AK260

You know how those naughty little cookies track your internet activity and serve you up adverts you may be interested in? You know, the ones aligned with what you’ve purchased or searched for!? Well, this keeps coming up and I’m thinking: - Magnets for kids’ school projects, check. - Car protection and camping equipment, check. - Power tools, of course check. - Power boots, wait, what, hold on, what the heck!? Anyhow, I thought that may bring a smile to your lovely faces - is anyone else getting random ads?

And here it is with 32L in - as suspected, not quite at half way but the best it’s been ever. I’d rather leave the adjustment where it is so that I’m certain about the 15L and the 9L positions. edit: one of the guys in the UK club who’s had Zs for 40 years was saying that apparently they read differently when warm! I suspect it’s something to do with the voltage regulator electronics inside the gauge!

Thanks @SteveJ, that’s really great information. Yes mine is a ‘77 RHD 260Z; I believe we got the 260 2 seater from 75-78 in the UK (happy to be corrected). It has a slightly different looking fuel tank to the US 240/260 cars. It’s very similar to some 280Z tanks that I’ve seen advertised on eBay. Here’s a pic from when I was refreshing it during lockdown. That top breather hose with the crazy 180° loop was crushed on mine and instead of buying a reproduction one for a small fortune (which likely will go again over time), I opted for IIRC 17mm ID hose and inserted a 15mm pipe bending spring into it. Or was it larger? I can’t be sure. Regardless, the stainless steel pipe bending spring works a charm and will never let that pipe crush again. Before this fix, the top part of the tank wouldn’t fully fill and the needle only went to just over 1/2. I suspect it was because it got to the level of the smaller breather pipe just below it. Made filling up a lot cheaper 😛 Now that I know more precisely than ever before how much I have in it, it would be interesting to see what my next full fill up ends up as (60 or 65L). Given your explanation, I will likely leave it there for now and see what it does when I start putting miles on in Spring / Summer. Thanks again, much appreciated.

Completely and utterly agree with this sentiment! I only outsource the simple but needs a ramp stuff on the family cars let alone anything on the Z!! With something like this and so much precision required, no one will give it as much love and attention as you have. One of the guys in the UK club has spent a small fortune trying to get a while free LSD diff. Even gave one to Quaife to install their ATB into and found it worse than before it went to them. I suspect they outsource the smaller jobs and for £300 to install the ATB (this was a few years back) I can’t imagine someone spending as much time as you have sweating the details. Really great work here! I have to say, you are brave to be dealing with that pinion bearing. Consensus has been that many of the “outsourced” diffs end up with problems after the pinion bearing had been replaced. I suspect they didn’t pay as much attention to shims and wipe patterns as you have / will by the time it’s all together.

To keep adding to this excellent thread… I was playing under the car today and stink of fuel! problem: The gauge drops to below half within say 50 miles of filling up, then stays close to E forever, until all of a sudden it’s below it and you’re driving around with your sphincter pulsating, wondering if you will run out before the petrol station arrives. So I started by draining the tank completely and adjusted the sender bend for fully empty to not be way below the mark but “just” below. Then filled up and observed the needle in 5L increments. 9L is c. 2 imperial gallons (5.54L / gal). Knowing my typical 15-17mpg average (with a heavy right foot), that gives me a safety margin when on E, but an uncomfortable one that I won’t be visiting unless it’s an emergency - as it would suck all the potential crud at the bottom of the tank. The edge of the white tape aligns with needle position at totally empty. I really wanted to know the 15L position as that is roughly 1/4 of a tank and I tend to fill up before that. But I now know where a true 1/4 tank is. Finally at 27L with all the fuel I had to hand - I believe a full tank for a European 260z is 65L (tested by shoe horning 63litres at the pump) so another 5L and it’ll be roughly at half a tank. This is progress as I will now trust the gauge more. With another 5litres, the needle will be pretty close to half. But I suspect it will be shy of it. I managed to semi-slice a decent chunk of flesh off my finger using a wheel chock, but currently held on with tissue and electric tape - I’ll spare you the graphic photos! That ended play for today and I’m currently waiting for my wife to get home so that I may go to A&E to have it checked out! So I didn’t get to go buy that extra 5L in the can to try (maybe I’ll get it on the way back from hospital 😛 )! I will report back when at 32 litres. What I’m wondering though is, has anyone used the trim adjustments on the back of the fuel gauge to fine tune rather than constantly pulling and guess bending the sender arm?

Thanks fella. If any consolation, I still have tonnes of underseal liberally sprayed by the PO to scrape off one day. The good news is, what I’ve peeled off has solid metal beneath it! Which is rare for UK cars - as they normally use it to conceal rust before selling 😉 also the trouble with a clean underbelly is that any puddle becomes scary while driving - all you’re thinking of is what’s that doing to my lovely clean underside! 😛

I used them in lock down to clamp onto the fuel tank - they are great quality!

