disepyon

Well i took another closer look at the engine to see what might be causing my problem. Like some of you have said, the spark plugs are getting fouled up. Turns out that the cylinders are wet when looking inside the spark plug hole.Any idea what might be causing this? could it be my head gasket leaking coolant, or piston rings not sealing, leaking oil on top of the pistons, or both? I replaced the head gasket in January, but i did not take the block and head to machine shop to get the surfaces milled. could that be it? I honestly think the carbs are working ok, i spent so much time on them not to mess up. Edit: well i should probably do a compression test huh? hehe, maybe that might help me answer some questions.

Yeah the plugs were replaced before i worked on the carbs because before i worked on them the carbs were running way rich and fouled them up.

Ill try swapping the oil and see if that helps. The carbs are the original ones from the car, not from ztherapy.

I did reuse the fuel jet valves (whatever its called) in the float chamber. Maybe ill upgrade to the ball design that ztherapy offers. When i adjusted mine it wasnt fun, took awhile to get them just right. I went back out to retune my carbs and seem to run a bit better, but still a bit on the rich side and smokes a bit out the back, not as much as before but still a little bit. Thats the only thing i can think of are the fuel valves and changing to auto trans fluid for the pistons.

First off i am not in a happy mood. These f'ing carbs are pissing me off. Last week my z therapy video came in the mail and i watched it so i can tune up my carbs. Well last week i got everything aligned and tuned great. Car was idling fine, wasnt to rich or to lean, didnt see any smoking out the back of the tailpipe. Car ran good. Drove great last week for 5 days that i drove it. Then its been 4 days since i drove it and now the engine idles low, has trouble starting up, seems to run rich and smokes out the back. I dont get what the hell is going on? The weather got a bit warmer but i dont see how that can dramatically affect the carbs running like ****. Could it be the oil i used for the pistons not good enough? I used 10w-30 like the manual said. Should i use automatic tranny fluid?

About average i would say the gas pump reads about 10 gallons more or less. Just not allowing the tank not to fill up im assuming. It doesnt click off before i fill or shortly after. Ive never pulled the trigger again after it shuts off it self, but ill try that next time and see if it keeps shutting off.

Ived owned the z since october 2011. Only body history i know of is that its been repainted in the past, but i didnt see any signs of any bodyfiller which means to me that there was no place on the car that was hit hard. Frame rails are straight but bent upward because someone in the past jacked up in wrong places. The only real main damage is on the rear bumper on the driver side but its no that bad. When i refill my tank no matter what car im putting gas in, i always have it on slowest clip/speed. here is a history of the gas data for my z (yeah i know im a bit of a nerd, i like to keep track, kind of a habit being a biology major in college). 10/29/2011 Z gas 9.821 gallons at $3.379 super 11/12/2011 Z gas 12.66 gallons at $3.379 super 11/25/2011 Z gas 6.142 gallons at $3.259 Super 2/29/2012 Z gas 11.291 gallons at $3.579 super im actually missing a few data logs for the z gas. In december i pulled the motor to clean it up and change all the gaskets, why there is no report for that month. there was actually one time the gauge read full, not sure which gas day it was but might had been the 11/12. Thanks for all the help fellow z members, ill pull the tank and look at the hoses since the tank is nearly empty now.

My problem is that my fuel tank will not fill up full when i put gas in it at the gas station. My fuel gauge is working perfectly so its not that. It always reads a little bit more than half way. Its like the station pump shuts off half way as if its reading a full tank. I just dont understand. I know the station pumps sense the air coming out of the fuel tank because the fuel being put into the tank displaces the air. Do i have to like shove the fuel handle down into the filler hose or something? Thanks, Brent

Looking good, cant wait to see it finished. Should get some fender mirrors, would make your car look sexy!!!

Haha i saw that too. i want so bad but im going to wait.

Thanks for the reply. As far as powder coating goes, ill have my brother do that for me, he is really good and been doing it for a while. Is there a difference between the driver and passenger side mirror? ive seen some sites sell just the driver side L/Front only, was wondering if i could buy two of those and be alright.

Looks great, good job. Where did you buy the chrome mirrors from? The price? and is it fairly easy to install on the car? I really want to do this with my car. Also do you have a pic with them on the car?

