Zed Head

Get one from a 280Z. They come stock from the factory. You'll have to fabricate a bracket by your throttle linkage and wire up a solenoid valve and vacuum tank.

I ponder how to make a 90's era system work on my car. Waiting for my Pathfinder to break so I can cannibalize it.

The FSM says to put about 20 inches on it to test leak-down. But I can't see how a bad valve would cause sticking. What kind of sticking? Side-to-side or stuck on? People have over-adjusted their master cylinder rods and closed the return hole to the reservoir. As the fluid heats up and expands the brakes get applied.

Monroe's How To Rebuild book says .020" is the most you can shave before needing cam tower shims. Can't remember standard head thickness so can't do the math for minimum.

That makes it easy. I've found on the fronts though, that the remans can have the bleed screw hole bored out and rethreaded and a different size bleed screw installed. Just my experience. I never got speed bleeders for the front but did notice the difference when I replaced only one caliper. Which led to unbalanced braking, but that's another story.

Referring to Kurbycar32's comment. The switch at the map light itself. If you want to test the wiring supplying power, take a light bulb and attach a wire from the positive feed to one electrode and ground the other. Easiest with a spare light bulb fixture.

I've removed several old brake fittings on my car and have decided that going directly to a good pair of locking pliers with clean jaws on a cleaned, filed, smoothed, squared, fitting nut, probably with with applied heat, is the only way to go. Most are stuck, none are easy. Heat makes a big difference. Clean everything, square up the nut flats with a file if they're rounded, lock the pliers on as tight as possible without crushing the nut, lock the body of whatever the nut inserts in to, warm things up to get expansion, then apply torque. When they let go it will sound like it broke. 20 minutes of setup, 2 seconds of effort. If you do have to cut the lines, you can get pre-fitted lines of various lengths at the auto store, and bend to fit. Cheaper and probably more dependable leak-wise, than flaring and fitting your own.

Scomell, you might be mixing up your terms. Maybe you meant the light doesn't light even though there is voltage present. That's different than there's no voltage with the light installed. You'll still see voltage with high resistance in the circuit. High resistance won't let enough current flow to let the filament glow. Kurby's dirty switch or connections are likely.

I figured so. I was goofing off...

Got curious and answered my own question. You do seem to have an issue. From the Isky Cams page. http://www.iskycams.com/cam-degreeing.html IS CAM DEGREEING NECESSARY? Because Iskenderian Cams are manufactured with such high precision you can install them on the stock timing marks without any further checking; however, for those who wish to learn how to properly check and verify valve timing, we recommend the following procedure. - See more at: http://www.iskycams.com/cam-degreeing.html#sthash.ETH1vHN9.dpuf

This statement is illogical. Literally. "Positive" means the battery's positive post and "negative" means the negative post. The only way you'll get no voltage is if the battery is completely discharged.

Does Isky imply that the factory notch and groove are still relevant or do they say that one of their cams must be degree'd using a wheel? A regrind could have a different centerline. Just curious which marks you're talking about. You're not really degreeing your cam just confirming that the alignment marks are correct. Which, apparently, are not.

Here's a pretty good thread on the NP valve. Post a thread with "NP Valve" in the title and you'd probably get some more ideas. http://www.classiczcars.com/topic/45461-parts-for-oem-np-valve-and-brake-indicator-switch-unit/ Here's another that mentions speed-bleeders and gunk in the valve - http://www.classiczcars.com/topic/43220-brake-problems/ Forgot to say, if you know the thread size, some auto parts stores carry speed-bleeders. Baxter Auto does, Russel is the brand I think. I can't remember the thread size. Pretty sure I just took a bleed screw in to be positive, and matched it.

Pretty sure that you can see some of the synchros and gears through the fill and drain holes. Might be interesting. Curious.

Forgot to say, you can only generate about 15 psi of pressure using a vacuum setup. Much more pressure possible using the pedal, even without the booster. Use the pedal to break crud free and push it through, then the vac system to bleed it.

You already said "that". Press on the pedal with the bleed screw open and see if anything comes out. They all work the same, master cylinder > brake lines > wheel cylinder. People have reported clogged NP valves. It's documented on this forum somewhere. You can take them apart and clean them up. I installed speed bleeders on mine so that I could push a lot of fluid through easily. Same general concept as SteveJ's method, but easier to set up (for me anyway) and doesn't pull fluid back once it's left.

By "miss" do you mean the lever moves to the proper position but the gear is not engaged? That might be a broken or damaged shift fork. Under light load it will push the coupler in to place but under higher load it deforms or twists. If the problem is how fast the clutch releases, you'd expect it to scale with RPM and the speed that you move the lever. On the clutch though, is it the factory design, or something like Centerforce,with the inertia weights. I've read that the weights can hang at very high RPM. Transmissions that don't shift right tend to make people angry, and it's a downward spiral from the first few grinds. They start banging gears and pushing through the original problem, creating more problems. You might have one of those. I bought one for parts and for the front case, and there were so many broken parts inside it was hard to believe. Ball bearings missing from races, broken synchros, broken shift forks. But it still seemed to shift okay while sitting on the ground.

With more pondering - I think that you're screwed. If you're already using MT90 and still using the word "horribly", on both upshfits and downshifts, odds are the synchros are worn out, or even broken. Only being blunt 'cause I know you can take it, but hate to see you waste your time. The guy started to take it apart then stopped. People don't take apart transmissions that work fine. The best sign of proper clutch operation, I think, is entry in to reverse. If you can press the pedal down and quickly pop it in to reverse, your clutch and clutch actuation are working.

It's already fixed. You drove it. Without knowing your plans all you're getting are reflections of what the people out here would do with it. The restore guys see lots of work to make it look like it came off the factory floor. The daily driver guys see a car that's ready to buy and go. Pick a plan, and ask worth relative to the the plan.

The memory is fuzzy, but I think I feel a little bit bad about that...

I had a similar grinding problem with a junkyard 1980 5 speed. I also had a 3rd gear grind with a 1978 5 speed. Fixed the 78 by switching from Valvoline fluid to Redline MT90. Moved the RPM range up substantially on the 1980 by using a 75/25 blend of Swepco 201 and AT fluid. The 1980 also got better with usage after the final switch. I thnk that there may have been rust on the gear cones. It had sat for a long time. Short post - try another fluid. On the throw - the later slave cylinders automatically adjust to max throw since its hydraulic. The fork can only push it back so far, to its new starting point. If the rod was too short the hydraulics would just push the cylinder out of the bore. The rubber boot is the only thing holding the cylinder in the bore with the newer slave cylinders. I don't know how the old ones are designed. Loss of potential throw would be at the MC rod and pedal adjustment. Pretty sure that's right, from my memory of past clutch problems. Posted a picture of a 1978 nonadjustable.

Most people don't even know those plugs and springs, return or check, even exist, and only find out after they have problems and get on the forums. The fact that yours was out is a bad sign. Along with the stopper guide pin. Nobody ever removes those unless they're trying to fix something. They are the first two steps of transmission disassembly. How are the shifter bushings?

With the head on the engine shouldn't the cam lobe be sideways? That will put the piston partially down the bore,so you you don't hit it with the valve head, but still give the least movement necessary to slide the arm out. If the lobe is on the heel center that's pretty close to TDC I believe. It would be pretty much the same procedure as doing valve seals. Rossiz and S30Driver just did a set, I think. On the noise - people have been fooled by exhaust leaks at the head before. Apparently it sounds mechanical but it's just gases escaping.

The area in the hub that the race is tapped/pounded/pressed in to is what I meant. The hub can get worn out. Probably from running worn out bearings which allow things to gain speed from side to side. Many tiny impacts.

One more thing - people have just posted recently about having their bearing seats wallowed out. If that happens the bearings will still be loose even after you follow the factory torque and loosen procedure. Try grabbing the top of the wheel with the car on the ground and shaking back and forth. If they're loose you'll hear it at the bearing. I have a worn one and my new procedure is to tighten until the shake test sounds right. The Nissan procedure doesn't work anymore.