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas! Oh and BTW people, turns out unleaded doesn’t taste very nice and makes your lips / gums burn!! I was trying to drain the fuel tank using a siphon hand pump that wasn’t working - so I had a genius idea!!! Why don’t I suck on the pipe? Being a clear pipe I can see the fuel coming and would be able to quickly remove my mouth at the right moment to point the hose into the fuel can. What could possibly go wrong? 😳 Doh!

Wishing you all a very successful 2024!!

All our Tachs are based on the Smiths ones from what I have read. This is a useful way of keeping your original face / movement and replacing the electronics for very little money and a tiny bit of soldering. Many have used this on their Datsuns with good results. https://spiyda.com/smiths-rvi-rvc-conversion-board.html

I did!! ;) VHT = Very Hight Temp (paint). I’ve done this for decades on callipers and it seems to be pretty good - however, if you let lots of brake dust sit on it for a long time, then you need to touch it up. I’ve found Simonize VHT with a light spray over of Matt clear coat does the trick for years. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

Swapped out the MT90 to the Swepco201 gear oil and the steel synchros are way way happier in giving me gears!! The roads have been salted around here so I warmed the car up on the drive - don’t try this at home kids!! The rough running engine is a function of my “on the choke adjustment” not being identical on the carbs. Swepco201 ain’t cheap but worth it if you have steel synchros.

We had a UK member’s hoses fail in under 1 year!!!! He went to start his car and waited for the fuel pump to build pressure - but then saw a mist hanging above the louvres of the bonnet. He popped the bonnet to find his virtually new braided hoses were creating a fine mist! Ethanol is nasty stuff. Even the R9 hoses aren’t ethanol proof - so it’s best to use bio fuel hoses. https://www.advancedfluidsolutions.co.uk/100-bio-fuel-hoses-petrol--diesel-hose-0--100-199-c.asp

They look great!! But as you know yourself, they will go rusty pretty quickly after being washed / introduced to humidity or rain! In my experience, I VHT silver paint mine out of the spray can and they last a VERY long time. They look OEM but the paint isn’t thick like other calliper paints. But, having said all that, I LOVE the idea of matt finish clear coat as suggested above.

Ha! The discerning “collector”. Truthfully, the emblems came with sticky backs so I trusted them - silly me! But since using the 3M double back patches (also used for mounting your go pro windscreen mounting etc), not had a problem!

Well, I would normally agree but having lost emblems from the rear spoiler with only 3M sticky stuff on, I now use both barrel clips AND the sticky tape.

Very small world! 😉

Small world. I’m on Oxted - JCT6 of M25! Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

So buddy I recently went 4 row aluminium red and the fuel rail heat issues at idle or after a fuel stop have nearly all but gone. Sure the temps dropped from high to low/mid 20°c when I was testing it but it made a difference like I couldn’t imagine. My carbs fuel bowls which used to get “warm” are also cool to the touch now also. Even idling to warm up in the garage on a cooler day used to make the fuel rail too hot to touch comfortably (imagine what fuel would have been doing inside it)! I used to think heat shielding was the main solution, but how much a decent rad can affect this has taken my by TOTAL surprise.

Proper power should be starting at 4k. IMHO that’s a sign of going lean / not enough fuel in the AFR equation. What is your engine spec? Totally stock or modified in anyway?

You’re absolutely on the money there. I’m now imagining a scenario where running on 5 cyls has caused the lack of power and the carbs are being richened up to compensate - hence fouling all other plugs at idle. @Jalex - Quick way to test it is to completely take off both spark plug leads from 1 and 2 (at both the distributor and spark plug ends) and swap them so that what was no.1 lead is going from 2 on the cap to spark plug 2 and what was plug lead 2 going from 1 on the cap to spark plug 1. Then go for a drive and pull the plugs. Now if no.1 plug fouls, you know you have a lead or cap/rotor problem (Or possibly the plug itself).

For perspective typical resistance per foot (305mm): Copper core wire: 1-6,500 ohms Inductive wire: 650-2,500 ohms Carbon core wire: 3,000-7,000 ohms Each lead is a slightly different length, so you will get variations but as Mark says - what we are looking for is numbers close in range.

IIRC the lights each have a positive feed from the fuse box and connect to the negative through the stalk switch as one. So if one side is working, I wager you have a break on the way back to the stalk switch from that side. Did you do a continuity test on the -ve side of the bulb holder?

That makes me sad - especially as I put a brand new one in the bin a few years ago! :( Although, having used them for many years I recently saw a test that completely put me off filters requiring oil to function!

What I’ve found is, (with the flamethrower coil especially) if you don’t have anywhere for the spark to go, it “finds” a way to ground either through the cap or arcing anywhere it can. I once did something similar in the dark and had a “plasma ball engine bay” :D So now I always disconnect the positive and / or negative off the coil first.