torker

I would get ahold of a timing light first and find your marks on the engine and balancer so you know where you are at. Then look at all the plugs. If the PO was trying to run it with the wrong firing order you may have a couple fouled plugs. Then ohm the plug wires to make sure they are all good. If all that checks out then you may want to drain the fuel tank if it has sat for awhile. Good luck.

Nice work on the z My son just got his 260 in black laquer primer this week. I like the front airdam with the lights. Where is that from?

How long till you get all tagged and licensed? My first car was a 62 Mercury Comet. At least it was a two door:) Great first car you got there... Nice seats, need to hide those stereo wires;)

That is awesome. I had the same problem and installed a push button start for my son. I would never have thought that a car this old would have that type of interlock.:stupid: I just assumed after checking all connections that it was a weak ign. switch...

I know they make some small wire type clamps for vacuum hoses. Kinda like the cheapies you see for fuel line that you just squeeze with pliers. They use them a lot on motorcycles. You really shouldn't need them unless you run across a situation where one size is a little too big and the next smaller size is so tight that you take a chance of breaking off a plastic nipple by pushing too hard. Also have you charged the battery overnight to see if it recovers its voltage? On my sons car we were fighting a battery drain problem and he was making a lot of short trips and it sooted the plugs real bad. Once you get the vacuum and alt./battery sorted out you may have to check the plugs.

Bummer on the alternator. Hopefully when you get the bolt out and readjust it will charge good. Your battery should be 12.7 even after sitting awhile. And aprox. 13.8 while running. If not, that will affect how it runs. I would just take some vacuum hose to match it up. That's really the easiest way. Then give it some fuel system cleaner in the tank and a nice run down the hiway/backroad-your preference. That might be all it needs;)

Alright, found one of my problems. The locknut on the rear carbs bellcrank was loose. The front carb would open about 1/8 " before the back would even move. So I bent the tab up and tightened the nut and bent the tab back down to lock it. Much better. I lowered the idle and readjusted the mixture. Of course everytime the idle would go back up so I did this 3 or 4 times and now you can idle away from a stop. Yay! I can really start to see the potential of this little motor. It looks like the timing is a little fast still but as soon as I found the linkage problem I tackled it first. Now I have got to go after the clunk in the rear. A slightly greasier job:ermm: Thanks again to all who have helped.. I'm starting to really get in the zone working on this. So much funner than the latemodel crap that takes a contortionist and a computer degree. I have been twisting wrenches for close to 35 yrs. but I haven't done more than oil changes and brakes for the last ten yrs. till I got this. Not even my car..But it's all good..

It does idle a lot higher with the new plugs. My son even noticed. Today I'm going to check timing and adjust the idle and mixture. Do these solid cams tick at all? I assumed it would but it seems really quiet. That is why I'm wondering, I want to make sure they're not too tight. I'm sure it is different than a solid cam with solid lifters like I am used to. The similarities I notice to the smallblock is the parts swapping and the ability to get to stuff to work on it, 10 min. to change a starter:love:. And the cam. My truck has 480 lift 232 dur. @.050 and 108 lobe sep. 6000 rpm redline. Kinda like the "aggressive" cams for these engines.

oops thank you 0.20 mm. and 0.25 mm. cold See that is why I post here. My first metric vehicle...

Thanks for the link. I downloaded the FSM. Sorry I added a decimal place:stupid: I just checked and it said .20 in. and .25 ex. cold and .25 in. and .30 ex. warm ?? this should look better. I haven't checked the thermostat but it actually warms up pretty quick. I just ran it for a couple min. and then drove it about 3 mi. and it was almost to oper. temp. I think my son thought that it should act like a newer fuel inj. car. Start it and go. Gotta go to work so more tomorrow hopefully.

update: Finally got a little time to work on the z today. I did a compression check and all cylinders have 125 to 130 except 3 which has 120. A little low but fairly even across the board. Before doing that I pulled wires with it running and 3 didn't drop rpm as much as others. Although the spark looked good. I could back the wire almost an inch away from the plug before it would lose its arc and it was nice and blue. No real suprises. I ohmed the wires and they show 1.2 ohms? Not sure if thats right . Seems good though. The old plugs were gapped at .030 I gapped these at .035 Hope that is not too wide. I drove the car and it runs fine. Still coldblooded but it does ok if you feather the throttle and keep it about 2000 rpm till it warms up a little.I did notice it idles about 1000 rpm when warm now. A little higher, maybe due to the wider gap. Still haven't got a timing light on it. Maybe tomorrow.. I think I have finally got my son convinced that this car / engine was not designed to drive 3 blocks to school and shut off using the choke all the time. This needs to be his evening / weekend car. I'll educate him on this old school hotrod yet:cool: Need to do some more reading and make sure I've got the procedure right for checking timing. And I'd like to check valve clearance. I expected this engine to make a little racket with a mechanical cam but it is quiet. Normal? It looks like it should be .020 in. and .025 ex. cold I think.

