Bruce Palmer

Ya know, this conversation baffles me. If one is morally and/or ethically opposed to standing along the side of the road with his 40 year old fill in the blanks car, why it wouldn't make sense to find a local electrical rebuilder and buy a unit or have yours gone through. Maybe we are spoiled here in Salem OR but we have an excellent rebuilder who builds top quality stuff and for $40 we can come up with starters and I think for not much more than that a 60 amp alternator..... Water pumps are the same thing. Put one in and you know the history. Don't put one in and be surprised when all of a sudden it tells you it's history. Belts, hoses, hydraulic cylinders and fluids all the same deal....... As further editorial comment I'll say I would not go to fill in the blanks parts chain and buy one of theirs 'cause those get "built" in some minimum wage sweat shop and any warranty failures are just a cost of doing business. Minimum product out the door for the maximum dollar..... and with an extra markup in the for the extra step in distribution..... Carry on.....

Love it when a plan comes together huh?

Apparently that header ad at the top of the page doesn't do much good......

I'd add belts and hoses to the list of things that need changing. Most definitely get fresh fluids going and hope the old stuff hasn't destroyed your hydraulic cylinders. Oh, and you need Carbs...... They make me say that.

Alex, Give me a call and we can discuss specific issues. Sounds like you just need some guidance rather than someone to do the work. I know just the guy but he's here in Salem..... Do you belong to Datsuns Northwest or Northwest Z?

Buy a house where you can see the mountains.

Warpage would be my guess. Rotor or drum. Have a clean up cut done on them and see what you've got then. Back in the old days a lot of parts houses had brake lathes in house and would do this nominally....

The real kicker would be to get MPG figures one fuel to the other also. On a trip to southern California back when Oregon still had real gas and CA didn't, my mileage suffered a 20% drop the minute I had to take on CA oxygenated crap. Oh, but for the good on the farm economy and the environment we need to burn 20% more of this stuff to get the same amount of work done. Doesn't compute in my feeble brain pan.....

With this situation in mind I noticed that on Horsepower TV, just now, they were doing some re plumbing around a gas tank and replaced some rubber line with a gas line with a lining to resist degradation from our new gas. I'm thinking there is some unpublisized sculldugery going on with our current crop of fuel....... Opinions??

We are just finishing an injection to carb conversion for a Gulfport owner. I have his permission to PM you with his phone number. Stand by.....

Again, is your filter showing anything that might be this black stuff? I find it hard to believe that if the black stuff is being replenished pretty fast after cleaning out the float bowls AND it's coming from upstream of your filter, the filter would be cluttered with the black stuff, if not clear full. Also, in the float bowl lids inside that humpy thing is a fine wire mesh screen filter. You might check that too for crappolla. Really curious to see the consistancy of the "stuff".... Really have to wait for the weekend? Can't take a couple of days off work just to satisfy our curiousity? Nyuck nyuck

If you put the black specs between your thumb and forefinger does it smear around like maybe degraded rubber might or is it hard and gritty? Old gas line being attacked by something in our new hotrod crappy gas would be well up on my list of suspects. Replace the rubber lines in the engine compartment, about a $4 deal and see what you have.

I would, were it me, go looking for a shop proficient in auto electrical systems and have everything chased front to back top to bottom. Datsuns of any model are not that sophisticated. Spend the money, have it done right. It's time........

So Mike in Northern Ontario, welcome. What does this dirt look like? Color, consistancy? Our JUST SUs dvd would be a big help in taking you thru those carbs. What does the fuel filter look like? Probably the first thing I'd do is take the gas line off the float bowl and douche all the dirt out, put the gas line back on and drive the car to see how fast dirt might find it's way back into the float bowl. Throw a new filter on while you're at it.

Matt, Sounds to me like you have wiring issues rather than carb issues. Put the wrap on and it wouldn't start? Took it off and it would start? Hard to lay that at the feet of the carbs. I'm thinking it's time to own up and start chasing electrical gremlins. Good luck PS: I'll bet that gas smell is more pronounced when the tank is near full? Old vent lines would more than likely be your culprit there, and they are inside the car.

Nice effort. Too bad you had to use race time to sort things out.

Without knowing exactly how far off your speedo is, how can you arbitrarily say you need this or that gear? Remember tire size figures into the equation too.

BINGO BINGO BINGO That gear chart at the very bottom with the tooth count and different colors is what you need. Figure out how far you are off with the tooth count you have and get the gear with the % change in teeth count to get you close. That way you don't have to know tire size, gear ratios, etc. None of that means anything. It's number of teeth and % change. Gotta love the interweb......

But you are very possibly correctin that the gears may not be touching each other. The different number of teeth dictacte a larger or smaller head size to incorporate the different number of teeth. You can turn the head in the tranny hole and cut another locking slot to keep it there. It all comes down to how far your speedo is off and finding another driven gear with a different tooth count (same % difference), plug it in and go.

Okay, have to agree. Without a companion small stripe on either side of the big stripe it looks like some ding walked the length of the car with a paint roller. And close it off at the leading edge of the hood with some finish detail.

So Less, Where in Washington? My input: You need carbs....... Welcome

You can do either. Biggest thing to handle is keeping fuel pressure down below what will overpower the needles and seats in the float bowls. ~3 1/2#

Just hypothesizing now but a couple of factors Steve and I were kicking around the other night when this first came up were. 1. Mechanical fuel pump may be weak hence not keeping up with demand at speed. Not keeping up at speed will drop the fuel level in the float bowl AND the fuel nozzle. As the fuel level drops down the nozzle tube (as the level in the float bowl drops) the carbs WILL go lean as the air stream is working harder to pull the fuel up from farther down the tube. 2. Everything I said in point number 1 could be aggravated by float levels being a touch low to start with. If you tweak the float levels, you will more than likely need to tweak the mixture settings as well. And around the barn we go...... Cheers

I do wish you guys would quit dredging up these old threads. I'm reading away on the first post from someone in Taunton MA thinking to myself, "we shipped carbs to a guy in Taunton MA". Then I notice the name Paul Martin and I think "we must not have made much of an impression with our carbs on Ol' Paul for him to be posting like it's all new to him", then I, being old, finally notice that the freeking thread is 10 days older'n dirt. That is all!!

Matt, For a points system .032" would be about max for plug gap. .045" or so for electronic ignition. I told Steve just now that the first words out of our mouths when diagnosing misbehaving carbs should be "Do you have some slack in your choke cables when the choke is off"? Can't say how many trips around the barn we have taken with guys trying this and trying that. to no avail, getting more and more frustrated all the time only to find out the choke cables are so tight they are pulling the nozzles down. So anybody with carb issues, check 'em first, then call...... That is all!!