2ManyZs

Well, the brake cylinders could be the problem, but at the same time, there are quite a few things that would make the hand brake inoperative besides seized cylinders. Seized cables, stretched cables, or the arm could be off the ratchet assembly on the brake cylinder...... Before you do anything more, try bleeding the master cylinder a couple more times, you'd be surprised how many times it can be just trapped air in the master cylinder. If you don't get any fluid to the rear after another good bleeding, then take the hard lines apart and blow them out... it never hurts to do this once in a while anyways... The only way to check the brake cylinders would be to pull the drum and try to manually move the piston in the cylinder, that is unless you suddenly start getting fluid back there so you can visually see the piston moving. Then you can inspect the hand brake mechanism on the cylinder and see why that isn't working.... my guess would be the cables are either stretched or seized... there is an adjustment in the tunnel... but it's a PITA to get to unless you drop the driveshaft......:tapemouth

If the brake cylinders are seized, you wouldn't get any fluid out of the bleeders. The question I have is, does the parking brake work? If it does, then the cylinders can't be seized.... work the handle and see if the arm works correclty on the cylinders... if the hand brake doesn't work, then the cylinders definately could be siezed. What I would do is take the lines loose from the rear cylinders and blow them out with compressed air, just to see if there is something keeping the fluid from reaching the rear brakes. Then, if you get good pressure out of the hard lines, pull the cylinders and make sure they are in working order. Third, hook everything back up, and bleed the master cylinder first and repeatedly... it could be that there is air still trapped in the master at the end of the cylinder under the rear brake reservoir that is causing all the trouble to begin with. However, if you don't get any air out of the hard lines, take hard lines apart at the "T" fitting that is mounted on the floor pan just above and a little behind the diff and blow through the lines again, it could be something such as rust or sludge form moisture that is clogging up the T fitting. I'm also in agreement that if the brake pedal is very hard, it sounds like you might have a vacuum leak, stuck check valve( are you sure you mounted it in the line correctly with the arrow pointing to the Master Vac?), or a bad Master Vac.

If you ever testified in court, you might wish you could have been as sharp as this Cop. A defense attorney was cross-examining a police officer during a felony trial - it went like this: Q. Officer, did you see my client fleeing the scene? A. No sir, but I subsequently observed a person matching the description of the offender running several blocks away. Q. Officer, who provided this description? A. The officer who responded to the scene. Q. A fellow officer provided the description of this so-called offender. Do you trust your fellow officers? A. Yes sir, with my life. Q. With your life? Let me ask you this then officer, do you have a room where you change your clothes in preparation for your daily duties? A. Yes sir, we do. Q. And do you have a locker in that room? A. Yes sir, I do. Q. And do you have a lock on your locker? A. Yes sir. Q. Now why is it, officer, if you trust your fellow officers with your life, that you find it necessary to lock your locker in a room you share with those same officers? A. You see sir, we share the building with the court complex, and sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room. With that, the courtroom erupted in laughter, and a prompt recess was called. The officer on the stand has been nominated for this year's "Best Comeback" line and we think he'll win.

With this recent rash of thefts and joy-rides... maybe it's time I dug into my closet and see if I still have the old Clifford alarm I cought back in the late 80's and never used and put it up for sale.:cross-eye That's the nice thing about living in a small town, back then I didn't need it cuz everyone knew better than to mess with my car....:devious: :bandit:

I've always had the best luck with running a bead from the bottom up with both Mig and arc as well. It allows the metal to "pool" a little better and give a bit smoother resulting bead. I've always used the same gas pressure for all my welding... so as far as lowering the pressure when welding vertically, I dunno... if the bead is dripping off, it sounds like you might be too slow running your bead, or perhaps a little too fast with the wire speed... Best thing to do is practice, practice, practice.... Try it with a little slower wire speed and see how that turns out. Try it one way and then the other, (bottom to top and visa versa) and see which way you get the best bead... some people can do it one way and not the other, some can do it either way....

First thing I would do is drain the transmission lube in a large pan and check for any metal shavings.. if you find a lot of metal "dust" in the bottom of the pan, it could be either a bearing or synchronizers.... On the simpler side, it could be just a little low on lube or perhaps you ought to try a better lube.. I usually recommend Redline MTL (manual transmission lube), it is a bit expensive, but it's worth the piece of mind and slightly improved shifting performance.

Yup, it's a great site.. we didn't even get our hands dirty.... Seriously though, I'm glad it was something as simple as the timing being off a notch or two... not hard to do with the oil pump drive spindle.....you aren't the first, and probably not the last either.... they are always a pain to work on when the engine is still in the car.

Nissan parts numbers for the headlight covers are: 63900-E4126 / Right hand 63901-E4126 / Left hand

The fiberglass ones would be easier to repair yes, but, they are getting harder to find than the metal ones. Second reason is, I want to spot weld the nuts on the backside of the metal ones so I can take them off and on a lot easier for cleaning and whatever.... Plus, if the trim rings put any stress on the fiberglass... well, then you are going to have all sorts of little cracks and that's unacceptable to me...

