madkaw

Yes i agree ,and I have recieved some satisfaction from MSA when in this situation. The first header I recieved from them was not a good fit and the flange was not perfected and they did replace it with a better one at no cost to me(shipping was covered).I did e-mail them: Hello, I am working on a 71 240z owned by Jim Derk. Jim has ordered most of his parts from your business. Recently he has ordered repair panels for his car including the rear rocker replacements and the rear valence panel. I must say I am disappointed in the quality of these parts. The Tabco rockers did not go on evenly on both sides as if the panel was stamped wrong or cut uneven. The rear valence panel should have been sold as an unfinished panel since the panel was not contoured for the car. The panel was almost completely flat while the stock panel has compound curves. I thought to myself, surely MSA knows what they are doing and maybe the panel isn’t as curvy as I think, so I have tried to install it. I am not having much luck since it wants to bow out all over the place. I was hesitant to have Jim pay 250$ for a piece of stamped steel but his car had to have one. Since MSA has been in this business for many years you would think your R&D department would do a better job! Did anyone try and fit one of these panels on a car or did you just hold it up against the car and said—O.K. Though I thought the panel was overpriced slightly, I wouldn’t have bitched one bit if it had fit like it should have. I talked to another Z owner and he said he had the same problem and he is going to get an English Wheel to fix the panel. The panel should have hit the English Wheel before it was ever sold, especially for 250$ I will reluctant to order anything else from MSA at this point. I will try to go directly to Nissan. I imagine your prices are far off factory pricing now. The price is not the real issue any way, it’s the quality of the parts. I will be giving my customer Jim Derk a call to see how we will handle this problem. Steve Finnerty 317-979-9929 I have yet to recieve a response of any kind. I believe my assesment was fair-don't you think. I really meant the part about the price being secondary. The time and aggravation I could save by having this panel fit is worth much more then the initial price.

I tried to find a a donor car because i thought I might run into this , but it was hard to find anyone who would, or knew how to cut one off. Enrique, I have clecos and clamps but that doesn't help much when trying to force a curvature that's not there. Gnose, I'm not sure what you mean about the width to wide. Damn this sucks, I talked this customer into buying this panel and i'm not sure I'm going to beable to use it. Sounds like i need to make friends with someone with an English wheel. I did e-mail MSA about their crap panels(rocker replacements made by Tabco suck too), but no response yet. Maybe i should have checked with Nissan

So removing the 90 is not going to help me is it? I don't think this would have been so bad if that panel wasn't 16 guage. I had a feeling when i ordered that heavy of a panel that it was going to be trouble. I'm not worried about the overlapping ends but it would be nice to get the contour. I should call MSA and ask them why they didn't put a disclaimer in about the panel not properly contoured--ssshhheeesshhhh.

I need some expert advice on installing this new MSA rear valence panel. Besides being way overpriced- IMHO- it doesn't seem to have the compound curves to lay right on the back. It is hard to get the best angle on this with the camera, but i think you'll see that the panel wants to bow out in the middle along the bottom-almost bend. The panel comes almost completely flat, so it is not rolled on the bottom or side to side. If I force the panel to to lay correctly width wise, it wants to bow out somewhere along the bottom. What part you don't see of the panel is up top,the replacement panel has a 90 degree bend to match the cars panel under the tailights. I thought i might cut the 90 off to allow the panel to bend more freely, but I am holding out as a last resort. I did notch the 90 degree lip hoping it would allow the panel to bend more freely. Maybe a reinforcement strip along the bottom edge to help hold its shape. If i force the bottom to comply the top of the panel also trys to bow out slightly. I hope you can follow this thread because I need some help

All of them:)

Miles, i know that you seem to have cured your problem but i was curious to your explanation. So was the hose kinked from the float bowl to the carb nozzle? The reason I ask because my carb did the same thing and it was a hose that was kinking.

I think i cut them off and welded them closed. i had the manifold off so i could cut them off from the inside. good luck unthreading those rusty pieces!

Well I found my problem-finally. One of my new fuel hoses that goes from the nozzle to the float bowl kinked. These were new hoses from Z therapy and I explained this on the SU carb central forum The car revs up freely with lots of power. This had to be the problem all along even though the engine also needed all the other tune up items done. I found it interesting that i was focused on the rear carb because it was fouling when the whole problem was the front carb. The rear plugs showed up as fouling and the fronts looked okay, it really threw me off. You just never stop learning when it comes to this stuff. Today though, I feel like an SU expert:laugh:

Well I was getting ready to give up on these carbs and put on another set to see if that would eliminate my problem,but I decided to look over things one more time. After removing the air bonnet backing plate and ran the choke up and down and made sure everthing was returning properly and the throttle was actually opening up all the way when i noticed the front carb fuel hose that runs from the float bowl was kinked. I am thinking that it could be this easy. The front carb is getting no fuel so the rear is trying to pick up the slack and loading up with fuel while the front is doing nothing. I changed out the new Z therapy hose with an old one and it was like magic, the car ran perfect. I got all the rpm range and all the power now. The ordered these hoses from Bruce and I questioned the length of the hoses when I first installed them. After talking to Bruce i cut the hoses to match the originals. At the time the hose seemed fine but I guess it slowly collapsed over time and that's what made it hard to diagnose. The rear carb hose is still okay, just the front kinked. Maybe bruce will read this and chime in. Bruce has always been super to work with so don't think I am bashing Z therapy. It's been a good day!!

I look at projects like yours and realize I have no right to complain about the little work I have to do with my body work. You must surely be motivated, I appreciate your dilgence. Keep up the hard work!

