Captain Obvious

I've got a pair from a ZX motor... They look the same to me, but I'm no expert. Just sent you PM.

Any thoughts on this?

After you have bolted up the oil pump with the drive shaft in place, it is impossible to get the distributor installed in an incorrect position. There is only one position for it. The distributor drive tang will only go in one way. To fix a "one tooth off" problem, you have to pull the oil pump out the bottom, remove it's driving shaft (again out the bottom), rotate it one tooth, and then put everything back together again. You cannot fix "one tooth off" from up top.

Since it's not going to be Z driving weather anytime soon, I spent a little time on the hunt for this gremlin. I pulled the throttle body off and verified that everything moves smooth and easy. Took it all apart again and didn't find anything astounding. No wear marks on the butterfly. No wear marks on the inside bore. No gunk. A small wear spot where the throttle shaft spins in the throttle body bushings, but not enough that looked like a significant problem. Then I pulled a vacuum on the back side with my shop vac, and it was more difficult to move with the vacuum behind it. Has anyone else ever seen anything like this? On a potentially related note... How many rotations should the return spring receive before it hooks onto the post. It's easy to get a half turn. It's difficult, but possible to get one-and-a-half turns. I don't think I could possibly get more than that. It would certainly be less prone to hanging up if there was more return force. So between those two options 1/2 and 1 1/2, which is the proper return force?

One thing that I forgot to point out is that the process and pics above are for 240 only. In 74 they changed the column design and I've not taken one of the newer "steel ball" styles apart. I'd love to mess with a new one (since that's what I have in my 77) but since the only one I have is on my car, I can't take risks with it without a backup plan.

I don't think you're "really" supposed to mess with it. That said: Start with this: Slide the mount off exposing three screws that hold upper half to lower half: Take out three screws and separate upper and lower: This is the steering wheel end with retainer clip still installed: Pull off the steering wheel taper shoes and the retainer clip: Once you remove the retainer clip, the upper shaft comes out the bottom end of the housing. The spring will probably push it out, but it might require some gentle persuasion in addition to the spring: Tap the bearings out of the housing if you dare. There is one at the top and one at the bottom: Bearing disassembled: There are thirty balls in the bearings so you can count what you have to make sure you didn't drop any:

That's my impression. I'm not sure why they originally thought they needed that grabber in addition to the metal "snuff out shelf", and Datsun seemed to agree in later years. Maybe in the beginning they figured that owners wouldn't want to stick a finger into the bucket of butts to lift up on the other part, but somewhere along the line they decided it wasn't worth the cost? I don't know when they stopped putting in that other piece, but I don't think my 74 had one either. As for depth fitment between the two, I don't think there would be any problems with depth. The older one is a little deeper, but it's only by a sixteenth of an inch or so. I believe there's more than enough dead space below the 280 ashtray that you could put the old one in it's place. I don't know if the depth change was even intentional on their part. Might have been something as simple as a drawing die wearing out at the stampers and the new one was a little different. So here's something for the concourse judges to look for. "Ewwwww... Did you see that red 240 over there with the new style ashtray? I'm gonna deduct points for that!" :laugh:

I was messing around with consoles recently and noticed some differences between old style and new style ashtrays. Here's older (240) on left and newer (280) on right. Note the deletion of the little grabber handle in the later years. Probably a tiny cost savings change: In the later years, they also added the little window for the tray illumination lamp. 280 on left, 240 on right: And, I'm not sure if it's simply manufacturing variation over the years, but the 240 version is just a tiny bit deeper than the 280 version. I'm sure your day is now complete knowing all this.

And BTW, in 74 the water line coming out of the rear carb back to the water pump wasn't metal either. They had changed from the metal flare fitting line you have to rubber braided tubing with hose clamps.

So in 73, did they really use a metal tube off the rear carb for the EGR vacuum? I've only ever messed with 74... Going full bore OEM with a set of flat tops? Most people would tell you you're nuts.

Absolutely! It's not meant to be a press fit at all. The pin is supposed to slip easily in and out of that hole. That's why Datsun went through the expense of using the retainer bolt in the center of the pin. When the pin and holes are clean, the pin would (would?, could?, or should?) float and spin in the knuckle hole in the bottom of the strut housing if it weren't for the retainer bolt.

About pressing the protruding portion back in... If you're going to try that, make sure you clean out the newly exposed hole portion as well as the freshly exposed portion of the pin before you press the other way. File a couple thousandths off all the exposed pin and clean out the exposed hole portion with sandpaper and light oil or WD40. I'm sure you already figured this out, but there's not much to be gained by pressing that thing back together rusty. After you clean off the newly exposed parts, lube up both sides with penetrant and then maybe change direction. The theory being, the direction change can help work the penetrant into places it won't wick to when everything is static. Good luck!

