Bruce Palmer

Mike, Welcome. I don't know if anyone has the weatherstrip kits. We haven't had completes for a couple of years. That's the bad news. The good news..... We have you covered on the earlier carbs. Buying used is also an option but at this late stage in the life of Hiitachi SUs whatever you might pick up would probably need some love to het up to speed. Happy to chat with you though, any time.

Well, there's the answer. Dave's a Z guy and already plays around corraling electrons in thos funny little copper tube thingies. And he is in the Northwest.

You know, re-reading your description and some of the responses, I'm going to say your situation isn't as dire as you might think. You have a lot of stuff working so the visual messy is probably what needs to be chased and remedied. Check a local auto electric shop. As we all know these systems aren't very sophisticated. Having an old car, you need to start accumulating some rudimentary electrical tools, a meter, and a connector assortment. Someone like a Tacoma Screw Products can certainly fix you up but there are others I'm equally sure/ That heater thing as has been stated, isn't electrical. You get hot water from the engine to the heater and the valve is open you should have heat. The valve is open and you don't have heat, the heater core is plugged. How many of you guys have ever seen an absolutely plugged heatercore? Back to this, do you have access to a wiring diagram? Get one, learn the color codes for wiring color get a meter and go snooping. Find out what goes where and don't start cutting wires. Just checking what needs to go where and if it doesn't go there see to it that it does..... Then when you can say everything is hooked up where it needs to be the problems should be lessened one at a time. One case in point is that rear tailight socket that isn't working. Is it corroded? Not all that uncommon on these old pots especially northwest cars. They make stiff wire brushes you can reach into those sockets and wail on the corrosion, then hit it with some dielectric grease and a new bulb and see what you have. If that doesn't work start working your way forward looking for a broken wire somewhere in that circuit. Ignore all the other wires you may be sorting through just the appropriately colored wires going to the socket. That's half the battle when chasing electrical gremlins. Identify which wires may be the culprit for a certain problem and IGNORE the rest. They may turn out to be the culprits as you chase additional problems.

Well, I suppose you can tell from the overwhelming number of people jumping on to offer assistance that this would be one of those ulcer causing projects that come along every now and then. Repeat after me, labor intensive, labor intensive, labor intensive...... Matching up someone with the skills and the desire to do it is going to be the trick. If that person might be close would only be a bennie. I'll run this by the 510 guys and see if there are any takers.

For any of you wondering "who is Dave Patton", take it from me, he is one of us. Builder, racer, collector and generally all around good head. Working hard to keep things for our toys available.... This is an un-paid underwriting. nyuck nyuck

Here's a little piece of info I got from Steve. On the tail light facia piece the 240 has the rectangular hole for the tail light where the 260 has an extra notch added to the hole on the license plate side of the hole for the backup light. Obscure enough piece of info for everyone?

As long as the mount holes are over and under (not side by side like some 280s) it'll bolt up. And the F&R hookup may be reversed. Just bend yours to fit and everything should hook up. I have the 15/16" on my wagon with the ZX fronts and drum rears so what I have should replicate a stock early Z and they work fine. And again, I doubt what gets called a "proportioning valve" on the early car is a proportioning valve. I believe it's a "circuit failure" switch which is designed to turn on your dash brake light should front or rears lose pressure. I actually talked to a guy from this list who has been into his switch and cleaned it up and got it working. I told him we'd give him a table at Canby next year if he wanted to drive up and sign autographs. Only human I know to have ever opened one of these up......

What John said. We have a Tune Up video that'll walk you thru about all these issues, if you'd rather do the plug and play. Fixin' stuff isn't nearly as much fun a bolting on new shiney stuff but for what you are describing, needs to be done.

Black and fuel soaked? Surprised it'll run at all.

By fouling out do you mean the plugs black and sooty? If so that's a rich condition and more than likely accompanied by a blubbery running condition. Do you know what needles are in your carbs? SUs are a variable venturi and supply air and fuel in direct relation to what the engine is pulling in. Not a whole lot of compensation tuning you can do. At X cfm of engine draw, the carbs will supply X cfm of air and fuel and all one can do is find that sweet spot between rich and lean.

Muck out the needles and seats that screw up into the float bowl lid w/ carb cleaner to cut any sticky fuel varnish and try it. As has been discussed more times than I care to admit, there should be no reason to assume the floats need to be adjusted when all they've been doing is sitting. More unintended carb problems have been caused by fiddling with float levels than have been solved by fiddling with float levels.

