Captain Obvious

I don't know how you're "really" supposed to handle those two timing adjustments, but what I did with mine was a little "backwards". I locked the R/A indicator just like you have in your pic with the indicator line centered at zero (between R and A). Then I hooked up a timing light and timed the motor using the underneath adjustment such that it was spot on and then locked down the underneath adjustment. And from that point forward, if I'm going to make any adjustments, I'll use the top adjustment. My thought process is that now that I've got it set like that, I can pull the distributor and put it back on and just use the scribe line indicator marks to get it very close to correct. And if for some reason that I want to retard or advance it a little, I can use the guide scale to gauge the relative magnitude of the adjustment. Also... Is your upper tip of the distributor shaft really off center in the hole or is that an optical illusion caused by camera angle? If it really is off center as it appears, you might want to look into that.

Haha!! OK... Who's the wise guy? I check the mail, and this package was just delivered.

I understand about wanting the extractor tools and good luck with the project. With the exception of the big ECU connector, I redid all the connectors on my EFI harness a while ago and have been very happy with the outcome. Reliable and predictable. Nothing intermittent, and nothing that I have to question as to the integrity. That kit from ebay gives you the option of splicing wires or pulling the contacts out of the housing and crimping new contacts directly onto your wires. Either way should result in better connections. Just make sure you clean the male contacts in all the mating parts. Having fresh clean female contacts in the shells being mated to green corroded pins in things like the AFM and WTS won't do you any good.

"Nut Cutter Nonpareil" Title accepted with honor. I'm not sure if neglected is the right term, but there are definitely things I had intended to do to my Z this off season that I haven't gotten to. And I'm running out of time before it's not "off season" anymore. Hopefully in the next week or so I can get some Z work done!

I like it too and can think of a couple reasons why one might want to do such a thing. Compression test? Checking the oil pressure? Making sure the applicable cam oiling features flow correctly? My question is why didn't you make the adapter so it went on the outside of the bell housing area instead of behind the flywheel? That way, the thickness of the material wouldn't matter. Was it just because the plate required would need to be wider than what you had laying around?

Yeah, that AFM connector without the retaining clip is probably why the OP's connector looks like. I did my harness rebuild two years ago maybe, and I don't think my AFM connector clip was missing, but I didn't put it back on for that pic. It's probably in the bag with the rest of the connectors I replaced. As for which cars the connectors came from? It's a non sequitur. I bought those connector shells new, not from donor vehicles. I wasn't' sure which style I would like the best but in the end (since I didn't have a rubber boot that fit either of them) I used the style with the secondary retaining lid as insurance to help hold the contacts in place.

Well of course there's a little "blackmail" in the desire to get his car working. We bought it as a severely overheated, non-running derelict, last fall with the intention of repairing it for him to drive. And I made it clear to him that while I would eventually get around to working on it, things would definitely progress faster if HE were to take matters into his own hands to do some of the work. In other words, the more sweat equity he expressed, the faster the job would get done. Not only would it be more hands turning wrenches, but his interest sparks my interest. And working with him went really well. I don't know if he'll ever turn into a hard core gearhead, but his ability to pick up the concepts of this kind of work has been excellent. I can explain things to him with hand motions, analogies, some physics, and he gets it. We were pretty deep into this engine and when he turned the key for the first time after all the parts went back together and it actually started? He was a happy boy. Haha!! And remembering back, last fall, I used his car to help me get a couple things done on OTHER cars in the family. The family truckster needed front brakes, and my daily driver Civic needed an oil pan gasket (I'm really down on Felpro at this point). I told him we couldn't put his car into the garage bay until those other two things were done since they were higher priority. But this thread is about lug nuts... This is my favorite pic. If you look closely, you can see wispy smoke trails from hot chips and some cutting oil:

I found my box of connectors and snapped a couple pics. Here's some options for AFM connectors. Original brittle shell and cracked dry-rotted boot on top, and two new options below: The bottom left has a boot retaining feature similar to the OEM connector shell, and the one on the right has a redundant contact retaining hinged door to help hold the contacts in place: Here's another shot so you can see how the hinged contact retaining lid works:

Awesome. Car looks great and I'm glad I could participate in this secret project! My kid had me chained to his car (not a Subaru, but a Hyundai Tiburon) in an effort to keep me working on it, but he underestimated my lock picking skills. When he left for school, I picked the lock, shed the chains, and snuck out of the garage and into the shop where the lathe is to cut some lug nuts. As for the kid's car, I'm trying to have him do whatever he's capable of. I did all the delicate valve work, but he's doing a lot of the work. And for an update on progress... I've got all the valves back in the head, the head back on the car, and we started it first time yesterday. Runs great!! Couple small issues to deal with, but it's alive!!! This pic is close to the beginning of the job before we pulled the head. Here he is doing a little wrench turning while my Z sits neglected in the background:

End is in sight? Ummmm.... Not until the cloud clears!!

