Captain Obvious

Those carbs are not original to the car. That car came out of the factory with the early style flat top carbs and someone converted over to the round tops. Why do I say that? Because the fuel rail, balance tube, and intake manifolds are the from 73, but the carbs are from earlier. Also looks like "double stuff" phenolic carb spacers.

It's not that old. 66, 67 tops.

Yeah... Just like that. Thanks Steve!!

It's on the wiring diagram at the top, near the right corner. Up by the fuel pump. And one interesting tidbit... On the USA and Canada diagram, it does ay RHEOSTAT (IF EQUIPPED), so I don't know if it's really the case or not, the implication is that maybe not all cars got one?

Beautiful. I'd love to see one of those in person someday.

Shut up Beavis.

The oil level should only affect the force required to lift the pistons if the jiggly bits on the end of the stalk are not fully submerged. Once you've got enough oil in the tubes such that the bits are fully submerged when the pistons are in the full down position, then adding more shouldn't have any effect.

Sorry to hear that you're going to have to give up on the project before you even got really started. Looking at the bright side, however... At least you can sell it with a title, right?

About a third of the way down on page two of this thread, cbuczesk recommended a blasting guy. If he really would do a whole car for $500, that's a good deal. I'm cheap and almost always lean towards DIY, but if my choice was blast it myself or spend hours and hours working with the methylene chloride, I'd spend the five hundred bucks.

Now there's a reference you don't see everyday. That movie scared the crap out of me long time ago!!

Nice gesture. I suspect the car those tags came from went to the great junkyard in the sky. So you're going to buy new plates that match your firewall stamping?

I don't know what kind of access you have to the hole from the other side, but if you're really anal about having the outside flush, you might be able to run the setscrew outward from the inside. In other words, use the allen wrench from the INSIDE of the pump instead of from the outside. If that works, you could run the screw in until it's recessed a little on the inside and then file the outside completely flush. Inside would have the hex recess, but it's on the inside where you'd never see it. Don't know if you've got the access to do that in there, or if you even care that much. As for sealing, it seems like a pretty non-critical thread seal. If it leaks a tiny bit, I bet you'd never know or care. Only thing I might consider would be minimum thickness requirements of the sealing compound. One of the anaerobic thread locking compounds might be a better solution. But anything including RTV or epoxy on a threaded plug is going to be way better than the gaping hole you used to have!

Cool. And if you change your mind and need another one for parts, the one I have is available. And I've got a couple of the braided hoses as well. I've never been inside one of those pumps, so if you open it up, I'd love to see some pics.

For me I think it's a little less important because on the 77-78 plates, they even stopped putting the engine serial number on it. It's VIN only, so even from the factory, you can't use the plate to determine engine originality. I only want one because it looks funny to not have one.

Thanks wheee! I see they also have the 77-78 style like what my car needs. I'm just not sure I want it fifty bucks bad. I'd love to have one, but there's lots of other places my car could use fifty bucks!

That air pump I have doesn't have a hole either:

Haha! Glad to help. I'll check when I get the chance. I don't remember for positive, but I believe the pump stuff I have is from a 74 260.

I wish he did engine compartment plates for the 280. Mine was missing when I bought the car..... (wait for it!) Previous owner took the (removable) aluminum plate off to paint the car and never put it back on. Car changed ownership and I thought it looked weird to be missing that plate, so I grabbed one off a wreck and screwed it to the car. Engine compartment plate doesn't match the rest of the car and it's going to be some mystery for the next owner of my car. Just like Sweaty's.

I hate buying rebuilt parts. For all the reasons you listed above. Alternators, calipers, starters... Hate it. I've got a smog pump in a box in the shop and I'll check for the existence of that hole if I get a chance today. I could also be talked into parting with the stuff I have if you're interested. Don't know about the internal condition, but I could open it up if you're interested.

You've got a 72. As for the door jamb and engine compartment nameplates, I stand by my original theory... Someone took the (removable) aluminum plates off to paint the car and never put them back on. Car changed ownership and the new owner thought it looked weird to be missing those plates, so he grabbed a pair off a wreck and screwed them to the car. Then you bought it. The one in the engine compartment screws on and the other two (door jamb and dashboard) are held on by pop-rivets. Those three are easy to remove and reinstall.

You said the VIN stamped in the firewall is HLS30 and then just five digits? The info on the page that SteveJ posted looks like all the VIN's are supposed to be six digits. Are you sure yours is just five? And than about the mismatched numbers, seems more likely to me that someone took the (screw removable) aluminum plates off to paint the car and never put them back on. Car changed ownership and the new owner thought it looked weird to be missing those plates, so he grabbed a pair off a wreck and screwed them to the car. Then you bought it? Maybe?

Time isn't hyper critical on this one yet. I've got a couple months before this one really needs to be done. And there's no way I'm going to get into a full rebuild. I'm going to have a block worked, it's going to be in my Z, not the disposable project! I'm just looking for the sweet spot of time and cost. I'm willing to put in the effort, but don't want to waste money on a dead end.

My only input is that I can personally attest to the fact that when your previous owner puts the anti-squeal shims in backwards with the rotation arrow pointing the wrong way, the shims become squeal shims, not anti-squeal shims.

There's actually a lot to that! This project is also a learning experience for a kid. The intent is that he will be involved in the repair, whatever direction it takes, and in the end, he'll be driving this car. I think there would be more experience in fixing the broken engine than just dropping a replacement cold chunk of metal. Not to mention that I've been known to frequently throw a completely unreasonable amount of time at fixing unfixable parts...

Thanks for the input guys. So about just how hot it got? Of course, I wasn't there, but here's what I know. I was told that it was misfiring badly when they shut it off, but it runs and sounds fine now. I also know that when I went to pull the plug wires off to run the compression test, the plastic extensions that reach down between the cams to the plugs were a little melted onto the spark plugs and the plastic extensions snapped off leaving some melty portions stuck to the plugs. I don't know what kind of plastic they used for the wire extensions to reach the plugs, but whatever it is, the engine had exceeded the melting temp for that plastic. Runs fine now. Plug wire extensions had melted, and in general smells a little burney plastic when you open the hood. That's about all I know at this time. One of my pushbacks on a replacement engine is the ability to do a compression test on a replacement engine that has already been pulled out of the donor vehicle? Sitting on the floor in the corner of the shop? If I bring a starter along, I might be able to bolt it directly to the block even if there isn't a transaxle attached? Anyone got any bright ideas? If I'm going to drop one in, I certainly want it to be proven to me that it's better than what I've currently got. I guess I was thinking of pulling the head first anyway and having a look at the bores. I've been into other import motors with twice that mileage and I could still see the remnants of the original hone crosshatch. So I guess my path forward is, pull the head, look at and measure the bores, and if they look and measure good, I may cheap out and just throw a set of rings in it and see what happens. But if the bores measure worn or if there's any scoring, metal transfer, or discoloration, I'm going to bail on the job and look for a replacement drop-in instead.