oranngetang

My bad! When I got home I checked the coolant just to be sure ad it was down almost a little. I'll keep an eye on that. Perhaps a rebuilt head is going to be on order soon...

Not losing any coolant that I have noticed. I've put a couple hundred miles on the car since putting it back together and haven't needed to add any coolant, or noticed any steam from exhaust. I'll try for a more accurate mark. I don't knowing the mechanical advance is in GOOD condition, I've nearly checked that I can move it and have lubricated it.

FYI, my $100 b-type is an incredible improvement over my 43 year old original a-type. The shifter mechanism is a huge improvement, and this own appears to have synchros left! Car smokes like hell, I'm hoping it's just oil in the exhaust and I didn't destroy throat cylinder with my experiment.

I removed all plugs other than #1 and turned engine with a wrench until I felt pressure. At that point I removed the plug and inserted a pier of wire and watch it as I strokes the piston up. Since there seems to be about 15 degrees of crank rotation where the piston effectively stops moving, I made two marks on the wire. One for stops going up and one for stops going down, and then marked the top side of the crank pulley half way in between. In going to build a drilled out plug with hose and oil inside to fun this more accurately. Do I make the mark on the TOP of the.pulley or do I put the mark where the timing mark poibter is, with engine at TDC?

A local shop advised that I probably have a stuck ring in #4 from the excessive carbon in the engine from sporadic and rich running, probably why that plug keeps becoming fouled. He recommended Seafoam and carb cleaner. I asked if it was his engine, what method would he choose. The recommendation was to soak the cylinder in carb cleaner over night, filling it, if it drips away. I decided to do both, and ran seafoam through the engine as directed, later in the evening, drained the oil, left the plug out and pulled the #4 spark plug. The cylinder took about 1/3rd a can of carb cleaner to fill. I waited 4 hours for it to drain, refilled, and repeated. When my carb cleaner was through the rings and out the pan, I filled the cylinder with ATF for the night. Only a couple of CC leaked over 8 hours. I left the plug out and turned the crank with a socket to get the ATF out, and then cranked with coil disconnected to clear it. I spent most of today pulling out my A-type trans and finding my rear-main leak looks to be the tranni input seal, or perhaps it is indeed both. I installed a '72 B-type I picked up a few months ago and fired up the engine after refilling with oil and filter. So far no drips. I would take it for a drive and see if it drips, and if this experiment did anything positive to the engine or not, however I can't get the shifter in. I suppose my choices are to cut the floor and notch the console (i'd rather not), or cut, weld and bend the shifter to not interfere with the cutout. I'll post results on this, and if the #4 continues to foul in the upcoming days hopefully.

Pics of plugs.... After a high speed, warm running sprint, clutch in and ignition off. After the drive home, with idling at lights and pulling into garage.