Thanks for the suggestion and yes they were checked -the second time around. And one was pretty clogged but it made no real difference in the way it ran. The other carbs are off my car and it would be temporary in order to help troubleshoot. I still want to make these work.

Yes I do have a sync tool and I probably need to be a bit more liberal with the idle mixtures!

I decided to bring my problem to this forum since thru deduction process I believe the carbs are my final issue. I guess the first question would be; what adjustment or problem with my su's would cause the engine to not want to rev up freely and be flat on power. Originally the engine idled smoothly and reved up sitting in the garage but out on the road it was flat over 3000rpm. I have gotten past the 3000 rpm ceiling but it goes slowly and without snap or power. It would tend to make me believe I am running out of gas. I believe the floats are adjusted properly and after cleaning carbs thoroughly I preset them according to 'just Su video'. Would a bad idle adjustment effect me at higher rpms?? Presently the rear 3 cylinders are fouling plugs. I guess that could be an obvious idle mixture problem-both carbs are set at 2.5 turns. Again, would this fouling problem could equate to higher rpm weakness?? History: the car has 88k original-71 with 4 screw carbs. The carbs were thoroughly cleaned but no parts were replaced-original needle and seats,ect.... Great compression, timing set and verified, ignition all new, fuel tank cleaned, filter changed, fuel pump changed(fuel pressure not checked).valves adjusted. Do not beleive I have any vacuum leaks. I am going to try one last attempt at idle mixture adjustments after reading all the articles my tiny brain:stupid: can absord. After that i am going to mount a newer set of SU's to see what difference it makes. Right now it is about 10degrees around here so maybe it won't be today. I guess it comes down to being a 37 year old car that has been wanting some attention for a long time, now it's getting it!

Okay, I changed the fuel pump which did help slightly. Unfortunately I think i have several things going on at once. I did get some more rpms out of it but then I started fouling the rear plugs. so to recap;I changed fuel pump, plugs, plug wires, upgraded to pertronix, cleaned all fuel lines. Rechecked float levels, checked for dirt around needle and seat. I have checked timing-10 degrees static, approx 33 degrees full. Checked compression levels-180 across the board Engine revs up slowly with no real power. The rear three plugs foul after a short period of running. I guess I will mount my carbs which are almost new on this car and see if that makes a difference. Any ideas? What about you XRAY

Tried finding info on this part with no luck. When I was cleaning up the rack this plastic piece broke off. If I knew what it was I might be able consider a fix or replacement. This came off the passenger side.

Geezer, thanks for the referall to that thread but it wasn't quite what i hoped for. It doesn't help me decide which one to install since there is no test cold. I thought maybe while the clutch is cold ,I could test it to see if it would turn with more resistance or turn easier or something like that kind of test before I install. I guess I put one in a drive and see how it does. Maybe I'll check the service manual, maybe it will have some wisdom.

Well it took a lunch break to figure this out:stupid: The pulley wasn't sitting flush on the water pump so i lost what little clearnace I had because it was rotating **** eyed. Thanks for the info Arne. Is there an easy way to tell if the old clutch is still good? Does it need to have just a little or a moderate amount of resistance when you turn it. I have two,but one seems to have a bit more resistance.

I am trying to swap out the original metal fan for a plastic one on my 71. I have several different clutches from cars that had plastic fans. My problem is that i am not clearing the third row pulley for the AC. The plastic fan needs to have another 1/4" clearance to clear the pulley. Seems that the height on all the clutches are the same -are they supposed to be? Or is the clutch for the plastic fan noticably taller or is there a spacer involved? Any help would be great.

I saw the motorsport panel. Please take notice the metal thickness-16 guage-that is a stout panel. I imagine the original was about 20 guage at best. I just hope to find an original that i can cut off someones car!

Can anyone verify (or not) that the rear valence on a 240z is the same as the 280z. I need to replace mine and I need to know how big my shoppping list can be. I thought the hls-30 were all the same?

Well to continue my saga I installed my pertronix(coil and igniter) today and the car ran fantastic -all the way to 3000rpm-then just goes flat. I really didn't think ignition was the problem , but it was nice to eliminate that from the equation. I will have to say that the car idles better and smoother now and I still need to install the new wires. The next thing for me will be the fuel pump. I have been suspect of a pump that has sat for 10 plus years without running. I don't have a pressure guage but I do have an extra pump to try. I would almost bet that diaphram has a coulpe of holes or cracks in it. I also have changed the fuel filter which DID have dirt in it. I also blew compressed air thru the fuel lines and drained the tank again. Yes there was some junk in the tank but not significant enough to think it was clogging the pick-up. Maybe next week I can throw the fuel pump on-I Do have AC so this won't be a fun job.

Guys, All good suggestions, but unfortunetly i am stuck in a motel 200 miles from my car. I have tried some of these ideas ,but didn't get to finish before the phone rang and I had to go. I tried moving the points open for a static check but I didn't see any spark. The condenser is hooked up. I was concerned that i got the ground from the points to the right place. I appreciate the responses and thought i should reply to let you know that this wouldn't be another dead end thread. I am also currently waiting for a pertronix kit in the mail. Maybe by this weekend I can do some more trouble shooting-damn job always getting in the way of my fun!

Gnose, thanks, sounds like a good idea!

Arne, I believe I checked for that but I am going to double check to make sure on that insulator cap. Everything else looked okay??

Anyone know where I could get replacement ends for the wires that hook on to the fuel sending unit. They will not hold properly and I have looked around for those type ends without much luck.