emptech

I couldn't help notice that you were measuring 23mm below the top edge of the bowl. According to the factory manual, the 23mm starts from the bottom of the float bowl lid. Turns out the distance from the bottom of the float bowl lid to the bottom of the lid is exactly 3mm, if you don't count the thickness of the gasket, the proper level for the fuel would then be 20mm below the top edge of the bowl. Nobody has ever said how accurate this has to be, but we know if the level is too high, we get a rich mixture. I re-read your comment, I measured 3.0mm, you measured 3.4mm, close enough. It's so much easier to just measure 20mm down from the edge, why is everybody stuck on 23mm? Jim

Mike: I know you got it fixed, but it seems like a fusible link from your description. Has four pins, if you take the cover off you probably found two wires, each one like an inverted U. One was probably fried. What is more important, what was the cause of the link blowing? A fusible link is nothing more than a piece of wire of a specific gage that gets hot when there is too much current and it burns open, nothing more than a fuse in effect. Jim

You answered the above questions. Don't worry about the battery voltage, seems to be cranking just fine. It isn't firing, either a fuel problem or an ignition problem. Might be easier to check ignition first. Pull one of the spark plugs, attach the ignition wire to the plug, lay the plug down on the engine somewhere, like on the intake manifold. Make sure the metal part (threaded) touches part of the engine. Crank the engine, if you aren't at a good angle, have somebody else crank the engine. You should see a spark appearing at the gap. If you don't, you have an ignition problem. If that's the case, you have to work backwards. Pop the distributor cap off, crank the engine, see if the rotor is turning. We can give you more items to check with. If you wanted to test for a fuel problem, you could squirt some starting fluid (ether) down the air intake, after removing the hose to the filter. I don't have a 280, so can't describe it. Try cranking the engine, if it pops, tries to start, could be a fuel problem. From there, clogged fuel filter, fuel pump problems, clogged fuel lines, empty gas tank, on and on. Hope this helps. Jim

On one of my older engines, my chain tensioner stuck out like that, it was because I had so much milled of the head, the chain got loose. So that the tensioner wouldn't pop out, I machined an extension for it, ran for years, not because of worn chain guides. I cooked the engine one time, warped the head real bad, had to shave both surfaces of the head, decreasing the distance between the two sprockets. Don't recall from the thread, did you have the head shaved? Eventually I bought a new head and all dimensions came back to normal and I was able to go back to the proper tensioner. Of course, a stretched chain would do that too. If I recall, it is pretty much a straight shot from the lower sprocket to the cam sprocket on the "pulling" side, whereas the tensioner simply takes up slack. Would seem to me that a lot of the plastic would have to be missing to cause such a problem. Jim

There are two places where three sets of bearings go. The last one is in the spring held by a clip. It is the location closes to the mounting plate that holds the pickups. There is a plastic three fingered item that holds the balls. It goes between two metal plates. I'm trying to figure the orientation of the plastic item and the two metal plates, such that as the advance plate goes through it's several degrees of motion, the balls stay in constant contact with the plates. When it came apart, the various plates got rotated. I don't think anything got flipped over. I'll eventually figure it out. I can't tell by any "tell-tale" marks from where the bearings were because the surfaces were all rusty, and once I cleaned them with sand paper and scotchbrite, the marks from the bearings went away. With time, I'll figure it out, but would be nice to see a blow up. Jim

I'm in the process of repairing a 260z distributor and found it was all rusted up, all stuck together. Now that I got it apart and cleaned up, although I was very careful on how I laid the parts out, I'm not sure how the parts having to do with the advance plate mechanism line up. I've had to replace all six ball bearings and don't see how the plates line up that sandwich the bearings. The factory manual doesn't show these details. I found a tutorial on a 280z distributor, but the parts don't match the 260z. I have a 240z distributor but it's parts don't match either. Not that it matters, this distributor has two pick-up coils. Not an emergency, but it is the only thing stopping me from firing this baby up. Thanks in advance - Jim

What is a coolant cap? I know what a freeze plug is. I had to modify the coolant system on a 260z I'm converting to round tops, had to plug some of the metal lines. I machined a brass plug and silver soldered it into the holes in the tube. I could have left a small piece of hose with a bolt as you did but wanted to do the job right. That way the lines still look original, they just have a blunt end where the hose used to go. Jim

