steve91tt

We have the tradition of popping Christmas crackers after new years dinner. Along with the traditional plastic toy and paper hat take a look at the joke I found in mine this year...

I would use a little Permatex Hylomar. http://www.permatex.com/products/Automotive/automotive_gasketing/gasket_sealants/auto_Permatex_Hylomar_Universal_Blue_Racing_Formula_Gasket_Dressing_Flange_Sealant.htm or Ultra Black http://www.permatex.com/products/Automotive/automotive_gasketing/gasket_makers/auto_Permatex_Ultra_Black_Maximum_Oil_Resistance_RTV_Silicone_Gasket_Maker.htm Just a little smear around the seal can do wonders in my experience. I've been using Hylomar quite a bit lately. Thus far I have been very impressed with how easy it is to use and clean up compared to RTV. It's also gas resistant which RTV is not. Overall it's been working great for me on everything I've used it on (at least so far:)).

Could be the rear main seal but there are a couple of other things to consider... Are you sure it's engine oil? I had a transmission input shaft leak that produced oil in the same way with the exception that a transmission leak will generally not produce oil unless the car is run. There are also oil seals around the rear main cap that can leak engine oil from that part of the drive line. I've had that leak too. When mine started leaking I thought that it was my rear main seal but it wasn't the case. It was just the two little rubber seals. Unfortunately to get at them you have to drop the oil pan and pull the rear main cap. Not as bad as it sounds. just my $0.02

That's what I did as well. It turned out that the gap between the body and the hatch was locally large in a couple of places (even without weatherstripping). A couple of taps with a hammer and a block of wood to even up the gap and all is well.

I agree, trouble shooting these old cars can take some time. Spark failure can look like fuel and visa versa some times. However, in this case, when the car starts acting up I can remove the air cleaner, stick my finger in the carb throat, feel the slide is sticking high, wiggle it so it drops and all is good again. I'm pretty sure that my slide is sticking. Also, my Christmas gift this year was a Unilite distributor. I set the curve conservatively to 15° static and 33° total at 2500RPM. The car runs about the same with the new distributor. Maybe a little better idle and throttle response on the low end but I suspect that's the result of more timing below 3000 RPM. The slide sticking issue did not change. ZTherapy asked me to swap slides, domes, springs and needles front carb to back. I made the swap last night and centered the slides carefully with the mixture nuts fully lean. No drama on the swap. The car runs great as before. Hopefully I'll get a chance to put a few miles on it today and test the new setup. If the front carb still sticks then the issue has to be in the bottom half of the carb. If the front carb still sticks I'll take it off of the car to have a closer look. I'm not sure how else to inspect the nozzle and associated linkage.

Same here. The Kia stuff worked great on my hatch. A little massaging of the sheet metal lip was necessary to get it to fit perfectly but I think that may be an issue with my specific car.

Mallory distributor for me. Got it tuned for 17 static and 33 total.

- a dirty (soot) suction piston I'm on my second piston dome set and both sets were carefully cleaned and deburred. - a flaccid spring Never thought of that but the front and rear carb both decend at the same rate both with and without the damper valve installed. I'll try swapping springs tonight. - a misaligned needle I have aligned it many times trying to get the issue to go away. The piston moves up and down with no resistance when the engine is turned off. - a clogged nozzle potentially so. I have not checked. - a jet with a burr The needle is smooth to my fingers and is straight as far as I can tell. - a combination thereof.

Just a quick update... The front carb is still giving me grief but the good news is that I have figured out how to reproduce the problem. I had been babying the motor as I was still breaking it in. But now that it has +1000 miles on it I am leaning on the gas peddle a little more now. As it turns out the front slide sticks 25% of the time when I do a 2nd gear red line run. I am able to confirm that it sticks because I now have the idle set high enough (1100 RPM) that when the front slide sticks the car keeps running (500 RPM, but very rough). When it sticks I can remove the air cleaner and physically feel that the slide on the front carb is much higher than the rear. If I shut the car off, remove the damper plunger and actuate the slide up and down a couple of times all is well again until my next full throttle run. I have done this 4 times today with dome adjustments and cleaning in between. The front slide is definitely sticking. I'm working with the good folks at ZTherapy right now. I'm sure we will get is solved soon. I'll keep this thread updated.

I know what you are talking about, I'm a confirmed klutz. I once tripped over my wife's IV while she was in the last stages of labor. The IV bag came crashing to the ground and ripped out of her arm. Yep, slow motion and nothing you can do about it. I'm glad there is no dent. You should be able to touch and buff so you won't even be able to see it!

Great looking car. Definitely a fun project ahead. This is an outstanding forum with lots of very helpful folks to help getting the old girl back on the road. Keep posting!

I went through the ignition system last night and didn't find anything amiss. A timing light shows a steady, consistent spark that advances as it should and the car pull smoothly to 6000 RPM (I don't want to take it any higher until I get a few more miles on the fresh bottom end). I have new plugs, wires, roter and cap. I ran a higher capacity ground to the MSD box just for good measure but it did not seem to make a difference in the way the car runs. I guess it is possible that there is something in the ignition that is causing a fault that occurs intermittently at idle. Unfortunately, the only time I have been able to get the hood up while the car was acting up the issue was a stuck slide on the front carb. But that was with the old dome. Hopefully I can safely pull over in time to do some more detective work next time things go south.

