AK260

Following this thread with interest! At the start of my Z ownership journey, I bought a few bits and pieces I needed and looking back, I should have just bought the full kit for cost effectiveness. If you do store unused rubbers*, make sure they aren’t in a loft that gets super hot in the summer and super cold in the winter. Being a natural product they do carry on degrading. Worst case you eBay the unused ones and get a lot of your money back on eBay or in the club. Are the chrome trim pieces still available? In the UK I bought what at the time I was told by Nissan was probably the last of the front trim about 3 years ago. The tears are NLA :(

I didn’t realise pornography was allowed on this site!!!!

FWIW here is my old L26 oil burning engine with a stock cam, MSA 6/3/2 into 2.5” and a turbo muffler + 280zx dizzy and ZTherapy SUs... The E88 head was beautifully ported by PO. Same set up on my hot L28 was great also but droned like hell. Swapping in a z story straight through muffler totally opened it up between 5.5-6.5krpm!

When I did mine earlier this year, I found it quite scary how much 240lbft is. However, once I solved my problem of the bearing grease seal not having quite gone home all the way, there was little difference with the fish scales between 200-240 and the “hot spots” zkars mentioned all disappeared. The fish scales went from 3.5kg at the lugs to 0.4kg (at 238lbft)! As far as I can see, the inner flange, bearing inner races, the shaft and the spacer in the middle become one piece when torqued up, so any play should would typically result from the bearings themselves. Although I’m with patcon, it seems a awfully small amount of play to be worrying about.

Wot he said!! [emoji1375][emoji1375][emoji1375] I do think you are chasing more than one root cause here. Reading your first post, my immediate reaction was intake air / vac leak. It has caused me no end of headaches and cost me £££s changing the entire ignition system to no avail. But once I found the leaks (yes multiple places) the car came back to life. FYI - the places I found leaks were: carb dome to main body, carb throttle shaft cap, intake manifold, brake booster vac line (the wiggly one that is NLA and hard as a rock given its age). Bear in mind my Z therapy carbs are a few years old now so the paste on the throttle shaft cap had heat cycled a lot. Take nothing for granted and check all potential areas for intake leak. The carb dome to body, looking at the diagram of its operation, should in theory not have caused an issue but boy did it improve the carbs’ operation once I made my own gaskets for them. Reading your later posts I’m pretty sure you also have a fuel starvation issue at the same time. Blow out your fuel lines with compressed air and do the things the captain and others have recommended. I have a clear fuel filter and found lots of black fish in mine. Taking it apart, i found them to be soft fish, not rust. Rock hard rubber fuel lines from 2006 (under the car where the PO had performed a hack and added lots more rubber) had started to break down from the inside. Ps. Yes that is fuel lines sitting tightly on top of the rear ARB!! [emoji33][emoji33][emoji33][emoji33]

I went with the red for its high heat capabilities but I have to say, when they say it’s meant for breaking with power tools, they really mean it!!! I’m currently using it on my suspension bolts (took the entire rear - inc fuel tank - and front axles off over lock down).

I just used red threadlock on my copper nuts - it hurt, but after a while they recovered - and the ones on the header have never come unstuck either. In fact taking one off to replace the washer with a different one, resulted in the nut pulling the stud out with it!!

Well done chap, that’s great news and a good result! One word of caution: I was going to do this 12si thing before upgrading the internals of mine (to output a stable 90A, peak 120A) and researched it to death. Some guys have found that with the way you have it mounted, over time has caused the mounting point on the alternator to crack and fail. I guess it’s under a lot of tension and vibration given the sheer weight of the thing. So try not to leave it too long like that if you can.

Brilliant write up!!! Thank you! [emoji106][emoji106]

I had the same thought for my late ‘77 260. The only real difference that I can spot from the photos is that a) it’s for more pipes coming out of it and the bottom is a different shape with the drain plug in the middle rather than to the side. But I am no expert of course. My tank looks like this ... Theirs ... The 1/4”’breather hose is the same side as the large one on mine but located the opposite side on theirs. Also I have an extra round bulge (not me personally you understand!!!) on the top of the flat bit which they don’t have.

Thank you sir. - glad to be of service. BTW, found an even cheaper solution on eBay. A Datsun 720 or 620 sensor would have also done the trick at £28 posted!! I would bet my left testicle* that the ohms will be the same on all these sensors as the main unit is identical, just the float and bends are different. https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/164126554844 (* not ever planning to have kids again, this is an easy bet! In fact, don’t do it gang!!! Dodge that bullet and live longer, happier, wealthier lives! But that sounds very similar to my S30 ownership too!! [emoji848] Maybe I should just go back to bed and stop prattling on.)

Ha!! Well, I have a theory that the internal coating combined with paint and under-seal were helping the rust particles hold hands as it never leaked there. In some ways I wish I hadn’t bothered clean up the tank. But in the same way, I’m glad I scraped away all the orange metal to avoid other holes appearing. New tank is on the cards but for now I’m going to fix it and kick that cost down the road a few years. We think the PO had the tank internals treated so as to fix this pin hole issue (I suspect my aggressive wire brushing grew the holes).

Funny this should pop up today - look what I discovered 3 hours ago while peeling back underseal and what appeared to be surface rust ... The joys of a UK car!!! At least the interior plastics are in good order [emoji1787]

Pretty sure there would be a market in Europe too if the price isn’t silly with import duties. [emoji106]

Yup, that’s how I did mine. Wrench on and two or three moderately hard hits with a 2.5lb hammer and she spun like a ballerina!

I discovered that the fuel level sensor was leaking on the live terminal where there is insulating plastic, remember this photo? To confirm it, I hung the thing from the float over night, with the “bowl” bit filled with self penetrating oil. The next day there was ample oil on the other side to prove it’s no longer air tight. I could have repaired it with fuel resistant mastics but I started to look at the cost of a new one. Utterly HORRENDOUS prices. Over £300 for the right shaped one. Then one appeared on eBay advertised for a Datsun 510 with very similar kinks etc so I took a punt at £40! Today, this little package arrived ... Now you can see the differences below: The resistances however are virtually identical +/- 1/2 an ohm. 10.8 ohms full, 88.5 ohms empty. I was tempted to move the rod and float from one to the other but decided that as it involved cutting the squashed end and re-calibrating, I was going to have a go at bending the new one first. I straightened up the first kink on the new one, measured the length of the same king on the old one and bent it in the same place as the 260z sensor. The end result? Ignoring the parallax of the iPhone lens, it turned out utterly perfect. It even sorted out the difference in length - they are now identical in length also. I gave it a test run in the fuel tank and fortuitously, there is plenty of room in the tank for the float to sit the opposite way round to the original. The bottom of the tank is actually deeper at that point and thanks to the PO has a raised bit where the POR treatment wasn’t fully flushed out. That will give me “reserve” when the gauge is on empty. A total win!! Next up, a test on the car electrics to see it “turn up to 11” on the gauge ;).

Well funny you should say that chap! The other eve I was having similar thoughts and ordered some of these for that exact reason! [emoji106][emoji106] Interestingly, I am making my own RT mount equivalent as my rubber insulator had totally failed - now that insulator is a true example of bad design working in the opposite direction. But I guess 43 years is 43 years wherever the rubber is. The point being that I bought the bushing used in the TTT mount and I find it to be rock solid. So I’ve bought more of those rubber washers above with a smaller ID to space it out with - that way I get a little bit of give for reducing high frequency noise but the solid resistance to lift of the red poly bush. Here she is, mocked up out of aluminium and masking tape ;) final version will be 3mm steel. This is definitely stronger than the giant rubber band ;) I call this the AK mount !![emoji1787]

Now that would be very cool if it would stand the stresses!! [emoji106]

That’s a shame - there’s a part of me that feels there HAS to be one that fits - but better minds than mine have already looked. :( I only have rubber left on one of my serrated washers. I’m about to cut up a rubber compression rod bush to make one. I did originally with a poly one of the same and it got rid of clonking when hard on the power and hitting bumps / holes in the road. But now I have the moustache bar off, I can better make something out of rubber. Will post up any success once I get around to it.

That is a superb thread and helped solve the mystery of how to get the bush out! But what I can’t see and I was hoping was figured out was the alternate bush that is still available. I have NOS ones but what I was wondering is what do you do if you can’t find them but want a rubber bush?

!!! Well this is how close to F it used to get, quite surprising really! So I’m expecting serious overshoot when cleaned up ;)

And now Mr CO, I know why mine never quite reached F!!!! Also given my sensor is at the front and now with the fuel tank off, I can confirm your nifty access hatch is of little use on mine and is therefore this shape from under the car ...

Just about to do this job - and came across this post by total luck!!! I bought these on eBay a year ago for £60 - they do come up a few times a year. As for serrated washer, I did this with cutting a tension rod bush about 2-3 years ago and it works well!!!

That’s great advice - thanks dude. Not sure why that hadn’t occurred to me before! [emoji106][emoji106]

So chaps and chapesses. What started as a small investigation, rapidly descended into taking the entire front end off and starting again with new parts or reconditioning. Suffice it to say that I’ve been propping up the US economy through RockAuto and MSA purchases. I have also purchased what appears to be a totally unused - get this - “RHD” steering column from the US, advertised incorrectly as a 280zx column. It’s being sent on the backs of USPS snails - bought end of May, due 17th July!!!! And $70 for the privilege!!! I fear i’ve been had on postage but got a great deal on the column. Next, I will be robbed by the UK revenue services who add 30% to everything including the postage - oh and a £12 processing fee just to kick you again in the nuts! The abridged version is below but if you want the full version there are pages of it here on my build thread ... https://zclub.net/community/index.php?threads/from-smoker-to-sssssmokin’.23533/ Found some absolute horrors like wrong grade bolts in the suspension, wrong way up bolts, totally busted brake lines (which explains why they went spongy) made of pure copper, split soft brake pipes dating back to 2003, COMPLETELY seized ball joints, split steering rack gaiters and a failed Tokico blue strut (so far) at the front but we are very slowly getting there. Incidentally that strut was put in new by the PO who did 800 miles and the car has done under 10k in my ownership - so something was definitely wrong there. I made my own gland nut removal tool out of an old bracket that worked a treat for getting the old ones off and getting the Konis tightened up. Also went for the MSA compression rod solution. Not sure if this will make the car too harsh but I’m hoping it will exorcise the steering wobble under hard braking that no amount of wheel alignment has cured yet. Exorcised a tonne of surface rust and coated with POR15 nasty but magic potion!! Threw in some Koyo front bearings while I had the hubs off anyway and installed virtually new brake splash guards but sadly had to cut them to fit my Toyota callipers. Oh and I remade all the front brake lines using cupronickel ... The plan is to finish up the front end this week and get onto the rear. New adjustable Konis going in all round with existing lowering springs(I like the spring rates and ride height). I’m sure the rear will be very straight forward - hmmm, let’s dwell on that for a moment!!! The weather was lashing it down today but I feel I prevailed and remained dry during the monsoon that ensued!!