Captain Obvious

I didn't specifically look for a seam on the OEM knob that recently passed through my shop, but I didn't see one. I do remember looking at the grain from all sides and noticing that it seemed whoever made it did a pretty good job of centering the knob in the original rough cut blank. I don't know woodworker terms, but what I'm trying to say is that the grain patterns looked symmetric from one side of the knob to the other. Two sides has ovals and the other two have edges of the grain disks. The ovals were pretty close in diameter from one side of the knob to the other. Since I got nothing to lose with my first attempt, I tried some of that ancient golden oak stain I found in the basement and I think it looks pretty good! Directions say I'm supposed to put on a second coat tomorrow, so after that's done I'll take a new pic and post it here. Then, I guess my next order of business will be to get my hands on a higher quality chunk of wood and really try to make one like OEM. So anyone have input into how long I would have to wait until I could make a knob out of wood that was felled last week in the storm?

What options are there for having the 260-280 black rubber steering wheels recovered? On a related note... Anyone want to trade their black rubber 260-280 steering wheel for either a Grant or a Datsun faux wood 240 wheel? I've got one of each and would trade either one for a 260-280 wheel that I can mess with. I don't care how squishy or cottage cheesed the rubber is... :sick:

Not a chance. I've just reviewed both, and I can tell you that the steering wheel is definitely a man made material, and the original knob is definitely real nature created wood. Huh huh... Huh huh... You "like wood".

Thanks olzed. I have no experience in the field, so I'm shooting blanks. Thanks for the ideas. So I've got one vote for maple, and one vote for sap walnut. Anyone else got a theory they would like to share? I've got a maple down in the back yard now due to Sandy... How long would I have to wait until I could make a knob out of wood grown on my own property? Might just be me, but I think that would be cool. grannyknot, I don't mind at all. Bring on the knobs.

I don't think there is much risk of flooding regardless of the throttle position. I don't think it matters. The carbs supply fuel proportional to the air flow and inversely proportional to the venturi area. If you've got the plugs pulled, then you'll have minimal air flow. The only cylinder that would be pulling any air in through the carb will be the one currently under test. The other five will be huffin-n-puffing through their spark plug holes. I'm thinking that even if you do manage to pull any fuel into the one cylinder under test, it'll dry out as soon as you move to the next cylinder?

Where would I start? I would check my floor mat to make sure it isn't interfering with the gas pedal. (They call me Captain Obvious!!)

I'm not convinced on the walnut thing... Seems to me that the grain is too pronounced. Here's a good thread that talks about the original knob. http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/thread37451-2.html. From that thread, here's a pic of the original (left) and Nissan's current replacement offering (right): I would guess that the one on the right is definitely walnut, but the original on the left. I'm not so sure. The grain looks too (don't know what the correct term is, but...) "smooth". When you get your knob back and can take a better look, let me know what you think. olzed, Tinker or gunsmith is certainly better than the village idiot! I've done a lot work on paintball guns in years gone by. Does that count? So looking at that good pic of the original knob, can you make a better guess as to what type of wood was used?

Haha! Well it didn't start as resourcefulness in the traditional sense. I was just trying to get my hands on something quick and cheap. I got lucky mostly. I made the brass insert on my lathe. You might be able to turn the wood on a drill as you mentioned above, but you'd be hard pressed to make the insert. A buddy who does some wood working came over today and I showed him the original and my retro. He wasn't positive, but his guess was that the stock knob is maple and my copy is poplar. He also supports the oil finish thoughts and echoed the tung oil suggestion. Anyone got a block of maple that's itchin to find a new home? Haha! I was born too late. A couple hundred years ago I might have been the village tinker. But to answer your question... In the aftermath of the recent hurricane, I made an exhaust pipe extension for my generator so I could run the generator in the garage without having to keep the garage door open. I cut and soldered a contraption of copper sweat pipe such that I could run the pipe extension under a mostly closed garage door. It was brilliant!! Looked great. Fit great. Worked great. Brilliant I say!! For a few minutes... And that's when I discovered that the exhaust gases coming from a typical generator is way hot enough to desolder copper sweat pipe. I went in the basement to check on the sump pump, and by the time I came back up it had melted the solder and blown itself right off the generator. I wasted a lot of time on that one!! :stupid:

Carl, Hate to break it to ya, but that "metal" retainer on the bottom of the OEM knob is actually chrome plated plastic. I don't know if all of the years are like that, but here's the one I just fixed. This is the plastic insert removed from the OEM wood knob: I made a brass threaded insert to repair this one, so NOW it has metal in it. Prior to this, however, the only metal in the OEM knob was the copper and chrome plating on the plastic. I also made a similar brass insert for my new wooden retro-knob. You can see a little brass in the hole at the base. So now they have metal in them, but from the factory... Nope.

