Captain Obvious

Lumens, My claim is that once everything is tightened down properly, everything down there (on the strut side of the bushing elastics) all behaves as one solid member with no relative movement. In other words, there should be no relative motion between the strut housing, spindle pin, inner sleeves of the bushings, washers, or nuts. If your question is "Do I claim that to be true regardless if the lock pin is installed or not?", then I'll hedge my bets and say "I think it should be, but I'm not a mechanical engineer and have not done the detailed analysis." If your question is "Should I install the lock pin?", then my answer is "Absolutely. Why wouldn't you?"

I doubt that it's the ECU. Bad connection (at the ECU) on the water or air temp sensors or the AFM. I once had a very rich condition and after poking around a little, I realized that I had disconnected my AFM to take some readings and had forgotten to reconnect it. I was surprised the motor ran at all. But as for the ECU internals, the two output transistors drive in banks of three each and the bases of the output drivers are tied together so they both actuate at the same time. What else can I tell you..... The output transistors are NPN Darlingtons. That might explain any strange readings you got when testing them. I can't tell you the individual values for the built in resistors on the bases, but I did measure the total and write that down somewhere. I reverse engineered the output stage, but it's so simple that I have no doubt you would be able to do it yourself by the time I find my notes. I'll race ya!

And forgot to mention... That since the surface area is so small and the gap between the "plates" is relatively large, the end result is that the capacitance of said feedthru's is generally very small. That means they work great for high frequencies, but not so great on lower frequency stuff. The auction for the caps that I posted above are 1.5 picoFarads

Right of course! (Or is that left?) Here's a pic of a random feedthrough cap that I nabbed from ebay. They are commonly available as screw in, or press/solder in. I'm assuming what you have is not threaded. Here's a generic example:

Awesome pics Blue. Thanks much! Now get back to work on getting yourself a new website up and running. Charles, that's exactly the analogy I was going to use. An overgrown fuel sender friction ring. Namerow, I've got one on order from Rock Auto that should be here next Monday. I guess I'll wait until that one arrives before I try again to get mine apart. Guess I won't be driving my Z for a couple days...

Haha! I think this is a job that even I cannot accomplish simply with a lathe. Zed, I thought about applying pressure to disassemble, but I'm not sure it would make any difference. I was looking at that housing clamshell where it interfaces, and I'm not sure there is a lock. I think it might just be friction that keeps things together. I looked at it under magnification and I couldn't find any evidence of any lock or detent. I mean, mine is crusty and painted, but I couldn't find anything. Charles, Since you had yours apart and the interface points were easier to see, did you see evidence of a lock?

Charles, Thanks for the pics. After seeing that and hearing that it was still an effort to get that thing to turn even with that long of a moment arm, I'm skeptical that I'll be able to turn mine without rupturing a disk in my spine. Maybe rethinking if the educational value is worth the risk. I just hate not knowing though...

Once everything is tightened down properly, there is no rotation of the spindle pin desired or needed. All of the rotation needs to be confined to the bushing. And that goes for either stock rubber, or poly.

Sweaty, Thanks for the input. I went back and took a look at the pics from your rebuild thread. So in the pic above, is that the farthest you were able to get the booster apart? Were you able to get the black part in the lower right of your pic apart? The part you call the "piston"? Did you try, or was there no reason for you to go further than what you did?

If the spindle pin nuts are torqued down to spec, then that lock pin should see virtually no force in normal application. The inner cylinder of the control arm bushings should be pinched tight between the nut and the bottom of the strut casting and unable to rotate. And if that cylinder can't rotate because of friction to the knuckle, the lock shouldn't see any significant force. Also, the inner cylinders of the control arms should never be able to slide fore and aft inside the bottom of the strut assy. All those parts should be drawn in and locked tight together while driving. I'm no suspension guy, but I don't think that pin is deforming while driving. I've seen upset material along the edges of the spindle pins too, but I think it might be more due to tightening the control arm nuts and pulling the spindle pin hard to one side before tightening the other side. That or beating on the spindle pin in an attempt to remove it without taking the lock pin out first.

Thanks guys. Hope someone comes up with a couple pics. I know there was/is a special tool recommended for the job, but I'm looking for homemade cheap caveman options. And I saw some references to pics on Blue's site, but unfortunately the site is still dead. Here's to hoping that wonderful reference source comes back soon. My unsuccessful attempt was to bolt the booster back to the firewall (to hold one side of the shell) and then try to turn the other side using a two foot long bar I made out of angle iron which I had drilled for two of the mounting bolts and the center plunger. Fit great, but the angle iron couldn't take the force and started to buckle. The case didn't budge. I'm not sure what I'm going to find when (if?) I get it open. All I know at this point is that the main diaphragm is intact at this point. The booster holds vacuum, but doesn't boost. I theorize that the valve is gunked up with crud due to drinking brake fluid from a master cylinder failure that occurred before my ownership. I figure the worst that happens is that I tear the diaphragm splitting the case and I'll have to replace it with remanufactured sooner rather than later. I'd like to nurse this one along until the off-season and do a more permanent replacement then. I'm hoping that if it's just a clogged valve, maybe I can clean it out and continue to use this one until I take the car down for the winter. I'm thinking that even if I tear the diaphragm, it'll still be a suitable core, so no loss there. And besides... I've never been inside one before and it would be a learning experience.

