Captain Obvious

I like the video. I can feel the frustration through the screen. So I'm not sure if the click on the video is the starter solenoid or not. Can't tell from my seat. And as for the ammeter... I see the draw. If the gauge numbers are correct (and I have unknown to low confidence in the accuracy of the numbers on the gauge face) it appears that the car is drawing 20A or so when you turn the key to START. Question is... Is that a reasonable draw even WITHOUT the starter solenoid engaged? Does the ballast defeat and other associated functions come to anywhere near that when in START? I think I could be convinced that all the other ancillary functions can come close to that even without the starter solenoid. Let us know how the starter solenoid works out. I saw in one pic that your car is a manual trans. Did it come from the factory that way, or was it converted? Also, is your car a California spec? Do you know?

Oh, and adding a starter relay is a great idea regardless of the issue are having. I've seen burned up contacts inside the ignition switch caused by the solenoid current (which can be upwards of 8A or so IIRC).

Yeah, that doesn't help at all. So it does it... You walk away from the car to get help. Walk back with help. They turn the key while you have a hand on the starter, and it cranks fine that time. And the next 1000 times in a row.

Do you have access to some help in the diagnosis? Someone else to turn the key while you lay a hand on the starter to feel for the click?

I'm having a real hard time coming up with a failure scenario that would result in the issue you are having. If you've got enough juice going to the solenoid to illicit a heavy click from said solenoid, then that click indicates that the solenoid has pulled in. And if it has pulled in, the motor should spin. I guess there's the possibility that there is juuuuuuust the perfect amount of resistance in the low current primary side of the circuit such that the solenoid will move some, but not pull in all the way? I've never seen that situation, but I guess it's possible? Enough current to the solenoid that it starts to pull in, but the voltage drops along the way (wiring, ignition switch, etc) limit the current to exactly the right amount such that the magnetic force isn't quite enough to pull in all the way and engage the high current contacts. Maybe?

Wait... What? You get a loud click from the starter, but it doesn't turn? Both the old reman one and the new reman? "I can hear an audible click from the starter, and the amp meter shows a heavy draw at that moment the key is held in the start position." Are you sure that click is actually coming from the starter?

The label clearly indicates it has some sort of petroleum in the mix, and water is not even mentioned. I'm assuming that the water isn't mentioned because it doesn't have to be. I'm thinking they only had to list the potentially dangerous stuff and water doesn't count. So I'm wondering the same thing(s) as you about the mixing of water and petroleum bases, and my assumption goes like this... The base is mostly water, but it contains some petroleum compounds as well. I'm thinking they are emulsified together in the final product. The (small?) amount of petroleum compounds are held in suspension in a water base? In any event, my bottle is liquid enough to use now and I guess I'll find out in a year if adding all that water was OK or a bad idea.

Well @Mark Maras, I have to retract my previous claim that water won't work. I put a little blob of the dried out compound in a small cup and added a little bit of whatever I could find in the area. Naptha, WD-40, carb cleaner, mineral spirits, acetone. None of them did anything at all even with way more than enough mixing. Just did not want to combine at all. So, since everything oil / petroleum based just ran away, I decided to retry the other (water) camp. And after starting over with a fresh blob, I added a some water and mixed. After a bunch of mixing, it started to loosen up and once it started to loosen, it went quicker. So in the end, water was the answer, but I had to add more than I expected. It was kinda like adding corn starch wrong. You get lumps and if doesn't look like it's going to work. But if you add more water and mix enough, it eventually smooths out. Thanks for the help!!

Haha!! Easier fix than the other issues mentioned above. Good work! One of the cross beams has gone out of skew on the treadle.

Good luck with it. I'm thinking the high amperage contacts in your solenoid is pitted / eroded away. Weird that it's temp dependent though.

So @HusseinHolland, if there is no silicone blob, one other trick I've used is there might be a dent/divot on the gear where the clamp was tightened. If you look at the clamp, you'll see the dot pressed into it. That dot can leave an impression in the gear plastic as well. Kinda tough to tell... Your's might be fine, or might not. I'm sure that helps a whole lot, right?