Thanks guys. To be honest, I was not expecting it to turn out as well as it did. I figured that this being my first attempt, and mostly freehand at that, this first one was going to be a test bed disposable. Because of that, I didn't want to spend a lot of money. The only scrap wood I had laying around was cut-offs from pine 2x4s from various projects gone by. So I went to the local Big Box Store and paid $3 for one of these: I'm was never expecting a perfect match to the original, but it looked close enough for a test run. It was light in color, had a nice tight grain like the original, and was large enough that I could take material off to shape it similar to the original. And... It was $3 and I could have it today. I have no idea what kind of wood it actually is, but the structure is pretty similar to the stock knob. I've got the cut off ends that I can use to test finishes. Since I was trying to achieve a shape similar to the original knob, the first thing I did was use the original knob to make a sorta contour gauge to use as a guide for shaping the new knob. Crude, but this is what I came up with: As for finishes, I don't think there's any clear coating on the original. There's probably some stain or oil, but nothing like varnish or shellac. So for my first shot, should I use stain or some kind of oil? I think I've got an ancient can of "Golden Oak" stain in the basement... Wonder what that would do? And here's a shot of boring the recess for the shift map. Just because I like "in action" photos:

I just finished fixing a stripped out shift knob for another Z owner and after messing with his wooden shift knob, I decided that I liked it. While I had his original wooden knob in the shop as an example, I figured I would try my hand at fashioning myself a new knob. Here's a shot of my new knob in process: And here is the trio... My faux leather black plastic, the wooden knob I just made, the original wood knob I just fixed: I'm no woodworker, and know pretty much nothing about finishes, etc. Any woodworkers in the house that can provide some input into stains, finishes, etc? Can anyone tell what type of wood and finish was used on the original? I used some light colored wood with a tight grain, but I don't even know what it was... I'm sure there are woodworkers in our midst!! :bulb:

Mike, That's great news. I love it when a plan comes together! CaptO.

The 74 is supposed to run the fuel pump when the engine RPM's are above 400 and the starter is not engaged. The electric pump shuts off if the engine isn't running. So, to answer your question... If your engine is running (assuming it's running faster than 400 RPM), you should be getting voltage at the fuel pump connector in the wheel well. See EF-6 and EF-7 for more detail.

I see the two tube variety now too. Cool, I didn't see that before. The junkyard AAR I have is the single tube style with the exit hole on the bottom. The only other thing I can add about differences is that the Pathfinder one has a phenolic shutter while the stock AAR has an aluminum shutter. Don't know if they changed to phenolic as a cost reduction or for some sort of performance improvement.

That hose in your pic makes a whole lot more sense. That hose is the coolant input to the front carb. From there, the coolant passes through the front carb - comes out of the front and goes into the rear - passes through the rear carb - comes out of the rear carb and connects back to the hard lines at the brake booster corner of the engine. If you decide to go the 240 carb route, search around this site and the other Z sites. There is lots of good conversion info available. Will probably answer most of your questions. Not all, but most?

TomoHawk, That's too funny... Back when I was messing with AAR's, I grabbed one of those Pathfinder AAR's from a junkyard because I saw that it was held together by screws! I was considering using it on my car, but I decided against it because it's designed for a different intake manifold design. If you look at it, you'll notice that there is only one place to connect a hose instead of two hoses that are used on the Z's AAR. That single hose is the air into the valve. The air OUT of the valve comes out the O-ringed hole in the bottom and passes directly into the intake manifold without using a hose. I'm considering drilling a hole in my intake manifold and adapting that single hose style. Would remove one hose from the system and clean it up just that little bit, but that project is further down on the priority list.