It all makes sence when you think about it. I'm a little embarrassed that I didn't think of adjusting the domes with the nozzles fully up myself. I guess I need to watch your DVD a 5th time!

Thanks for all the great suggestions guys. I will be going down the list and making sure that I address each one of them until the problem is solved. I spoke to Steve at Z Therapy this afternoon. He told me that I was doing the dome alignment procedure incorrectly. I had been aligning the domes with the nozzle in it's normal position. Steve told me that it is more accurate to align the dome with the nozzle all the way up. In other words, align the slides after screwing the mixture nut all the way in. Doing it this way centers the needle better and minimizes the chance of the needle hanging when the dimensions/tolerances of the carb change as it heats up. I did this and found that with the nozzle all the way up my front slide would hang as I had it adjusted. Fortunately, I found that at the limit of the dome adjustment there was a spot where there is no rubbing at all. I reset the mixture back to where it started and took the car for a ride. It seems to run nicely but only time will tell if my intermittent sticking slide problem returns. Thanks again for the feedback guys! I will keep you informed if this latest fix did the trick.

Great thought! I took your advice and tried side loading up the slide (towards the engine) as much as possible while letting it drop. The front slide produces a metal on metal sound when I do this where the rear does not. I adjusted the dome to minimize the sound but I can't get the front one to drop as smoothly when loaded as the rear. It's not bad enough that I can get the front slide to hang but there is a difference between the front and rear carbs.

Could be. Or maybe dirt in the nozzle? The needle is not bent as far as I can tell. What ever is causing the problem seems to come and go. It only acts up maybe once ever 50 miles or so. I'm going to try to get a hold of Steve a Z Therapy this afternoon as see what he suggests as a next course of action.

I am running the original distributor with a pertonix coil and pickup. This system is hooked to an MSD box. I know that the slide on the front carb was sticking (I saw it, during a recent stalling event). I won't know if the new slide and dome has solved this problem until I can get it to stall and get under the hood before it corrects itself. I had assumed that this was the only issue but I guess that it is possible that there is something else going on like an intermittent spark that is making the problem hard to diagnose. When the car acts up I am always able to keep the car going with throttle or choke. Would this be the case if it were a spark issue?

Looks like I spoke too soon.:disappoin After I wrote my last post I went out to put a few more break in miles on the motor. I warmed it up and accelerated fairly briskly to 60 MPH. The car ran very strong, perfect. However, as soon as I pushed the clutch in to down shift for a traffic light it stalled. I stopped for the light, started the car but it wouldn't keep going without throttle input. I drove it a mile or so to the next parking lot, pulled over and the car was idling fine again. It then ran perfectly all the way home. Basically the same symptoms as before. Random stalling mixed with long runs of perfect operation. Looks like the new dome and slide did not solve my problem.:paranoid:

I got the new dome and slide from Z Therapy today (excellent customer service!). Swapped the needle over to the new unit and the assembly installed without drama. The only difference that I noticed was that the new slide seems to drop with a louder clank than the old one. I would say the old one make more of a click than a clank as it hit the bottom of the carb. It's not a big difference at all but there is a difference. The car runs great, exactly as it did 90% of the time before the swap. If I can put a couple of hundred miles on it without the slide sticking then I'm going to call it solved. I've got my first track day coming up in January so hopefully I can get all the bugs worked out before then.

On a 1973 you also need to be careful to see that you don't have a fuel pump relay that will be left permanently on by switching to an upgraded alternator. See link... http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php? t=39259 I have a 1973 and have run a wire directly from the alternator through a fuse to my battery. It works great. The ammeter does not work but I think it's better to have as little current under the dash as possible. I also disconnected the fuel pump relay and run mechanical only.

Agreed, even the pros can get fooled by paint hiding rust. However, rust free original low mileage cars are still out there. I bought a California car earlier this year. It was advertised as rust free and after taking what seems like every nut and bolt apart I think the description was very accurate. I would also look at non-painted parts like nuts, bolts, metal lines, brakets, etc. If the non-painted parts are clean then there is less likelihood of cancer under the paint. A rust free California car should have fairly rust free hardware. Good luck!

The car continues to run perfectly 95% of the time. It ran flawlessly yesterday but died once today on the way to work. When it dies it restarts very easily so I am still driving the car everywhere. Z Therapy dropped a new dome and slide in the mail yesterday. Great customer service. I have my fingers crossed that that will solve the problem.

I think most of the folks on this forum would have no problem building a car to meet a specific vision. However, some folks don't have the knowledge, skills or desire to take on such a project. They just want the car. That's not the way I role but I understand the desire to have a custom car without having to do the work.

+99% of the cars on the road are worth less than what the owner paid for them. I have built a couple of old Z's. Both ended up costing in parts about what a new an econo-box would. I don't consider this to be money badly spent. I drive my 240Z every day, I have a great time tinkering with it and when I do sell it I bet I get more back than if I had bought the econo-box instead. In other words, tinkering with Z's is my hobby. Money wize, I don't expect to break even on this hobby any more than if I golfed instead.

I believe that this is a template for making your own mounting braket. I can't seem to find the post that went with the template but maybe someone else can help there...