Sep 2007

OK - the car has been sitting in my garage now for over a month... no license plates... won't even kick over. My Z-car guru swings by the house and tinkers with the timing and the carbs and gets it running.. sorta. I was able to drive it five miles round trip to get the temp tags taped to the hatch glass. After returning from MVD I convince the wife to take a drive in the car.. and the car proceeds to promptly die after pulling out of the driveway and has to be pushed back into the garage with help from the neighbor. Not a confidence instilling moment <g>.

As luck would have it my buddy was working on his '73 240Z as a project car - his car had engine problems similar to mine, to include severe backfiring through the SU carbs. After swapping out the distributor (which was made for an automatic transmission car - oops) with a spare that he had, new distributor cap and spark plug wires (two of the old wires had zero activity when a timing light was attached to the wire), new NGK spark plugs and tinkering with the carbs/timing the car still isn't running right - the engine (when running) is rocking side to side pretty violently and the carb backfiring was still happening way too often. After pulling the valve cover it's discovered that the aftermarket timing sprocket had no timing notches forged into it (no way to properly set the timing) - the sprocket from my defunct 1970 car is pulled/inspected and installed correctly. We also noticed that the oiler rod had snapped nearest the windshield - that part is also cannibalized from the 1970 car and installed. The '72 carbs that came on the car appeared to have quite a bit of "slop"; the carbs from my 1970 are pulled/cleaned up/installed onto the car. It proved to be quite a bit of trial and error to stop the carbs from backfiring - the previous owner had set the rear at four turns and the front carb and 2.5 turns... which turned out to work pretty well with the new setup (we later found an air leak by spraying WD40 on the rear carb while it as running - a makeshift gasket fixed that problem).

The car is put back together, immediately fired up, and FINALLY able to power itself down the road on it's own power decently. The violent rocking motion had been cured! There was still some backfiring through the carbs (especially in second gear at low RPM) but at least it was drivable to work and back. PROGRESS!

My buddy noticed that the return fuel line was missing from the car; end result was that unused gas that wasn't burned from the carbs was being dumped back into the carbs - which would result in vapor locking. After buying 40 feet of fuel line he hooked up the "soft" line to properly flow the unused gas back into the gas tank. I'll replace it with a hard line later...

I installed the radiator overflow bottle on the front left firewall just behind the coil - I had to buy longer clear hose that would snake from the left side, around the front and back around to the radiator cap. I replaced all of the fuel lines in the engine bay and all of the vacuum lines - I could hear a vacuum leak but couldn't find which hose that it was. Left to replace are the factory braided hoses (which I can't find for sale anywhere). The insulation tape was installed on the fuel lines and secured with zip ties - I couldn't figure out how to install the header heat blanket as no instructions were provided (and it is simply a square piece of insulated material). The windshield wiper motor will wait for a rainy day to be installed - the current one works but I'm sure it isn't too speedy. The console arm rest/door pulls/plug wire holders are quick installs. Door mirrors will require a lot of effort to swap out... but the Hella mirrors sure are worthless while driving.

Item Description - Price Paid

TOTAL: $641.12