Captain Obvious

Still don't have the strut fiasco solved yet, but seat belts arrived!!

Yeah, there was something wrong with the forum. Wasn't working properly, but it seems to be back now.

Exactly. I'm not bemoaning the good deed that I did, but the delay is really putting a damper on my shakedown time!

Nothing special. Just KYB gas. The really silly part is that I HAVE a set of KYB's here already. The plan for them was to put them on my 77 280 as part of a project I have planned for that car. But since I was working on this 240 and running out of time, I figured I would use those KYBs on the 240 and then buy another new pair when I was ready to move forward with the 280 work. So.......... I tear the 240 apart. Break one strut down and get the old cartridge out of it. Open the KYB box I have here, and......... There inside the KYB box is a note. In my own handwriting. I sent the small gland nuts to another Z guy some couple of years ago because I wasn't going to be using them. I need the big ones for the 280 and I didn't own a 240 at the time. The small gland nuts were surplus to me and someone else needed a pair. So I sent them away. Aaaaaaarrrrrghh!!!!!

Countdown continues. I'm still waiting for struts. Not ideal. I need to get more miles on this thing to see what else falls off before I drive 1000 miles!!!

Countdown!! I got 100 miles on it: And those 100 test miles made it clear that I need front struts:

Sticky pistons on 4-screw round tops. Not ideal. About the only things that would account for that would be a) severely misaligned nozzles underneath or b) mismatched domes/pistons. You can check for the mismatching between the domes and pistons by taking the domes off, pulling the pistons out of the carbs and then sliding the pistons into the domes and see if they move smooth and free (while the dome and piston are in your hand, not mounted to the carb body). And you can check for misaligned nozzles/needles by either removing the needles out of the pistons, or by loosening up the nozzle alignment nuts on the under sides the carbs and seeing if the pistons move free while the nozzles are way loose.

Hope everything is dry now and your leak is all fixed up!

Sometimes new seals come with some little dabs of lube already on the inside lip. If yours did not, you can just use motor oil, or my favorite... silicone grease. As for the outside surface, I would do the same there. Motor oil or silicone grease. I wouldn't use anything that sticks like the aviation permatex. In my experience, the outside of the seal has significant interference with the hole you press it into. In fact, I've had to hit them harder than I was comfortable with just to get them seated into place. If your experience is like mine, you'll be thankful for the slippy on the OD, not the sticky. Use your old seal as a protection ring to tap your new one into place. And make sure the new one is square when you are done.

I wouldn't have any problem reusing that clutch. I'd replace the seal and reuse everything else. Don't forget a little bit of new EP grease on the pilot bushing.

Have you started to identify which contacts they used inside the shell? There are lots of different members within the family, and I'm not sure which ones they used. They are the split finger version and are not gold plated... Those two things you can tell from just looking into the connector. But beyond that, I haven't looked into it. And also within the family... There is JT (Junior Timer), and JPT (Junior POWER Timer), I believe the major difference is the inclusion of a spring (on the power version) to clamp the female contacts closed tighter. So if you're concerned with contact force, maybe you could "upgrade" a couple contacts to a JPT version instead of the original JT? Not sure it's even possible, but just a thought.

Mine is a July 1970 and I believe it languished since........

Thanks for the tips on the seat belts guys. So for the Wesco Roadster seat belts... What length buckle end did everyone use? Everyone use the 11 inch version? And any input for a fire extinguisher style?

Philip, It's so good to hear from you. I think of you and Janet often. Please reach and get in contact when you're feeling up to it.

I haven't seen the gasket separately. but if the whole connector shell is only a couple bucks, why not buy one and strip out the gasket? Couple pics to go with your text above. The red oval seal is what you're looking for, right? And these are the plastic retainer strips you mentioned maybe?

