beandip

If this is your transportation car , I recommend at least save it for a weekend. You could be lucky and be able to do as you said. However remember the car is 30yrs old and you could have some trouble removing all the bolts . If you snap one ,the one day job just got much longer. If the PO has replaced the bolts with studs this is in your favor, use lots of PB Blaster on the rusted nuts . my2c

One of the privious posts mentioned the diff and a gear change. These cars from the factory were vary high geared. They were built as a sports car and not for streight line performance on the 1/4 mile. 356 and higher rear end gearing is common. Put in a 390 and even the stock L 24 will come alive. I to have gone with a 280ZX engine for the same reasons that were already given, the cost and by doing this , the gains are the same as . Boring and strokeing and porting and installing biger valves , plus a stronger block. All this by just switching engines. And everything fits in just like stock. I did change the diff to a 370 , would have gone to a 390 but this one was at hand. With the car at 2600 lbs it should perform at least to my expectations. I will see in a couple of weeks. With the ''street'' cam and 9.5 compression and so on this should do fine . This is a cruser not for the track. If you do decide to keep the inline 6 or to make a change keep in touch , there is a lot of knowledge on tap here . Welcome aboard. Weather on not you realize it , YOU ARE NOW INFECTED AND THERE IS NO CURE . Enjoy the ride. Gary

You might still have the filters at the inlets to the carbs, where the fuel line attaches. Check there and remove them and leave them out.

Just as a question , and not as a suggestion . Has any one tried the POR fuel tank repair kit?? I do know that there is a coating that is used by fuel tank builders that is pored into the tank and sloshed around and allowed to dry and it seals the tank. It is used to seal the seams that are welded. I dont know the name of the stuff . But if the tank is just rusty and coated with varnish and there is a remover offered and the inside is coated with a sealer that is made for that use , why wouldent that work ? If the rust is to a point that there are holes , that's another story. 3 to 7 hundred sounds like a lot of money for this.

Sorry ! You are not going to just bolt on a tripple set , convert the ignition and make 300 HP. on a L-24 or a L-28 . If you have deep pockets and build a stroker . Sorry but this is reality

If the air temp is cold and the engine temp is lower than 150 try adding some choke. It is most likely starving from a lean mixture when cold . Keep the choke on untill the engine is warmed up . The backfire could be a ''lean pop'', common if the mixture is lean and you open the throttle wide open. Another thing use some 20w in the carb dampeners ATF is 5w and it also causes a lean mix. 20w is what the factory recommended when new, it slows the rise of the piston in the carb slightly and this results in a richer mixture. The SU carb has no accelerater pump to shoot extra fuel into the airstream when the throttle is opened wide. It relies on retarding the rise of the piston to richen the mixture to accomplish the same thing. This is only for a 1/2 secound but it is sufficent. Try the 20w. My 2c Gary

Also if you look the emblem is sided so that it will vent while in motion. They are imprented on the back side R L and the slits are positiond to the rear. I think mostly that they were vents to allow the interior pressure to escape when the doors closed , if the windows and other fresh air vents were shut. I dont think that they really will clear much of the cabin air.

RicheP , Good news and bad news . Of cource you know you will need to replace the headlinner , not that big a deal and do some repainting. Which you aluded to in your post, thats the bad news. The good, the roof is not going to be that big of a problem , if you use a craftsman to do the work . Here in the states most body shops are really pannel replacement shops. There are still real craftpersons that do the quality metal work and this is the type of shop you should seek . The quarter pannel will be the hardest to repair but mostly because of the lack of access from the backside. However agan a good craftperson will be able to do the repair with little if anny filler, the same for the roof. I had damage to my roof on my '73Zed , some one in the past had sat on the roof and they left butt prints just above the windscreen on both sides of the roof. Plus the roof looked like a sack of potatoes with all the lumps and bumps. My friend , who showed me how, and I did the repair , used vary vary little filler and a lot of tapping and it turned out perfect. So there is light at the end of the tunnel. All the best to you both. Gary

I emailed the drawings and instructions to Mike. he is going to post them. escanlon did the drawings Gary

I just wanted to correct the information about the True Flow air filter . the # 70200 will NOT FIT THE EARLY Zs . It fits from '80 on Sorry for the wrong information. Just clearing things up . Gary :disappoin

I have used laquer on the ''wood'' in hi gloss and the satain black on the spokes and I like it alot however I think the ureathane is more durable. To prep the wood I use one of those green 3M dish pan cleaning sponges and some Dove detergent . It cleans the grease from the hands and smoothes wheel as will as removes the old finish. As for the it being wood I have an aquatance that did what bambikiller did and he still has parts of the wheel and it does look like wood so he tells me. Gary

zover , I am sorry my post was to zhead with the SUs . I don't know squat about webbers , however I thought they had accelerater pumps in them . If this is true , pump the gas peddle a couple of times then hit the starter and it should fire up. Cant help with webbers . Gary

Ithink you must heard it on fanticy Island. Sorry I ment Gilligan's Island.