FWIW, I got my set of headlight covers with the chrome trim from www.nismoparts.com last summer....They may still have them and they may not... a lot of things I got from them last summer are now NLA. If nothing else, try Zedd Findings, Charlie may have a supplier. No, I don't want to drill any holes in my fiberglass headlight buckets either... that's why I got a set of metal ones off a parts car......they aren't that expensive and you can find them for sale nearly all the time somewhere.....

The "euro" distributor has a quicker advance curve than the US distributors. It probably doesn't make that noticeable a difference with a stock engine, but could work well with a modified one with a non-stock cam and carbs such as triples. As far as dual points.. well....:sick: twice as much trouble for no appreciable gains.....

Let's hope it is just not seated correctly in the oil pump drive tang..... Been sitting here trying to think why Social Circle, GA was so familiar... been almost 20 years since I used to pick up plastic pipe there and take it all over New England....:tapemouth

Sounds like the drive spindle might not be seated completely in the crank drive gear or in the oil pump possibly... doing this while the engine is in the car is a major PITA... been there, done that. Try pulling the distributor and turning the engine over and then check to see if the drive spindle has changed position on the distributor(vertically), other than that, it would be taking it all apart and starting over.... Since you didn't remove the drive spindle, I think we can rule out it being out of time.... won't tell ya what I did the first time I did it while the engine was in a car....:stupid: Live and learn.....

Looks pretty good to me.... the only thing I can see wrong so far is the frame rails have sustained some bumps and dents from either no-so-well-placed jacks or road hazards. The best thing I can say is, at the least, you might want ot replace the frame rails under the floors if the floors clean up with no large amounts of rust thru. Can't give a 100% diagnosis without seeing the floors and frame rails after a good cleaning and sanding (or sandblasting) to clean off all the grime and undercoating. How do the floor pans look from the inside? That is another place to look, if you see rust holes from the inside, you're gonna be surprised what you find under the undercoating and grime underneath.

You might have ruined the pic if you had turned around and stuck your tongue out at him.... or worse....

I'm going to guess-timate around 11/72 or 12/72, if the engines really did go in sequence while being installed in all the Z models.

Only a couple things that might help, since you seem to have tried them all. Have you checked and/or replaced the rubber plugs in the floor? The one in the spare tire well? The one under the console in the "pocket" under the ashtray? Since you say it only does it when the windows are open creating a vacuum, I'd say it might also be in the firewall.... or around the doors.... or.... Have you tried extending your tail pipe a few more inches? Maybe go to the parts store and just buy a cheap chrome extension to just try it? That's about all I can think of, you've already covered all the obvious ones....

FWIW, if you can't find something from MSA you should try Andy Russell or Charlie Osborne, they seem to be able to come up with some parts that no one else can. You never know what they might be able to find until you ask.... Andy is at z@datsundude.com Charlie is at www.datsunzparts.com

Gee Mark, I could have sold you a dirty fan assembly......:devious: I know it's not funny.. but sometimes you have to take people's description on Ebay with a grain of salt unless they post plenty of pics.....of course, even then, you could end up not getting what is in the picture too....:disappoin

I think this is the car and owner you are asking about... he has a couple pics in his gallery but I think there are only 3.... http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=8179

I know it's no consolation, but your pics could be the ones I should have taken of my car.... mine was rusted just as bad and in the same exact spot. I noticed the bondo in the dog leg when I bought the car, but didn't realized it had rusted the inner fender panel out like it did.... I ended up having to buy a whole inner fender panel just so I could cut out the patch panel at the bottom where the dog leg wrapped around it so it could be welded back like it was, damned hard to fabricate that piece with the compound curve and lip for the dog leg to weld into the fenderwell.... Mine was rusted out on the outer side even worse than yours. Looked the same under the dog leg too.....:disappoin Oddly enough, the passengers side is perfect with no rust and/or bondo....

Passengers side...

See if these help...

Uh huh..... I think she'd look much better behind the wheel of the black 300ZX convertible in the background anyways.... For that matter, I'd rather drive the black 300 in the background.:devious:

FWIW, I would use a header blanket instead of the wrap unless you have a ceramic coated header. The wrap is tightly wound around the tubes and if it gets wet, it holds a lot of moisture and will cause the header to rust out that much quicker. The blanket wraps around the whole header, thereby giving it some dead air space. Most hot rod shops (or Jeg's or Summit Racing) should have some type of gas line heat shield that you can slip over the gas lines, usually it is sold in bulk lenghts and you can then cut it to fit and it will look a lot neater than the factory type shield. I agree that it sounds more like vapor lock, but the coil overheating and breaking down the spark is also a good possibility as well. I'd insulate the header first one way or the other and see if that helps, even if it doesn't cure the problem, it should help the car run better simply because it is not building up so much heat under the hood and the carbs will get a little cooler air.