Captain Obvious

Woof. After all that work. Glad you got off without more serious injury. :hurt: I totaled my first Z many moons ago on 95 very close to you. Maybe there's something in the water?

Naaa. Don't take anything apart if you got it running. All of the manuals say that when you look down into the distributor hole the small half moon should be at the front when at #1TDC, but I guess you could put it wherever you want as long as you adjust the spark plug wires to make up for it. Out of curiosity, now that it runs... Can you take a pic of the engine bay showing the distributor and wires?

Yeah, I'm not sure if it's a trick due to camera angle, but I agree. Here's another pic showing the same. This one is from Blue from the Atlantic Z Car Club (www.atlanticz.ca): Blue's looks a lot more 11:30-ish than mine, but all I can say is that my car runs well, my timing is correct, and I've got more than enough adjustability fore and aft from where it belongs. So maybe mine is off one tooth, but I can still get it timed? Maybe it's a camera angle issue? Biggest issue to check is that the factory service manuals says that when at TDC#1, you should have the smaller bow shape should be placed toward the front of the car. That's what you have now, right?

If you've got the problems sorted out, it's academic, but... Here's what the distributor drive tang should look like at TDC. You're saying that yours is different than this?

Haha! Thanks guys! Just trying to help out where I can.

Haha! Nice. I won't make that mistake, but I promise I'll make one equally embarrassing. Not sure I'll tell you about it, but I do promise to make one in your honor. Probably tomorrow...

Glad you got it figured out. Distributors can be a pain. I was gonna ask about the 1:15 vs 1:35 thing... :laugh:

Couple thousandths. Nothing that I would consider problematic (if it weren't for the fact that I'm having a problem). :paranoid: The shaft is chrome plated for wear resistance, and the aluminum throttle body has steel sleeves in it where the shaft enters and exits. This is annoying... It's gonna be Z season soon and I gotta get to the bottom of this.

I just took a better look at the mounts from the ZX, and the are not the same. The later brackets have a gusset welded in the center to... well... prevent exactly what happened to yours. I suspect they bolt up identically, but if you're looking for concourse replacement, then what I've got is off the table. Here's one of the ZX mounts PS - My 77 also has the reinforcing gusset, so they figured it out some time before 77.

Yes, in addition to the rotating spring on the throttle body, there is an extension spring on the linkage located up near the throttle body. It's rusty and should probably be replaced, but it is there. There is also another spring right at the gas pedal. The weird thing about this sticky throttle body is that it is perfectly smooth and easy to rotate when there is no vacuum behind the butterfly, but when there's high engine vacuum at idle, it gets stuck a little above idle. Kill the motor, and it shuts to the stop screw. Wrapping that throttle body return spring around an additional turn might prevent the issue, but I don't think weak springs are the root of the problem...

I've got a pair from a ZX motor... They look the same to me, but I'm no expert. Just sent you PM.

Any thoughts on this?

After you have bolted up the oil pump with the drive shaft in place, it is impossible to get the distributor installed in an incorrect position. There is only one position for it. The distributor drive tang will only go in one way. To fix a "one tooth off" problem, you have to pull the oil pump out the bottom, remove it's driving shaft (again out the bottom), rotate it one tooth, and then put everything back together again. You cannot fix "one tooth off" from up top.

Since it's not going to be Z driving weather anytime soon, I spent a little time on the hunt for this gremlin. I pulled the throttle body off and verified that everything moves smooth and easy. Took it all apart again and didn't find anything astounding. No wear marks on the butterfly. No wear marks on the inside bore. No gunk. A small wear spot where the throttle shaft spins in the throttle body bushings, but not enough that looked like a significant problem. Then I pulled a vacuum on the back side with my shop vac, and it was more difficult to move with the vacuum behind it. Has anyone else ever seen anything like this? On a potentially related note... How many rotations should the return spring receive before it hooks onto the post. It's easy to get a half turn. It's difficult, but possible to get one-and-a-half turns. I don't think I could possibly get more than that. It would certainly be less prone to hanging up if there was more return force. So between those two options 1/2 and 1 1/2, which is the proper return force?

One thing that I forgot to point out is that the process and pics above are for 240 only. In 74 they changed the column design and I've not taken one of the newer "steel ball" styles apart. I'd love to mess with a new one (since that's what I have in my 77) but since the only one I have is on my car, I can't take risks with it without a backup plan.

I don't think you're "really" supposed to mess with it. That said: Start with this: Slide the mount off exposing three screws that hold upper half to lower half: Take out three screws and separate upper and lower: This is the steering wheel end with retainer clip still installed: Pull off the steering wheel taper shoes and the retainer clip: Once you remove the retainer clip, the upper shaft comes out the bottom end of the housing. The spring will probably push it out, but it might require some gentle persuasion in addition to the spring: Tap the bearings out of the housing if you dare. There is one at the top and one at the bottom: Bearing disassembled: There are thirty balls in the bearings so you can count what you have to make sure you didn't drop any:

That's my impression. I'm not sure why they originally thought they needed that grabber in addition to the metal "snuff out shelf", and Datsun seemed to agree in later years. Maybe in the beginning they figured that owners wouldn't want to stick a finger into the bucket of butts to lift up on the other part, but somewhere along the line they decided it wasn't worth the cost? I don't know when they stopped putting in that other piece, but I don't think my 74 had one either. As for depth fitment between the two, I don't think there would be any problems with depth. The older one is a little deeper, but it's only by a sixteenth of an inch or so. I believe there's more than enough dead space below the 280 ashtray that you could put the old one in it's place. I don't know if the depth change was even intentional on their part. Might have been something as simple as a drawing die wearing out at the stampers and the new one was a little different. So here's something for the concourse judges to look for. "Ewwwww... Did you see that red 240 over there with the new style ashtray? I'm gonna deduct points for that!" :laugh:

I was messing around with consoles recently and noticed some differences between old style and new style ashtrays. Here's older (240) on left and newer (280) on right. Note the deletion of the little grabber handle in the later years. Probably a tiny cost savings change: In the later years, they also added the little window for the tray illumination lamp. 280 on left, 240 on right: And, I'm not sure if it's simply manufacturing variation over the years, but the 240 version is just a tiny bit deeper than the 280 version. I'm sure your day is now complete knowing all this.

And BTW, in 74 the water line coming out of the rear carb back to the water pump wasn't metal either. They had changed from the metal flare fitting line you have to rubber braided tubing with hose clamps.

So in 73, did they really use a metal tube off the rear carb for the EGR vacuum? I've only ever messed with 74... Going full bore OEM with a set of flat tops? Most people would tell you you're nuts.

Absolutely! It's not meant to be a press fit at all. The pin is supposed to slip easily in and out of that hole. That's why Datsun went through the expense of using the retainer bolt in the center of the pin. When the pin and holes are clean, the pin would (would?, could?, or should?) float and spin in the knuckle hole in the bottom of the strut housing if it weren't for the retainer bolt.

About pressing the protruding portion back in... If you're going to try that, make sure you clean out the newly exposed hole portion as well as the freshly exposed portion of the pin before you press the other way. File a couple thousandths off all the exposed pin and clean out the exposed hole portion with sandpaper and light oil or WD40. I'm sure you already figured this out, but there's not much to be gained by pressing that thing back together rusty. After you clean off the newly exposed parts, lube up both sides with penetrant and then maybe change direction. The theory being, the direction change can help work the penetrant into places it won't wick to when everything is static. Good luck!

Your troubles with this job parallel my experiences. :mad: The proponents of the spindle pin puller devices have never crossed paths with a pin like yours. More power to 'em, but my experience has led me to believe that if the spindle is stuck so minimally that a puller device would succeed, then it's in there so loose that I would never have needed a fancy puller in the first place. Regardless of how robust the puller is... Make sure you have a good solid square to the direction of the pressure backing for the knuckle. Make sure you are getting the force normal to the end of the pin. Wear safety glasses, gloves, and a face shield. So, while I can't add any additional specific insights as to what to do at this point, I can simply provide solidarity. I feel for ya.

I'll take a look, but I don't think I have any of the parts you need. Maybe I can maybe offer some info though? The large water pipe is copper with flare fittings on the ends. They might even be standard flare tubing fittings. If you get stuck and can't find real OEM stuff, then you might be able to make something with parts from the home improvement store. I'm no metallurgist, but I bet brass ends would probably work as well as steel in that application, and the malleable copper part should be easy to find. The small vacuum tube is port vacuum to control the EGR valve. I don't know if 73 used metal for that line or not, but I can tell you that in 74, that tube was rubber. Unless the EGR end of that tube gets too hot for rubber, then I can't see a reason it needs to be metal. HTH?

I bought the HF 20T A-frame press a bunch of years ago. I liked the design of the A one more than their standard H frame. I'm not sure they still offer the A-frame in 20T, but I know they still have the H. Anyway, I used it as designed for a few years and then after getting tired of a few of it's shortcomings, I made a bunch of improvements. So, if you do get a HF press, let me know and I'll see if I can document the details of what I did to mine to make it better than new.