The other bolt on my counterweight is different as well. And both his and mine look like they have not been messed with:

I was going to suggest that as well, but this is a 75 he's working on and most of my experience is with the later years. I can confirm the later years used a "Phillips" head hex on the clamp, but I've never personally been inside a 75 AFM. Can you confirm that they used the same hardware in 75 that they did in the later years? It certainly doesn't look like any other hardware I've seen on a Z, but can you confirm? Just for reference, here's the insides of my 77, It's different in a bunch of ways:

Yes... Yazaki YPC series. Best deal I could find is a guy (named waterloo_specialties) on ebay selling them in batches of 100. It's 100 male-female pairs for a reasonable price. 100 pairs ought to be a lifetime supply. https://www.ebay.com/itm/194976406675?hash=item2d657fdc93:g:K8gAAOSwEWViVya7&amdata=enc%3AAQAIAAAA4GTFG2OldlywISj0sy430UEdRG8xS7Y6%2FczZktJgokfvlm7opKNgOBWINU1dpP20TzMs%2FuMkIkuZQtGVTfRVzf3mVDICx%2F6uRZWJuQwfCEhx7u65AybljdykNewfADKEUggF%2B2gqdvIUodYa%2FWmBqDd%2BqFe4ZJ0d0xFV2UUjsNC3jI7VqL%2FRxuSjms5jTz4SNMPm8z1dCFp67%2FVWR81Sbng6nutXaKgH1n26xDZxXMlBVM6vPd%2BCetwupwNZlCdhFLjiUWNUL5QYbwS3c27YpcBDcqt4C8%2B6kWlG28qZb2eD|tkp%3ABk9SR4yYp-mQYg I bought 100 pairs a while ago and have been very happy with the whole ordeal.

Yes, and yes. It could be off one tooth, and as long as you can adjust for it by moving the distributor, the end result is "it's OK that way".

It's not water soluble. (see updated post below) Label says "Hydrotreated light petroleum distillates" and "Solvent-refined heavy paraffinic petroleum distillates". So I don't know what "Hydrotreated" means, but despite the use of the reference to water, it's not water soluble. (see updated post below) I looked up the MSDS documents as best I could and they are as generic and ambiguous as what you usually find. I see what you did there.

My old trusty bottle of 3M rubbing compound is almost too dried out to use. It's more like a thick paste now than a liquid. Think more like peanut butter than mustard. Anyone have any tips on what solvent to use to thin it back out again? Old, dried out, and pasty. Happens to the best of us, right?

Oh, and I meant to complain about your hose clamps a while ago and forgot. So I'm glad to hear you don't like them either. Get some of the originals. They're stainless and don't cut into the rubber tubing. I don't recommend the aftermarket stuff that looks like the originals. They're not stainless. Get originals.

Those connectors are Yazaki. Good catch on the alternator wire. Glad you caught that one before it became more of a problem!

Actually there are a couple different spots that can be messed with on the AFM and the one you pictured is not commonly messed with (thankfully). The most common adjustment is to muck with the spring tension by moving the big black gear. There should be a silicone blob on the locking screw for the gear. In you pic, it would be hidden behind the counterweight. If you rotate the vane arm open some, it'll expose the blob I'm talking about. If it's still there. Swing the arm and look here:

If you hear a click from the solenoid and you can see a change on the ammeter, then the problem is not in the ignition switch. It's in the starter. I had a similar problem where my starter was a rebuilt unit installed by my previous owner. Intermittent operation where it made a loud "CLICK", but wouldn't engage the starter motor. Found that the Bendix unit on the stater had been assembled incorrectly by the rebuild company. Been a number of years (and I didn't take any pics), but fading memory says they had installed a spring incorrectly. On the wrong side of something. After seeing the problem, I was surprised that it ever worked at all, even intermittently. Anyway, took it apart, relocated the spring, and it's been flawless since.

Here's the link in question: https://www.classiczcars.com/forums/topic/56726-heater-core-alternative-escort-core-into-260280/

If your car runs OK and you don't have any reason to believe the traces inside the AFM are a problem, then I'd just let it alone. I wouldn't move the board around unless you have a reason to do so. Can you tell (by looking at the silicone blobs) if your AFM has been "adjusted" by a previous owner?

Thanks again. So you mentioned 190 cc/min as the target flow rate. Do you have a document source to back that up? I've looked in the past for some hard evidence about what the target rate is and I've got lots of speculation, but nothing totally conclusive. I checked the flow of the injectors installed on my car some time ago and they were all pretty much the same. At that time I didn't care about the absolute, just the relative with respect to each other. And they were all about the same, so I was happy.

Yeah, the plan is to build some sort of test and cleaning rig. I don't know how fancy it's gonna be, but I do plan to put something together. I remember your Coke bottle pic. So when you did yours, you wired all the injectors in series and connected them to what? Car battery? How long did you leave them powered to fill those bottles that far?