With the low mileage you state I doubt vary much that there is wear on the get unless the needles are bent and rubbing. These engines as has been stated are cold blooded and are hard to start if you do not use the choke. If you set the valves too tight you will burn them, if you are going to error do it on the loose side. You must realize the non fuel injected engines require you to think for them , no computer , . Cold temp to an engine for good smooth running is anything below 170 degrees. It takes some time for the block and all to get up to the temp where it will run well with out a richer mixture of fuel to air. So when first starting the engine in the morning do not touch the foot , accelerater . Just pull back on the choke leaver and turn the key , when the engine begins to catch , push the choke lever part way forward . At this time you can apply some added fuel with the foot ''pedal''. Let the engine idle for at least a min. or so before attempting to drive the car. It may stumble some untill it warms up , but this is normal . You will find that as the engine gets up to temp you will be able to decrease the choke , untill it is all the way forward. This is vary basic but I dont know how use you are to driving a 30+ year old car. All the Best Gary P. S. valves are like little children . when they are quiet you dont know what they are doing when they are making a little noise you do. it's true

Been there done that , you need to be careful injecting water into the air stream. How ever it can knock some of the carbon buildup off. The situation we have been covering does not involve pinging or predetination , which the water treatment is ment to solve. Gary :classic:

Go to this web site geocities.com/xgarage2001/ find performance tips scrowl down to differentilals . Gary

There is the vacum advance, and then there is also the centrifitical , wrong spelling, advance . This secound advance is the one that takes over when the rpm come up. as the counter weights spin they overcome the springs and advance the timing. The vacume advance is for when the engine comes under load at the lower rpm , it advances the timing to generate more power. Did you clean the crud and dried up grease out of inbetween the plates and free them up and regrease the ball bearings. I just think that escanlon was trying to get your attention about scattering your attention in several directions. This is how I bought my car , the PO had decided to tune it because he dident think it was running right. He put champion plugs in , first mistake, then when he attached the wires he swaped two . I ran like crap so insted of checking the wires he started messing with the carbs . Then It really ran like sh$$ . So then he adjusted the timing and on and on and on. So he decided to sell it . He did have two and was building the other one. When I brought it home I found one carb was lean one was rich the air ballance was way off , the timming was 10 deg RETARTED. I paid $500. I tuned it new NGK plugs and drove the car for a year before starting a serious redo. Ran like a champ 23 mpg and all. If you want a piece of advice , listen to the people trying to help. reread the threads pay attention to the ' take it one step at a time '. you will get posts like. Check the bumper bolts because the engine is running bad. Will almost that bad. They seem to get on the thread form time to time .Gary

sblake, I have a question of you . What type of carbs are you running now? What type were you running on the past 240s ? I stand on my openion. Gary

I agree with Bambikiller on the dried grease and rust , escanlon hit the nail on the head . He and I both live in the northwest and heat is not an issue up hear, not at least like in the sunbelt. And we still have the slow wyper problem . Mine were two speed . Slow and slower. I removed the whole systime and found one of the piviots was loose , the ball socket was shot. The other one was dried grease and the shafts that hold the wyper arms , one was worn badly and the rubber boots were shot. I got a systime form a '78 and used the parts to rebuild my 240 systeme and with new rubber boots , all is like new. I havent reinstalled it yet but I know it will be at least 50% better. My motor works just fine and always has even when the wypers were slow . my 2c

1st thing dump the flat top carbs. I will bet a dollar against a hole in a donut , round top SUs will cure the problem . The flat tops is one of the reasons that Nissan went to injection . These are emissions carbs and they were not good when new. Untill you replace them I am afraid that you will be going in circles trying to tune the engine. my 2c

I agree with bambykiller , all he said plus with a 30 year old car that has been sitting this long there are a toousand things that could give you big trouble with a first trip this long. All four wheel bearings should be checked , replaced or packed . There are 5 ujoints that could fail , this sort of thing . If a ujoint goes and your 10 miles from home that is one thing . If you do plan this I live in Portland , let me know ahead of time and I do have a access to a flat bed trailer. Gary

Just for clairification , the vacume plate that has been mentioned is in fact two metal plates that have ball bearings sandwitched in between . The top plate is where the points and condenser are mounted . This the lower plate , which has notches in it , is where the vacume advance attaches. Now the ball bearings are held in place with plastic keepers , or should be. What usually happens is after about 30 yrs of service the plastic parts brake and the balls will fall out of position , and the advance then is all screwed up and cannot function properly. If the ball bearings are all in place and the keepers are still doing there thing , just clean all the dried up grease off relube and reassemble. These plates are available if needed from Nessan. The centrifugal advance , you can only just check to see if the springs are all there , thats about it unless you put the dist on a diagnostic , spelling , mechiene . This is how they recurve the advance by changing the springs. But that is another issue. I have never seen a condenser partically fail, ether good or bad . I hope this helps. Scanlon is right , look for the simple things first. I do agree that your problem sounds like bad gas as well. Gary

These are sold in auto parts stores. They have a web site trueflow.com there is another site unifilter.com/performance-facts.htm The secound co has only bike and truck applications. The testing of these filters is informative. I know that there is always someone wanting to build a better mousetrap , but I think that is worth looking into.

There is company that has recently brought out a air filter for autos. The filter has been in use for years on Motor Cycles and has the lions share of this market. It is a foam filter , polyurethane , and this type of filter has been extreemly sucessful on dirt bikes as well as street. It is in direct compitition with K & N and independant lab tests show it to be superior filtering the air of dust and dirt. The Dyno tests show that it FLOWS AS MUCH AIR WHEN DIRTY as a paper or K & N will when they are NEW. K & N claim that they filter best when dirty , but don't breathe and flow air. I have no connection with this company and my only exposure to them has been in the past with dirt bikes . Now that they have come out with one for autos I thought I would pass on the info. With our cars getting up in years I have found that air filters for the '70--'72 air cleaner are not as available as they used to be. This is a reuseable , washable filter . Like the K & N is . The number for the filter is #70200 . I just thought I would pass on the information to all. Gary OK OK I dident want to get in trouble as an add. I was having a senior moment The company is True Flow !!