Your troubles with this job parallel my experiences. :mad: The proponents of the spindle pin puller devices have never crossed paths with a pin like yours. More power to 'em, but my experience has led me to believe that if the spindle is stuck so minimally that a puller device would succeed, then it's in there so loose that I would never have needed a fancy puller in the first place. Regardless of how robust the puller is... Make sure you have a good solid square to the direction of the pressure backing for the knuckle. Make sure you are getting the force normal to the end of the pin. Wear safety glasses, gloves, and a face shield. So, while I can't add any additional specific insights as to what to do at this point, I can simply provide solidarity. I feel for ya.

I'll take a look, but I don't think I have any of the parts you need. Maybe I can maybe offer some info though? The large water pipe is copper with flare fittings on the ends. They might even be standard flare tubing fittings. If you get stuck and can't find real OEM stuff, then you might be able to make something with parts from the home improvement store. I'm no metallurgist, but I bet brass ends would probably work as well as steel in that application, and the malleable copper part should be easy to find. The small vacuum tube is port vacuum to control the EGR valve. I don't know if 73 used metal for that line or not, but I can tell you that in 74, that tube was rubber. Unless the EGR end of that tube gets too hot for rubber, then I can't see a reason it needs to be metal. HTH?

I bought the HF 20T A-frame press a bunch of years ago. I liked the design of the A one more than their standard H frame. I'm not sure they still offer the A-frame in 20T, but I know they still have the H. Anyway, I used it as designed for a few years and then after getting tired of a few of it's shortcomings, I made a bunch of improvements. So, if you do get a HF press, let me know and I'll see if I can document the details of what I did to mine to make it better than new.

YMMV, but that didn't work for me.

BTDT. Woof. Back when I went through that, I ended up drilling the old pin out of the strut assy. I've got a hydraulic press since then, and before I drilled it, I would see if I could press it out. If my press didn't have the nuts, I would take it to someone with a bigger press. Drilling it was no fun at all. :dead:

I didn't start the thread, but in this thread >> http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/electrical-s30/47917-ignition-switch-sticking-start-position.html I did admit to cutting an ignition switch open, cleaning and bending the contacts a little, and then epoxying it back together as a temporary fix for a dying switch. I sure hope you can find a replacement for your single screw switch. I wouldn't consider what I did as a recommended course of action. Even though I'm still running that reworked switch almost a year later.

Ouch$$ I replaced my whole dash in my 77 a while ago with one that had fewer cracks. I sold the small gauges, but I've still got my original 77 speedo and tach if you're interested. How does $45 shipped sound? But wait, that's not all... Act before midnight tonight and if you let me know what you want the odometer to read, I'll even adjust it to your desired mileage before I box it up? Send me a PM?

Excellent! Glad it seems to have been that simple. Out of curiosity, thirty seconds works... How about twenty? Five?

That's interesting because 4, 5, and 6 are all driven from the same transistor inside the ECU. It would be very unlikely for all three of those injectors to spontaneously fail at the same time. If 4, 5, and 6 have all stopped working, it would be much more likely that there's an ECU problem. And if injectors do hard fail, it's almost always that they burned open. You can check for that by pulling the connector off the injector and measuring the resistance of the coil inside the injector.

The hot restart complaints of the fuel injected Z's is a common discussion and there are a lot of previous threads about it. Try a couple keywords like "hot start injector" in the search box and I bet you'll get some good info. It's not the AAR... The AAR might cause an idle speed change, but it won't affect mixture.

I used a hammer and the corner of a small chisel to carefully tap the domed screw heads in a counterclockwise direction. Once you get them to move at all, they turn pretty easy. I second the tip in the thread on zcar.com about tightening up the Phillips screws first. Takes some of the tension off the security screws. I wouldn't worry that much about it these days. The archaic anti-theft features from the 70's... I'm sure that anyone who wants to steal a car this old will already know how to defeat the system or can figure it out. Heck, I know I did, and I'm not that bright. :bulb:

Forgot... You can make your system a little simpler just to rule out a few more variables. You can temporarily remove the hose that goes between the balance tube and the throttle opener control valve and cap off the nipple at the balance tube. That will remove the possibility any air leaking through the throttle opener system. You can also do the same thing with all three hoses that go to the anti-backfire valve (the little one, and both large ones). Then once you have got to the root of the problem, you can put that stuff back on. Who knows... You may have a significant leak straight through the anti-backfire valve. :bulb:

Those are great engine bay pics. However, even with those great pics, nothing jumps out (to me at least) as a glaring issue. Yeah, the PCV isn't connected and it is a "vacuum leak", but it's a leak that is always supposed to be there and accounted for. The only difference with not having it connected up right is that you will pull in unfiltered air into the balance tube instead of pulling air out of the crankcase. I'm not sure which is dirtier. So let's recap a little. The problem you're chasing is that you press the gas and the engine dies, right? You're running two turns down on your nozzles... Why? What tuning did you do to determine that's where you should be? Have you tried more? Fewer? I've generally found that two turns isn't enough, especially in the winter. Also, did you ever borrow a timing light and check the ignition timing?