BadDog

another angle

HI all, been having a little problem lately, and as part of my troubleshooting process, I want to confirm what distrib my car has. I believe it's the original single-points distrib for my '73, but want to make sure before I do anything more.... (pics to follow)

I think it says in the directions now to shave down the cracks and fill them with silicone.... Anyway, I was finally able to call MSA last night and they've got it figured out. Since my car is 4/73 production, it probably has a '72 dash. The CS manager knew what the problem was as soon as he heard that I had a '73 and the dash cap seemed to be overall a little small. They're supposed to call me back today with an RA number, and ship me a '72 cap ASAP. Who knows, it might've helped to avoid this problem if they had my production date on file, but I didn't have it handy when they asked for it when I called for my catalog back in March... and I guess it's good that it's MSA, where most of the staff seem to have first-hand Z knowledge (unlike VB). If they didn't have a clue as to the problem, I probably would've ended up getting one of those (IMHO) ugly carpety-type dash protectors.... So, I'm hopeful now that this will work out. I'm just kinda bummed that I may have broken my hazard switch pull-knob in the process

I'm just hoping I have a bad one. If they try to give that "they all do that" crap or something like "your dash is swolen" I think I'll go ballistic ....

Yeah, this one seems like it's just too "narrow" for the dash. I also thought about it pssibly needing a strech, but that plastic's too rigid to stretch much at all. Where it doesn't fit, it's because the holes don't line up, like my whole dash is slightly wider than the dash cover.

Has anyone else gotten a full-face dash cover from MSA that doesn't fit? I finally rec'd mine this past Friday after waiting for weeks while it was back-ordered, and it's not even close to fitting correctly! I was trying to test-fit it, and removed my steering wheel and hazard pull knob (which I think I've broken now ) along with the defroster panel. I put the center of the cap in place, it fits over the 3 small guages in the middle, around the heater panel OK, barely over the tach, almost fits over the speedo, but is off about 1/4" for the left air vent, and then I look over to the right and the cutout for the glove box button is off, it doesn't fit right around the glove box, and the right air vent is off by about 1/4" or more.... ARGH! Just thought I'd "vent" until I can call them to complain...

Well I've got the 2.5" system.... do you know what the part # for this was? Maybe I can just call Motorsport and ask *edit* it looks like their 3-into-2 headers, which they say in the catalog bolts up to stock, twice pipes or my turbo system.... there's 7 different versions listed in the catalog covering '70 to '78, I'm not sure how I'd know if this would work with my car

Thanks! I ended up with 215/60/14. They fill out the wheel wells nicely, and are only about 1/2 inch greater in diameter than the stock setup. I'll tell ya though, up on the lift it looked like they were going to rub the wheel well openings, but they don't!

Any idea if this will work with Motorsport's "turbo" exhaust system?

To get rid of my exhaust fumes, I duct-taped up the giant cutout in the rear hatch underneath the trim panel (someone mentioned sealing there's to get rid of their fumes after failing to get rid of them with new hatch seals etc.) As a more correct and aesthetically pleasing solution, I removed the trim panel, then used weather strip adhesive and a slit-open garbage bag to seal it, then re-installed the trim panel. Looks much better, and I'll soon know how well it works (the factory plastic "seal", like the ones that go inside the doors, was long gone.

I uploaded a picture of the wheels and tires on my car to the member galleries: here I'm pondering selling my stock wheels w/hubcaps and 2,000 mile-old Sumitomo HTR200's on E-bay, with an opening bid of ~ $160 (basically to recover the cost of tire installation... anything else goes to cover my new wheel/tire combo )

I used Prestone, and before I did all this I took a quick look at the back of the bottle. 70/30 seemed to be better due to wider temperature range, so that's what I used. "Wider is beter", right? Wrong in this case Darned Pontiac commercials....

No, the temperature guage hasn't bee checked for accuracy. My timing is hard to set accurately because (I believe) my cam timing is *way* off. With my distributor turned all the way clockwise, I get maybe 3 or 4 degrees BTD at 1,000 rpm As for the rest, I'll only speak to what I know, or can hazard a guess on: A fan shroud increases the efficiency of the fan in use. That's why they were added to later Z's (starting with the 260?) I run 10W30 and my pressure is at around 80 when cruising, maybe 20 or so when idling. My old 280 was always at 80 or so, leading me to believe that maybe your oil is bit heavy for your oil pump (I could very well be wrong) An electric fan probably would provide better cooling at idle; it would also give your water pump an easier life, and maybe gain you a HP or 2

That's not bad at all... We had a total of 28 Z's there yesterday; they gave us 2 classes, but they didn't make any sense: they mixed ZX's with Z's It was a good show, there were a total of 986 cars, I think...

