Teekass

An easy way to check the fuel pump is to pull the small wire off the starter solenoid (the one that clips on) so the starter won't engage, then hold the ignition key all the way in the start postition. You should be able to hear the fuel pump running (although it's pretty quiet), and if you still have the fuel line disconnected from the fuel rail, you should see fuel coming from it. I'm not sure what year your Z is, but in my 77, the fuel pump will not come on unless the engine is running, or the ignition key switch is in the start position.......safety feature. The link below is for downloadable Factory Service Manuals. If they're available for download, it will say "download" in the far right column.....if it says "Tna" (temporarily not availabe) check back in an hour. They rotate which ones are availabe every hour. Oh yeah, you'll need Adobe or some other pdf viewer. It sounds cumbersome, but this manual is WAY better than any Chilton Haynes, etc. Once you get it, there's a great depiction of the fuel system on page EF-5. http://carfiche.com/manuals021/cars/ One more thing, when I got my Z I had no fuel pressure but my problem ended up being trash in the gas tank. If you suspect that, there's a drain plug on the bottom right of the tank. My tank had so much crud in it that when I removed the drain plug, NO fuel came out. I removed the tank, cleaned it out, and put a clear Fram fuel filter (G2 G4 or something like that, can't exacly remember) between the tank and the fuel pump so I can see if theres any more junk in there. Hope this helps

Sorry I'm late, had to work out of town this week and just got home to watch it on Tivo. Congrats Jon, what a performance and professionalism to boot! You make us all proud to be Z owners.

Good point Drew. My thought is that I'm spending so much time tracing, and trying to figure out how to make my factory harness work when I could be spending that time installing the Painless Harness.....not anymore. I'm definately getting a Painless Harness. Since it's not a daily driver, I don't mind taking my time and doing it right.....bottom line is I want it to be right! Thanks to everyone for the responses.

I did think about that, and figured mabye the V8 guys were more likely to change their harness since more stuff doesn't match up. Not sure if it was the right move though.

I've done a bit of searching, but can't find many posts of peoples feelings after installing a Painless Harness. I found several posts of people who were frustrated with trying to make their old corroded harness work and were getting a Painless Harness, but they never post how happy (or disappointed) they were after they installed it. I'm considering the 12 or 18 circuit non-gm harness (Part#'s 10102 & 10202), and was hoping to get some feedback. Thanks alot,

Is that his clip on your car? J/K!

Man, that is so true....I got my Gen I engine in a few days ago, so I know just what you mean. Congrats, your's looks great! Around the block with no exhaust.....that's Awesome!

Thanks to your old mounts !

Whew! I flushed the milky oil, then replaced the oil and oil filter last night. I started the engine today, and the oil is clean as a whistle . I brought it up to temperature 3 times total, checking the oil in between, and not a trace of water in it. It must have been either condensation, or water that was introduced while it was on the engine stand (since I saw it in the filter before it was put in the car).....I do have an inquisitive 6 year old who knows how to operate a water hose while I'm not looking . Thanks again for all the troubleshooting ideas. Chris

Mabye it's wishful thinking, but since the oil filter had milky stuff in it, before I ever put water in the engine, I'm hoping it's condensation.

Anyone ever seen this? I put a new oil pump in a 350 that hasn't been started in 5+ years. I added new oil and filter, and primed the oil pump for a couple minutes (oil pressure held steady at 50 psi). I then removed the oil filter and it had a white pasty sort of gunk in it. At this point, I had NOT yet put water in the engine. I assumed the milky stuff was either accumulated condensation in the oil galleys, etc......or something placed in the oil pump from the factory to prevent the need for priming (I've heard of people packing oil pumps with petroleum jelly, etc) Anyway, I chunked that filter, and put on another one, checked the oil (which was clean), filled the cooling system with water, and started the engine. I only let run long enough to get a little heat in it (30 seconds or so), then shut it off, and rechecked the oil......now the oil is milky. The engine ran great, plugs looked good after shutdown, no water in the header or strange sounds after shutdown to make me believe head gasket or intake gasket problem, no external leaks like......dare I say it....cracked block. I'm hoping it's still drawing condensation from within the engine, and thereby changing the color of the oil. I plan to change the oil and filter again, and see what happens. Any ideas? Thanks, Chris

Got my engine in and started today. Turned over twice, and fired right up...........luck. Still no exhaust, driveshaft, etc. Anyway, thanks again to all those who've helped thus far.

