Captain Obvious

Yeah, I was pretty sure that with such an ornate logo on the cap it would be pretty easy to identify. Covet that one original Western cap you still have. And nice Porsche. What's the deal with Z owners also having Porsches??? There must be twenty of us (myself included).

And while looking at the wheel section of the FSM's I turned up a mistake. This is an excerpt from the 72 manual, but this same mistake got copied all the way forward through 77. Looks like they finally fixed it in 78. Dyslexic style typo on the wheel offset number:

Yeah, that's unfortunate. The negative feedback that was there just a couple weeks ago is gone. He must have convinced ebay to take that down somehow.

Yes, As far back as I can remember. It's never been straight up measurement, it's always been ratio (as in "aspect ratio"). Even back with the alpha-numeric identified bias ply tires they did that. I think the first tires I ever bought were D78-14's. That meant they were "D wide" having a sidewall that was 78% as high as the width. Now, as far as exactly what the "D" meant...? All I can tell you for sure is that a "D" made by a tire manufacturer was guaranteed to be wider than a "C" from the same company and narrower than an "E" from the same company. I don't think standardizations between manufacturers was as predictable as it is today. One company's "D" could be different than another company's "D" But in any event, here's two things you could easily hear back then: 1) I need new tires for my Fiat to replace my bald Michelin 155/75/13's. 2) My buddy just put M50s on the back of his Polara. They were so wide he had to put fender flares on it just so it would pass inspection!

I saw the one original Western cap in the photo, but I could only identify one of the four. The other three look either different or are too blurry to make out. I bought a cheap aftermarket set of caps off ebay. They look good, but of course I'd rather have originals. So congrats on the purchase. Very very clean for a car that has been sitting since 2002! Out of curiosity... What's under the cover in the other bay?

Very nice. I have those same wheels on mine. Western Cyclone. And I'm partial to the color as well. If I had more money and time, I would strip mine and repaint in a dark 77 green. On yours though, I'm thinking it's not original paint? Looks a little lighter and the finish texture looks wrong. Also I can't come up with any reason to pull the vent insignia disks other than to paint the car. Any idea?

Yes. 175/80/14. And I can provide one more (admittedly circumstantial) piece of evidence to support that theory... Up until 74, all the FSM's listed the tire size as 175HR-14. Then in 75, they started listing 195/70/14 as an "optional" size. Doing the math, you find the following: 175/80/14 - Theoretical height is 25.0 inches tall 195/70/14 - Theoretical height is 24.75 inches tall So with a quarter inch difference between the two, you could switch back and forth between those two and only introduce a very small amount of speedometer error. In my little pea-brain, this supports my belief that the earlier size can be most closely duplicated with a 175/80/14. (Because if not, the speedometer would be significantly wrong.) Not sure I explained that well... Does that make sense?

Good luck, and lets hope it's as simple as pressing in a new seat.

That engine compartment's got my name all over it. At least the battery does!!! Wish I knew more about the Webers. Do the Webers even HAVE a real choke system? @240260280 would know. He's spent a bunch of time on them.

So it sounds like jdmfairlady21 just needs to limp it to Zcon near you and he'll have all the help he needs! I think I'm capable of learning them, but I've never messed with them. And learning on the fly on someone else's car while they watch isn't my idea of a recipe for success. Put a set of round tops or even flat tops on that 74, and I'm all over it.

Haha! So you need an old guy with Weber experience. I'd give you a hand, but it'd be blind leading the blind as I've never touched the Webers. Car looks cool. Hope you can get her sorted before the driving season!

I have heard some not so good things about this place. Of course, YMMV.

Excellent. Did you have to swap parts around, or was careful even tightening all you had to do?

Oh, and even though they are old brain cells, they aren't THAT old. I personally wasn't buying tires back then, but I remember hearing old guys talking about it. However, I'll admit that the first tires I bought were bias ply.

Old brain cells, but I believe the default (if it's unspecified) aspect ratio back then was about 80 percent. And if you do some calculations on the listed specs in the document linked to above, they come out to be just that. For example... They indicate the overall diameter for the 175-HR-14 to be 634mm. Using that as a starting point, if the tread width is 175mm, then the aspect ratio calculates out to 79.5%. = ((634 - (14*25.4)) / 2 ) / 175 = 79.5%

As long as the idle is at the proper level, I don't think any of that matters. The idle speed will be a factor of the addition of all the leakage paths around the butterfly, and long as the idle speed is where it belongs, it doesn't really matter which of all of the sources is passing the air. For example... If someone mucked with the butterfly stop and opened it up a little bit, you would just compensate for that by closing down the idle screw a little bit. As long as they didn't open it so wide that it was beyond the compensation range of the idle screw (completely closed), then I think it should all come out in the wash. The idle air flow will be the sum of what goes past the butterfly valve, what goes past the idle speed screw, and what leaks through the BCDD.

Yup. A couple years after Chicago.

Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!

I don't have an answer to the torque spec, but I just wanted to commend you on your plating results. Seems you're really getting the hang of it. Those look great.

Fred, Gotcha. I misunderstood your message. So you're still in OH, but at least your stuck WITH your Z's!

Fred, How did you get to be stuck in Ohio and separated from your Z's? That doesn't sound like a good plan.

Haha! Well remember that I'm no expert! I'm just a hack with a hydraulic press and a couple micrometers! Choo-Choo.

Groan...

Jeff, When I said "if the piston is sticking even without the needle installed, then it should stick even without the dome installed on the carb body" what I meant was... Since the only point of contact between the piston and the carb body should be at the bottom face of the piston (and that's only when it's all the way down), then the binding you're experiencing must be caused by contact between the piston and somewhere inside the dome. And if that's the case, then you should experience the same binding just by slipping the piston up into the dome and trying to move it up and down. Even before screwing the piston and dome onto the carb body. I was looking for confirmation that the binding occurs with the piston up in the dome, but without the two of them even being attached to the rest of the carb body. I'm in agreement with the above... If there wasn't anything dropped or banged around during the rebuild and they didn't stick before the rebuild, then it's most likely just a mix-n-match issue between parts from the two carbs. And I know it's probably not the issue, but I gotta ask... Everything is spotless clean, right? You don't feel grit/sand/dirt grinding away when you slide things together?

Don't remove any metal. If the piston is sticking even without the needle installed, then it should stick even without the dome installed on the carb body. In theory, the only part of the piston that should contact the carb body at all is only at the bottom face when it's all the way down. So unless the suction piston is bottomed out all the way down, the only part of the piston that should EVER contact ANYTHING other than the tube at the top is the little anti-rotation slot. And that should be a sloppy non-binding fit. With that in mind... Did you try mixing and matching all the domes, pistons, and carb bodies? Maybe something got mixed up during the rebuild? Did you accidently drop a piston or a dome? The clearances along the "sealing" face along the outer rim of the piston are very small and it doesn't take a lot of distortion to make things not work properly. Maybe look for anomalies on the precision machined surfaces under magnification? Like a bump or burr kicked up by hitting something by accident?