Sorry Wade, my reply is long overdue, partly because winter started for us at about the time I started this thread. I have the Z back on the road for this year, and have been doing some trouble shooting. It seems that until the engine is well warmed up, it really doesn't want to drive at all unless the choke is pulled. Once I've had it flat out for a mile or so, it starts to drive absolutely fine, though that #4 is still getting oil in it, and the smoke is visible when shifting gears. I currently have the carbs synced using the unisyn tool, with a slightly high idle of 1100rpm. With a lower idle, #4 fouls up fairly frequently. I'm running a Pertronix Ignitor in the factory dizzy, with an MSD Blaster coil and ballast. Once the engine is lively, I can take it for a good run, clutch in, engine off, and pull plugs. All plugs are tan and clean at the electrode, but with evidence of carbon on the threaded housing. Number #4 plug is always wet along the bottom threads. Compression on a warm engine is 150-160PSI on all cylinders, the gauge I'm using isn't anything special, and I think with the length of hose it has, 170lbs might be a more accurate. #4 seems to always have 5lbs more than the other cylinders, probably because it is wet. Timing? I found top dead center the best I could for now, and marked it out. With vacuum advance disconnected and at an 1100rpm idle I read 28* BTDC, engine at 4000rpm is 45* or so, so clearly my mark is off, or the dampener has separated, or I suppose the centrifugal is stuck at 28*. If I keep the light on the engine and rev it, from an idle the mark retards before advancing. I have drawn a line across the dampener to see if it walks out. If I retard the timing 5 degrees from where I am, I loose all bottom end and get an occasional backfire at intake. I would assume based on that, I'm running close to 8* BTDC and 25* total, unless the 28* mark is accurate. Oddly enough, to get to this point I need to turn the distributor as far as it will turn to advance, so maybe it's out a cog. I have not yet picked up a vacuum gauge that will work with this. I need to do some tinkering, or buy a new gauge. I tried the trick you mentioned with some starting fluid and brake clean without anything obvious. My brake booster lines are newly replaced, the booster works well, and if I disconnect the brake booster line the engine revs upwards, so I think the vacuum is good on that end of the manifold. Other than that port and the PCV, the vacuum advance is the only other place for it to leak, since I have a smoothed balance tube and NO emission equipment. Spark is good on all plugs. I made an adjustment to the gap on #3 and #4, because it was scattering around the electrode, and now everything looks good. Once the car is warm and running well, it drives and pulls nice. Will walk up to 100MPH fairly well, with no flat spots, just somewhat lacking in power below 2000RPM. It feels like it pulls best between 4500 and 5500RPM and then the power starts to drop off. If you've ever driven a VTEC Honda, IE: B16A in a late 80s CRX, this is exactly how it behaves. Until I really give the car the beans, it will run like crap and not idle, demand choke, stall, and so on. Basically it demands to be rich when its cold, and if the choke is anywhere other than all the way (you can smell gas), it will lurch and spit and pop, and will not accelerate. Even if the engine warms up, and I havn't given it a good run flat out, it will continue in this manner. This is a huge post, I wish there was less to make you guys read. My first question is... with a decent compression test, is it possible my oil leak in #4 is coming from the head? I set the valves last year, between a half of 1 thousandth and 1 thousandth inch tighter than factory specs on a cold engine. Doing this removed a lot of valve clatter, but perhaps I should redo on a hot engine? If I pull off the valve cover, what will I want to be looking for oil consumption? I feel like I should not drive this car anymore until I have this sorted out. OR say the hell with it and rebuild this thing if necessary.

I should also mention, #4 plug is always wet fouled when all others are dry. Number 1 is always tan and clean, no matter what... Whatever that means.

I'm sure this has been covered in other help me threads, but I've read through a dozen or more and have consolidated all of the information that pertains to my setup. I'm beginning to wonder if perhaps my distributor is going. Any advice is welcome, I appreciate the input. The problem that I'm experiencing is while the car is occasionally very smooth up to 6500rpm or so, after a few minutes of idling, it'll become jerky and misfire. The problem seems to have no easy cure. Sometimes if I shut it down for a few minutes, everything is fine again, sometimes it's the opposite. I assumed fouling from carbon may be causing this, since when it runs poorly, it will occasionally give a small backfire from the tail pipe. I'm guessing the misfire is letting unburnt fuel into the exhaust where it eventually finds ignition. I have balanced and tuned my ZTherapy 4 screw carbs as per the Just SU video, using a uni-syn meter. It seems no matter what, the engine only runs if the conditions are extremely rich. I'm currently nearly hitting the stops on the mixture adjustment screws. I pulled the float bowl lids off and adjusted the needle valve to roughly 18mm from top of float to bottom of lid using the blow and listen technique... I can't see how anyone gets very accurate results from that. Anyway, the car seems to run the same, with just less carbon smoke as I lean it out to a certain point, and that's where I've left it. I'm talking a minimum of 5 turns to even get an idle out of it. Ignition wise (and this might be a big part of the issue), I'm running stock dizzy with points. I opened the plug gap from 0.32 to 0.39 on the stock NGK plugs and noticed a considerably better burn. Coil is an MSD Blaster 0.7Ohm, with 0.8Ohm resistor that came with it for use with points. This seems like it may not be enough resistance to me. That would give 8A instead of 4A (3Ohm) at the dizzy, unless I'm confused. I installed a new set of points and set that gap to 0.18". Timing? Well, I drew a line on the harmonic dampener and set the timing to 10BDC, total advance is 60BDC, so I'm gaining 50 degrees from the mechanical / vacuum at about 3800rpm. The idle was rough, so I increased the timing to 15BDC and everything is smooth, without detonation. My line is probably off. I have a pertronix ignitor on its way for Friday to give it a try. There seems to be mixed reviews if one can run it without a resistor or not. I'll give the manual a read. Any thoughts or where to startover? I've fought with this for a week, tuning everyday until I find a happy spot and then all by itself it just starts misfiring and lurching all over. I've even tried pinching off the fuel return line to see if it's a pump issue. Stock mechanical pump btw.. Power-wise, when it's running decently, it'll run happily up to about 80mph, and then drag its arse to 115mph and no faster. I'm not sure that's typical or not. Stock L24, A cam, P30/E88 head, Ztherapy 4 screw with needle valve, not grose jet, headers, stock air horns, stock ignition other than the coil, new plugs, wires, cap.