Thanks for the reply Doc. It was late last night, and I didn't even think to check the mounting area of the flexplate for warpage (I layed it on a flat surface, and checked the ring gear). If the flexplate were to bend, my guess is it would bend at the mounting area *crosses fingers.* For some reason, I didn't even think of that last night. I'll post my findings when I get my new TCI (SFI 29.1) one in there. Thanks again, Chris

I tested my new starter today (with the engine on an engine stand...no convertor or transmission), and noticed my flexplate wobbles a bit (from front to rear) when the engine turns over. I removed the flexplate and layed it on a flat surface to see if it was warped, but it didn't appear to be. I put the flexplate back on, and used a dial indicator to check the runout of the flexplate.....The runout is .040 total (I zeroed the dial indicator, and turned over the engine by hand to rule out the starter causing the wobble. The dial indicator moves from plus .020 to minus .020). My guess is that my crank flange is warped......I've run the engine for a while in another vehicle, and never had a problem. It must have been this way the whole time. My question is....Is this within tolerance? I'm no geometry major, but I would guess the crank flange runout wouldn't be more than .010. Oh yeah, it doesn't move enough for the starter to disenge (or even come close for that matter). I'm more concerned with the wobble causing problems with the transmission input shaft, etc. Thanks in advance, Chris

Leaning the mixture will cause the exhaust gas temperature to increase, but only to a point....continuing to lean past that point will actually cause the EGT to decrease. I learned this during my days of flying piston powered airplanes. Airplanes have a mixture lever that directly controls the amount of fuel going into the engine. When you set cruise power, you lean the mixture while watching the EGT gauge. The EGT will go up to a peak, then start to come back down. There is a second needle on the outside of the EGT gauge that you move to mark what the peak EGT temperature was (normally around 1,500 degrees F). Most people set the mixture at the peak, then richen the fuel until the EGT drops 50-75 degrees F (known as "rich of peak"). Another method is to lean the mixture 50-75 degrees "lean of peak".....better fuel economy but expect to replace cylinders more frequently. With all that said, my guess is that a lean mixture alone wouldn't cause an abnormal amount of heat in the headers. If you get bored, look at this airplane engine....I'm always amazed at the displacement of airplane engines......550 cubic inch 6 cylinder . http://www.tcmlink.com/EngSpecSheetDocs/TSIO550C.pdf

I got the operation of mine figured out today ('77 2+2 with factory A/C....although I've removed all the A/C components). The heater valve actually has 2 seperate valves (one beside the other). The water enters the valve through the top firewall inlet (the short piece of pipe from the block). This valve is vacuum operated and opens whenever a "heat function" is selected on the controller (you know, the ones with a red arrow on them....Bi-Level, Heat, Defrost, etc.) This valve does not consider the "temperature" that is selected, only the mode selected (Bi-level, Heat, Defrost, etc.). If the first valve is open, the water then goes to the second valve that is controlled by the "temperature" selector. There is a mechanical cable that moves a plunger in or out of the valve. With "Full Hot" selected, the water flows freely through the heater core.......what I found interesting was that with "Full Cold" selected, the water still flowed through the heater core, but at a much reduced rate. The only way to completely stop the flow of water through the heater core was to select a "Cool" function, thereby closing the first valve. One more item....mine also had a copper temperature lead that went from the bottom of the air box up to the second valve assembly. My guess is that it's some sort of automatic temperature control function (it's now in the garbage if anyone's interested) .

How about something like this? http://www.partsamerica.com/ProductDetail.aspx?mfrcode=FSE&mfrpartnumber=74819&parttype=394&ptset=A

Hey Datsun, I think the guys at MSA are correct. I'm no expert on the subject, but I did tear mine apart today (trying to figure out why my heater control valve isn't opening) and in my '77 2+2 there is a vacuum line that runs up to the heater control valve (along with a mechanical linkage, and some sort of copper temperature lead looking thing). That particular vacuum hose comes out of the control panel and into a Tee....one side of the tee goes to the heater control valve, and the other side of the tee goes to an actuator that operates a door that directs the air across the heater core or the a/c evaporator. I sucked on the tee, and the door closed to direct the air across the heater core. My guess is you must first select "heat" with the mechanical linkage, then the Heater control valve uses vacuum to open.....but thats just a guess. Tomorrow I will run a vacuum line from the intake directly to the control valve, and hope it opens. If it doesn't open, it will reinforce my theory of how confused I really am . Chris

