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Let it be known to all in the Kingdom that SteveJ is and was the point man on this adventure. A truly nice guy and a plus to this community. I think he should be considered for Sainthood. He knows his stuff. Tony came quite a ways and did not hesitate to dive right in. Dedicated Z guys they are and good to work with too. I agree, Fastwoman and Blue are both very wise. As everyone here knows, one thing touches another and I believe that to be the case with Redbird. Steve and Tony got to wrestle that tank and it was kind of fun to hear their conversation during the initial removal. I think they both might have been Sailors at one time . And now that I think about it, those small pieces of metal in tank were probably from the original gas cap chain, but who knows? For the record, things that were replaced on the thermostat housing were: temp sender temp sensor and connector thermostat gasket The Thermotime switch was not replaced. I just recently replaced all of mine and it took me 30 minutes to do on my car. On Jai's car that temp sender did not want to leave it's happy home….. Ever!. That was a good part of my day. Just by chance if you've ever wondered what the inside of one of those look like, Steve, Tony and I can tell you. The rest of the under hood work was mostly emission related: -Charcoal canister filter (very clogged) - PCV valve -Vac line from the canister to the 3 way connector to the distributer plus the two short lines from that. On the manifold: -Thermal vacuum valve to to vacuum delay valve hose (the delay valve was not there) -Vac hose to the EGR. EGR had been deleted but the hose to it was plugged, I did the same with a fresh hose. All the vac hoses were dry, split and hard. They did not have a good seal on them. If there was a hose up there, it was replaced. She has an aftermarket A/C and there was no White Vac bottle or lines in the usual route. I did not think to check for those lines. Didn't get to do any of the fuel lines. They looked to be in fair shape. Steve, I think you're right on the fuel injectors being a little gummy. There were a couple of things that bothered me when we left. (1) the white cap on the dash pot was missing. I believe the dashpot has something to do with anti stall? It's one of those mystery components to me. (2) The Idle adjustment screw has no effect at all. One complete turn in either direction made no difference at idle. Anybody have any ideas on that? Timing was not set when we left, As Steve pointed out to me there is no mark on the Harmonic Balancer. Now that Redbird is running better that will be an easy fix and I'm glad to hear Red Bird is on the road again. Jai sat there with us the whole time. What a nice lady. I hope I'm that sharp at 73. Come to think of it, I don't think I'm that sharp now…….I might be in trouble.

Steve, Greg, and Tony really went far and above expectation working on RedBird yesterday. I really want to thank these fine gentlemen for putting such effort and time into her for me. I think it was 7:30-8:00 when they finally quit. It was amazing to watch, all those hands doing their choice of jobs. At one point the back end almost looked like a tornado hit her. Gas tank gone, the deck area was torn up with the inner parts laying in a pile inside her. Be still my heart I thought, they will return her to her glory again. And they did. Hahaha As of today, this is my experience with her. Steve will write what they all did, I kept track, writing it all down. So you will get the whole picture later on. This morning when I went to church, RB got me there. But she was not doing super well. Doing small loping, and would not go over 45 mph. No matter how much gas I gave her. The knock in the back was knocking so fast it was like a machine gun. Fooey, I thought. As I was starting out to come home, it was not so severe. Then, just as if I HAD FLIPPED A SWITCH, it instantly stopped AND DROVE NORMAL. I could not hardly believe it. Like when I first got her. So I drove on towards Eton, turned around and started from a dead stop. Revved her a bit, did a fast start, and got to 65 before going into 4th gear. She took all the load as a matter of fact, no problem. It was like something had been blocking her from getting fuel, and suddenly it cleared! Poof, all over she said, let's go! So I will be taking her on short trips like Steve mentioned to test her further. But I am much more at ease with her now than before, even when we drove down the drive. Tomorrow I plan to go 10 miles round trip, to Chatsworth (to get chicken feed, they are out). After this morning I do not expect any problems. Oh, when she was snuggled into her carport, I revved her a bit, while listening and sniffing. She gave a SMALL poooof backfire each time I revved. So quiet I had to listed hard to hear it. That's All Folks... Jai

Read this post on super injector cleaners and decided to pit my personal choice (cheaper than seafoam by volume) against the CRC 1Tank. I'll let you know how it turns out ....