To determine if it is the switch, pull the wire from the connector, if the light goes out, bingo. I've heard they don't always reset, but your mileage may vary. Jim

Kind of late on this one but nobody has mentioned the proportioning switch. The proportioning switch is under the hood, most obvious because it has lots of brake lines going to and from. There is a wire attached to the middle of the switch. It triggers by a differential of pressure between the front brake system and the rear, when the piston travels from the middle position, it turns on your brake warning light, same as the handbrake light. To test for this, pull the wire from the switch, if the light goes out, that's the problem. If the brake pressure problem has been fixed, the switch will either have to be manually reset or replaced. Jim

Speaking of using a bench scope ( I have several, all tek) for automotive use, I would loosely couple to the hot wire right off the coil. Loosely means a few turns of hookup wire around the high tension wire, the end to the scope probe, just creating a small capacitor. The trigger of the scope couples to plug #1. Given the proper sweep rate for the rpm range, you can see a representation of the waveforms for all plugs, the distributor being your multiplexer. The order would be the firing order of course. I suppose if you wanted to get fancy, you could put a second channel on the trigger from your points or pickup. Jim

John: You are right about the higher compression ratio, that's mainly why alcohol is used in indy cars, but they are using methanol. I worked 32 years on the circuits, did fire/rescue. I worked in the pits along with all of the big boys. The indy people also claimed it was safer than gasoline, probably true, but you couldn't see the flames. You saw drivers dancing on the ground, paint wrinkling, shadows of the heat waves, grass burning, clothing starting to burn, etc. but the good thing, plain ole water put it out and cooled too. Also, what is fuel drier? Nothing more than alcohol, since it has an affinity for water. Here on the left coast there is no source for ethanol. It all comes from the midwest, shipped out in tanker cars, then blended locally with gasoline to produce e85. There was a facility in Stockton, CA that processed ethanol but it closed down. Don't want to get political here, but e85 is a scam, I went back to gasoline. I bought some regular a couple days ago for a discounted price of $4.65 a gallon, and I remember gas wars years ago of less than 24 cents a gallon. Jim

That's funny Bruce, that's exactly what I ended up doing, the bowl lid in the normal position, while I blew into the inlet, I slowly raised the float. I held a metric machinist's scale next to the float, when the flow stopped, I read the number. I can't 100% agree with your number of .55" (about 14mm), I'm getting closer to 18mm, but I'm confirming my final measurement with a site glass (tube). I think your .55" is accurate, IF the same Grose jet had been used, but that's not the case now. Most important, we are all on the same page. Jim

Don't have an answer but am working on the same thing. I have Bruce's dvd, but there seems to be a flaw in using a gage like he does. I machined a gage, my bowls over-flowed. I ended up machining a barb fitting that goes in the drain hole (like Bruce sells) and used a plastic tube. I've found it is a "cut and try" process, when I had the level right, the gap between the rim of the lid and top of the float wasn't anything near the .55". I just bent things to make the 23mm of fuel level to come out right. Took several times. I also found that often the float would hang up on the sides of the bowl. I took the over-flow barb off and inserted a small piece of wire to make sure the float was free and not catching. I couldn't figure why my bending of the tab wasn't changing the level, the float was sticking on something. Now I keep the four screws loose, wiggle the lid until I know it is free then tighten the screws. Finished one carb tonight, will finish the second one tomorrow. I bought new bowl valves from Bruce, but they aren't the ones like in the video with the balls. I have to wonder if that's why my measurement of the bowl height is different, did he change valves? Incidentally, I'm using Tygon F4040 fuel line, gasoline proof. Clear and very flexible. Jim

I'm assuming those numbers on your feeler gages are metric? I don't have a mic handy, about how thick is aluminum foil? But like others have said, if nothing has changed, debris under one or more of the other cam towers? I'm sure you marked your towers with something like a center punch, one tick for #1, two ticks for #2, etc. If they all got mixed up, how about trying different orders until you get one that fits right, not the right answer, but might work. It worked for me one time when I had my head milled and the towers didn't line up, swapping them around worked. Jim

I've pulled my 2.4l and 4sp man xmission out separately and together, only problem is getting the shift lever in and out of the hole in the tunnel, just takes patients, I've even done it myself without a helper, yes, can be done. Jim