deadflo

Well like I said it is on the normally tight side and really different than my other Z. The guide is missing about half an inch from the top. Anyway thanks for the other link to the thread on dealing with removing ther timing set. I am still wondering if there is a good guide for how tight the chain should be if I check it every year or so?

Ok, well im kind of wondering what you need to do to check it for stretching....

OK Mike, thanks for the input.I guess I can make the excuse I havent had the 71 Z all that long(2 years). What should I do to monitor the condition of the chains in the future?

Regarding China, there was a report on PBS about a year ago that showed an aerial shot of Beijing and it looked like LA because of the gridlock on the freeway cloverleafs. They said some 20 million cars had been sold there in the last five years. More folks have money to buy cars because of their economy. Phil , I think you may suprised at the change since you were last there in the 90's. Also, you cant lay all the blame on the OPEC states for the oil prices, again look at the record profits for all the US oil companies this year. That's where the money is going, despite their bullshit about lack of refineries here, or whatever line they think the public will swallow this year.

Yesterday I mentioned on another thread that my mechanic had found some damage to my chain guide and problems with the chain(on the 71 Z). I went over to examine it and can confirm the chain was real loose on the side that should be tight. (the drivers side) The top lip of the guide was gone too? (down into the front of the engine or oil pan???) Anyway the car has been running ok. When I went home I pulled the valve cover off my 79 ZX to compare the chain tension. It was definitely tighter. OK, so the question is: Is this something we could solve with the method shown in the Z therapy vid where Scott moves the chain to different sprocket holes? Or should I just get a new timing set? Again it looks like the very top of the guide, about a half inch, is gone(somwhere). I really don't know how long the timing set has been on the car. The head is not original, and I beleive the car to have 210 K miles on it. By comparison the 79 ZX has 169 K on it and again that chain is much tighter.

Man I'm sorry somebody had to find out about UR gellis the hard way! on the other hand, thanks to our site we can hopefully warn others. I was certainly enlightened. I had just emailed him to find out more about what he had in stock, no reply yet. BTW, there is another guy, I will check for his name, that does porting on completed L series heads over at zcar.com. He sells the heads complete and then has you send him a core. Anybody know who i'm talking about? he has a website with some pics of him working on the heads.

The RU gellis guy wants 80 bucks to ship.

Arne and everybody. There is a guy on ebay that goes by the handle "ru gellis" (sp?) . he has been selling all manner of L series heads for some time, and claims to have 50 folks who have bought heads from him that are good references. I have a message in to him to see what else what might be in the works soon. The heads sell for reasonable prices, like 350-400 or so depending on what they are. They are mosly all stock rebuilds.I wonder if anyone here has dealt with him?

My mecahinic says my timing chain guide is all chewed up. I havenet seen the damage yet, but will drive over there today. He said there IS likely debRIS from the guide down in the front of the engine as well and recomends a new timing kit. Any ideas what would cause this other than it being old? Are there any timing kit brands to avoid? i can get a beck arnely KIT at a good price. Also what about head gaskets? any bad choices for brands? The price quotes I got from the Nissan dealer here for the kit and gasket were totally out of line. like 70 bucks for a gasket???? couple hundred for most of the parts:mad: in the kit???

It's purley subjective. Personally I don't like red for sports car color. it's just too obvious a choice, and I just don't like it anyway. I like silver, BRG, blue and yellow.

Thanks, mates! Guess what? I switched out the shifter knob tonight and took a spin on the country roads around my house. Problem solved!! No noise at all! I'll take a look at the walnut shifter knob to see if I can do something with it to stop the noise...

Grettings Randy,I am on the dry side of the mountains, over here near Spokane.

Wow, I also have a walnut shift knob! I will put the original knob back on and see what happens! I would do that today but I washed the car this monring and now there is a big dusty wind storm.

I am getting a "buzzing " noise from the shifter of my 79 ZX. I know I'm probably getting close to needing tranny work with 179K on the clock. BUT, I wonder what specifically this might be. Bearings? Synchros? The noise occurs when gears are engaed. It is the original early 5 speed. I have had a whirring noise like a throw out bearing when I engage the clutch out of gear for some time. Not super loud though. Anyway I recall and article in the Q and A section of road and track back in the 90's where the editor mentioned a problem with the early 5 speeds that could be cured with a simple tightening of a bolt. Anyone recall what this could be???

Watch the forum closely for location of other members, I know there is someone else here from Kennewick.

Welcome , where are you at specifically? I am in Spokane.

Well thats what i ws trying to get across in my message, that there was a fellow who had custom fabricated a triple SU setup on his 70 240-Z that was in a pretty big write up in Z car magazine, back in the 90's. I guess no one who has read this thread remembers it. I will dig through my issues to try to give you more specifics. Again i found a pic of this very same car in the last year or two on a z club website. Which one Im not sure. But the photo showed the car somewhere in British Columbia.Ring any bells?

There was a feature article in the old Z car magazine about a guy who had done a similar set up. The article mostly focused on his short stroke hi revving setup.I remember the car was the Baby poop yellow color, and a unique rubber door guard strip. I recall the strip because years later I saw the same car on a Z club website. I beleive the car resides in the pacfic northwest somewhere. Anyone know the car I'm referring to?

Hey Ive pulled the back screws off my series one console to examine my choke cable, what do I have to do to pull the whole console off to replace the cable? Does the radio have to come out? Also I ve got the earliest type choke lever, I havent examined it in detail but what do you do to remove and attach a new cable?

OK well i had no luck with starting or getting increased voltage by that following proceeedure. But because our club is so cool and has posted the schematic for the 71 ignition circuit I realize i must have made a major FU. I was told to look at the wire going to the positive side of the coil from the ballast resisitor. I saw a black with white wire on the positive, and saw a black with white wire on the resistor, so i put a line from the positive battery to that. Nothing, and still low voltage readout. But now that i see the schematic, it looks like the black/white wire on the resisitor goes back to the ignition switch. The green/white from the resistor goes to the tach, then to the black and white on the coil. I guess that is the one I should have tried?? Hopefully i didnt fry anything! Thats what I get taking directions from someone over the phone.

OK, well for those of you still following my progress, my mechanic now says I should run a lead from the positive battery cable to the wire that goes from the ballast resistor to the coil. Then try to start. He says I should have seen closer to twelve volts on the test I did, but feels we will be able to start with the jump. He thinks the problem is either the ballast resistor or the ignition switch. OK Feel free to comment. BTW, Ive really only known this mechanic fellow about a year. Again he owned a few 240-Z's in the past before he began collecting Studebakers. He actually drove out of town to my place twice now from his shop to help diagnose, and tried towing the car for a compression start once (didnt work, spark too weak), But he hasnt charged me anything. real cool guy.

Well here's what I found when I did the test. I had about four and half volt reading at the coil when key was in the run position, which jumped to nearly double that when cranking. Most of the time when I returned the key to the run postion it fell back to 4.8 volts, but a couple of times it read 11 volts. Then I ran a wire( actually my test light lead) from the terminal posts on the ballast resistor. I got exactly the same readings, and i also noticed that occaisonally when I returned the key to the on position, that the test light would go off, instead of on, as it was most of the time. Any ideas what this could indicate? Bad ballast resistor? problem with ignition switch/key? Nothing wrong?

If I got this correctly, my mechanic says I should take voltage readings from the positive side of the coil , with the key in start and run. Check for a voltage difference there, and then see what kind of voltage reading I get with a wire bypassing the resistor.