BlueStag

Yes, rather.

Blu, In that heat I expect the spring value of the steel to be cooked out pretty quickly. This is a very hot spot on the engine.

Good points. As for the last, the drive train is in my Triumph Stag, so it is as aligned as the muffler shop made it...... Self locking nuts? Certainly you do not mean nylocks.

Hey guys, So my exhaust flange gasket just does not seem to want to stay tight. Any hints on getting the next one snugged up and hoping to see it stay that way for a good long time? Detail: cast iron manifold off of a 260 to the exhaust pipe. Three studs and nuts. When they get loose, the gasket burns and the next thing you know, you need to buy another. Happily they are $3.00 Still, I'd like it to last a while this time around.

It is also not unknown to run three SUs! Quite the blast.

Blu, Thanks for the thought. But I have never had anything like an over heating problem. The other day I had to grind down the 5 from Burbank to Hawthorn. Admittedly it is winter, but a warm winter. Bumper to bumper the whole way there. My gauge almost always reads just to the cool side of the middle mark. Seriously, the needle goes there and locks, just touching the mark. Unless I get into traffic. In this case it crept up until it was right over the mark. It never has gone to the right of the central mark (which on my Stag is not numbered in any way.) If I ever build a high horse power car, possibly this will be a concern. But at ~130hp with a custom rad built to absolutely fill every available inch, this motor has never even remotely suggested that it was going to boil. Jeeze, I do like these engines.

I am glad that you have an out. I suppose it is possible that the goof who did this thought that there were bearing inserts involved, but that would be the mistake of a major goof. Camshafts spinning directly in aluminum is not in any way unique to the L6

Ztherapy is the place to get the carbs rebuilt. Others do it very well, Zthearapy does it best. If your carbs are sucking past the throttle shafts you will be miserable.

That bites. You are in your rights to ask them to pay the cost of a used set. Possibly even to line bore them. Somebody here has a set that has not been bored and will give you a good price, to be sure. Post in the "wanted" section here with a note on how the machine shop shafted you.

I certainly appreciate the offer! If you are up to it, go ahead and try to pull one off. Obviously if it gets trashed in the process, you can save yourself the trouble of boxing it up!

I would say that you should be very careful about buying a Z (240, 260, 280) without knowing its provenance. If some guy has owned it for the last five or eight years and can show you receipts for obvious improvements, like an engine rebuild, then you might have a car worth several thousand. A car with dubious mileage (Blue is right, that thing is well past the 100k mark)that has serious mechanical issues, AND you are a mechanical newbie, AND you have never wrestled with a Z before, walk swiftly away from it. If this guy is passing this off as a low mileage car that smokes, I'd call him a liar to his face and forget that I ever met him. If you WANT a Z (not to be confused with a ZX), then by all means save your pennies, find all the venues that you can where they are traded, see every ad that gets put up for a minimum of three months, six would be better, read the ad, every word, take notes, learn, learn, learn. Read forums like this on a regular basis. Learn, learn, learn. Or you will excrete a substantial amount of money for a vehicle and could well get junk. There is more junk on the market any given day than there is a car worth you time and money. Oh, and see if there is a club in your area. Just yesterday a new guy showed up at my Triumph breakfast club. He has money and wants to buy a complete and fresh Triumph TR4. That is $15 to $25k right there. Funny thing? One of the members has four and is looking to sell his second best one, a very respectable example. This guy may have found his car in a single day. Oh, and go read all of this site: http://datsunzgarage.com/ Bon chance!

The die is JUST NOT going to work. It was too tight right out at the start of the thread, where there is no problem at all. I expanded it as much as I could. If I had continued, I would have produced a thread that did not match the filters.

If you have not read these pages you might want to, they are informative and fun! http://datsunzgarage.com/p90/

Which bushings do you mean? The orange fiber spacers? The Z stores should all have them, at a guess. I have never needed to buy one or even look for one. Some people will put in two with longer studs, to help keep the carbs cooler. Do a web search for "Datsun Z parts".

The nicely polished set up you have there is a nearly stock affair. I believe the BALANCE TUBE (not fuel rail, that is a FI component)(on which the linkage mounts) is a European spec item, and has nearly no ports on it. (The balance tube is a universal component in all twin carb arrangements, it balances the vacuum somewhat in the two manifolds). The one you actually have, if it looks like the second pic, can be capped off and used. There are lines to take hot coolant to your manifolds, perhaps to help vaporize the fuel? You don't need to link them up. The orange items are fiber spacers used to insulate the carb bodies from the manifolds, to keep the carbs cooler. They are VERY desirable. I've seen SUs on a dozen different types of Brit cars and never seen a set up without them. Oh, the 240 SUs will mount to any Z head. I don't know if you can use that head with that block. You might want to read: http://datsunzgarage.com/engine/index.htm

Hey guys, Those of you following the soap opera of my car: I have a Triumph Stag with a Z drive train. I had it up on stands for 9 years until this last summer. When I went to change the oil and filter, I had the worst time getting the filter off, and worse, could not get a new filter on. I ended up putting the old filter back on. Conclusion: the old filter had galled to the threaded stem that it screws onto and on removal it had left some metal in the threads. Today I tried to chase the threads with a 3/4 16 thread die, but it was too tight, I could not get it done. I had demolished the old, old filter, and so was forced to screw on my new one using rather more force than is considered correct in this application. Happily it seems to have seated correctly and shows no sign of leaking. But I'd like to make this right. I know that the stem is threaded into the block. Anything anyone can tell me about getting the old one out and new in, especially with the engine in place? Anything to look out for? Am I just going to grab it with channel locks and twist?

Oh, don't try to use the FI fuel pump, I don't think it is worth the effort to dial down its pressure. Low pressure pumps are readily available at parts stores. A basic pressure regulator that tones it down to 3lbs is also readily available and should not be pricey.

Hard to find and good set both are subjective measures. For carbs on a Z the best choice is the SU pair. Unless you are ready to pay real money to fully prepare an engine, in which case three side draft Webers are neat. SUs are better in that they are vastly easier to set up and maintain. But the Webers have a whole lot more potential to make power. All at vastly more cost. A decent pair of SUs can be found with effort. As I wrote a few days back, condition is important. There are lots of pages on the web discussing these things. And plenty of discussion on this board, go find the section on fuel delivery. Have you visited ZTherapy's site? There is information there.

Huh! Now I just gotta figure the compression ratio. 9.5 to 1 or so?

So I am sort of wondering: The 2.6 ran flat top pistons, so in that it is correct for a P79. I'm trying to think what else would need to be adjusted to make it work? I'm expecting that the valves cannot be sufficiently relieved into the block. Thoughts?

Ah, well, fair enough. I would consider changing the sump etc on the 2.8, but I concede that that sounds a like a bit of work. Still, look at the measures some will go to to gain 10hp!

Oh, the fuel lines, pump and tank on your 240 probably will not support the FI. Use the search tool here, there is quite a lot of discussion on the matter, as hundreds of 240s have had 280 FI swapped in.

Let me see if I understand you: You have a carb'd L28 and you want to take it back to FI? You won't get a full set of instructions on a board like this. You need to get some of the manuals that go with that set up. And don't expect it to go quickly, either. Swapping the carbs on is much quicker than reinstalling the FI, especially if you have no idea how the FI should look. You need to have the donor car right next to the 240. And you need to photo the living crap out of the donor before you start. I don't envy you. FI intimidates me.

Oh, that pink house with the ratty paint behind my car? That was a location on Desperate Housewives.

If you achieve a proper ground between the block or starter and the chassis, then at minimum the starter will not cook the smaller wires that can also make the circuit. The ground is required just to fire the spark plugs. To say nothing of the fact that the alternator is trying to charge the battery and relying on a proper ground. A running engine draws plenty of amps, and if you had only say a choke cable tying the engine to the chassis, the cable would get red hot. Enough to burn you severely. It is critical that the ground is valid at both ends. The bolt that holds the starter to the trans is pretty good at that end. I would not use the firewall for the other end. As I wrote, on my Stag, I drilled a large hole, for say a 1/2" bolt, down thru the chassis rail, which is a box section and is very thick, and used that to ground the strap. And do clean away the paint such that the eye of the ground strap is copper to steel. There are electrically conductive greases. They come in tubes like toothpaste. They can be very handy in old cars. I had my entire electrical harness apart as I restored my Stag (but not pulled out of the car) and I used the grease pretty liberally. Be careful not to bridge across paired contacts. But where you expose steel to get a ground, a good smear of the grease both assures conductivity and keeps the rust at bay. I'm running a 70% confidence that your whole problem was the lack of a proper ground. As another respondent suggested, the chassis might not be a brilliant conductor 30 years after the car was stamped out and welded together, but at least you are unlikely to do more damage. There MAY be some major grounds in the wire harness that you have not respected, in the engine bay. These would be much smaller wires, but with an eye meant to be bolted to sheet metal or the chassis. Check those for security, cleanliness, and just basic existence.