That red wire is the ground connection? Really? Respectfully submitted and no controversy intended as I've never seen one of these things in my life, but from what I see in the pics, my forensic intuition doesn't like that conclusion. I know you guys must have figured this stuff out as you've got working parts, but I'm thinking maybe I'm missing something. In general, the ground connection goes to lots of places on the PC board. Usually more connections than any other signal, and sometimes will encircle some or all of the outside perimeter of a board. In general, the incoming power passes immediately through a section of circuitry to regulate and condition the power input. Certainly not a sure fire way to tell, but I use that as a litmus test. The black wire passes that litmus test while the red does not. It looks like the red connection goes immediately to a couple components and nowhere else. Also, the negative sides of all the electrolytic capacitors are connected to the black wire. Also, there is a little "+" and "-" circuit printed on the board. The "+" is next to the red, and the "-" is next to the black wire connection, just as I would expect. That little "stud" looks like a feed-thru capacitor to me. Intended to prevent high frequency noise from entering or leaving the inside of the metal clamshell on that wire. Presumably used in this application to prevent high frequency ignition noise from getting in there and messing with the internal oscillator? And lastly... If the case was connected to battery+, then wouldn't this thing dead short out when you bolted it in place? Is the mounting bracket electrically isolated, or is it connected hard to chassis? Like I said, I've never seen one of those and know nothing about it other than what I can glean from the pics, but it just doesn't sound right to me. Is all this stuff reversed Down Under?

Going commando, huh?

My brake booster stopped boosting last night. Kind of a surprise, but thankfully no brown. I took the booster off my car and I would like to open it up to have a peek inside. I've tried a couple methods to get that sucker open but have been unsuccessful so far. I know several of you guys have succeeded in getting the booster open, but I couldn't find pics of any of the rigs used to accomplish that feat of strength. Has anyone got any pics of what they used to hold and twist?

The pics in the 73 FSM don't show the wrap, so I believe the 73 wrap was added at a service call just as you said. But by the time they got to 74, I think they were adding that wrap from the get-go. The pics in the 74 FSM show the wrap.

I wouldn't call it totally unnecessary. Without it, you could have trouble keeping the spindle pin centered in the knuckle while you tightened the nuts. You would likely completely bottom out one nut before the second nut got tight. If that happens, you might not have enough threads engaged on the second nut because the spindle pin got pulled all the way to the other side. In other words... Ten threads sticking out one side, and only one or two threads engaged on the other? Once everything is cinched down tight and centered, the pin is not a big deal But getting to that point, it might be a bigger deal?

Haha!! So you were thinking you could use tighter staples as a country facelift? Nice!!

Dang! Seriously? What the heck are you doing to yourself??

Gotcha about the epoxy resin. I didn't catch that before and thought you were planning to use polyester. And I found the foam commercial I was talking about. It's Loctite Titefoam. What caught my eye was the consistency and finer texture of the bubbles. It didn't have the large voids that form with some of the brands I've used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NB603veuD68

Couple thoughts: I saw a commercial the other day where the product in question was expanding foam. They were touting their foam as being better than the "bargain brand" because it had a finer texture and smaller, more consistent bubbles. Don't remember who it was, but there was something in the pitch about "gap control" and ended the commercial with a shot of the pitchman's teeth (with no gap between the two front teeth). If that's not enough description to find the stuff, let me know and I'll see if I can dig up who it was. It was one of the big name brands. Also, I've heard people concerned that the fiberglass resin would eat the original foam. I've done no investigation into the concern, but you ought to make sure that's not the case before you slather large portions of your dash foam with the resin. And third... I was in Horror Fright the other day and was looking at their "vacuum storage bags" which are these large bags where you put stuff to be packed away in a closet for long term storage and then suck out the air with your shop-vac. I was thinking to myself that there might be some application where you could substitute one of those bags for a vacuum table or resin form bags for something like.... recovering a dash maybe?

That's an externally oiled cam, right? Your spray bar in good shape?

Matt, Your car looks beautiful. Welcome to the party! I just posted a couple new pics in that bumper thread. I usually make it to Carlisle, so if you are going, make sure we can get together while we're there.

Seeing this thread come up elsewhere reminded me... I've made some progress and have pics. I got a pair of donor bumper shocks from gwri8 which I drilled and drained. Thanks again Greg!! After remounting the front bumper on the drilled shocks, I collapsed the shocks and pushed the bumper in as far as it would go. Then I fashioned myself some homemade bumper ends. The bumper ends are temporary solutions that I still need to improve on, but from a distance, they look fine. They passed Canadian visual inspection. Here's a couple shots of the results. It doesn't lose it's "280-ness", but I think the lines are better than original. I'm not sure if I'm going to change the rear. The front was certainly the biggest bank for the buck.

Woof. I don't know what to do about that either. Especially in situ. Do you think that happened in the accident that resulted in the liberation of the engine?

Well good luck with the dash work. I'm going to have to do something about mine in the not too distant future too. Hoping you come up with something extraordinary.