If it's not too late, you might want to order a couple extra of the crimp contacts in case you get a couple that you have to re-do. I don't know how much experience you have with that kind of work, but it often requires "the knack". Wouldn't be surprised if you got a couple crimps that don't turn out as nice as you wish until you Get The Knack. I think I've got some of those kinds of parts in a box somewhere... If I can find that box, I'll take some pics of what I have. Also, out of curiosity... If you're putting new crimp contacts on the wires, then what do you need the extractor tools for? The old contacts are all green and corroded anyway. Aren't you just going to clip them of the ends of the wires?

Well said. Once I started taking stuff apart, I couldn't stop. Now I not only want to know... I simply HAVE to know. But whatever works for any individual... If you want to take your car to a shop, then more power to ya! If you want to try it at home, that's great too!

Yes, front toe is the only adjustment, but it IS a little more complicated than that. You could have the front toe spot on but if the line through the center of the front toe isn't parallel (or coincident) to the thrust angle from the rear wheels, the car will pull when you let go of the wheel. You have to take the thrust angle into account too and compensate for it or the car will drift. But that's why you can succeed with just the tape measure on the treads... If you complete step one "make the car go straight when you let go of the wheel", you have successfully got the front toe aligned symmetric to the thrust angle. And after that, there's the matter of putting the steering wheel straight. I guess you could consider that a cosmetic issue, but my little engineering brain can't deal with driving a car where the wheel is all wonky even if I know the underpinnings are working properly. Just can't handle it.

I agree completely. It comes down to the skill, understanding, and patience of the person doing the work. The best laser guided rack on the planet can't overcome everything that a hurried, inexperienced, and probably creatively uncaring tech can come up with. Technology can help make it idiot proof, but nothing ever is completely. If you are going to measure and adjust the rear alignment, then you need more than just a tape measure, but if all you can adjust is front toe, then you can get an accurate thrust angle compensated alignment with the tread measuring method. Just have to understand how and why.

I'm a theory guy, and I used to completely dismiss the home shop alignment stuff thinking that there was no way you could do something in your garage and end up with something as good as you what you could get using an expensive laser guided rack. But I've spent some time analyzing the geometry and I now believe the theory is sound. My claim is... "If done right, the front tire tread measuring technique can yield an accurate thrust angle compensated alignment." I can explain the theory, but it'll take some sketches. I'll throw something together when I get the chance.

I know you said you didn't need it. but here's a pic anyway. This is the punch mark at the steering wheel end of the steering shaft. Mark is at about 12:00. Now I don't know if all the years and all the columns had the mark, but every one I've been into had that punch:

The U-joint coupling has a punch mark too, but I'm definitely talking about the end up by the steering wheel. They say "punch mark on the top of the upper column shaft": Maybe yours is rusty and you just can't see the mark? Maybe they didn't put them on all the cars? Too late today, but I should be able to get you a pic tomorrow.

I get ya about nothing being adjusted right and being thrown for a loop. And I also get being able to grasp an unadjustable rear wheel as a fixed reference point. But that right there is part of the problem... You just set your front wheel to on an unqualified rear wheel reference source. Who knows what that rear wheel is doing compared to the OTHER rear wheel! im saying that at SOME front wheel setting, the car will go straight. The absolute details in the rear don't matter unless you've got adjustable stuff back there. 1) Make it go straight. 2) Get the steering wheel to where you like it. 3) Fine front toe in so you don't eat the outside edges. 4) keep an eye on your tire wear all around. If at some time after that, you find you're eating up a rear tire, then you need to dig deeper into the rear, but if not, then be happy. One more way to look at it? You asked if you did it right? Answer is no. You probably set everything to a rear wheel that is a little out of whack. If you did it right, you wouldn't be asking, because it would be driving perfect.