I just ended up getting some cheap-o's at Pep Boys. Luckily they had 12 x 1.25 mag style lugs with washers :-) When the Firestone dealer was mounting the Firehawk SS20's, they ended up cross-threading one of my wheels studs, so it took an extra 45 minutes or so while we waited for that part to arrive, but everything else went pretty well. They look great, ride well, and hopefully I'll post some pics after I go to the show tomorrow at Finger LAkes Racetrack. Over 20 Z's pre-registered, so there should be a good turnout :-)

EScanlon: well spoken as usual visionary: ROTFL I haven't followed up earlier than this because I've spent all day getting my car ready for that show tomorrow... I think I'll let it be judged in the "daily driver" category after all... can't hurt, right? Anyway, I've altered the ratio, and my car is definitely running cooler now :-) And now that it's running cooler, it maintains oil pressure when idling when warmed up (about 1/4 to 1/3 from the left).

I didn't bother pointing that out to you, I've mis-read a few posts myself Looks like my local Firestone dealer can "hook me up" tomorrow morning... Firehawk SS20's (raised white lettering, decent reviews on tirerack.com) Now I just gotta find lug nuts that will work!

Jeremiah, If you see a silver '73 with a cracked dash on the field but not being judged, that's me :-) 2ManyZs, as always good advice :-) I hooked up my heater hoses based on the old (braided) ones that were still there, but just cut, and the cooling system capped off. The short hose was contoured to line up with the rear of the block, went in the higher of the two holes on the firewall, and was hooked up to the valve. The longer hose was too long for the rear of the block and was hooked up to the back/side corner of the heater core. Can anybody go take a look at their hoses and let me know for sure if they get a chance? Thanks! :-)

Well surprise surprise, they arrived today (early). Maybe I'll call around on my lunch break to see if anyone stocks decent tires in 225/60/14 (I doubt it!) That way I can have 1 mounted and see how they fit. Am I right in remembering if they're going to rub, they'll rub in the rear wheel well? (if I could find white-lettered tires that'd be so 70's ) It *does* look like they were never used, just dusty

Thanks, everyone. I drove her around my neighborhood this morning until it warmed up all the way. She didn't get as hot as she did Wednesday, but it was also a little over 80F Wednesday, and about 70F this morning. The temperature registered right in the middle, where as Wednesday it was about 3/4 of the way towards the red (used to run at about 1/3, but it hasn't been this warm out since I got the car in March!). When I let her idle for a few minutes in my driveway after driving around this morning, I kept an eye on both guages, just in case. The pressure would read at 20 lbs or so (estimate), and the temp went just a hair over the middle. So, I drove her to work (30 miles) and she behaved about the same, but the temperature stayed the same, too. I checked the hoses again last night: The short hose from the rear of the block goes into the heater core's valve, with the return hose going up front to the block side of the lower radiator hose. I thought that 70/30 would cool better; I thought that the role of using Antifreeze was to "center" the boiling/freezing properties of the water: lower the freezing point and raise the boiling point (in conjunction with the collant system's pressure). If you guys think that more water in the mix will help, I'll try changing the ratio :-) I'm using 10W30 oil. The oil pressure was fine all afternoon, then I hooked up the heater core and (because I had "sudden coolant loss") filled up the cooling system after testing just the heater core and new hoses with water from a garden hose. I was wondering if my water pump was having trouble with the extra volume now that the heater is hooked back up, but that doesn't make much sense because the pressure should still be the same. If anything, the water pump may have been damaged due to the loss of coolant when the cap on the rear of the block started leaking. I think I also need to install a radiator shroud. As for the oil pressure dropping to below zero on the guage that night, it may have also been in part because my car was only idling at about 500 rpm (having trouble getting the timing set, I think my cam timing is WAY off ) The idle is better after bumping up the air a little and advancing the timing some more... On the bright side, is anyone here going to the car show this Sunday? "Sports Car and Vintage Auto Festival" (aka the Victor Show) It's at the Finger Lakes Race Track. I'm gonna try to make it, either with my Z or my daily driver. There should be a healthy number of Z's there from the 3 upstate NY clubs. It's billed as the "biggest 1-day car show in the Northeast". I guess last year so many Z's showed up they had to create a new class

Made 2 changes to the car this past weekend: I had the oil changed (was really low!) and fixed my heater by hooking new hoses up (the PO had blocked the hoses off coming from the engine) after one of the caps blocking off the system went all to hell... (I topped off the radiator with a 70/30 antifreeze/water mixture, warmed the car up, and topped off again) I have heat now (woohoo!), but my my engine is running a lot hotter (maybe the hoses are on backwards?!?!?!). Also, when going from driving to idling, my oil pressure drops down to *past zero*!

Does anybody have wheels like these? Or 14x7 wheels in general? They're on their way to me, and I want to order tires, but I'm not sure if I want to go 205/70-14, 205/60-14 (big difference in overall diameter) ... maybe a 215/60-14 ?

Your link doesn't seem to work... I'd like to see a picture of these *edit* oops, I justr noticed it's only 2 wheels... nevermind