seattlejester's 1971 240Z

[280zex]

^{I'm not shure why your door and windshield gaskets are not working well for you? I got the same kit from MSA for my 280z and everything fit perfectly!! Send me a text if you get stuck.. BTW did you get your valve train issues sorted out??}

[tamo3]

I think your 200sx speedo is not compatible with 280z.

I pulled out speedos from 280zx. This is matching color with what datsunzgarage described.

 

 

I have yet to mess with the float levels, and I have an electric pump .

 

My synchrometer sk arrived a few day ago, so I got my carbs balanced. And with the addition of some carb dampening oil, the start procedure takes about 10-20 seconds. I imagine with the chokes in place that should really alleviate my start issues.

 

I asked the autoparts store and they were perplexed by my request for straight 20wt oil.

Went to the hardware store and voila

 

Now that I have my tach installed and am starting on my instrument panel and accessories, I decided the speedo should be addressed. My options were either a GPS speedo, use my phone, or to try and get the stock gauge working. I remember looking up the correct cog a while back for ~28$. Upon looking back it now runs 61$ O.o, with a 3 month shipping period. A quick look through my local junkyard and I found a 1986 200sx, which by all accounts should have the correct cog, based off of wikipedia, datsunzgarage, and other online sources. You can imagine my surprise when I pulled this:

Now that does not look like a red cog at all! According to the color chart, the white cog should be a 3.9 which never came on the 200sx, and counting the teeth tells me it is a purple cog with 21 teeth! Or am I really confused and suppose to be counting the spaces in between the teeth?

 

Very confused at this point. I'll have to consider my other options soon if this does not pan out.

[seattlejester]

280zex: I just might send you that text, the gasket issues are driving me nuts and I think it is about time I address them. I e-mailed MSA to see if they have any other tips to offer.I bought some sealing tape in case all else fails, permanent waterproof seal they say . I will text you if I can not find a solution!

 

Valve train is spot on the money, she purrrs like a kitten, a 30 foot monster kitten that is! I gained the extra adjustment by grinding down the adjustment nuts to make them skinnier, I have the cold valve gap perfect, I'll have to do a hot gap after I get my exhaust so I can drive the car around without setting off car alarms.

 

tamo3: your white gear looks a lot whiter than the gear I pulled out, maybe my gear is of the purple variety outlined in datsunzgarage for a 4.38. Hopefully nissan calls me back with some good news regarding availability of the correct cog and I can just swap it in. I wonder if that means the PO installed a 4.38 rear end in the 200sx O.o

[Pac_Man]

I'm interested to hear what MSA says about the kit. My car has the seals from when the car was made so I'd like to replace them with the MSA kit but hearing this I'm hesitant...

 

As far as the speedo goes, I just drove around with my GPS one day and got an idea of where common speeds (35, 45, 60) coincide with where I'm revving in gear. Always an option if you have to drive it without a properly calibrated speedo.

[seattlejester]

Work on the car has been slow but steady. Working full time is good in that money is not really an issue anymore, but bad in that I never get to go to the stores since I work 8-6. 

 

So where to start...

280zex I'll be sending you a text soon.

I emailed MSA, no response. Called them and they picked up immediately and I spoke with a rep. He asked for pictures which I sent, he stated that he has never seen this problem before and adding the trim should push the gasket out making it seat better. That makes sense, but if the gasket pulls anymore from the windshield I'm pretty sure the windshield will have gaps between the gasket and the glass instead of the gasket and the body, I'll have to wait for a friend to get started as putting the trim in with the windshield on the car is proving to be a little tricky. When asked about the doors being hard to close, he also stated he had never heard of the issue, (which I find a bit strange given the amount of posts on the subject) but he gave me the helpful advice of hammering the welting down, which I will try. 

Now to answer Pac_Man: my car is not perfect, it has been hit at some point, and I'm pretty sure the windshield must have been replaced in its 40 year life so I can chalk the gasket kit not fitting to those, for now I have duct tape sealing the windshield and I have to slam the hell out of the doors to get them close to lined up with the body . The windshield situation might change for you, but I'm pretty sure most people experience the door gaskets making the door hard to close and instead go with the Kia weatherstripping option.

