Captain Obvious

Haha! No, I guess not. Although, it makes the "I'm too far away" card just a little more valuable...

Chas, I got the O-rings and the install went fine. I'm kinda flitting around between eight different projects and it slipped my mind. I was also thinking that I wouldn't post much about it until I had put fuel back into the pump and made sure that everything worked as intended with no leaks and such. So at this time, the O-rings are in, but untested. I know... What could possibly go wrong. go wrong. go wrong.

If I weren't so far away, I'd be happy to come over and strip with you guys. Wait a minute... We are talking about a car, right?

I already know the results... It works great. I actually put it on my car for the first time near the end of last summer, but was in too much of a hurry to take pics then. I knew I would be back in there again this off-season, so I saved the formal documentation until now. So if you're waiting for testimonials about performance, then I've got that too. On edit - About the pressure bleed... Even with the new valve my fuel pressure bleeds off in a couple hours as well, but it's not the check valve. Mine is either the fuel pressure regulator or an injector. Small enough bleed that I've still got fuel pressure even after I've crested the heat soak of a hot start, so I'm not too worried about it. It's lower priority now.

Gotcha covered: http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/fuel-injection-s30/51862-fuel-pump-check-valve-alternatives.html

The original Bosch fuel pump check valve is NLA and I've been messing around with alternatives. The original check valve has a 10mm x 1.0 threaded inlet and a barbed outlet to accept an 8mm hose. Can't get it anymore... There are other Bosch check valves available with a 10mm x 1.0 threaded inlet, but the outlet styles are different. Not a problem! Here's the first alternative I've worked through. This one uses a 14mm thread taper seat style outlet. Bosch part number 1 587 010 539 Here's a pic of the stock check valve on top and the 539 on the bottom. Note that the pump end threaded portion of the alternate is longer than the original valve. It is so long, in fact, that it will hit the armature inside the fuel pump if inserted all the way: First, you have to deal with the longer threaded portion before you can screw the valve into the pump. If you don't you'll mess up the insides of your pump. I cut off a couple threads to shorten it. I used my lathe (because I have one), but you could just as easily use a hacksaw or file. Just make sure you pack the hole with some paper towel or something so you don't get metal chips inside the valve. If you can't deal with making it shorter, then you could just stack up a couple extra copper washers to take up the difference. Here's a shot of the valve after I shortened the pump end threaded portion: Now about the outlet end. Here's a shot where you can see the tapered seat on the outlet end: How do we deal with the outlet end? Easy... Just grab a fuel rail hose off a junked Audi. I didn't get the year or style, but they were easy to come by. I think a couple Audi models (and maybe even VW) used the same hose. Here's the alternative valve installed in the pump and the Audi fuel hose laying next to the pump: You can get the hoses with the end attached with a clamp, or permanently crimped on like I did. Here's the conical seat on the fuel hose that mates with the check valve: Here's another shot showing the printing on the side of the hose. Attach the hose to the valve and then loop the hose around and clamp it to the inlet of the dampener. Done. Cheap and still available. And easier to change in the future if necessary in the event that it goes bad: Only other complication was that the original hold down clamp for the original steel loop was too small to fit the Audi rubber hose through. I just used an appropriately sized cable clamp instead. When I get another chance, I'll talk some about a banjo style as an alternative. I got one of those as well.

And if you can't get that bump stop firmly against the back side of the lock nut, no big deal... It will be pushed into place the first time you steer to lock. The end of the rack will push it outboard.

Probably too late, but I wouldn't bother with that check valve from ebay. I bought one and it didn't last. Worked fine new when cold, but as soon as the engine compartment got hot, the hot fuel attacked the sealing disk inside the valve and potato chipped it. Didn't hold pressure after that. I've got pics of some of my alternate fuel check valve installs on the camera, but it's gonna take me a little bit to get them to the web and write something up.

Haha! I was hoping I wasn't the only other one to get that!

Timsz, Yup... That part without threads is an end of travel bump stop. So the order you've got the parts assembled in your pic is correct. Tighten up the end rod until it stops turning and is bottomed out on the end of the rack gear and then snug up the lock nut to keep it there. Then slide the bump stop(s) outboard until they are up against the inboard sides of the lock nuts. So when you bottom out the end rod, does it sustain it's own weight, or is it floppy hanging even when fully tightened? Funny that they never mentioned or pictured the bump stops in any of the manuals...

That's why I was asking if it was threaded. I was thinking the same thing. My 77 280 has bump stops that aren't described in the manual either.

Haha! You've taken your first step towards recovery.

Haha, yeah, I'm lurking. Visions of spindle pin bushings dancing in my head. I tried the forever priming as well, and it didn't help me much, but my (first order) problem was a non-existent check valve back at the pump. So I could have great fuel pressure as long as I was cranking, but as soon as I let off the key, it went to zero. I found the check valve issue at the trailing end of last summer so I haven't spent a full blown hot summer afternoon parked on the blacktop yet after getting that part sorted. This year will be the test for me. My artificial enrichment circuit got me through last summer. That was when I hooked up a relay in series with the temp sensor and fooled the ECU into thinking my engine was very very cold while it was cranking. This summer I'm hoping that a new check valve will make the electronic choke unnecessary. But I gotta get wheels under it first!! :classic:

Not regardless of the temp... Only squirts while cranking below 72F max. (FSM says the thermotime cuts out somewhere between 57-72F). 77 FSM page EF-14.

siteunseen, did you get those bellows you talked about? Are they the same ones I bought, or one of the other alternatives?

My pleasure. The pics of your hardware in your thread are a little different than what I found in mine, but hope the info helps anyway!

Haha! Some call me Obvious. I believe you are supposed to tighten the side rod until it bottoms out. And then once the side rod has bottomed out against the end of the rack, then you should lock it in place with the lock nut. If you're lucky, the side rod will have a stiffy at that point. If it's still all loose and floppy hanging once the side rod has bottomed out, then it's worn beyond the recommended limit. As for the order of the other two parts... Are they both threaded? I mean, obviously the lock nut (part with the flats) is threaded, but what about the other part? The part without the flats? I'm not even sure what that is. It's not in the manual pics... Also, what year manual are you looking at that said something about .22? I looked and couldn't find that.

Brian, Those pictures are perfect. Thanks for the closure.

I'm glad to hear your positive results as I'm doing pretty much the same thing on my 77. Wheel bearings, steering rack refurb, strut inserts, ball joints, tie rod ends, bushings everywhere... To make matters worse on mine, I've found a bunch of things that weren't put together properly from my previous owner. I'm hoping (maybe even expecting) huge improvements over what I started with.

bacarl, Awesome. Thanks for the confirmation! Pics of the original parts for future reference would be great when you get a chance.

The nuts that tamo3 posted are the original peen over style. They are not the ZX self-locking style.

Yeah, I'm in a similar situation with why I'm doing this now. I've got all four corners of the suspension off the car and I've promised everyone some cheap easily available check valve options for the pump, so there's no easier time to mess with the fuel pump than now. Then I figured while I had the whole pump assy off the car, I may as well make sure the insides of the pump looked good, and you know how it goes... Now I'm messing with an elegant mounting of a fuel filter back there using a mounting bracket that will hopefully look "stock" when I'm done. Scope creep. I'm confident in my measurements to about +/- .01mm (a half thousandth over here at this part of the globe). Thankfully O-rings are pretty forgiving about sizing, and I don't think the differences between what you got and what I'm getting are really going to matter. Especially in a static face seal like we have here. I'm going to order some O-rings tomorrow and go from there. Thanks again for your help with this! And you made me chuckle when you mentioned the German standard. That was the first one I opened too. The second was the Japanese standard. And so on. Same thought process.

Chas, Those pictures are perfect. Again, answered my current question, and a few I hadn't asked yet. Thanks much for the help!

Thanks Chas. Awesome info. My measurements are a little different, but not by much. I measured the depth of the grooves to be 1.6mm (instead of the 1.5 you got). It was a little tricky to measure because the grooves have a small radius at the bottom corners, and if you get hung up on the fillet on the inside corners, you'll measure a little less depth. I was careful to measure at the center of the groove, and I got 1.6mm. Slightly less crush than what you calculated, but more than enough. I did not measure the groove width, but I will next time I'm in the shop. I see that you calculated ID from linear length, and I was curious... How did you measure that? I measured ID directly with gauges (rods of appropriate diameter) and found the IDs to be 33.0 and 33.5mm with the smaller O-ring located near the motor. Also, I bumped your fuel line insulator thread with a question. I'm guessing you didn't see that? http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/garage-hobbyist/50966-280z-fuel-line-insulators.html

No problem. I'm sure I'll end up with a couple extra sets and I'd be happy to share the surplus. I took another very close look at the O-rings last night, and it just may be that there is a small size difference between the two. I'm not sure if it's stretch from application or swell from gasoline exposure, but my two O-rings are definitely different in circumference at this point. Easiest to tell when you swap the two from their original grooves. They definitely fit different in the other grooves, and I don't think it's just from compression set. Still close enough that I think the same size would still work in both locations, but if I'm going to be ordering two different sizes anyway, it just may work out for the best. The two grooves are a slightly different shape as well due to the geometry of the pump ports. I'm thinking they tried to make the two O-rings the same, but missed a little bit? :bulb: