Captain Obvious

Nice! I think I still have a set of Z32 tension rods around here somewhere that I had planned to modify like that, but I ended up selling the car before I finished the project. I don't know what steel they used, but based on the finish, it doesn't look like a whole lot of fun to machine.

I believe there is another stumbling block with the round 280 headlight connectors. I do not think anyone has turned up a source for the larger brass contact that clips into the plastic connector shell. The smaller contacts are available, but I don't think anyone has found the larger ones. I know I looked some and didn't find anything suitable. Derek, Also I forgot to ask. How did you fare in the recent storm? Everything OK?

Derek, Details, details.. But it looks so easy on TV! Seriously though. Thanks for the details on the scanning process

Probably not. Don't know. And probably not unless it has a logo on it. Engineering Marvels is a good one too. I can't watch the news anymore, so I watch old episodes of How It's Made and SpongeBob. Actually, that's not true... I've discovered that I can watch the news as long as I turn the sound off. I can even watch any of the stations that way. The trick is the stuff they are actually willing to put into print is truly news, but all the talking heads are just opinion. If they aren't honestly willing to put it in writing, then I don't want to hear about it. I don't want opinion. I want news.

This morning, I was watching Season 25, Episode 9 of "How it's Made": Armored Vehicles Tension Fabric Buildings Rowers Sculpture Enlargements The last one... sculpture enlargements. They started with a small artist created sculpture (of a dog). They sent the small sculpture to a company that 3D computer scans it, and then blows up the size, and CNC router carves a larger version out of polystyrene foam. You got the scanner, and you got the CNC. How bout scanning and carving replacement dash foam pads? You don't have to enlarge it. You could create a 1:1 copy. I found that episode on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwNfx-YDzHc

Who lights who's in this competition??? That's love right there.

So all this talk about electrical problems and wiring diagrams and switch rebuilding... The problem was the check valve between the manifold and the vacuum bottle?? That's awesome!! Glad it was that easy!! (And cheap!) Awesome! I can picture you in your car in the garage tonight, moving your lever back and forth. Back and forth. Back and forth. Go ahead...

Oh, and all this talk about the magnet valves and vacuum tubing makes me sooooooooo, soooooooo glad that I changed over to the electric servo control for the HVAC system! So glad!

I know, right? And just because I can post pictures WITHOUT photosuckit, here are some pics of the fan control switch. Might not even be the problem, but just because I can. Fan switch: Unbend the tabs to open up the switch. Green crusty grease and corroded copper contacts inside. The four nibs along the top are the four fan speeds. The solid bar (the OFF bar) at the bottom is the "switch is NOT in the OFF position". (for my nerd friends... Get it? "OFF bar"). Anyway: Cleaned up all the contacts with some scotch-brite or 800 grit sandpaper. I put some grease on after the pic: Rebend the tabs back over to hold the switch back together and you're done. What was intermittent, now works perfect:

Who's got the bigger garage? That's friends with benefits! Is that like "Send picture of boat and trailer?"

The magnet valves are just an electrically opened valve. With no power on them, they are closed, and with 12V on them, they should open. You should not be able to blow air through them with no power to them, and if you put power on them (and they click), you should be able to blow through them. Other thoughts? The magnet valve on the left (in the wiring diagram) only actuates when the compressor runs and it supplies vacuum to the FICD. So that one will never actuate if the wires are broken to the pressure switch. But that one has no effect on anything other than the FICD, so it shouldn't be affecting heat at all. The magnet valve on the right is the one that controls everything else, and it should be opening any time the key is in ACC or ON, and the fan is running. I'm not sure why they bothered to tie it into the ignition though. I'm guessing they didn't want you to drain all the vacuum out of the reservoir bottle while you were sitting with the engine off. Playing with the mode lever... Moving it around a bunch of times just to listen to the flapper doors move, until you had drained the vacuum bottle? Anyway, with that theory in mind, they cut off the vacuum to the system when the ignition is off. So, to test the rest of the heater system, you could completely bypass that magnet valve. Just jumper the vacuum tubing around it to test the rest of the system. You will be putting vacuum on the rest of the system all the time so you will probably drain your vacuum bottle overnight. But to test the heater, it should be fine. As a side note that might not really matter right now, but... There are two sections to the fan switch. One section is the 1 through 4 speed controls, and the other is an "fan is running" output. That "fan is running" output gets tied to ground whenever the lever is set to anything other than OFF and the "fan is running". The insides of my fan switch were green, crusty, and intermittent, and I'm wondering if maybe yours is as well. I took mine apart and cleaned it all up nice and put it back together. Works great now. I got pics if you're interested.

It's "Fronkenschteen". One piece at a time, my friend. One piece at a time!

Well if the underside looks as good as the top, you've got a real nice one there. I'm having trouble finding significant flaws or anomalies. GLWS! On a related note... So that's what the steering wheel is supposed to look like? Before they turned to cottage cheese?

Wow. That's very nice. It's not a one owner. It's a two owner, and soon to be a three owner. Regardless, that might be the best time capsule Z I've seen! Any idea why the original owner parked it in 1991? What's the underside look like?

I did my relay upgrade a little differently. I had the whole engine bay wiring harness out of the car and unwrapped apart on the bench. I rewired it to include relays for the headlights and the starter solenoid and then rewrapped it. And while I was in there, I also changed it to use the internally regulated alternator. It was definitely NOT plug-n-play. Mine was unwrap/cut/splice/crimp/wrap and play. I had a thread with a whole bunch of pics, but then photobucket turned sour and that thread is mostly useless.

I don't have any first hand experience with spacing the thin Autopal housings, but of the suggested solutions you mentioned, I think I would try the sticky foam tape first. Failing that, maybe some latex or silicone tubing? I think I would like them better than traditional vacuum tubing because they are softer?

Not saying the valves are OK, but just because the vacuum isn't getting through them, doesn't necessarily mean the valve itself is the problem. There are lots of other electrical things that could go wrong that would make the valves not operate when they are supposed to. Hoping I'm not telling you stuff you already knew, I whipped up this little snippet from the wiring diagram:

I'm positive there was no metal to metal contact originally. That's the whole point of the rubber isolation. I think this is a really cool idea, and whether it succeeds or not, I love seeing the internal workings of something that was never intended to ever come apart. I suspect the largest stumbling block to this project will be finding something that will stick to the metal as well as the original rubber did. I've got no experience in that field and have no input other than asking if you have considered using a rubber like the original? There are lots of people molding and vulcanizing rubber. The processing doesn't look that difficult if you can find suitable raw materials.

I noticed a huge difference in the brightness (whiteness) of my old original sealed beams after doing the headlight relay upgrade. I don't know what my car looks like coming at me in traffic with the headlights on, but it's gotta be a lot whiter and a lot less yellow than it used to be now that the filaments are getting more current. Before the upgrade, I was getting less than 10 Volts at the filaments. I think I was getting eight something on high beams. Now that I've done the upgrade, I'm getting darn near full battery voltage. No surprise, but it really makes a difference! Oh, and sorta related... I took a look back through my notes and had this in there about the Autopal H4 housings: Some people say they aren't thick enough and will rattle around if not padded with a spacer - A1L-11-04-2011 So I don't know if you found that to be the case, but I've heard others have had slight issues with fitment.

Hahaha!! Exactly. I had forgotten about that one. Thanks!

Haha! It's a dimmer. No it's a paperweight! So my input on dimming dash LED's is that you may get a small amount of dimming function with the stock system if you just replace the bulbs with LED equivalents. But if you want a wide range of dimming (including full dark), you'll need to change over to a pulse width dimming system.

What about the Miami and east FL coast guys? Anyone heard from any of them?

If there's really a chunk of gasket got pushed out, that would be curious. If you do find that to be the case, before you pull the head maybe I'd take a look and make sure your valves are adjusted properly? Thinking that maybe if your exhaust valve isn't opening (or opening enough?) you might be building up more cylinder pressure than normal?

Glad to hear that some of you folks are now on the far side of that thing and came through OK. I hope the folks down further in south Florida are OK. From what I hear, it's going to be no picnic even all the way up into GA TN, and AL.

I've got throttle body binding as well, and that's what started all of this. I originally masked the problem by giving my throttle return spring on the butterfly shaft an additional turn. Didn't like the way it made the throttle feel, so next I spent a completely unreasonable amount of time adding Delrin bushings to my throttle body. That seemed like it worked at first. Then I discovered that it's great until the engine heat soaks after a ten minute stop. And then it's even worse than what I started with. So now I've changed over to a completely different throttle body from a different car. Includes ball bearings and vacuum seals on the shaft. Currently the repurposed throttle body (with it's cobbled together temporary installation) works great , but it would work even better with a cable actuation since that's what it was originally designed to use. I will take some pics and post some non-nebulous details as soon as the system isn't embarrassing.