hls3073z

What brand and color paint are you going to use?

thanks, I should have googled. I didn't realize that they were that readily available. I expected a worse situation.

After crawling around under the 73z I can see that the floor pans and the rails up to the firewall need to be replaced. The engine bay and firewall are ok but I need the stuff from the firewall to the rear. It is pocked with rusted out holes. The problem is that the an undercoat had been applied to the car when it was new and that provided a means to trap water leading to rust. So rather than cleaning up the engine bay and putting the motor and tranny back in I need to bite the bullet and replace the floor pan. Any recommendations where to get that stuff?

Just because you checked the fuel pressure and it was ok doesn't mean that the regulator is good. The problem with the regulator is that the failure is intermittent so if you check fuel pressure when its running fine then its going to show its ok. This could be one of those times where its best to just replace it if you don't have a chance to check it when its actually failing. In my case when it stalled I was usually able to restart almost immediately but it slowly got worse until I was able to catch it failing.

check your fuel pressure regulator. This is a very common problem. mine would fail after coming down off a fwy cruising, then I go to take off at a traffic light and it would stall. I was able to confirm it was the regulator because it failed in my driveway once, I got out and felt the fuel line and it was very soft compared to normal.

It seems like most pix postings here are Mexican Orange, 918, including my 73. I wonder what percentage of Z's from the early 70's era were orange? maybe that color survived the best. So far I've found that ppg deltron has that color in their list. Any others?

oh, sorry, my bad. I thought it had both mechanical and electrical fuel pumps. I need to read and look more carefully.

I agree with you. I suspect that the z432 would run fine without the electric fuel pump running. They just wanted to be sure fuel pressure is adequate.

thanks, I wasn't paying attention to who was posting, I should have figured that out. The work that was done on my Z was done by Ed Kelly a local Austin Z car racer and guru but I was not disciplined enough to keep a logbook. My wife says its because I was not in the military. It will be interesting to find out if your electric fuel pump actually comes on. If the weather is not hot it would probably run fine without it like mine did. I do have a receipt that shows when the AC was installed. The brand on the knob says "Factory Air". lol

Hi Jayhawk, are you saying that you have access to Nissan records so if I give you a s/n for my 73 you can tell me how/where it was installed? I don't remember how mine was electrically connected, but it never worked. I made it come on with the keyswitch but then would go off if I lost oil pressure so if I had an accident and the motor stopped it would stop pumping gas. Mine does not have any fuel line insulation. Was the insulation applied inside the engine bay?

That foam ended up causing me rust. It must have trapped water on the underside and eventually it rusted thru to the top layer. Admittedly it took 40 years but still it caused it.

An AC would make the problem worse. I was wondering what year they added those vents to the hood. A vented hood would certainly help the situation where you park it after driving and it sits there getting a hot soak.

I just installed some noise absorbant rubber material on the underside of our kitchen sink. If noise or rattle is the concern would that be something good to use. This sink was from Ikea.

No, I think its like 88. it does cost about 25c more. My chainsaw, weedeater, and boat love it. I wouldn't have thought that there would be enough demand but there it is. It may be related to a recent EPA ruling giving some relief to refiners who didn't have a good source of ethanol. Problem is the corn states are lobbying hard to overturn. Obviously AVGAS is primo stuff but may cost $4 or more. My daughter went off to Japan for 2 years. I dutifully drove her car up and down the block on a monthly basis. What I did not realize was that the ethanol was absorbing water causing the tank to rust. When she got back the fuel filter kept clogging until we replaced the fuel tank. I wish I had access to no ethanol back then.

ok, here it is, up to the cloud, back down to the pc and then back up to another cloud. No cloud to cloud yet.

not a big deal, I made that trip down and back for 25+ years, even before Parmer Ln was invented. If that AC is working like it should the heat should not be a factor.? If there are any Walmart Murphy stations being refurbed take a look. The pump will have a blue plastic cover, kinda like they do AVgas which is also a good alternative if you are close to an airport.

thanks, I was hoping I could copy the pix from my google drive over to here, but I haven't figured out that yet.

I just removed that panel below the windshield where the wipers come out. I noticed some kind of foam on the inside edges. Does anyone know what that stuff was for or what I should replace it with? The photo is on my google drive here. First time trying this shareable link on the forum. https://drive.google.com/open?id=13KxGJFvrIMpDghKjs5d3Uya8ajS48ZJR

In all fairness its been 3+ years since I drove the car. I'm going on experience to what it did even before ethanol came out. As I mentioned before way back in the late 70's I switched to a flex fan and that helped plus I had no more water pump failures. But on extra hot days like lately it would stumble on take off from traffic lights. As others mentioned Nissan wrote an extensive document about the problem so its well known. It could be that that when my 73 was converted to 71-72 round top carbs that something was left out that makes the percolation worse. Coolant no longer flows thru that chamber, I think that would be beneficial in reducing it but who knows. For the moment I've got the engine out and I'm going to repaint the engine bay so this percolation problem will have to wait. Regarding the ethanol. If you go to the Walmart Murphy gas at 1431/Parmer, also at 620/183 they are selling ethanol free gas now. I have been buying it for my boat and all my lawn mowers etc. What part of town do you live?

Bart, I see that you are in the Netherlands. There is a good chance that the design of the car in Europe was different enough to avoid this problem. Are you sure that it ever gets to 100 deg in the Netherlands? ? It is that way almost every day here. Nissan definitely knew that there was a problem that was the reason that they added the electric fuel pump and published that document. Its also probably the reason that they decided to design in that separate cooling fan for the fuel injected Zs. They didn't want the problem to happen again.

Looking at your photos I see what must be a universal problem regarding these restorations, that battery platform. Mine is also rusty. I can clean out the visible part but I am wondering what it looks like on the reverse side (the part you can't see) of the battery platform and what to do about it. Is the paint ok there if the rust did not eat thru? Do you clean that reverse surface and repaint it? fwiw, mine is simply rusty no holes thru it. So I'm not sure what to do about it.

I am awash in paint jargon. When I go to the POR15 site I see something called "high build primer". formerly "tie build primer" Is it just marketing lingo or is there some implication that the primer is indeed "high" and can be sanded a bit to smooth out imperfections? or maybe you get "high" when you use it?

Hello Jayhawk, we are about in the same position except no one ever called me a "gentleman". I've got a '73 I bought in '76. I was lusting for one ever since the RT article in 70? Anyway, I had to graduate with an EE degree and get a job before I could buy mine. I kept mine garaged until 2000 when the garage got filled with inherited stuff which eventually got pitched. Sadly my Z suffered for it with the rust. It sat the last 3 years with a broken clutch and the wife threatened to haul it off I didn't move it. So I said no problem, decided to change the broken pressure plate, of course exhaust studs broke off, long story short. The engine is now pulled out and I"m going to paint at least the engine bay so I can get it running again. Its a sin for someone like me to abuse a perfectly good car like I did. Good thing I'm retired. btw, I've got round tops.

I think I called them but never got them to answer. So I guess very busy. Probably a good place, I'll have to try again. The place that did answer and was responsive was Tasco and it seems like their thing is PPG.

You are right Zed hed. From now on I will refer to solving my fuel percolation problem. Others comments about fuel mixture variations from summer to winter etc. That may make some difference but only minor. And remember I started working on this problem long ago when you could buy leaded premium fuel at the pump so its something fundamental when it gets hot. As long as its below 90deg no problem. That was before global warming too,