Captain Obvious

My thoughts on the knob you bought from ebay... It sure looks like a stock knob to me. What was throwing me was the shift map doesn't look green like it's supposed to. Must be a trick of the light. Looks pretty much black in the pics, but it's probably green and just taken with weird lighting. Other thought is that most of the stock knobs are stripped out in the bottom where the mounting threads are, and I suspect the one you bought is just like that... Threads all gone inside. Not an insurmountable issue, but something to watch for. At $40, a good buy. You'll have to probably fix the threads, but that's not unusual.

So I went to ebay and didn't see any stock knobs. Now that you've bought it (and someone can't snipe it away from you) what was the item number so I can have a look at it?

Well unfortunately, the knobs in that pic aren't mine. That's a pic I hoovered some time ago to show the different options. I wish that was my collection! Sorry for the confusion, and I edited my post above to make that clear.

From my (limited) research, that's a good price. Haha! I don't think I'd let mine go for that!

Actually, those two knobs do look a little different. One seems to have the "splits between segments" at 120 degrees and the other has them at 180 degrees. In other words, one of those knobs simulates two pieces of leather, and the other one simulates three pieces of leather. The one I'm familiar with has the splits at 120 degrees. Here's a hoovered pic showing a couple of the different knob offerings over the years. Not my collection, but a good pic hoovered from the web some time ago:

Everything I've seen says the original 77 shift knob was the green faced one in your other post. And it's a hard rubberized plastic (maybe vinyl?), not leather. I've got one of those here and it's available. Problem is putting a price on such a thing. I've not seen one for sale in quite some time, so I'm not sure how to value it. Send me a PM if you want to talk about it. Here's your pic from your wanted thread: The original knob surface was textured to look "leather-like", but most of that texturing wore off quickly and became smooth where the knob got the most grab.

Couple thoughts: After watching the video, you can see that BOTH sides of the Woodruff key shot have cracked. You can see the rough grainy surface of the cast iron on both sides of the groove (or where the groove is supposed to be). One side is a huge chunk missing. Other side is a smaller piece missing. It would be important to find all the loose metal. The little rubber ring and round spring are what's left of your front oil seal when it disintegrated. So when you say "The seal itself looks fine"... That would not be the case. The little rubber ring is the sealing lip that has been sheared off, and the round spring is the garter spring that is supposed to provide the pressure on the back (wet) side of the seal. I'm coming back to thinking it was broken upon installation and has been cracked for some time. Surprised there was still enough of a seal to keep it from spraying oil out at an impressive rate, but I guess it depends on just how much oil is flinging around behind that pulley. Maybe the oil slinger was doing exactly what it's supposed to do. Woof. Last thought is about having that balancer rebuilt... I'm no expert on the topic, but I don't think you're going to find a company to fix that. The companies that rebuild those things specialize in vulcanizing rubber and balancing the result. I would not expect them to make new parts, just rejoin old parts.

I got an idea... the front oil seal rides on the snout of the balancer, right? I'm thinkingif it were broken before you took it off, wouldn't it have leaked oil like crazy out the front. With that in mind, I'm thinking it broke when you pulled it.

Yeah, and I'm wondering of the stubbornness to remove was related to the failure. Either it was stubborn to install and took excessive force because there was a problem. Or it was stubborn to remove because it was cracked and wedged on or bent or something. I guess I wasn't saying it was an easy question to answer. I was suggesting studying the crack and the situation and trying to figure out if the crack was new or had been there for some time.

So the first question is... Did the damper crack on it's way out as you pulled it, or was it already cracked before you pulled it? I think that's what Zed Head was alluding to. It would be interesting to have the answer to that. As for the gouge on the back side, didn't you say your timing pointer was chewed off? I think you may have figured out what happened there. It's not the first example of a cracked damper, although the other ones I remember were damaged upon insertion. Improper insertion. If yours was damaged when they put it in, and wobbled because of that damage, it would explain a lot. Wouldn't help pay for a replacement, but would at least explain what happened.

Yeah, I agree. My biggest point above is that looking at this part, I would not be surprised if this seemingly simple part is more complicated than it appears because of real world materials properties. I mean, if someone wants to try to make one for their own use, go for it. But I'm not intending to get into the fuse adapter business.

I'm in. Oh, and "Two tubie slitty thingys." I dated her in high school.