Hi FastWoman, I used a lathe to cut the crimped over lip off and after that lip was removed, the the two halves just fall apart. You could use a file to do the same thing. Wouldn't be as fast or as clean of a cut, but it would work. I usually try to take pics of projects like this just in case, but for whatever reason that I can't remember, I didn't take any of this one. I was probably in a hurry to get it back on the car or something. I've been meaning to take it back off the car and take some pics of it opened up. Maybe this week as the weather isn't Z driving weather anyway, right? So if I don't have to spend the whole next week bailing, I'll take some shots for you. Anyway, I cleaned it out maybe 500 miles ago, and I have no reason to believe it needs it again yet. PS - Glad to see you active... Been wondering where you been. :ninja:

I'm not sure what hose you're talking about. If you're talking about the inch or so diameter hose in my picture here: then I don't have a good explanation for that... There should be nothing in that hose except air. If you've got coolant streaming out of that hose, then you got real issues. There are other hoses in that area that are supposed to have coolant in them, but I removed them from the car with that block off plate. The stock setup has coolant running into the carbs to heat them up, and I disabled that feature as well. Are you sure you're looking at the same hose shown in that pic?

The 77 does not have a separate fuel pump relay. Only the 78's have one of those. On the 75-77, the fuel pump is controlled by one side of the EFI Relay which is located above the driver's left knee. There are two relays in that one box, and one side powers the fuel pump. I think they might refer to that side of the EFI relay is referred to as the fuel pump relay in the EFI section of the manual, but the point is, you will not find a "fuel pump relay" in the car. As for testing it and the fuel pump... Easiest thing I've seen is to pull the small spade lug connector off the starter and then then the key to "START". The starter won't spin because of the wire you pulled off the starter, but the fuel pump should run and you should be able to hear it.

I can cut metric threads. Tell Keith if he doesn't want to risk damaging the parts with a die, I can single point some for him.

Been a while since I looked at one of these so please forgive... I'm going from memory here. There is a tiny slotted head screw with a nut on it. I believe the screw passes through the diaphragm. Under the head of that slotted screw is a small (maybe 1/2 inch diameter?) rubber washer. That washer is the seal that prevents fuel from flowing through the power valve when it's not supposed to. In other words, when the valve is closed, that rubber washer provides the closing seal. I've found that those washers either turn to dust or turn to goo. Probably because of the ethanol added to today's fuel. Basic function of the power valve: Vacuum behind the large diaphragm provides the closing force. The spring behind the diaphragm provides the opening force. The washer under the little slotted screw head does the sealing. In order to test the system without the power valve, you can cut a new round gasket without any of the "functional" holes in it and install it between the power valve and the carb body. Cut yourself a round disk out of gasket material and only put in three holes for the three mounting screws. Let the gasket disk block off the small fuel and vacuum holes. (Does that make sense?) For a more permanent modification, you can make a flat block-off plate. Here's what I did: You might not want to leave it on forever, but it helps narrow down rich running issues. If you completely block off the power valve, then there the only way fuel can get to the engine is through the main jet (or the choke nozzle, but I'm assuming that's not your problem).

Wayne, My pleasure! Honestly I'm the one benefiting greatly from this drawing and I'll do whatever I can to make it better. And no hurry on the next rev. Maybe other suggestions will come up. You'll never tell.

The pressure in the cooling system will always rise as the engine warms up, regardless if there's a head gasket issue or not. How do you differentiate between a normal rise and a head gasket caused rise?

The only thing the brake relay will do is turn the brake warning lamp on as part of a "lamp test". Having it unplugged will have no negative effect on anything else. I don't know anything about the alternator upgrade.

I guess I wouldn't change the title of this thread. Wayne's color diagram is for the 77, but all the 280 years are pretty similar. I'm not sure what do you mean about not being able to find files for the other years? If you're talking about color wiring diagrams, then I've seen two of them... The 77 that is the main topic of this thread, and another one for 78 that is nice, but not as complete as the one for 77. Other than 77 and 78, I've not seen anything color. For 75 and 76 I refer back to the standard version in the FSM.