a bunch of times manually?

I did a quick google search for the Nevada 168 manual and came up with a lot of hits. If you can't figure it out just by looking at the wiring, it appears that manuals are out there on-line if necessary. There just can't be a whole lot going on: Constant power Switched power Speakers Antenna control maybe Faceplate brightness control maybe That ought to be about it.

Do you have the faceplate or model number for the Blaupunkt?

Remember Joe Isuzu?

That's not what is supposed to happen... There is mechanical clutch built into the antenna mechanism that is supposed to slip at either extent of travel, If yours grinds to a complete stall at the end of either travel, then I suggest that your clutch is adjusted too tight.

When you measured across the injector connectors... Was this with the connectors attached to the injectors, or with the connectors not plugged onto the injectors? Can you take a pic of how you took this measurement?

Will do. I'll try to snap one tomorrow.