So I've been working in the shadows on the reanimation of an early 240Z. This is not so much a restoration, but more of a reanimation project. Reanimation of an lifeless vehicle with a focus on originality. The OG 240Z: This car hasn't been on the road for decades. Many decades. And in the end, he won't be pretty, but he'll be back on the road. So let's start with the immediate... My intention is to drive this Z to the upcoming ZCON in Nashville and there are a couple things I need advice on before the trip: First, I need to carry a fire extinguisher and I know nothing about them (other than they are supposed to put out fires). Anyone know the system and have a recommendation for which type would be best for automotive related incidents? Second, I've got the original seat belts in the car, but they are the early non-adjustable style. I'd like to install something newer, safer, better, easier to use before the trip. I might swap the originals back in once I get there, but for almost 1000 miles on the road, I think I want newer technology. Is there an easy to drop in system for the 240Z cars? ZCON or BUST!!!

Haha! I actually fade in and out of consciousness on the forum. You just happen to catch me at a time when I'm actually on-line and logged in. I spend significantly less time here than I did before the last couple software upgrades. Hope that trend does not continue.

That would be great. Here's a clip from zKars notes. if I'm understanding the drawing correctly, he measured the wire diameter at 6mm (.24inch) and the insulation OD at about 9mm (.35 inch). I'm finding gauge numbers and wire diameters all over the place and am just looking for something similar.

I think you would be surprised at the low amount of insertion force required to mate one of those female contacts onto the male tab. They do that on purpose because by the time you get to 35 of them, it adds up. So if you aren't 111% sure that you have a contact issue, I might keep investigating. But if you are looking to replace some contacts, i believe everything involved is old Amp (became TE) "Junior Timer" series. JT. There are many different categories within that family, but I believe the contacts used on the harness side are specially designed to be a lower insertion force. And yes... there should be a retainer tab on each contact. You should not have to worry about all the contacts come flipping out by accident. I think. ☺️

So... While we're here. Anybody have an educated guess as to the gauge of wire used in the original cables? The common choices here in the US are 4-gauge, and 2-Ga. You can get others, but those two are the most common.

There goes Roo again showing off his ebay prowess. Your kung foo is the best.

Oh, and it's been many moons since I've looked at that connector on the end of the EFI harness. I assume the terminal contacts inside are replaceable? Have you looked into that?

Glad you found something. Are you sure you have identified the root issue there? Reproducible at will? Double dog sure? And as for the mystery about behavior, electrical intermittent connections are like that. Barely making connection by a molecule. Does unpredictable stuff.

Well, certainly if you see something pop up for brake master guts, I'm all ears. There's one guy on ebay who has them, but I'm struggling with the price. I'm not sure if the master I have here would work even if the guts were new. I'm not digging the idea of spending over $100 as a gamble just to see if it works. And I wish I could help you with the wire clamp details, I've got original clamps here, but they are all aged to the point that it's quite doubtful I could tell what color they were when new.

The input filters could certainly become intermittent if vibration has taken it's toll. You could put meter across the visible wire coming off one side of the input choke coil and it's corresponding ECU connector pin. Should be pretty easy to figure out which pins they are filtering. Many of them are dead shorted, but the few (three?) that have the coil installed should be easy to determine. Looking at the approximate positions of the filters on the board and the pin functions of the ECU I/O connector, I'd guess that the filters are on pins 7, 27, and 13. Those would be inputs to the ECU that would be susceptible to noise. Those pins are 7) the AFM slider, 27) the air temp input, and 13) the water temp input signals respectively. But of course, that's a guess from across the interwebs. Here's a crude sketch I whipped up bunch of years ago. I know this info is available in other forms, but this form made sense to my brain: So about the failure mode for the Darlington outputs... No, they would probably not fail in the mode you are seeing. HOWEVER, the solder joints TO those transistors could fail with the symptoms you are describing. Any solder joint on the board could potentially go intermittent over time, but it would be unlikely for most of them. Vibration, stress, and temperature would be the risk factors. So about those risk factors... The reason those output transistors are so big and bolted firm to the chassis is that they get hot. There's your heat risk factor. And the I/O connector gets mechanically stressed every time you move the wiring harness or attach/detach the harness to the ECU. There's your stress factor there. Bottom line... If I were looking for a failing solder joint, I would start at the I/O connector and the output transistors. However, all that said, if I'm placing a bet at window #3, I'm betting the root problem is not inside the ECU case.