Well don't get me wrong. I'm not thinking the venture is a folly. In fact, I did my first day alingment on my Z, and it's the car that I'm most satisfied with. Now that I've had such success with that car, I'll do more of it in the future on other cars. im familiar with that string alignment page and a couple others and if done well, it works. However, on the Z, since there isn't anything on the rear that's adjustable, you may a well ignore it unless you're looking for an issue that you plan to fix. Look at it this this way... If you're driving on a flat level surface and you let go of the wheel, the car will go where nature and physics dictates. First step is to have the car go straight when you let go. Make sure you have a little toe in (specs in FSM) and get the adjustments such that the car goes straight naturally when you let go of the wheel. After that, adjust the two front sides in unison so the steering wheel is in the correct position when that happens. im not poo-pooing home diy alignment. I am, however, a believer that most of the people doing that string stuff are kidding themselves. Even that link posted above has pics of people taking measurements off a tire sidewall. Some of them even on the raised lettering. It can be done, but there are pitfalls. ill try to draw up a couple sketches if I get a chance.

I'm no suspensions guy, but here are a couple things that caught my eye as I read your post. There is a dot punch mark on the end of the splined steering column shaft where the steering wheel attaches (see page ST-3 of the 78 manual), and that dot is supposed to signify "center of travel". So in theory, unless someone has messed with the steering rack or column U-joints in the past, you should be able to find center of travel of the whole system by putting that dot at top dead center. Of course, you'll have to find which of three steering wheel rotations is the correct one, but that's something you should be able to do by eye. So you can find approx center of travel by counting revolutions or by eye and then fine tune it by putting that punch dot top dead center. Once the dot is top and center, make sure the steering wheel is installed properly such that it's pointing straight when the dot is top and center. Something else that caught my eye is that you set the front wheels for toe OUT instead of toe IN? Like I said, I'm not a suspension guy, but I thought toe OUT is reserved for performance applications and toe IN is what you want for normal driving. From what I understand, toe IN would provide straight line tracking like what you want on your grocery getter and toe OUT is used when you're willing to sacrifice stability for speed of response when entering turns. So if I understand correctly and you have things adjusted toe OUT, it would be no surprise to me for your car to be a little squirrely. I think you should have a little toe IN, not OUT. About your jackstands and strings... I'm not sure how you think you got the strings parallel to the car, but I'd be interested in hearing where you were taking your measurements from to make that claim. If it were me, I'd skip trying to get lines parallel to the car since nothing in the rear really matters (since there's nothing adjustable back there anyway). Unless you've installed some aftermarket adjustable suspension bits in the rear then you should be able to ignore the entire rear of the car and focus simply on the front. I would just measure directly to the front tire treads at front and rear of the tires and use that to dial in appropriate toe-in. Skip the strings completely as the more complicated the measurements, the more sources for error. Park the car, measure the front tire treads for toe, and keep making small adjustments until the steering wheel runs straight up and tracks straight. In theory even if something is a little out of whack in the rear, using that method should adjust the fronts to account for it. In the end, the best you can hope for is: 1) Steering wheel is straight when you're driving down a flat and level road. 2) Car tracks straight when you let go of the wheel and doesn't pull to one side or the other. 3) Your tires wear evenly and don't go bald on the inside edges before everything else. If you can achieve those three things, I think that's about the best you can do without modifications to the rear suspension bits. All that said, however, if there is really a significant difference between tires, you might not be able to get things proper at all. Might be able to get it close enough with unevenly worn tires, but I would revisit it when you get new rubber.

I see the fuel pump wiring you guys are talking about... So you're thinking that what gets plugged into that two position connector is some sort of 20A fuse module? Did they do such a thing on the early models? I have no hands on experience on stuff that early. I was looking at the wires leading to the Kick Down solenoid... One side of that solenoid connects to a wire who's color is inconclusive, but probably G or B/W. It looks like one of those wires that changes colors in a junction somewhere and you don't know which color won the fight. And the wire color on the other side of that solenoid isn't labeled at all, so it could very well be the other color.. Haha! So I'm just fishing for possibilities and the documentation doesn't rule it out.

I took a quick look at the wiring diagram and didn't see exactly those wires, but I'm wondering if that connector with the Green and Black/White was for something for an automatic transmission. Is (or was) the car an auto? Reason I ask is there are two devices at the top center of the wiring diagram... "Kick Down Switch" and "Kick Down Solenoid" that have at least one of the wire colors correct. And as for the large White/Red, I'm thinking that comes from the alternator?

Oh by the way... Which one's Pink? Sorry. Couldn't contain myself any more.

Yup. I agree that using the original harness connection points would certainly be more desirable, and it sounds like you've got some sort of plan in the works. So I'll wait quietly and patiently to see what you're working on.

Cool. I'm surprised to hear (or not hear?) that it's so quiet. I would have expected it to be a jet engine firing off back there. Post a pic when you get a chance?