Ordered up some stainless braided brake hoses by Russell. Hopefully I'll get home for the weekend to get them installed to satisfy the inspection! Maybe I will get to go for a drive before it snows out after all. The inspection facility was quoting about $550 bucks to change out the four hoses with OE stuff... Hopefully it only takes an hour to change and bleed.. Crosses-fingers in hopes of no seized or rotted fittings

Getting inspected today. I had temp insurance and registration put on it to drive to the inspection facility. For the first time driving this, I'm surprised by how smooth everything is (other than the syncro-mesh). No squeaks, creaks or bumps in the suspension or chassis, a soft, but pleasant ride. Stiffer springs are a must. Ran well on the rich side in higher rev range and seemed to have lots of power. I was also surprised by how easily you can kick the back end out and flick it around... Open-headers are could probably be heard all the way through town, but how often do you get a chance to drive a 70' Z sideways with open headers in the city... Big grin Will do the final tune on the engine once the exhaust is on, and I can hunt down any exhaust and intake leaks. Should probably set the valves again when she's warm.

Found a nut in a bolt bin I had. Doesn't match, but same pitch. I'll just order 6 of em later on.

Fought for hours with door lock installation... Beware of 4 lug lock bodies on eBay if you need 3 lug locks! Turns out a screw that is just a little too long prevents the lock/unlock function. I only gutted my door and replaced the innards from another door before realizing the mechanism that just worked fine, now doesn't. 45 minutes later I found the screw My shiney new uni-syn showed up today. Found an intake gasket leak and kind of fixed it for now, I think... Pacesetter headers are garbage FTR. The flange is too thin, so you need shouldered washers to tighten down both manifolds. They dot fit and are a pain to get accurate! I'm sure I now have two bent studs trying to fix this issue... That and they're thin and flex all over the place when they heat up, y pipe doesn't fit, etc. junk! Once the leak was seemingly repaired I proceeded to try and tune the carbs. Found a nice stable idle, and it runs well enough for now, until the inspection and exhaust are out of the way. Then it's tuning time... Picked up a digital advance timing light with tach display. Haven't had a chance to use it yet. Installed air leaner and hoses. I need to make something for valve cover to cleaner hose and plug the smog pump intake port. Running out of things to do, at last.

I'll try to hit up a few industrial supply shops tomorrow. There is a Fastenal not to far from town that supposedly carries just about any type of nut and bolt you can think of. If it doesn't work out for me I'll PM one of you guys. Thanks for the help. What do you mean by "should probably stay with stock part for a 70 series 1"? Is that to just keep it original or is there something I'm not aware of? I heard in 71 the cars got safer, heavier, etc. Is it a rigidity issue?

Good eye, I havn't found a matching nut yet, but I'll throw one on for the inspection. That's one of the things I mean by I don't know how it passed a BC inspection before. That nut was never on the car when it came into Canada, the floor was rotted through, the signals and electrical was on the fritz. Rear brake wear is probably from burnouts. I know this car one a local burnout competition several years ago I'll more than likely be swapping them out for a set by Tokico, though I'm not partial to that name, just the price. If the drums and pistons need to be replaced, I'll more than likely lean towards rear discs instead. I rather not modify the car anymore than absolutely necessary, but a tight and responsive ride is important to me. Rims-wise... I'll give these a polish, and keep them on until spring. I love the look of the Rota wheels, but it's been done so many times. I might go for a slightly larger diameter and sharper looking slotted wheel to keep it looking original. I'm not into rolling fenders or trimming springs, so I'll work with tire profile to make them fit the wells. Any advice on basic suspension and brake upgrades without breaking the bank? I might go poly-bushings, a rough ride is fine with me and I can live with the squeaks if they'll last.

Almost done.

Here is a progress report: Going for inspection on Thursday. This thing passed a CA to BC inspection a few thousand km before I got my hands on it. I wonder how it passed, and what else I may need to do. There is a bit of front end play and brakes seem a little soft, though I've bled them repeatedly. I may have a vacuum leak at the brake booster that would cause me some grief with idle and brake pressure, both of which I have. Interior is mostly back in. Need to attack the door locks and interior panels, my new eBay looks have a 4th lug on the housing so I can't stuff them in my 70' doors without cutting them or grinding down the bodies...