A lot of these ~40 year old L series engines, good as they were, are just tired. A set of compression numbers will tell you where you need to go next. It's not a whole lot different than chasing after Hitachi SUs that are 90% worn out. You can chase, but you won't catch a solution you'll be happy with. Merry Christmas.

Those mechanics, I'm sure, appreciated the fact that there was a neat ckassic that could be had that wasn't so valuable they'd be afraid to take it out amongst the great unwashed.

From what I've read recently, mileage numbers shouldn't factor into the discussion when we consider it takes more energy to grow and process the ethanol than the energy it produces. Oh, and lest we forget the gov't contribution to the growers of the corn. Ethanol is a scam of so many fronts, but it's on the books now and it'll take a jackhammer to get it gone.

Okay, once more with feeling..... Several years ago when we still had real gas here in Oregon I made a run from Salem OR to beautiful downtown Burbank and back which was around 2000 miles total. Had 2 tanks of Oregon gas going down and one coming back and all the rest were CA oxygenated version. Averaging the mileage over these extended runs certainly was simple and the driving was all the same, all Interstate. Twenty % was the difference. L motor, Hitachi carbs, steady pace, couldn't get more duplicatable than that..

Be prepared for your mileage to drop by about 20%..... but other than that this scam is a hellova good deal..... for the U.S. farmers.

What comments? Paint's ugly, don't do it? Looks straight and if it's solid, get on it and stay on it til you are satisfied with the results. Beyond that, our comments don't account for anything.....

Sounds very reasonable to me. I'd think $400 per hole would be about the norm for a job as in depth as what you've outlined.

And the wind across her belly button whistles a perfect middle C. That's pretty funny stuff. Stupid but funny.

Steve, Take the hood off and have someone else drive the car while you ride on the fender hunkered over the motor. I'm sure it wont help solve the issue, I'm just curious what the ticket will read like..... "Well, your honor, this dimwit out in Oregon said that if I were to ......... " :stupid:

All this is available OEM thru Courtesy? Wow is that good news. Now I can tell people where to go....

That still doesn't explain the intermittent thing. Unless you can feel interference when you lift the piston (of which you are now on set two) I'd rule out "piston hang" and evaluate the distributor angle. The one we had experience with was a Fireball electronic something or other that was junk.

As a little follow up to the UP positioning of the nozzle. The ID of the nozzle is .100" (spot on guaranteed) that's the way we have them made. Base OD on most needles is like .098" .0985" .099" depending on the needle one has, so it makes sense that if you center where the free space ID to OD is minimum, any place above that when the piston moves up, CLEARANCES WILL ONLY INCREASE, right? There should be no way for a needle to rub on anything say in the half way up position without having done so on the way up. Okay, to maybe put too fine a point on it, I got time, If say you have a needle that is straight and it's rubbing the inside of the nozzle half way up, I'd advance the theory that in the down position the needle would be wedged so tight (cuz remember the needle is fatter the farther toward the dome it gets) you couldn't get the piston to move with out a major reposition of the dome..... I certainly must have a life around here somewhere......

Reminds me of a deal we had not long ago with a customer who bought our carbs, took his car to the local NISSAN dealer to have them installed by an old lind DATSUN mechanic. Turns out that guy was taking money under false pretenses from the dealer cus he didn't know his from a hot rock. Being the service oriented piece of work we are the customer was invited to trailer his car over here on a Saturday and Steve would make it all better. About 20 minutes of fiddling and the carbs were dialed in. Engine ran well at the two "set carb" RPMS. Nothing would do (while we're here) but to set the timing and check advance curve etc....... It had some kind of ersats electronic non NISSAN module lashup in the distributor from the PO and by golly, rev the engine and timing would jump quite a number of degress and not consistently either. Obviously with advance all over the map the engine didn't run well and he was sent home to confer with his real mechanic. Steve said touching the unit would alter the timing. He also said it could be nothing more than a loose wire. Bottom line --- customer got his distributor done, i think by the guys I've mentioned in Portland and at last report, he is happier than a dead pig in the sunshine. You guys drifting toward the electronic gremlin thing just got me to thinking.

Disclaimer: Before you get carried away adjusting float levels determine you, A) have the long and short standoffs on the 2 float bowl lids and If A is yes, do you have a long and a short needle and seat in the respective float bowls? There is only one length needle and seat available today so both should be set the same. That is all..... As you were.... nyuck nyuck