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With all respect friend, these gauges are far from precise. New gauges are of course NLA. It would be interesting if you could try another gauge or better yet install a temporary or just take readings from the radiator itself. You might be just chasing a ghost. From what I’ve read in this thread you’re relying on a reading from a 40 plus year old gauge. My 2 cents

Follow the instructions on the gasket. Do you know what a degree wheel is? If so, do you have one and know how to use it? Dialing a cam in ensures optimal performance. Oh, and the damage in the combustion chamber looks like there had been detonation in that cylinder. Didn’t you mention a turbo in this engine’s history? Other than a modest disturbance of air flow, and slight difference in chamber volume, and the appearance, if the valve is sealing, it doesn’t hurt anything being there.

The local store ( like Home Depo) has soft rubber, and it worked quite well. It looked not bad I think. Kats

Finally getting around to starting a "Build Thread". Background on me...I'm 40 years old and honestly didn't give cars or motoring a minutes thought until about 3 years ago. I never wanted a sports car or cared anything about the performance of whatever I was driving. I do a lot of work at Road Atlanta Race Track in Braselton GA and have for the past 20 years. Around 3 years ago I started getting a campsite and weekend tickets for the Walter Mitty HSR Historic races down at the track because it seemed like something fun that my then 8 year old son would enjoy. The first year he could care less about the cars but enjoyed the camping and food. The 2nd year we camped right beside a gentleman that had a very nice White 240z that was un-restored but in great shape. I stared at that car all weekend and so did my boy. I still didn't know anything about cars, especially old Datsuns but I really did love the look of that car. By the end of that weekend my 9 year old son was reading the race schedule to make sure we didn't miss any action out on the track. Fast forward a couple of years and I have been bitten by the same bug that infected the rest of you guys! I spend most of my free time looking at Datsun parts or tracking auctions on BringATrailer.com for cars that I may or may not even like. What's worse is my now 11 year old son may be crazier than I am. That kid can tell you the make and model of anything on the road today. His favorite show is Top Gear UK and he has his own subscription to Motortrend TV. While eating Thanksgiving dinner this past year with my family in Alabama I mentioned to my cousin who is an engineer at BMW in Birmingham that I would love to find a 240 somewhere to play with. He immediately informed me his boss had one right then for sale. I of course took this as a sign from GOD and told him to stop eating and call his boss and tell him consider it sold. Below is what I bought. It ran great with the exception of a head gasket that was causing a combustion leak. The interior was in very good shape and the car looked pretty nice from a distance. I usually go overboard with any of my hobbies so I quickly decided it needed to look good up close and be as perfect as I can make it. I am learning a lot and this website and forum have been indispensable to me throughout this process. Everyone I have asked questions of here have been extremely helpful and considerate to point me in the right direction. I now have 3 Datsun's in total, 1 was in bad shape and I am using it to cut and weld metal parts for the car below. The other is a 76 280 that is sitting in a shipping container at my shop waiting on its older brother to be complete.

Whoops - I just realized that my hatch lock has 5 wafers. Just wasn't paying enough attention there. Can see that in my pic. So four to the 5th power - 1024 combinations.

Respectively submitted... I don't think you are reading everything correctly. As an example, I know that if you have ten different choices and two different spots to put them, you have 100 different combinations (00 to 99). Ten to the exponent of two. Four different choices and five different spots to put them results in 1024 combinations. Four to the exponent of five.

I was wondering if you were talking about the lock code. There is likely no correlation between "lock code" and wafer numbers or positions. In fact, if there were, it would be unreasonably easy to figure out which wafers were used in which lock. In other words.... If "lock code 1234" corresponded to wafers numbered 1-2-3-4 in that order, then that would be all you would need to make a key for that lock. Not much security there. I think the "lock code" is just that... A code. Recorded and stamped into the body when the lock was populated with random wafer numbers in random positions. Just because the lock code can seemingly go from 0000 to 9999, I don't think there is anything to be gleaned from that number as far as the wafers are concerned. And yes, there could be duplicates. But without the code book, that's fine. How would you know? If you have four wafers in your early hatch lock and there are four different wafers, then you have 256 different possibilities. I think I have five wafers in my later hatch lock which provides 1024 possibilities. Seems like they added an additional tumbler to the hatch just like they did with the ignition lock.

That is what Al says is in the engine. Unless you've verified all of this then it may or may not be there. Ultimately, I suspect there is an internal issue causing your fouling on #4. I'm not really sure what it could be but I think if it were induction or ignition related we would have solved it already.

No, the rectangular slot does not vary in height. It varies in position. The position of the slot will be closer to the top of the tumbler for each tumbler. If you look closely at the pic you posted of from the ASP catalog, you can see they tried to draw them that way. It's a subtle difference, but enough to make the lock work. Goes like this: And about the number of tumblers... I'm no locksmith, but I've only ever seen four different tumblers for these locks. Where are you getting numbers between 0 and 9? I don't know if they changed the number of tumblers in the hatch over the years (like they did with the ignition lock), but my 77 has five tumblers in it. With four choices of tumbler for each position, that works out to different 1024 possibilities.

Oohh!!!! Can this be a share your rustbuckets thread? If so, I have a few. Here is a 77 280Z I have, HLS30-400870.

I have a Ford truck now and they completely changed the way the cooling system works. The reservoir is directly open to the bottom radiator hose. The pressure cap is on the reservoir, it's 16 psi on mine. Any bubbles that pass through the bottom hose rise up in to the reservoir. It's also called the degas bottle. There's a small hose on the top of the radiator that lets the fluid level in the radiator equalize to the level in the reservoir. When you see the fluid in the reservoir you're seeing the same fluid that is flowing through the system. No guessing necessary about level or fluid quality. It's pretty nice.

I replaced my old choke cable with .055" music wire. It was a night and day difference in performance. It also gave me a nice and straight cable to connect my nozzle levers to.

Further to this, water boils at 212 degrees F at sea level. A 50/50 mix of water and ethylene glycol boils at around 223 degrees F. Pressurizing the cooling system raises the boiling point further, to around 226 degrees F, depending on the pressure rating of the cap, the higher the pressure, the higher the boiling point. So again, unless your cooling system temperature gets at or over 190 degrees F and doesn’t come down, there isn’t anything of concern.

I think the mechanic is just guessing, but that is what most of us are doing. Educated guess work. It might fix it... But it's not going to fix your fouling on #4...

They differ by changing the where the location of the rectangular hole is with respect to the top and bottom edges. When you get the right wafers in the right spots and insert the right key, it should look like this pic. Note that the wafer farthest from the key is used simply as a retaining device for the cylinder to be held into the lock body. In other words... It should always be proud, even with a key inserted. Looks like this:

Looks spot-on to me, Kats. Great colour choice too. FRP bonnet has to fit imperfectly to be perfectly authentic-feeling. That's what they were like!

Just saw this link today. That first picture of your Z on the UHAUL trailer brought back memories. Only after 3+ years and 3x the money I paid for it I unfortunately passed it on to the next guy to finish. Definitely a labor of love.

looks like a hitachi from another datsun that they put a 240z faceplate on. Doesn't even have the mount for the antenna switch on top of the case.