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Haha its been a while but yes the dream is still alive. albeit a more expensive dream by the day...

Cant angle is 12 degrees, as stated in various Nissan technical publications (none of which I seem to have to hand at this moment...).

An the compressed air was free!

Yes had a little break, which was needed. My zx is down at the moment, all the injectors failed so i need to replace them, i have the new injectors just need the time to install, plus i want to replate the fuel rail and a few bits in the engine bay to tidy things up.

Thanks. In the absence of any other information, I had taken some measurements from a drawing that appears in the 1970 FSM (see below) and came up with 11.9 degrees... so I was close. Good to have this confirmation.

To put the second part above in to useful terms - Rotate the engine until the timing mark is at 10 degrees on the damper pulley, on the compression stroke. Then loosen the distributor clamp and rotate the distributor until the points are just about to open. Make sure that the rotor is pointing at the #1 position of the distributor cap. Clamp it down and try to start.

The original high miles engine in my car used to leak coolant from the right rear area of the head/block interface. It only leaked when cold and sealed up after the engine warmed up. Took me a while to figure out since there was no steam or odor from hot coolant boiling away. I noticed some staining from where it flowed after escaping. It was a bad headgasket but the bad part was only a coolant sealing area. The port to the heater core is back there also.

Somewhere on this site, there's a video posted by @Patcon where he shows his technique for starting an L24 engine that (IIRC) had the carburetors completely removed. That may give some ideas for what you did wrong (or forgot to do). FWIW, it doesn't take much of a shot of starter fluid (spray) to light off an engine. You may have created a totally over-rich condition by being too heavy-handed with the spray bottle. That said, have you taken the steps to ensure that you've got a spark at each of the cylinders? This isn't hard to do. "Electrics first. Fuel second".

Glad to see you back and working on the zééé! I didn't know that the doors were already made again. How is the 280zx, still your daily car?

Back in the 70's a water hose and air hose were built into the gas pump island, adding water to your rad was done when you checked the oil level and was considered routine maintenance. There may be no leaks in your system, a lot of Z owners just add a catch bottle for regular driving and remove it for car shows.

I must say i NEVER have seen this.. I am always amazed at how many cars in the States suffer more, due to the heat and humidity? Thanks For the pictures! Btw, your car is going to be awesome!

You said old rebuild in your first post. Were you expecting better? Sounds like an old used 280Z engine. These engines will continue to run well even as they burn lots of oil. What are you trying to determine? I'd pull the valve cover and check the timing chain for wear (notch and groove), the oil spray bar for damage (if it has one), and the rocker arms and cam lobes for wear. While you're there check and adjust valve lash.

The sleeve around the lock tumbler is made of "pot metal" and is chrome plated. The movement in and out to open the hatch slowly wears through the chrome plating. As you can see in this picture, the chrome has worn away, exposing the copper layer beneath in a couple of areas. Polishing will not revive the uniform silver appearance. Additionally, because it is a soft metal, it wears relatively quickly. And that is significant, because the inside of this sleeve is what the tumblers work with for correct operation of the lock. The result is that many keys will work on this lock when only one used to. 🙂