Getting out requires me to roll the windows down and pull the handle since even with the pulley I can't pull hard enough to disengage the door latch. It is unfortunate, but realistically I was not expecting any miracle of a response since my problems seem pretty normal. I mean seeing 280zex's car with the same kit having no leaks and the minimal effort he has to use to close his doors was infuriating!

 

So I called my local Nissan dealership to see if they could get me the correct speedometer gear. Read them the parts number and the rep said he could have it shipped in a week. Then backpedaled and said it might take longer and he would give me a call when he had a better idea since it was not in the local warehouse. I waited for the phone call that would say that it is no longer available, but the phone call never came. I called back today asking for an update and he replied, "Oh, I have it right hear, no one called you?" So I ducked out of work a little early and skipped to the front counter to receive my speedogear. And after the little switch...

I have everything I need to get my speedo working , saved about 30$ and 3 months wait time!

 

 

Finished up most of my wiring. Re-soldered the fuse box to prevent melt down (will probably replace with a more modern unit down the line), taped down most of my stray wiring, soldered most connections, and got most of my instrument panel wired up and working. 

Now the car securely runs with a digital time, cabin or engine temp, volt reading, and inertial fuel cutoff switch with bypass.

Still need to wire up my little LED turn signal indicators and the shift light, (all small discrete LED's), but I'm pretty happy. I had a bit of a moment when I installed the fuel gauge and it read 0 even with ~3 gallons in the cell. Tried swapping the connections etc to no avail. Finally put on some clean gloves and reached down for the sender, to find that the fuel did not come up to the sender! Silly me.

 

Realized there really wasn't anything stopping me from a test drive, since my initial fear was not knowing the revs and stalling the car a whole bunch. Made sure the car would rev freely and gingerly backed it down the drive way and took her for a little run. The car is really loud, but finally driving it was super thrilling. I ended up stalling once trying to go up my driveway, but managed to get back home safely. A quick walk around led me to realize I still hadn't made a battery tie down so that is next on the list!

 

Also managed to call the local exhaust shop. I could try making my own exhaust, but why go through the trouble of measuring and welding when there is a very reputable shop right down the street? For mandrel bent 2.5 inch exhaust piping from the header back with flanges (to take off portions, like a mid section for tranny work or an o2 sensor install, or the muffler portion for a new muffler), flex pipe (he was a little skeptical about this, but I wanted to add one as the PO had ripped out the exhaust hangers twice with the exhaust), all tucked nicely, I was quoted 300$, that's cheaper than an exhaust system for my daily!

 

My goal for this week is to have the car registered and insurance paid for, so I can enjoy it a little before this year ends!

 

List to address:

Gasket fitments and install (general waterproofing)

Hood and inspection cover install

Battery tie down

Driver door paint and window crank mechanism (keeps falling off the rail)

Turn signal and shift light pod

Exhaust

Carbs running lean (popping at 4k)

 

 

The list keeps getting shorter .

Edited December 12, 2012 by seattlejester

[Boog]

Just read the whole thread, and wow am I impressed. I also live in WA (Sammamish), and although I know almost nothing about these cars, I own one, and I would love to stop by and see what I just read about for an hour

[seattlejester]

Boog, sure would love to have ya, but let me clean up the garage a bit and get the car a little more sorted!

 

So turns out the speedo housing is off as well. I planned on having this be a quick affair, pop out old housing insert new housing loose minimal tranny fluid. Ended up loosing almost all the 2 quarts. Tried to get it in for over an hour and the housing just wouldn't go in. Went on the internet and found that if the wrong housing is used it slots in upside down. Tried that out and it slipped in no problem...Decided to just notch the opposite side of the housing and call it a day. 3 hours on my back laying in tranny fluid is enough for one day.

 

Wish me luck guys, I have to install the hood, gaskets, mirrors, and somewhat waterproof my car tonight, taking the car on its maiden voyage to the exhaust shop .

