Walter Moore

Very clean.

In the immortal words of Rozanne Rozannadana, "Neeevver Mind." I don't have the tools for a leak-down test, but I did a traditional compression test and have no more than about 10 PSI difference across all six cylinders. Further, five of the six read higher than they did four years ago. Cylinder number 6 reads exactly the same as it did earlier. I did find that several of the bolts and nuts that hold the intake and exhaust manifolds (headers) on were slightly loose. It took about 1/4 to 1/2 turn to bring them back to 8 lb-ft of torque. I replaced the plugs, and I also added a vacuum port to the cross-over pipe, and used a vacuum gage to confirm my mixture settings. With a little experimentation I got it to read a fairly steady 13 inches of vacuum at idle. I took the radiator cap off and ran the engine hot. The fluid level rose up to the top of the filler and overflowed a little, but there was no sign of bubbles or turbulence in the fluid. I drove it around a little this evening and it seems to run OK. I will have to drive it a little more, or a little harder to confirm this, but it looks like I over reacted. Oh, and the "oil leak" above the header is gone. It must have actually been leaking exhaust. I did notice that I had WAY over oiled the K&N filter. (There was actually oil pooled in the up-side down air cleaner cover that was laying on my work bench for several weeks.) That may have been the actual source of the original problem. :embarrass:

That was a very common design on cars in the era of the early Z. It saves on wiring. (Not that I endorse it, but Nissan wasn't the only company that followed that pattern.)

Make sure the tank is empty, but I don't remember it being excessively hard, just a hassle.

I hadn't thought about flat spots on the tires. I can't reveal how I know this, but I know for a fact that tires on vehicles that are left parked on a very hot parking lot for long periods of time (long as in days or weeks) can develop flat spots that will NEVER go away no matter how many miles they are driven. I have seen examples from the desert south west, but Tennessee might get that hot in the summer. (It certainly seemed hot enough this past July...)

If I was sure it was the head gasket I wouldn't pull the engine either, but at this point I just need to find time to check some things. Thanks for the advice.

If the rotors are still more than the minimum thickness after being resurfaced you shouldn't need new ones. Are you sure that the vibration is brake related, and if it is could it be the rear brakes? (Drums can shake too you know.) I have heard that there are suspension parts that can cause a wobble during braking, but I don't recall which ones.

I haven't checked the radiator with the engine running. The oil was not discolored when I changed it a couple of weeks ago. (just the normal black) Right now it is just slightly above the full mark and looks pristine. One of my coworkers suggested that it might be a bad intake gasket causing two cylinders to lean out to the point of not running at all. I guess I need to do some more diagnostic work, when I have time.

I think that the head gasket on my 240 has let go. Last weekend it was running rough and smelled like it was running rich, and since there was a club event this weekend I tried to "touch up" the SUs. I didn't have time to test drive it afterward but it sounded good at idle. Thursday morning I started to drive it to work so that I could take it to the club meeting that evening and it was running worse. I limped it home and spent that night doing a full tune-up and mixture adjustment. (I took the SUs all the way back to fully closed and did a full by the video adjustment.) When I pulled the plugs, number 1 and 2 were covered in oil. As I was adjusting the carburetors I noticed oil on the head that seemed to be blowing up out of the number 2 exhaust port. (Apparently the header bolts are a little loose...) Then there was a pop, and smoke billowed up from under the header. The car has not been low on coolant ever, and isn't low now. I did notice that it was one quart low on oil for the first time ever last weekend, but it had been over 2000 miles since the last oil change. I drove it a little Saturday. It is way down on power, and chugs when it accelerates. (Kind of like it is running on 4 or 5 cylinders.) I suppose that I could "swing a dead chicken" as they say in techie circles and run a compression test, but the timing is perfect, the mixture seems to be right, and it is blowing wisps of white smoke at idle that get more intense under load. There is clearly something wrong inside that motor, and I am not going to fix it without taking the head off at the very least. The only real question is: Do I pull the head with the engine in the car, or pull the whole thing out and rebuild the whole thing again? Right now I am wondering how these engines can be so fragile..

If your suspension parts are frequently exposed to direct sunlight you may be driving too fast... Power coating is a baked on type of paint. While it is much harder than normal paint, it is still essentially paint. Oh, and all cars are painted with an electrostatic process, at least in the factory. It reduces the amount of paint consumed by 90%. (I used to work for a subsidiary of Ransburg Corporation, who invented the process around 1940.)

Heh and I was just noticing the "bald" tires...

I used a ZX coil. But the bad news is that you don't have the base. The distributor slides into a housing that is bolted to the block with two bolts. The one for the 240 doesn't line up at the right angle as I recall.

For a lot less you could download the manuals from www.XenonS30.com and burn your own CD. Just a thought.

Either way, the vacuum advance is a part throttle effect. It doesn't have anything to do with his problem.

I am not sure about the Nissan version, but the U.S. brand limited slip differentials that I have owned would spin like an open dif when the car was up in the air with the AT in Park. I seem to remember that they tended to be a little notchy, and took more effort to turn than a true open differential.

The part is called a "breaker plate" I think. If you buy a "Vacuum advance" you will the the diaphragm housing that bolts to the side of the distributor. But you may be chasing a different problem. A lot of older cars have broken or defective vacuum advances and work reasonably well. (Racers tend to disconnect them entirely) The Vacuum advance only actually does anything at part throttle, like running in a high gear at a constant speed then coming to a slight upgrade. The vacuum advance kicks in then to boost the spark timing to get just a little extra horse power without having to down shift or stand on the gas. At anything approaching full throttle (or anytime that you put your foot into it for that matter) the Manifold vacuum drops off to the point where the VA doesn't work.

I am not an attorney. (and i don't play one on T.V.) But this guy is, and he seems to have a different opinion: http://www.ericgoldman.org/Articles/websiteliabilityalert.htm To quote: 'Section 230©(1) of the Communications Decency Act, passed in 1996, says "no provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as a publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider." To date, courts have treated this language as a nearly complete bar against liability for users’ defamatory postings. ' Still, caution is strongly advised, if for no other reason than that while the specifics of this case may well have been accurately represented, sometimes claims of this nature might be exaggerated, (or outright false...) and the legal aspect aside we shouldn't be offering a forum for people to destroy the reputation of potential suppliers without cause. Besides, legal protections of the type listed above only help once you are in court, and by then the legal fees are already piling up even if you win. Successfully defending a lawsuit is expensive.

What brand of V8 is a 5.3L? I don't recognize that particular engine size...

How long has it been since the engine was last rebuilt? Is there any risk that you have sludge in your oil passages? Thinner oil will naturally flow better through restricted passages.

I bought the raw hard lines at Advance Auto, and used a cheap tubing bender to form it to the correct shape. (Not the robot.. ) I guess you could check with your local Nissan dealer if you are unwilling to bend it yourself, but so long as you don't kink the line and follow the same basic shape as the original part it should work just fine.

TV Tuner cleaner, which remarkably Radio Shack still sells in spite of the fact that there hasn't been a TV made in the last 25 years with a mechanical tuner, also works very well. They may call it contact cleaner, I don't have the can in front of me. But you want the kind that is for mechanical switches. Be careful with it because it comes out cold enough to cause instant frost burn to any exposed skin it touches. All of this assumes that the switch actually changes state in some form. But I would still try the cleaner first as that is easy and will not damage anything.

Welcome to the club. Personally I love the styling of the 240K model, but that may be just because they are totally unobtainable here in the U.S.

By the way, I have recently updated the chart to include more specific information on the S30 distributors. See the attached. Oh, and by the way Steve, the 74 distributor is meant to be used with a different electronic ignition than the S130 model's E12-80. I have no information on that model of ignition module. Distributor advance curves S30-S130.xls

You do live in Indiana don't you... look at that corn.

I say go for it... But then I may be biased. ;-)