Zed Head

Seems like asking for problems. One mistake and your small project turns in to a big one. Plus time spent on the valve seals is time that could be spent on the engine you really want. Nothing wrong with using higher weight oil on a worn engine.

I think that the word "vapor" is a marketing word. It's just pressure-washing with an abrasive slurry. Certainly not vapor. These guys can't even figure out what they really want to call it. https://www.vaporblastingequipment.com/wet-blasting/what-wetblasting-guide-vapor-blasting-process

Take the old one to the store and match it up. They'll have precut, flared, and nutted lengths on the shelf. You'll have to bend it yourself. I used wood screws in a board to get the curves right and avoid kinking the line. It's not hard if you have the old one right there for comparison.

Sounds like you might have split the line. If it "shoots" out. There are actually two surfaces, one between the nut and the back of the flare and the other between the inside of the flare and the cone inside the hole. The inner surface is where the sealing happens, the nut presses the flare on to the cone. Take it off and look closely. The nut will slide back allowing you to see the flare on the end of the line. Here's an example. Click through the pictures and you'll see the cone also. http://www.fedhillusa.com/?page=flare

Left and right should be the same length. carpartsmanual only shows one part number so no changes there. Looks like you got a bushing jammed up or something. The second one is correct, I have mine double-nutted. There's room. So you can focus on the other one. http://www.carpartsmanual.com/datsun/Z-1969-1978/axle/front-suspension With stock bushings what you're seeing is correct. That's why final tightening is done with the car's weight on the suspension. It's in the FSM.

Have you had the timing mark on the cam sprocket, and the timing mark on the damper both at "zero" at the same time? The distributor also has two timing marks on it that are often overlooked, two lines that will line up when timing is close to zero. I stole a picture from a thread that stole it from atlanticz, below. Also, the ZX distributor base is offset from the 240Z and 280Z base. You might have a ZX base under your 123 designed for a Z. I think the set screw is off about 30 degrees. Stole another picture from zcarsource, but he owes me since he stole a picture of mine, of a rusty relay.

It might be that the timing marks on the damper are off. Could be the wrong damper, or the wrong tab on the timing cover. The early 240Z's used a different setup than the later 240Z's and 280Z's. I browsed through the video but didn't see a timing light anywhere. How do you know timing is at 30 degrees? The actual timing won't be affected by where the distributor is on its drive gear. Ability to set timing will be affected, but not the timing itself.

It would mean more with a video of the engine running... Or at least tell us what happened. You never said. Saga incomplete.

The gauge used can have a big impact. I have a gauge with a long tube to use as an extension. That extension drops it down to the 130's from 180's. Adds to "effective combustion chamber" volume. I wonder if he had the throttle wide open.

I think he ended up in the right place so that's what matters. My rambling probably caused confusion. He's probably tooling around the countryside right now...

Alright, I knew it was in there somewhere. They used words!!! Who knew. @CaptainMajestic You should be good to go.

Just reread all of my stuff and the only good advice is the notch and groove. I don't even use the half moon, I use the rotor and #1 plug wire. Lots of redundancy in the FSM. Not really sure which way the half moon goes, There's variation all over the internet and the FSM pictures are bad. Good luck.

EDIT! - THIS IS WRONG. It's just a tooth off. I posted mine before I realized you might have it backward. See my edit way above, about the half moon. Can't emphasize enough, using all of the marks. You should have the valve cover off so that you can see the cam lobes.

You haven't shown the notch and groove either. Match up all of the marks and you can't go wrong. Most people run in to problems when they guess about where things are. It's why Nissan had somebody draw all of these pictures, even if they are bad.

site, his fat side matches the fat side you showed except it's off by about a tooth. Here's the 280ZX pictures. They show a rotor for NA and the half moon for turbo. site, it's not clear if this picture is a good setup or bad.

Actually site might be right. The small half is on the other side. Nissan drew bad pictures for the distributor setup. Here's the setup picture from the FSM. Are you sure that you're on the compression stroke? The timing mark matches twice, once on exhaust and once on compression.