CASE SOLVED!! Car feels fantastic and performs superb. Turns out the clutch slave cylinder just needed to be readjusted. I guess it wasnt allowing something to disengage. I went ahead and took out the suction chamber and piston, cleaned it and filled with new fluid. Both were pretty nasty. After that i retuned the carbs and everything works great. Thanks for all your help experts!!

I torqued the pressure plate and flywheel down, so that cant be the issue, however im thinking that the clutch fork assembly might be messing up as i didnt pay to much attention to it when installing. Ill look into that and replace the slave cylinder and see what happens. The car did have trouble going up my drive way, i had to really rev the engine to keep it from bogging out or stalling you can say. thanks for all your input.

yeah, but the first carb is harder to push up than the second carb. Takes more effort, but the first carb piston falls down faster than the second. kind of strange. Mine is the 4 screw type according to the manual, but looking at mine, the suction chamber only has 3 screws.

Thanks for you info, really helping me out. I am going to retune the carbs tomorrow and see it that will help. I did notice my idle last week raise up a bit from before. I just went out and pressed with my finger on the piston lifters, the front carb piston falls really fast compared to the second carb piston, it falls slower. Is it easy to replace the oil? as in drain the old and fill with new? Ive never had to worked on carbs, i just know how to tune it. the manual says use either 10w-30 or sae20.

no i havent checked the oil in the carbs. I do warm the car up enough to drive. It does stumble a little bit after i put it in gear and gas it.

I also noticed that the first two pistons are covered in black stuff but the rest are all clean. Not sure what that is an indicator of, anyone?

inspected the clutch fluid and cylinders. Turns out the slave cylinder is leaking. Now can this cause my problem and why would it?

THanks ill check that, i did remember the fluid looking a bit old and nasty. I just took the spark plugs out and looked inside the piston chambers to see if maybe i flooded them. Results are that the first two pistons are wet and the rest are dry. I checked spark before this and they all sparked. could this wetness cause this issue?

It idles and revs fine. For instance when i shift in first gear from a dead stop and try and drive it like normal, as i step on the gas pedal to get going the car will have trouble moving up to speed. I can press the pedal all the way down to the floor and the car will still be moving along slowly. I really dont know how to explain it better.

So the problem i am having is kind of hard to explain. I wanted to take my z out for a drive tonight but it seems i cant. This is a stock 72 240z. The motor idles fine and revs great like it should, but the problem is when i try and drive the car. When i step on the gas pedal to get going, the car wont go. I have to lightly press on the pedal to get the car up to speed. I dont hear any unwanted noise from anywhere. The clutch and flywheel are in ok shape because i just recently put the engine back together not to long ago. spark plugs are only about 3 weeks old. could my distributor be the problem? Any idea? Thanks, Brent

Why is that? Not sure if the grease im using is specifically for wheel bearings, could be though. My bushings for the front suspension came last week. I replaced the steering coupler last weekend. Feels great, I noticed a better feel in steering, not sure if others did or not. comparison to the stock coupler. New coupler installed. Front ball joints came in today. In a few days or so i can finally swap out the parts, been waiting on those damn ball joints, oh well i guess, cant expect much from free shipping.

The grease is from oreillys, i just got the valvoline grease for imports. Could be the same as the stuff you used to use for building helicopters. Yeah grease spray would of been better, but i didnt feel like buying some for this purpose.

Thanks for that info fuzzy, ill look more into it and decide if i want to upgrade to the 280zx alternator. I did another greasy job. Got tired of the door lock not turning smoothly when i unlock and lock with my key. Results are that it turns as if its new. Feels like a hot knife cutting into butter. Hardly takes any effort to turn the lock and feels better than my passenger side and i thought it felt good compared to the driver side before i worked on it. There isnt much to it, just look for all the joints and grease them up. I used a cheap tooth brush that i had stored away in my house from when i went to the orthodontist when i had braces on my teeth. They required you brush your teeth before they work on you, over time i just collectively took the brushes they give you and kept them. Works really well on getting grease in between the moving parts. This joint i could not grease up, so instead i just used wd40. Decided to lube up the interior door handle, the spring used to make an annoying noise, now its quiet. Lubed up the window tracks as well. i used a cheap painters brush from ace hardware, tooth brush was too short to reach the inside. Thats it, Another thing that wont annoy me anymore.