Okay, so yesterday apparently went well. Greg was on hand as was Tony, a friend from the Georgia Z Club. Tony and Greg looked over the car, and then we got it up on ramps. (I can't say enough good things about Race Ramps.) Tony shot underneath and started draining the tank with some assistance from me while Greg worked on the temperature sender and sensor. After the tank was drained as much as we could, Tony was working on the lines in and out of the tank while I removed the trim work to get to the vent hoses on top. Tony got the straps loose and dropped the tank. We poured it out and saw some rust. Then we used some gasoline to slosh around the tank to get out any other loose rust we could. We didn't use anything to try to break it up because I didn't want to remove the sender out of fear of damaging the O ring or retaining ring. The couple of rinses with gas seemed to get some more rust out. We heard something rattling in the tank. I put a strong magnet near the drain hole to capture the rattling object, hoping it was ferrous. We lucked out. Tony plucked out a couple of links of some sort by using a magnetic reach. Greg realized he had some other parts at home that would prove useful to the cause and drove back to get them, stopping to pick us up some lunch on his way back. (Thanks, Greg. I normally don't stop to eat, so the burger was appreciated.) We got the tank back in, and Greg finished the under hood work. (Greg feel free to post details. I was so busy with the tank that I wasn't paying attention to what you were doing.) Among the parts Greg replaced were the PCV valve, connector for the temperature sensor, plenty of vacuum hose, filter on the carbon canister...What did I miss, Greg? We got everything buttoned up, and ready to run. The car refused to start and just backfired out the intake. After going over potential problems, we finally pulled the distributor, and turned it 180 degrees. The Z fired right up. Greg noticed some leaks around the thermostat, so he took it apart again to check assembly and torque. He got it buttoned up, and we got the Z running again. I constricted the return line some and noticed the car ran stronger. I dumped a full container of fuel injector cleaner into the tank, and the car seemed to start running a little bit better. Jai and I took it for a short test run, and we made it back fine. I suggested that the drive to church would be more of an acid test. It sounds like it passed that test today. If the injectors were gummed up some, maybe the fuel injection needed more pressure to get enough volume through the injectors. I'm hoping we made real progress.

Looks promising. If it was correct, cylinder #1 would have intake and exhaust lobes up, and the damper pulley timing mark (for setting ignition timing) would be on zero. Not sure what you mean with the 4 and 6 comment. You should really get a timing light and set timing. It's time. You can't force a valve open from inside the cylinder.

I'm talking about downloading video so everyone can see it. Madkaw couldn't see the video, and believe it or not I can't see it on my iPad when I try to download it from this forum....why not? BTW Siteunseen....I love your enthusiasm......you really live and breathe these cars and are willing to put the time in to learn.......sorry I couldn't have made ZCON to meet you.

I dunno about that. I'm thinking that Greg replacing some bad vacuum lines probably had something to do with the car running right.

The oil pump and pan are done, I didn't think it would take 2 months but there it is. All the baffles/windage are welded in as is the new dip stick holder. Glued some 80 grit emery cloth to the steel plate and removed the high spots. If you look carefully on the lip of the pan you can see the shiny areas that are freshly ground,( this pic is halfway through the grinding process) seems as if both ends of the pan curled up. The new sheet aluminum must expand and contract more than the cast aluminum. The last pic is my rust free M6 heading off to the metal recyclers , I don't have the heart to post it on bimmerforums. Tomorrow I get to start designing the engine and transmission mounts, this I have looking forward to. Chris

Solid looking rocker panels and rear quarters/wheel arches. It appears that Zs rust less when totally submerged. Note to Self: Park the '71 in pool tonight. Dennis