Captain Obvious

Chas, Looks great. Good luck with the project. I've never messed with any of that stuff, but if there's anything I can do to help, just let me know.

Nice work. You've got a welder and you're not afraid to use it!

Site, The roadrash is probably from hanging off the side of the cycle in those high speed turns in your youth. Glad you don't do that anymore! Remind me the next time we get together to tell you about my experiences with my drupes while on the track at speed on two wheels. Nick Mason as in Pink Floyd? I knew he's a car guy, but didn't know he had one of those. Good for him!

I think the 250GTO is one of the, if not THE, most beautiful automobiles to ever to grace the world. I would give my left nut for one of those. In fact, at my age, I think I would give both nuts for one of those...

Sorry. but I got pretty much nuthin. Second spring probably gets installed over a shaft with a slot in the middle, and as you mentioned, is used in a twisting/rotating application. First spring? No idea. Looks like a collapsed compression spring that is binding all the coils which is very unlikely. Not used for rotation or extension. Weird...

Wow. I'm impressed! If I sent you a print, would you make some simple sheet metal parts for me?

I was thinking the same thing.

Here are some pics of the steering rack springs. They're all compression springs with space between the coils. Friction shoe: Inner tie rod ends:

That first spring... There was a compression spring for the adjustable friction shoe that put pressure on the rack. But unless it is completely collapsed with the coils binding and touching, that isn't it. Can you take a pic showing one of the ends? I don't know about the second spring either. It looks a little bluish in color. Is it painted the body color of your Z?

The change from two lines to three is when they went away from the flow guide valve crankcase venting and adopted the more effective CARB charcoal canister. Documentation says 74. but from what I've heard, the scale tends to slide a little and not always be a hard cutoff at a year.

Hot switches are never good. Hopefully you caught the issue before you really smoked something. Get yourself some headlight relays quick, and hopefully you won't have to go deeper than that. You may need to have the switch disassembled and repaired too though.

It's a common issue for the ignition switch to burn up inside from the load of the starter solenoid, I would start there.

That's not a 79. It's a 77 or 78 280Z (not ZX). Are you selling whole or in parts?

Yeah, That's cool. I did the same thing with my 74. So when do I get to see it?

Haha! It's only funny because it's true. You would be quite welcome to anything come up with, but it could be a significant wait. Current projects in my shop are stainless brake booster guts (done awaiting reassembly) and some more shift knob stuff. I just finished a full set of LED dash bulbs and a PWM dimmer for the guy who bought all my research parts and helped with the testing and brightness studies. I've got a couple ECU's open on the operating table hooked up to life support just for fun and adventure. Those got pushed to the edge of the table to make room for the shift knob stuff... It's never ending. Sorry, I'm rambling. If only there was some money in some of this stuff!

How do I plan to address that? I have no idea. I didn't even know that was an issue until you mentioned it. I just bought these things because the price was so right and my originals are hard as rocks with little cracks in them. Crap. Off the top of my head... Either work up some fixture to bend the replacements. or take the new ones apart to harvest out the rubber bits and chuck the rest. Staple the new rubber into my old metal strips?

My only experience is with the Hitachi licensed varieties so I've never seen those others without the milled slot. Thanks for that pic of the others! So you really think yours are resting on those stops at idle? Are you sure you don't have any vacuum leaks? At idle, it's especially important to have every molecule of air going through the venturis instead of around them. An easy way to tell if you're on the stops is to remove the damper plungers and use a small screwdriver to push the pistons down while the engine is running. See if there is a change when you force the piston all the way to the bottom?

Haha! Seek help. I got my order today as well and everything seems to be mostly in order. Only issue I have is that I bought rubber squeegee window "dew wipes" and the little black plastic ends were laying loose in the bags. They just need to be glued back on. Not a big deal. Especially for the price.

How about you mount a pair of fuel injectors inside the stock air cleaner box aimed into the mouth of each carb? Remove the suction pistons and put the domes back on. Disconnect the original fuel line back at the tank and install an electric EFI pump back at the tank. One dead headed innocuous black fuel line running into the fuel filter to feed the injectors. Hey... Nobody said it was a GOOD idea...

Forgot something... This part about "The piston has to be held mechanically slightly off the bridge to allow SOME air to get through." I'm no SU expert, but I do not believe that to be true. I would propose that's what the milled slot down the center of the piston does. It provides a passageway across the bridge right at the needle even when the piston is all the way down.

There was some discussion between Blue and I about that little nubbin in this thread. About halfway down: http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/topic/40640-su-mixture-question/ I ran some tests on my carbed Z a number of years ago (so the details are fuzzy) where I actually measured the height of the piston lift at idle, and (in my car at least) the pistons were NOT resting on those little stops even at idle. In other words, even at idle, there was some piston lift and the protrusion height of those phenolic stops was a non-sequitur. I thought I had documented the results of those tests somewhere on here, but darned if I could find it... Fading memory says my nubbin stops resulted in a .005 inch gap between the bottom of the piston and the bridge. IIRC, I had .008 inches gap at idle meaning that my pistons had lifted .003 off the stops. I wonder if those nubbins were characterized and shaved at the factory, or if proper operation includes being lifted off the stops, even at idle. Maybe you're a little rich at idle and by increasing that bumper height, you have leaned it out a little and the engine likes it?

Interesting devices. I think I need to read more about them... I think you need an ECU and sensors too, right?

I found that beveling the inside corners of the driver's side bushing allowed it to fit much better. Here's a pic of what I did to mine and there are lots more pics in this thread: http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/topic/48621-steering-rack-disassembly-and-refurb/

Looks like the impeller vanes are worn shiny at the outside tips from contact with the front cover. If that's the case, then no wonder it was noisy! You had metal to metal contact! On edit - And if there was contact inside, what did the front cover look like?

Louon, Thats a good point. We've been focused on Florida, but they didn't even get the worst of that thing! Stay safe and dry, and I hope things dry out quickly.