For whatever it's worth, I have a '77 2+2 and just recently put new poly bushings up front, and used my old rack. I did replace the tie rods, ball joints and wheel bearings.....but the old rack still works great. Before I started, I had 270 degrees of steering wheel play . Now the steering is tighter than....well I'll just say it's really tight . As far as your rough running symptoms....I recently went through what might be the exact same thing. My gas tank was so clogged that the engine would run for about 30 seconds before the fuel pump began to starve for fuel. The pressure would start around 30 psi, then drop to 20 after about 30 seconds (thats when it began to run rough). The pressure would drop a couple pounds per second until around 10 psi where it would finally quit (Around 1 minute of total run time). After I cleaned the gas tank out, the engine would idle great, but not have any power. Next, I cleaned all of the EFI connections with DeOxit, and now the engine runs like a top. There's not a DeOxit dealer where I live, so I bought the DeOxit at Radio Shack. It's more expensive that way because their cans are much smaller). This guy has a great write up on the EFI connections to clean ("Common 70-83 problems"). It appears the link is bad for some reason. Keep checking back, or try to email him if you can find an address. http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/misc.htm'>http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/misc.htm http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/ He also has some good info on the bushing upgrades. As far as the top end noise....my injectors make alot of racket, maybe yours do too? I took a long 3/8 drive ratchet extension and held my ear to it, and put the other end on one of the injectors. Then I moved it to the valve cover, and it was pretty obvious that my noise was coming from the injectors. Hope this helps....now I'm off to the search engine to figure out how to get my heater valve to open....arrgh. Chris

The fuel filter is between the gas tank and the fuel pump, right? Not having the throttle linkage hooked up wouldn't affect anything. If it idles too low, there is and idle adjustment screw on the linkage (where the throttle cable hooks to it) screw it clockwise to increase idle speed. As far as the manual choke goes, I don't think it makes a difference if it's hooked up or not.....as long as it's not moving on it's own. Take the air filter off, and make sure the choke stays open the whole time the engine is running (may have to pump the throttle a bit, to keep it running until it warms up). If the choke were to vibrate itself closed, that could definately kill the engine. After it warms up though, it should run fine with the choke open.

Did you hook the fuel pump back up before you started it? If it ran fine without the fuel pump on, the problem must be related to the fuel pump.......(fuel pressure or float settings). If the fuel pump was on, I'm curious why you need to bleed the fuel line again.......Is the fuel pump inlet below the gas tank outlet? Most electric fuel pumps can't suck fuel to them, so they must be mounted that way. Another thing....my car did the exact same thing when I first bought it (ran great for about 20 seconds, then went downhill from there.....and would quit after about 1 minute total). My problem was caused by debris in the gas tank. My first guess was water in the gas....I removed the gas tank drain bolt, and much to my suprise.....NOTHING HAPPENED . There was so much debris in the tank, that the drain hole was plugged. The fuel pump couldn't draw enough fuel to keep the fuel pressure where it needed to be (Fuel Injected). As the pressure fell, so did the idle quality until it finally quit running. It ran great though for the first 20 seconds.

Thanks Guys, I didn't even think of the "twisting" issue. I was only thinking about the compression of the bushing.....my thought was that the bushings would only compress until the inners sleeves bound against the bolt and transverse link shoulder (or spindle pin on the outer bushings), so I couldn't understand why I couldn't torque them on the shop bench before installing them........I didn't even think about the bushings twisting once the suspension was loaded....makes perfect sense. Thanks again, Chris

I'm about to reinstall my transverse links (after a bushing, spindle pin, and strut cartridge change), and am curious about something I read in the FSM. It says to torque the vertical bolts on the inner bushings first, then temporarily tighten the big horizontal bolts (and also temporarily tighten the spindle pin nuts). Put the wheels on, put the car on the ground, and re-tighten the Inner Control Arm nuts (along with the spindle pin nuts). My question is are they saying to torque them to spec the first time, then re-check them with the car on the ground? Or not torque them completely the first time, then torque them to spec with the car on the ground? Or maybe I should just ask this way......What's the correct way to do it ? Thanks in advance, Chris

I did the Honda Accord wiper motor upgrade ($30.00 on eBay) about 6 months ago, and am very pleased. On high, they make 60 wiper blade cycles per minute (from the down position, all the way across, and back down again). I didn't time them before the upgrade, but I would guess they made about 20 cycles per minute. As far as not parking themselves, TO ME it's really not that big of a deal (my car isn't a daily driver though). I turn them on low, then turn them off when they're down. It's not hard at all to "catch" them in the park position. I would say....maybe one out of ten times do I miss it on the first try.