[seattlejester]

Sooooo, about time for an update. I received a new camera so I have been taking pictures with that, and I just never really got around to uploading them till now. This is going to be a long one.

 

Pretty much the voyage did not happen 2 weeks ago. Two friends came over and we prepped, but just ran into problem after problem.

 

Wipers:

I had bought new wiper blades for the little voyage, after putting them on, we found the motor could barely move, and soon enough it popped a fuse. Taking the wipers off and having the wipers in the air we would get a few swipes and then the fuse would blow again. Took apart the wiring thinking it was resistance in the plugs, cut the plugs off and wired in new spades. Tried it again and fuse was blown again. Took the motor out of the car and when I connected it to the battery I got one good rotation, and nothing. Looks like I picked a bad motor from the pick and pull .

 

Hood:

As cool as it is to rock the no hood, I really did not want to attract more attention then the open headers would already bring me. The PO had welded the previous hood hinges so I had taken it apart to gingerly remove them from the vehicle. I had planned ahead and had bought a spare assembly but boy was it a chore to try and line the hood up. I definitely have some issues with my panel alignment, there is a good cm get between the fenders and the hood. Not to mention it would not latch correctly, only the hook would latch, but the hood would not lock. 

Artsy friend took the pictures, don't worry about the floor its clean now!

 

Rear Deck Seal:

This actually worked out pretty well, the gasket does not go on how I thought it should, but after adding some weather strip cement, it brought out my trunk to being almost level with the body lines, finally some good news!

 

Inspection Covers:

Further plays  on my fenders not being aligned correctly, with the covers bolted on, they would not close, and I really did not feel like making the voyage in the rain with exposed battery terminals so I aborted the whole ordeal. Combined with my duct taped windshield gasket, lack of mirrors, loose sway bar and steering rack, I called it off.

 

 

 

I spent the following week working on the windshield gasket, managed to put in the chrome trim, which pushed out the edges a tad, but not nearly enough to make it leak free.

I then tightened down the steering rack to tie rods, roughly set my alignment, tightened my sway bar, and bolted on the fender mirrors and made the trip

Start of the trip (that's all at idle, almost o revs given!)

, car sat at the shop over new years and I picked it up on tuesday. She lost some of her character, but at least I can drive her now! The instant response of the carbs is almost ridiculous, a touch of the throttle and the engine is singing at 3-4k rpm, combined with the 4.11 diff she just takes right off, and I have to shift before I can even think about looking at the speedo, just a real fun ride.

 

On wednesday I decided to take her out for a spin, to grab some gas to see if I can trigger my sender to give me a reading of more than 0. Ran down to the local station, put in some gas only to find to my dismay, no reading. Somewhere my sending wires are confused.

 

Found out an interesting problem I have never dealt with before, when you are on a hill the weight of the car compresses the rear springs a tad more, in essence shortening the length of the parking brake cable. On my way back when I had stalled on the hill up to my garage and my neighbors were at the bottom of the driveway chatting, pulling the parking brake did nothing to keep the car from rolling down the hill. Ended up giving a bit of over throttle and dropped the clutch and squeaked the wheels (did I mention this is my first manual?).

Internal adjustments make it a breeze to adjust, but somewhere along the line I must have lost the travel that the cable travels. I think I'll increase the lever arm so the cable is pulled a greater distance, hopefully that will solve my problem.

 

After that embarrassing episode, I took a step back to admire my somewhat road worthy car. Only to find some fluid on the ground where I had stalled. Worriedly I ran my hand through the two patches, one was distinctively oily and the other distinctively coolant colored! I looked around, but I really could not tell where the fluid had originated from as my engine was painted black and the bottom of the car was somewhat damp from the drive home.  So I wiped up as best as I could and left a cardboard piece underneath the car to trace my leaks.

I almost cried at what I found the next day, all along the passenger side, drips from the oil filter, transmission, oil pan, oil pan drain plug, between the head and the block and between the valve cover and the head! My brain was racing, blown head gasket, crank seal failure, leaking core plugs, oil filter gasket failure, the possibilities raced in.

