Captain Obvious

Haha!! Well glad that things got worked out at least enough that work can resume!

Labor disputes with management?

I took a quick look on the web and came up with this. Seemed to be the best detail of the situation(s): https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/threads/tech-brakes-residual-pressure-valves.74978/ After reading through that, I'm not buying the "return springs" part of the theory, and I'm all in that the residual pressure is required only to prevent sucking air into the system at the wheel cylinders. But of course, I'm just a guy who read it on the internet. I've got a master cylinder here that I've taken completely apart, including the outlet valves. If I can find it, I'll see if I can determine any differences between the valves from F vs R. Of course, when I took them out, I didn't bother to mark which is which, so...

Here's another link that talks some about the internals of the master cylinder and the possibility of switching the front and rear lines. https://www.classiczcars.com/forums/topic/66168-brake-master-cylinder-identification/

Correct. With the original system the only location exit for air-conditioned air is the dash vents. There is no way to get air-conditioned air to blow directly onto the windshield for defrost. Other complications include... The system (being so much smarter than you are) automatically blocks all water flow to the heater core when you switch it to defrost. So it's not like you could even blow hot air out the defrost vent at the same time you're blowing dehumidified cold air out the dash.

I did some digging on-line to try to find good theory description info about that little capillary tube and didn't come up with anything great. I'm probably just not using the right search words, but I couldn't find anything I'm comfortable linking to here. I found stuff, but nothing good enough to link to. My read on the design is the capillary tube is filled with "something" (either a liquid or a gas)* and it's job is to provide some regulation of the temperature of the air coming off the heater core. As the temperature of that coiled tube heats up, the fluid inside expands and will push the little piston out at the far end and that will (depending on the position of the temperature control slider) close down the valve some amount. Been a while since I looked at it in detail, but memory says that sensor/piston device can only CLOSE the valve. It cannot open it. Memory also says that sensor/piston has a limited range of effect on how much it is able to close the valve. I think if the slider is moved to full hot, that sensor has no effect. And since the sensor/piston can only close the valve and cannot close it, it has no effect when the lever is on full cold. It only provides some temperature control between the two extremes. * I found sources that say "freon", "ether", "alcohol".

Same thing happened to Spinal Tarp. Suuuuuuuuure they were.

OK... You got my attention. Nice pics! So your car is a 75 or 76, right? Someone who really knows what they're looking at would probably be able to nail the year just from the pics you posted, but that's not me. Couple thoughts on your original question... First, the EFI system is wired pretty much independent from the rest of the car. There is one sub-harness that does nothing but EFI and the rest of the car will pretty much function normal whether that harness is installed or not. So I'm thinking the work has been done for you already. Just put the stock stuff back with the exception of the EFI sub-harness. Second thought is if you're looking to strip stuff off the car (I see you've removed the mounts for the CARB can and the A/C controls) and you want to get that stuff out of the wiring harnesses also, maybe you could just open up the originals and take out what you don't want and then re-wrap?

Couple pieces of input. The metal end-cap on the heater core where the inlet and outlet tubes are attached should just pull off. If you're going to send the core out, don't send that end cap. It's just one more piece to get misplaced along the way. And as for the tube coming out of the valve... Yes, that's an automatic temperature compensation feature that is supposed to regulate the temperature of the heater core. There's supposed to be compressed gas inside that capillary tube (freon maybe? Nitrogen maybe?) that expands and contracts with the temperature and opens/closes the valve accordingly. But, that said... None of that probably works anymore. The gas has probably leaked out, and the valve has probably either frozen up solid inside, or the seal inside has turned to dust and dissolved into the coolant over the years. In any event, I would be very surprised if that valve is any good at all.

Doing movie reviews? "Interested.... Interested.... Very interested.... VERY interested. Then suddenly lost interest."

3000 to one, huh? Bring it on!! Haha!! Happy New Year everyone!!

Two thoughts... FIrst, they used the same control arms on both sides of the car, so you don't have to look for a "right rear" arm... Any rear arm from either side will work. The later years will work as well, but there are some small (I believe non-functional differences). So unless you're looking for concourse correct for your year, then I believe any year will work*. Second, I've got the original arms off my 77. The PO did some damage to them when he pounded the old bushings out. Not nearly as bad as what happened to yours, but they're not pristine. They annoyed me enough that I replaced them when I redid all my suspension stuff. But if you get stuck, they're yours for the cost of shipping. *The really early cars might be different as well, but I have no experience there. And with the cost of anything really early shooting up, it's unlikely you'll turn one of those up anyway.

Hope the tank works out! Do you have a pic of where it was leaking?

Rather than taking the bowl covers off, you could just pull off the vent line and stick something down the hole and see if it comes out wet. Like testing a cake.

@Mike

Well I'm no brake expert, but I certainly appreciate the callout. With that in mind, here's my read. I agree with Zed Head that since the bore and stroke is the same, everything would be the pretty much identical when you pressed the pedal DOWN. However, I'm less confident that everything would be OK when you let the pedal back UP. There are check valves built onto the pistons inside the master cylinder and there are also check valves screwed into the outlet ports of the master where the brake lines exit. I haven't studied any of it in great depth, but there is no guarantee that the characteristics of each pair of check valves are the same. You need to make sure that when you RELEASE the pedal, you never create enough of a vacuum out at the ends of the system such that you would pull air backwards past the wheel cylinder or caliper seals into the brake system. Those check valves are all a balancing act between the return forces at the destination ends and the vacuum created inside the master cylinder chambers when you let up on the pedal. And since one chamber is filling large calipers that don't have any return springs while the other chamber is filling small wheel cylinders that DO have return springs, I could be easily convinced that the smart people who designed the master cylinder knew that and designed different check valves for each circuit. So, what could go wrong? When you let off the pedal, you could suck air in backwards past your corner seals (wheel cylinder or caliper). This could make it hard to bleed the system, or even worse, it could cause spongy brakes if it happens under normal use. Or it could all work out just fine.

I got no input into what went wrong, but just wanted to tell you that I feel for ya. Sorry it didn't go as planned.

I was thinking the same thing, but the glass isn't broken. Maybe they shot it and THEN put the windows down?

Agreed. And wow... I never thought I would ever see a Z more disgusting than that rusty junk falling off the underside cars that Beverly Hills has on ebay. Unfortunately I was wrong. I think I'm gonna hurl.

Glad to help. And since that helped, I can add a little more info. The early heads (up to and including 74) were drilled and tapped for the carb intake manifolds. They did not drill and tap the center hole. The later heads (75 and up), however, were drilled and tapped for BOTH the carb manifolds AND the fuel injection intake manifolds. Point is... If you're putting that triples manifold onto your original 280 head, your head will have drilled and tapped bolt holes in all three positions. For mechanical purposes, you won't NEED all three at each end, but if there's enough space between the heads of the bolts, you should put something into all the holes just to keep the critters out.

If I'm understanding the question correctly... You're asking about the three holes in the mounting flange of the intake manifold? All three of those holes are for mounting manifolds of different designs. The intake manifolds used on cars that came with carbs use the two smaller holes that border the larger one in the center. And the cars that came with fuel injection used the one larger hole in the center. I'm guessing that the people who made that custom intake manifold put all three holes in it so it would bolt up correctly to either an older (carbs) or newer (FI) head.

Lol. Good point!! In any event, I'm glad you survived!

One could suggest that this explains a lot... Hahaha!!

Yeah, as SteveJ suggested, the difficulty level of the job is subjective. Things that make the job easier: Spindle pins that are nice and clean and easy to remove. Having a spring compressor so you don't have to mess around using the weight of the car to deal with the springs. Having a wrench big enough to fit the large gland nut on the top of the strut housings. Strut inserts that are not frozen rusted inside the strut tubes. Not snapping off a brake line where they mount to the strut bodies. etc... IMHO the two biggest things that really can make this job a PITA are the spindle pins and not being able to get the old inserts out of the strut tubes.