Any chance you could check the label on your other AFM? I'm curious. I notified the MSA guys, thinking that we had two rich MSA AFM's. @rcb280z

Here's the permanent stuff that hardens, and one of the the silver powders (aluminum dust). There's a bunch. Don't forget the raw egg fix. https://barsleaks.com/product/head-gasket-fix/ https://www.amazon.com/Silver-Seal-Radiator-Sealer-Powder/dp/B000AME522/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 https://www.goldeagle.com/product/alumaseal-radiator-stop-leak-powder/

Notch matches groove, timing mark at zero to ten on the compression stroke, front edge of rotor pointing at #1 plug wire. Those are the things you can set up from the beginning and the engine should start. Those are all of the "timing " things. The links help get things right the first time around, but after that the various marks are used to confirm. You only need to rotate the engine to the compression stroke. Remove the valve cover and the distributor cap and check all of those things.

Have you tried retorquing the head bolts? Won't hurt unless you break one. Is it the original engine? Might be that the original gasket material just shrinks, degrades, and leaks after so many heat cycles. It's some kind of organic material. Mine looked fine after took the head off, except for the leaky spot. The metal cylinder seals were fine.

That would be good to know. Should have the blue Fuel Injection Corp. sticker on it. No Nissan stickers.

I sent you one a couple of years ago. I was wishing I hadn't yesterday. But the one I had left did the job. I'm going to leave it on and the MSA will be my emergency AFM, on the shelf. I wonder how they set those reman AFM's. Maybe they have the wrong calibration settings at Fuel Injection Corp. I was told that the FIC remans had a thicker and more durable carbon trace. But it doesn't help much if they won't pass emissions. Not clear if they actually run air through them or just set mechanical settings and assume that they will work right. https://fuelinjectioncorp.com/products/air-flow-meters/ @Joseph@TheZStore @James@TheZStore

I just got my car checked for emissions again so that I can renew my tags. We're on a two year cycle here so that gives plenty of time to mess around and get it screwed up . I had my car running greatly and went straight to the emissions check station without doing anything to help it pass. It failed, of course, so I spent the next few hours dinking around with the idle air bypass and my fuel pressure and failed three more times. So I went home and realized that I was using my MSA AFM that I had bought new nine+ years ago and that it had always run rich. I don't know why, it just does. No matter how far I back out the idle air bypass I couldn't get it to lean out. I pondered drilling out the bypass passage to let more air past the blade but it's not an easy operation. So I pulled my last old AFM down from the shelf, an original 75/76 AFM, and installed it. Then I leaned out the idle air bypass until removing the oil filler cap caused it to stumble to barely running. I went back to the test center the next day and passed on the first shot through. I realized as I was tuning that I could remove my oil filler cap and the engine would not stumble, when I had bad results. I had forgotten about that basic "running rich" test. Even though it was not noticeably rich, it wouldn't pass, and I could leave the cap off with no problems. Anyway, the short story is that if you can remove your oil filler cap and your 280Z doesn't notice, you're probably going to fail the idle emissions test. So that's the tuning tip. If you're in CA with the 2500 RPM requirement the same test might still help. And even though I could leave the filler cap off, it still only failed CO. Not HC. It was very close.

Pretty sure it just jams up small holes. Flows right through the big ones. Doesn't harden that's why it kept squeezing out the relatively big leak at the back of the head.

Is that the top of the block, near the heater hose in the first picture? I had that same leak n my 76 engine. Barr's Stop Leak worked for a while. It eventually extruded through the gap, leaving a small pile of powder back there. You could also buy an OEM stop leak. Ford has one. I've seen the part number but don't have it handy. Looks like GM has one too. You could probably go to a Ford Dealer and ask for stop leak pellets and they'd know. Here's an example, but I've seen it in my Ford service manual also. https://forums.tccoa.com/7-engine-4-6l-5-4l/121432-ford-suggests-stop-leak-their-new-modulars.html And, of course, you'll take heat from the "do it right" crowd. Even though Ford adds it at the factory in new engines, apparently.