But then I found some fluid pooling under the starter, and my brain started working. The starter does not have any oil in it, or run on it nor should oil find a way to be on it, this must have come dribbled down from somewhere else, I kept tracing hire and hire tightening bolts as I went along. I realized I may have forgotten to have fully tightened the cover since my valve gap fiasco so I tightened up the cover and found one coolant clamp that needed a little more tightening.

 

I then decided I really should take a picture of the car outside the garage and while I am at it why don't I practice driving a bit. But man people are ruthless, it is much later in the evening but people are tail gating me up hills and all that fun stuff. I abandoned practicing uphill shifting and found a school parking lot to practice taking off from a stop. A little into the practice I begin to notice the car is having a harder and harder time starting after each stall. I then start hearing a pretty strong screeching noise between 1-2k rpm! I look over at my handy volt meter and it is down from 14 volts, barely hovering above 12. On cranking I am getting about 6.7 volts compared to the usual 7.4-8 volts, my alternator belt was loose! I had brought my tools, but no flash light so I hurried back to the garage. Turned the car off and pulled the alternator out a bit. After firing back up, voltage went straight back to 14 volts even with the fans and lights on, happy days.

 

But then I noticed the motor was once again covered in oil, but this time with the fans on, I could see it was dripping from one corner of the head blowing downwind and was hitting a coolant line, then splashing and coating the starter, filter, and transmission, problem found! Looks like my valve cover gasket is just not good enough, and I will have to order a new one.

 

I have an appointment scheduled with the local Z shop to take a look at some of the alignment and gasket problems I am having, I plan on taking off the door and fenders before then to give them a little better body work and try my hand at one more alignment. Hopefully she will be sorted soon enough and all I have to do is put some miles under my belt.

 

Things to do:

Increase travel distance of parking brake cable.

Replace valve cover gasket.

Repaint valve cover.

Do a hot valve adjust.

Buy a tunable timing light and set timing.

Install choke cables.

Install rear sway bar.

Get fuel gauge working.

Edited January 5, 2013 by seattlejester

[seattlejester]

Addressed some problems today.

 

Wipers:

So I took out my wiper motor to fit the replacement to find one of the screws had snapped. Put in the replacement motor and to my chagrin, the same thing happened--blown fuse. I decided to put in a more modern fuse holder for the wiper assembly with a 5 amp up rated fuse up to 25 amps. The motor struggled and a little smoke came up, immediately shut down the car. 

 

So I went back replaced another screw, and went back to my wiring diagram. Atlantic Z had left one of the wires undone, so I undid that wire (I believe blue-white, the one that had smoked). This wire sends a signal to stop the wipers at the bottom position. So either the alignment and replacement screw had fixed the wiper problem, or the blue white wire causes some kind of issue. I will look at it later, but with the wire disconnected wipers work fine.

 

Oil leaks:

So there was my problem, flipped valve cover gasket...I was so focused on aligning the back (it was hitting a cam tower), I had neglected to look at the front. Bloody stupid.

 

Drivability:

So I am still learning how to drive the car, there is this fear of practicing to far away and running into a problem, and this fear of practicing in the city and holding people up. A welded diff makes things quite interesting. And the quick throttle response makes maintaining rpm quite difficult, the 4.11 diff doesn't help, but it is giving me some shift practice. Would bumping up the throttle help some?

Edited January 7, 2013 by seattlejester

[Gollum]

Some might say that the 4.11 gears might actually help make 1st gear easier to take off in. The most important things in any car to keep the car easy to take off is #1, how heavy the flywheel is, and #2 how forgiving the clutch material is.

 

Just practice. It was kinda funny, one person I taught to drive stick was having a hell of a time getting it down, but once I explained that "it's OKAY to let the clutch slip a bit while the car gets moving"... he was fine. He was used to bikes where you basically go from off to ON with virtually no slip. In a car, slip isn't just okay, it's a necessity (to an extent). In a car like a V8 mustang, you can basically just ease the clutch out in 1st gear with no throttle and the car will take off just fine. But that's an engine with lots of torque and a heavy flywheel.