Yep you're right. I found it here. http://www.sparkplugs.com/results_app.asp?productTypeID=1&AAIA=1209181 A pretty good cross reference for a lot of brands. Dang Autozone didn't have them so going to pick them up tomorrow.

Awesome, I like the base plug better than those with tiny little electrodes. I will ohm the wires next. And separate 3 & 4 I remember on smallblocks we would separate 5 & 7 The cap looks new but I will ohm the wires through the cap.

Ok a little elec. contact cleaner freed up the advance till I can get it out and do it proper. I attached some pics of the carb tag, dizzy and coil. If the dizzy is electronic do I need to upgrade the coil. Seems to me the old points setups used the resistor in line. I shouldn't need that with electronic should I? Looks like NGK bp6 is the plug # Not sure if I should get Iridium. vpower or what.

Yea, those carbs look exactly like mine. Just about as dirty too:) This is a 74-260 I was looking at the dizzy. It has the reluctor and pickup. This is electronic right? Also the rotor is pretty hard to twist/advance by hand so I am sure this is going to need to be freed up/ cleaned and lubed. Any thing special I need to know before I yank the dizzy. Is it like a smallblock Chevy? Only go in right or 180 deg. out or like some Fords with the hex shaft? It is my sons car and tomorrow is my last day off for awhile but hoping to get started on it. Been reading the FSM and it looks like I have to jumper a vacuum hose and also an elec. connector to check timing. I hope I am reading this right. Any pointers here would be great. Also do plan on new plugs. What # NGK ? The parts stores never seem to be able to find anything for this car. So far they've given me wrong ujoints, only show 4 coolant hoses for the engine, none of the formed hoses. Yesterday a guy looked to see what battery it called for and a 260-280 wasn't even listed. WTF Been fun. So all help is really appreciated. Oh and the plug was wet with gas. #3 And #4 was black but firing a little better. Now the car was cold, I had just ran it for about a minute after changing the battery. I'm sure it cleans up once the car warms up as it does run ok when it is warm. And it starts good always. Just rough till it warms up.

No it is dual Webers. I just looked through the FSM and it looks like the stock intake. It is just that the front 2 cyl. share one intake runner- same as the back 2 cyl. and the middle cyl. each have their own runner. I was thinking this may be causing the rich condition on the middle cyl. I am going to try and come up with a methodical approach to this cause I am out of money to put in this right now. First chance I get I am going to degrease the heck out of it and then start with timing and compression. And ohm out the plug wires. See where I'm at.

Been checking out my sons car some. I looked at the plugs/ Autolite 63 and the two middle plugs are rich. Outside four are ok. I noticed that the intake has shared runners on 1-2 and 5-6 and that 3-4 have their own runner. A PO has changed to Webers and elec. ign. But it looks like a stock coil/ still has a condenser, didn't see a resistor. This car is really coldblooded and you can tell it is trying to drop a cylinder at low rpm when not warmed up. If I keep it at 2000 rpm or so it smoothes out but not too good. No. 3 is actually a little wet. I haven't checked compression or timing yet. Just wondering if this intake design may be contributing to this. Or if I can lean out the carb a little. Even the outside plugs aren't burning what I would call clean. Dark tan, some buildup and only the tip of the electrode is clean. Also wondering if I can go one step hotter on the plugs or is that a nono.

This is not meant to be a smartass response but i think the term should be galvanic corrosion. It is along the same lines though. It is the reaction between dissimilar metals, one being an anode-alum.- and the other-steel- being the cathode. Anodic metals will corrode faster. This will actually create an electric current similar to what is happening in a battery. Bonding the two metals directly seems like it would speed the process. That is why isolating the radiator is probably the best approach and keeping the coolant fresh. Old coolant gets acidic speeding the process. I found an interesting read on wiki. A "lasagna cell" or "lasagna battery" is accidentally produced when salty food such as lasagna is stored in a steel baking pan and is covered with aluminium foil. After a few hours the foil develops small holes where it touches the lasagna, and the food surface becomes covered with small spots composed of corroded aluminium. This metal corrosion occurs because whenever two metal sheets composed of differing metals are placed into contact with an electrolyte, the two metals act as electrodes, and an electrolytic cell or battery is formed. In this case, the two terminals of the battery are connected together. Because the aluminium foil touches the steel, this battery is shorted out, a significant electric current appears, and rapid chemical reactions take place on the surfaces of the metal in contact with the electrolyte. In a steel/salt/aluminium battery, the aluminium is higher on the electrochemical series, so the solid aluminium turns into dissolved ions and the metal experiences galvanic corrosion.

eezzz, I'll have to try that. He's been good since we found the light on. The po really screwed with the wiring on this car so I am sure I will find more to fix.