Booked inspection for Thursday next week. Finished up center console, choke plate, and assembled center console, re-connected choke cables and electronics. Bled brakes, discovered drums are WEAK. Might need to rebuild those before inspection.

I have the "Series 1" 4-speed. The reverse sensor is the only sensor in the transmission, and the auto wasn't an option yet. Good news is, I found an inspection facility that said this modification is not necessary. Bad new is, I can't post pictures and help for anyone else that runs into this dilemma.

Alright, looks like the mounting of a switch will be the only challenge then. Judging by a wiring diagram I found on this forum, it looks like the Black Yellow wire runs directly from the ignition switch to the starter solenoid on manual transmission cars. In the event there was an automatic transmission, it may pass through an inhibitor switch first. Once I find a suitable switch for this task, I'll dive into it and cut that BY wire nearest the switch I'm able to. Thanks.

Welded in new frame rails, ground down floor patches and firewall patches, primed, sealed and painted inside and out. Put carpet back in. Cut off the worn seat studs, replaced with grade 8 nuts and bolts and installed seats. Sat in driver's seat and imagined driving it with smiles. Sanded down center console and patched PO's drilled holes and gouges with epoxy and then bondo to smooth. Tried out SEM prep products followed by SEM textured surface spray. Incredible stuff! I'll let it cure for a couple of days before final scuff and paint. Pondered thought of installing clutch to starter interlock switch... Installed new shoulder belts from Retro Belts. Noticed license plate light was not working, traced down broken wire and soldered in new connections. Remembered I forgot to order new felts... Currently on Black Dragon site looking up part numbers. Hopefully getting inspected by end of month so I can open her up and get these carb issues sorted out. Can't wait to lay down some rubber.

The Z is almost ready for inspection, though Alberta requires there be a neutral safety switch in working condition. Since I have a `70 4 Speed with straight stick linkage, I don't believe that was ever a feature. My solution is to wire in a switch to the clutch pedal, that basically ensures the car will not move if started in gear. Now, obviously there are a 1,000 ways to go about this, but surely someone here was already done the guess work. My first thought is to install a 2nd brake pedal switch to the clutch pedal, to act as an interconnect to the ignition. I would rather not cut anything in the ignition harness, so I would probably just run a heavy gauge wire to put the switch inline with the starter solenoid lead, after the ignition. Will that work?

I had the same issue and it was the hazard switch. I replaced it with a rebuilt one and the problem went away. If you havn't already done so, upgrading to to electronic flasher units may help reduce some load on the circuits and let your lights blink at a more regular interval. On my Z there is one on the RH kick panel for the hazards and one above the steering column, right behind the dash for the signals. I used two precision screwdrivers to remove the spin on ring style switch.

I would be interested in a set of decals should you end up ordering / making some for the hot / def / room, etc. I recently painted and refreshed mine, but the decals are gone forever!

At last, a day to myself to work on the Z! Re-installed HVAC controls, radio, vents, electrical, fuse panel, etc. Got all signals, tail lights, brake lights, headlights, etc, working 100%. Even the map light is fixed! Installed new washer pump and plumbing. Unfortunately the RH nozzle has a crack and is also plugged. It's soaking in CLR, to hopefully clear a blockage. Perhaps I can JB weld the crack until I find a replacement if the blockage is cleared. Left on the to-do list before going for inspection: Get the tach and speedo to work Install window roller bumpers and new seals/felt to smooth out regulator operation Reinstall interior fabrics, seats, console, new belts, etc. Weld in exhaust and install air cleaner and fan. Weld in a new piece of metal to repair rusty lower firewall/pan section. It's getting close! Maybe a day or two of work and then I can start playing with the carbs to get it running better. I have the same issue as before I sent the carbs to Z-Therapy for an overhaul. I'm also getting the occasional backfire out of the carbs themselves when it's running, so checking timing is probably a good start. Issue is, car ONLY runs with choke fully closed. Will not idle unless it's 80% closed. I should also change the fuel filter before I start messing with anything. Any other advice or experience with this symptom? I should mention to the dash-cap haters... It came that way and this dash is the worst I have seen under that cap. I picked up another 70' 240z dash with all gauges intact a couple of weeks ago, and plan to restore that one, which only has one small crack above the clock. Is it bad taste to move the VIN plate from one dash to another? There is about 12,000 VIN difference between the two, but otherwise look identical.