It is completely conceivable that your old switch has burned up contacts inside and turning it as far as you can (to full stop) in the clockwise direction would break the contact. And of course, it would be more concerning if your new switch did the same thing. So check it again with your new-new switch when it arrives, and let us know. Let's hope if was the loose terminal.

What? You think that was an accident? What took you so long?

Wow. Nice switch. Hope that was a really really rare occurrence. So your question "if I turn it full hard to the right or clockwise. The starter doesn’t kick on at all. Is this normal?" In my experience, the answer is "No, that is not normal." It sounds like your lock is travelling too far and going PAST the location that it should rotate. I've seen situations where internal wear makes it such that the switch doesn't turn far enough, but I don't think I've seen it turning TOO far. I'll dig some lock parts out when I get the chance and see if I can come up with any ideas.

LOL! I was going to respond earlier, but I was out of computer time. Beer to drink and all that... So I'm speculating that those parts are formed and NOT extruded. I would guess they are formed in the annealed state and then heat treated to a more springy condition after forming. The fact that they look completely closed where the fuse blade is inserted is interesting. My limited experience making such things says that would be difficult to achieve due to spring-back of any material when you are forming it. Hats off to them for achieving that and I'm not sure how they did it. As far as the material, stainless is not generally known for awesome electrical conduction properties compared to copper based alloys. Stainless is also not known for great forming properties either. I would have guessed they were chrome plated brass, but their website says they are " high-strength steel", so it seems my guess would have been wrong. All in all, a neat idea and a well done implementation. I'm guessing the investment in tooling to make those things was not trivial. Going to have to sell a lot of them to recoup that investment.

Because that's the sort of thing you do when you have access to a laser cutter. Haha!!

And lastly... Here's a pic of my gland nut wrench test piece. This is on the 280 nut. Fits great: But here it is on the smaller 240 nut. The octagon is too big. So my CAD file won't do you a lot of good since it's the wrong size. @Daluvian I got your PM and will respond there too.

So that brings up a point... You 240 owners who bought the KYB 361002 struts for the front of your car... Don't toss out that larger gland nut that didn't fit your car. There might be a 280 owner out there who could use it! And vice versa for the 280 owners like me who have small nuts and don't know what to do with them.

Well would you look at that! It appears that the 240 DOES have a smaller ID strut tube and a smaller gland nut! I thought they just made the 280 wall thicker, but apparently both OD and ID changed with the 280's. The point is I have the smaller KYB gland nuts that I'm not going to use because they don't fit my 280. Using that info, here's what I have: So do you want just one, or both?

From my years in GM world, there were many HEI module failures, but those were attributed to mounting the module under the distributor cap and dealing with all the engine heat. I never personally studied the failures, but that's the belief. Keep it cool, and it'll be fine. Put it on top of the engine, and it won't last nearly as long.

Do you have a caliper that you can use to measure the outside diameter of the threads on your damaged nut? That would be the easiest way to talk about them. Length is confusing. Thread diameter is not. And about your gland nut wrench... Not long ago, I did exactly that and had a peototype wrench head laser cut for the KYB nuts and I have the CAD file I created if you're interested. Mine was just a test part cut out of thinner material (too thin to be really usable), but the outline fit great.

Yes, the 280 tubes are thicker wall, but I think the ID and the threads of the the 240 and 280 are the same. If the 240 uses the smaller KYB nut, then those are available. I have no need for those! That would be a perfect solution!

And just so I'm positive that I wasn't seeing things, here's a couple threads that talk about the old one eared ignition switch: https://www.classiczcars.com/forums/topic/45631-ignition-switch/ https://www.classiczcars.com/forums/topic/49960-240z-ignition-problem/ Good pics in those threads. Like this one: So it's completely conceivable that those older one-eared switches did not follow the same power map as the newer two-eared versions, but without a sample, I'm not sure if we will be able to figure out if that's the case, or if it's a documentation error. Me personally? I find it really odd that they would kill the power to the ballast resistor while in the START position. I would expect them to keep that powered in both ON and START. You need a bump-less transfer between those two when you are starting the car. You don't want a dead spot between those two positions.

I took a look at what I have, and I unfortunately do not have a spare KYB gland nut. Here's a pic of what I could quickly put my hands on... Note that the new KYB on the bottom row is not available. I took that out of a KYB strut box here and the plan is that strut (and it's nut) will find it's way onto my car. I don't know the brand/origin of the top left nut or the one top middle. The top right is from a Tokico strut, and the bottom two are new KYB's' from a front strut box. I need the big KYB, but the small one is extra. Too small for my strut tubes: