Captain Obvious

The holes are stock. The clip on the top of the air cleaner is meant to hold a vacuum tube that wraps around the front snout air intake and actuates the thermostatic temperature controlled air flappy thingy. The one that pulls air from the exhaust manifold until it warms up. And as mentioned above, the small hose nipple connects a tube to the throttle opener control valve. It's the clean atmospheric source to disable the system when the speed is below 10 mph. It should connect to the solenoid valve here:

Haha!! I was wondering if that was going to go completely unnoticed. I'm sure you've seen deeper trolling than that! It's not trolling if it's true though!!

Haha! So the "E" stands for "empirical"! That's awesome! I never knew that! Drilling that hole through the center isn't going to be a huge amount of fun either. Sounds simple, but probably won't be as simple as it sounds on paper. They use a special cutting edge geometry for brass that isn't as grabby. You'll know what I'm talking about the first time the bit grabs and spins your chuck in the tailstock. You have a set of collets for the lathe? They lend themselves well to this kind of small, high accuracy work. It's nice to be able to work on one end, cut-off, and then spin the part around to work on the other end with pretty good accuracy using just a collet. And your idea of making a block to help locate the holes is a good one. I do that kind of stuff all the time. I've got so many little special purposed fixtures around here that I've forgotten what some of the old ones were for! I'm certainly no machinist, but you know how to reach me if you need a sympathetic ear!

Cool. Sounds like a healthy path. But why are you trading down from the 77 to a 240?

Right, and that's my point. If it's so friken ugly now that it simply won't sell without a coat of paint, then I'd be worried you're putting lipstick on a pig. On the other hand, if it's not so bad now, then let the new owner make that decision. Just don't spray a quick, cheap coat of paint over poor prep and rusty metal and then offload a temporarily, shiny looking, hidden rust problem car onto some other unsuspecting owner in... where are you... in the US. How about some pics of the car as it is and we can give some more detailed input?

I don't want to go on the cart! Seriously though... I'm just a guy with a latte. Those diagonal holes aren't gonna be the easiest thing in the world to do. You'll soon be in the market for a milling machine. Slippery slope I tell ya!!

Here's a link to the thread where we were discussing such matters. My photo links are dead because Photobucket SUCKS!!! but there are some other pics in there that still work: http://www.classiczcars.com/topic/56185-how-do-i-hate-rebuilt-components-brake-booster/

I'll provide a different opinion.... If you are painting the car "just to sell it" and I were the buyer, then I would probably prefer that you not paint it at all. That way, not only could I choose the style and color of paint I prefer, but I could also verify the integrity of the underlying metal instead of having potential issues hidden under fresh paint only to have them become visible shortly after purchase. The last two cars I bought were painted by the PO with the express intention of selling the car and I would have paid more for both of them if they hadn't been painted in the first place. So it all depends on who you're after. Maybe offer the car at two prices? Painted, or as it stands?

I'd be happy to, but honestly, if you actually saw arcing on the PC board, it's probably a goner. Was it a real expensive unit?

Wow. That guy really like$ his parts!! $$$

Stanley Jordan. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3gHtPLXQOI

No Joe, I did not. I took mine off and put them back on, but they seemed in good enough condition that I reused my originals. Other owners like @Mike W have though. I think there are some pics on the earlier pages of my rebuild thread from Mike.

Looking at your pic, it looks like the front carb linkage is way open? The part that is supposed to be in contact with the tip of the adjustment screw is a quarter inch away from the screw? Kinda hard to tell from the pic, but it looks like something else is holding the front carb linkage down? But (from a distance) it looks like the center rod is assembled in the right location. Can you take a closer up shot of where that center linkage makes contact to the front carb tab?

BTDT. Grew back. Thankfully. Actually, the last time I hit a tree was the first time I ever rode a four-runner. I'd been riding cycles for years, but had never been on a four wheeler before. I was going five miles an hour just to get the feel of the thing. Came time to make a turn and I was leaning just as hard as I could, but the damn thing just wouldn't turn! No matter how far I leaned!! Ran into a row of ornamental trees in slow motion. Only things that got hurt that day were my pride and reputation. And yes, I've figured it out now... I just have to turn off the cycle reflexes and turn on the four wheel reflexes.

I don't know what that hole is for either, but my theory is the same as site's. A tooling hole for a locating pin to aid in dash alignment and installation. I may have mentioned this already, but I think I'm going to sell mine. The lack of focus from other drivers is so scary. The constant worrying takes some of the joy out of it.

Not sure if there's any confusion here about color or not, but starting in 77 Datsun started painting the arms and blade holders black. Some details in this thread here: http://www.classiczcars.com/topic/58084-proper-wiper-blade-and-arm-color/ So the "correct" color for anything prior to 77 would be silver, but should be black for 77-78. And I'm not sure about the blade holders (solid vs. the rod style), but everything I've ever seen was the rod style regardless of year. I've not seen solid holders that were believed to be original as shipped.

Thanks guys! Yep, there are many ways to address the battery hold-down. I made that mod to an already needing to be replaced stock hold-down because it was free and was the fastest way to fix the problem for now. The long term pic is to fashion something similar to stock, but completely out of stainless. Jeff, your homemade bracket looks good. I've seen styles like that which are narrow through the center in case it had to fit between raised fill caps. You didn't need to worry about that with the Optima.

I disagree. I think it started to look nice a long time ago.

Yeah, Photobucket SUCKS!! I reloaded the pics at the (current) end of the thread. Take a look at page 4. http://www.classiczcars.com/topic/48621-steering-rack-disassembly-and-refurb/?page=4&tab=comments#comment-531913

I put an Interstate Battery (Group 24) in my 77 280 a couple years ago and I never liked the way the battery hold-down fit. Interstate has a stepped lip along the top of the battery that is juuuuusssst a little too big to fit inside the hold down bracket, resulting in a small contact patch on the top surface of the battery that is too small to provide what I consider a good reliable contact. In fact, it usually slips off one side or the other and wedges itself in on an angle. It's probably not just me, and I bet all you Interstate users know what I'm talking about. Here's the stepped lip that runs around the entire top of the Interstate. The inside dimensions of the battery hold-down bracket are just too small to fit around this lip: So I took matters into my own hands... I figured that my battery hold-down was rusty anyway and probably wasn't long for this world, I decided to try to make the situation better. With that in mind, I opened up the center hole in the original bracket a little bit to allow it to fit snug down against the step on the Interstate battery. I ran masking tape along the top of the bracket to give me a quick-n-dirty guide for how much material to remove and started grinding. I used an angle grinder for the bulk removal and a file to even it out and get into the corners: In this pic, you can see how much metal needed to be removed from the long sides of the bracket. If you look carefully at the top edge, I have removed metal back to the tape line near the corner, but towards the left side there is still metal beyond the tape. That's about how far back it needs to me removed to fit over the lip: And when you've done that process to all four inside edges, the modified bracket now fits snug and square against the top of the lip of the Interstate: The rear mounting hole is almost out of travel, but with a washer under the bolt head it still catches just fine: On my long term to-do list is to make up a full custom stainless bracket specifically for the Interstate, but until then this one fits way better than how it did originally. No more squirming battery and no more worry about shorting the battery cables to the mounting bracket since the bracket is now a half inch below the cable connections:

Yeah, I'm sure the spring is NOT stainless, but I believe the rest of the assy is. @dmorales-bello, why is it you don't think your arms are stainless?

Cool. So you had the three screw round tops? Was it titled as a 72 being built that late in the year, and you think the carbs were original? Maybe a transition period at the end of the 71 run? Everybody talks about the mid-year changes in 74. Maybe they did that kind of stuff in other years too.

You can't always use a magnet to positively identify stainless. There's plenty of stainless that IS magnetic. If it's steel and it's non-magnetic, then it's stainless. But if it's steel and it IS magnetic, you still can't rule out stainless. It might be a magnetic grade. I believe (from the fact that they are steel and haven't rusted) that the wiper arms ARE stainless.

Yeah, that's what I figured. You need to remember (or be told about) the "good old days" back when cars didn't do that compensation for you. The 280's were in a "mid-period" where they actually tried to mitigate that situation for you through the use of the auxiliary air regulator and take some of the manual drudgery out of your hands. Before that (with the 240 and 260), you manually used the choke lever yourself to modulate the cold idle speed. Consider it one of the endearing features of driving such a cool car. Now, you just jump in your Civic or your Sentra, turn the key, and pull out of the driveway before the starter has even wound down to a complete stop. It's all computer controlled. Thank you Moore's Law!!

72 does that. That's the only year that pushes coolant from intake manifold into the carbs. Good luck and here's to hoping the fix was as easy as a couple new gaskets!