Captain Obvious

Woah, I think my buddy paid less than $200 for his glass. Not sure if it was NOS sitting in a warehouse somewhere, or if someone is still making them new. But I'm positive he didn't pay anywhere near $600!

Am I sure? Not really, I guess. I bought one off rockauto a couple years ago because it was cheap and it came from the same location as something else I was buying so the shipping was free. If you look at rockauto, they have about ten different offerings for this sensor and some of them have the center tab, some have the offset tab, but most of them have no tab at all. The temperature curve would matter more to me than where the tab is. I'd just file the tab off and be happy. But if the temperature response is wrong... That would be an issue.

So, about that thermal switch thingie... Yes, it's all related to the EGR system. When the engine is cold, it blocks the vacuum to the rest of the system (thereby disabling it), and once the engine warms up, it will allow the rest of the system to operate. So, it depends on how much you care about the EGR system, but I can give you one other piece of data to help make your decision... Here's a replacement thermal vacuum switch on rockauto for $4.15. It's a mfgr close out. Buy two. https://www.rockauto.com/en/moreinfo.php?pk=3647541&cc=1209260

Oh, he's gonna make it. He has to bring me my brake booster!

Sweet. Glad that worked out. So, I've been meaning to ask... Is CRS your initials, or an acronym for a mental condition?

I wouldn't make any assumptions about the glass availability. A buddy of mine just replaced his this past winter and paid a very reasonable price for a brand new one. I don't remember the cost, but I do remember that I was surprised it was as low as it was. More expensive than a used one from a junkyard, I'm sure, but still way less than I would have expected for new.

Well that sucks. Did the shop that did the work at least acknowledge that they screwed up? You think that Z in the scrapyard has a drain plug?

Yeah, I also presume the tab location was to try to prevent improper connection. Which makes it odd that my car has the centered tab on both the temp sender and the thermotime. It makes much more sense to have those two devices keyed such that it would be difficult to connect them wrong. Maybe a PO switched mine around somehow. In any event, the reason I'm messing with mine right now is that I removed my cold start injector years ago, and (since it's now useless) I'm removing the thermotime as well to simplify things. In fact, I'm replacing the whole thermostat housing with one from a 260 because it's simpler and has fewer holes.

Yeah, don't be chicken about reaching out for someone local with experience. If I were closer, I'd be happy to help.

Zcon in Atlanta is middle of October. 16th through the 21st. Good luck with the Z today. Hope you get her fired up!

If the power brake booster is dry and clean inside, I would be interested in that. The U-Pull yard near me charges $19.50 (with core) for a booster. If he's anywhere near that and it's clean inside, I'll take it. I'll pick it up when we meet in Atlanta at ZCon!

Well that's interesting. My car has no offset on either the sensor or the connector. They both have the tab centered. The connector is a new one I put on when I rebuilt the entire harness, but I'm assuming the sensor is original. Now... Adding to the confusion, is that my new sensor (which I haven't installed yet) has the offset tab. That means I'll have to make some change as well. I'll either have to change the connector over to one that has the offset slot or modify something like you mentioned. However, I think it would be a lot easier to grind the male tab off the sensor body instead of trying to grind a second slot into the connector housing. Even easier might be to pull the connectors out the back of the connector shell and get a replacement from a junkyard. Most of that style of connector that Bosch used is interchangeable between bodies. Been a while since I looked at the details of those connectors, but maybe cut a connector off any car that has the slot where you want it, take the old pins out, and snap your existing pins into the body?

Would I believe it? Absolutely. Haha! The sensor shell is what they call a "thermal well". It's essentially a dry cavity that is inserted into whatever fluid you are trying to measure. The well keeps the sensor segregated from the fluid. That sensor actually makes it's seal at an angled face on the body about halfway down the shank. The threads are on the dry side. As for the EFI temp sensor, I'm messing with one right now. I had bought a new sensor a while ago and I'm just now putting it in. The new sensor has an offset tab on the body, but my original one has the tab centered. And the groove in the mating connector on my car is in the center as well (matches the old sensor). Does your car have an offset groove on both the connector and the sensor?

Well if you just put in almost an thousand miles in a road-trip and the only thing that went wrong was that your condensate drain leaked, I'd say you're doing pretty good! RCB, the drain tube is right below the HVAC assembly. A little left of center, like below the temperature control slider. There's a piece of rubber tubing attached to the evaporator box, and there's supposed to be a grommet in the transmission tunnel. The tube fits snug into the grommet and directs the water to the ground instead of the interior of the car.

I try to be a "to each his own" kinda guy, but that one really doesn't do it for me.

Gotcha. Sorry, but I don't have anything other than that. Good luck on the hunt. Out of curiosity... Do you still have your original 73? If so, you could use that one as an example of what to do?

Mark, I'm not sure what document you're looking for, but this one has some fuel rail insulation instructions in it. Is this what you're looking for? http://www.classiczcars.com/files/file/60-fuel-system-modification-plus-73-74/

Some Z trivia for ya... Depends on the year. They changed how those vents worked on the later cars and they don't use that channel as an air duct anymore. 77 on, they pulled the fresh air from the cowl area instead of using those channels.

No... I'm sure the car has at least 30K smiles. I've got over 100K and I'm still smiling.

Oh, and in the later speedos, the space available for a 100K digit is taken up by the wire that detects the ten mph threshold for things like the BCDD. Prior to 73 or so, there wasn't anything there, but after that, I don't think that space is as available as it was on the earlier units.

Yup. They're all like that. Even through the ZX. I suspect they ported major portions of the design from an earlier application that didn't have a trip odometer and they didn't want to mess with the design, so they just left the tenths digit in there. And then they were worried about synchronization between the tenths digit of the trip odo and the tenths digit of the main odometer. They didn't want all the service calls asking "Why don't the two of them agree?"

Yeah, the rockers that Hoover posted are definitely cast. You can see the mold part line and everything. Although, in my search travels I did turn up some pics of some carved versions (that were supposedly made by the same guy). Found those here: http://www.datsunparts.com/1162 My plan was to tempt Blue just enough that he couldn't resist anymore and found the motherlode of the cast versions.

I did a quick fresh search and came up with the following (unverified) tidbits: From https://www.ishcc.org/VA/Charlottesville/malvern-racing-inc: Malvern Racing Inc Phone: (434) 971-9668 271 Malvern Farm Dr Charlottesville, VA 22903-7440 From http://www.hotrod.com/articles/ccrp-0906-this-guys-garage/ Dave Weber Martinsville, VA From http://community.ratsun.net/topic/24873-need-cam-springs-valves-and-rockers/ Yeah - Malvern Racing >> Dave Weber was a great engine builder/fabricator/machinist in rural Virginia south of DC. He was well known among east coast Datsun/Nissan racers and was a prolific cam grinder. Dave died several years ago, so anything Malvern is NLA. Get it while ya can! So I'm guessing that's the guy, but it also seems that the prospect of finding more of those rockers is out of the question unless someone who bought them a while ago is selling them off.

There's a town near me named Malvern, and when I first saw these rockers, I dug around a little trying to find out more about their origin. Unfortunately I came up blank. So I don't even know if the "Malvern" they reference is the town near me, or something or somewhere else. Your google-foo is strong... You can't find more info than that? It wasn't that long ago.

Yeah, that's what I figured. I was guessing that they just couldn't expect the metal to stretch enough to make them in one shot, and the tooling would have been too complicated anyway, so they split up the assembly into multiple parts.