Captain Obvious

Haha!! I have a memory like a steel trap.

LOL!

Well the offer still stands to bring them to my shop. My press will put them together at room temperature. No oven, no freezer, no grief.

You mean Ironside?

Haha!! Yes! That's the one!! So clearly, once again, you have shown that you and I have the same arsenal of jokes. Stupid immature 13 year old humor. One may follow the above joke up by jumping out from behind the stack of boxes and yelling "SUPPLIES!!!"

Don't sell yourself short. You may still have. Seriously though, glad the smoke wasn't anything serious.

Well there's your problem! Whoever did that head work screwed something up. It's really a shame that the valve missed the relief in the piston. I wonder if that's because of the larger valves? The stock valves were smaller? And might not have hit the piston? Nice metal head gasket. Looks like it was sealing well. And head studs/nuts instead of head bolts. Clearly someone made a lot of changes in there. Too bad they weren't all done correctly!

Stone knives and bearskins!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F226oWBHvvI Might be my favorite line as well. Certainly in the top five.

Well if there's anything that can be considered "good news" in all this, it would be the fact that you have found the smoking gun to your tapping and lash pads flying out.

I heard about some guy who torqued his cam-sprocket bolt to only 36 ft-lb.

Whoa, whoa!! Don't be badmouthing Spocks Brain. There's some great stuff in there! "Brain! Brain! What is Brain!?!??" Now THAT's acting!! And my personal favorite..."A CHILD could do it!! I use that reference a lot, but unfortunately every year fewer and fewer people pick up on it.

Well that sucks. So far, you've had a lash pad fly out... twice. And a valve seat come completely out of another location, right? That head is clearly questionable and I wouldn't do anything else without it until it's been seriously evaluated.

Yeah, that's the point of my comment about a "little bit" of wiggle to one person can be a whole lot to another. I could maybe wiggle the parts and think it's nothing extraordinary, but without actually seeing them it's all relative and subject to perception.

And even if the lack of fuel pumping was caused by the eccentric, there should still never be fuel leaking out the back of the fuel pump. So make sure you double check that pump before you consider it good.

Love it!!! That's awesome! Many more to come!!

Here's a couple pics of Nissan's newer design spray bar. The distribution blocks are made completely differently and are made out of steel. The whole thing is brazed together instead of trying to solder to aluminum. So I don't know when the new design went into effect, but I think it was 75 or 76. And as for finding one, I see them on ebay frequently, although I didn't check today.... From that old spray bar thread, a couple pics of the new design:

I was wondering what the shiny stuff was. I'm less worried about the adhesion to the tubes. I'm more worried about the adhesion to the aluminum blocks. You can solder to aluminum, but it's really finicky. (and I've never tried) Thanks for the vote of confidence! I'll wear it with pride! Those old bars are just not worth the risk.

Yeah, it's going to take a little while for that to burn off. Unless you can hear a leak, it's probably fine. Stinky, but fine. After everything has heated up once or twice, maybe re-torque everything to make sure it's still tight.

When you know for sure about the fitment, let me know. If the international shipping isn't a killer, I'll help you recoup your losses.

Out of curiosity, how did the tie rod threads feel? There's another recent thread that talks about potentially loose threads on the tie rods: http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/topic/59717-tie-rod-wiggle/ Did you notice anything attention getting when you replaced yours?

Not sure what your last sentence means, but it sounds like you may have missed my measurements at the top of this page? In case that's what happened... I measured the OEM inner tie rod ends I have here and both sides came in at .545 (13.84mm) major diameter on the threads. So using that as a data set of three, it sounds like your left side is original and your right side has been replaced.

I wouldn't put that spray bar back in. I'd spring for one of the newer designs. Even if it looks good today, it's just a matter of time before that first design bar falls into the valve train.

That looks nice. Unlike the dash lights, the map light and dome lights are locations where "more is better". IMHO. I replaced my dome light with a multi-emitter LED festoon. I'm sure I posted pics some time ago, but since photobucket SUCKS, I'm assuming all those links are dead. Anyway, it's not like the sun, but way brighter than stock. Good enough for now.

I haven't looked into the details of when the change occurred, but the early cars used two independent more "traditional" looking grommets on the hoses. One per hose. That dual grommet with the hole in the middle looks like the one used on my 77. Mine is still intact, but it's crunchy. Same for the A/C hose grommet on the other side. The 260 HVAC system is very similar to the 280 design, and very different compared to the 240 design. Would make sense for a late 73 change to that dual style grommet.