 

I've driven porsches that were just razor sharp to get used to. Insanely light flywheel, HEAVY clutch engagement, and not nearly enough torque to be kind. The result is a car that you have to give substantial throttle, but time it just right with initial bite. Throttle too soon before clutch grabs and you will either eat through the clutch, or eat through the tires. Too late and you stall.

 

The key to driving any stick, is learning that place where the clutch just starts to bite. In my ZX it's so high (right now, at least 80k+ on this clutch across 15+ years) that sitting in traffic I never go to the floor to disengage. I just put the weight of my leg down and it's enough to hold it just past where it needs to be, then when I want to get going again I just lift right to where I know it's going to grab and start giving it throttle as I ease it past engagement. It's all about learning this dynamic of rolling the throttle on, while rolling the clutch out. You'll get used to it. Practice makes perfect.

[seattlejester]

Thanks for the advice! 

 

I sure will try and practice, I found a nice hill to practice on with a pull off lane, so I can practice getting it in gear and roll back without having to worry much just need to scout some places where I won't be a bother. 

 

Tonight's plan was to fix the E-brake and tighten down/seal some potential rust areas. So I lengthened the arm, which had the unfortunate side effect of making it harder to pull the lever, but I figured I would give it a shot. Pulled down my drive way, but no dice, car just kept rolling down. Works fine on a flat surface, but add some incline and it seems to struggle to keep the car in place. I may have to either re work my solution or just ditch it for a hydraulic setup.

 

So good news! My window is no longer hard to wind up! 

 

I decided after practice I would pay my parents a visit, rolled up to their house and decided I would wind up my windows (first time car would sit outside). They were being a real bugger but I managed to get them up, and as usual slammed my door shut, before I could stop myself, there was my window all over the street.

We swept up the street a bit and I just finished vacuuming the car.

Going to have to source a new window, and probably take out the seats to get all the glass bits.

[tamo3]

I'm sorry to hear that. Hope to find new window soon.

[Gollum]

Real men don't run windows. Saves quite a bit of weight.

 

Common' man, it doesn't get THAT cold up there.  

[seattlejester]

Cold isn't the problem it's the rain!

 

Have 2 sources for a window so I should have one by either tonight or the end of the week. 

Figure while I have the interior seats out, really work on the parking brake, sand down the door and respray, make up my own door cards, touch up some interior paint, and install my kia weatherstripping I picked up, (5$ for all 4 doors ). Hopefully won't happen again with the new weatherstripping installed. Lord knows I am skeptical about closing any car door after seeing that happen.

[Pac_Man]

Let me know how the Kia weatherstripping is... a source would also be great. My car could definitely use it.

[seattlejester]

Hmm looks like my post never made it. 

 

I got my weatherstripping from the local pick and pull, 5$ for all 4 doors. I was really tired of slamming my door and this seemed to help some (for the time being, more on that later).

 

So with MLK day off, I decided I would try and take my car to a local shop for it to be looked over. Drove over to a friends and had him give me his first impressions, since he was familiar with a manual. Somewhat startling throttle (strong resistance in the beginningl), low brake engagement point, and high clutch engagement were what we agreed on. From his house on the way to the shop I noticed my alternator once again slowly running down with my voltage dropping from 14 down to 13 then all the way down to 11.X. I thought I was facing brown out with so I tried to give it some revs at a stop and stalled, the battery was drained and didn't have enough juice to get started. Luckily the people behind me were nice and drove around, and my friend popped out, pushed the car around the corner and I threw it in first and got the car going again. We literally limped our way to the shop but we made it.

 

For those of you unfamiliar with the area, other than the few local part hoarders (where I purchased the glass, diff, and many other tid bits), there is Z specialties. Owner greeted us and we got right around to looking at the car.

He had quite a few cars, some very much so parts cars, but others in very good nick!

 

Oliver the owner is very knowledgeable and pointed out a lot of shortcomings that I just had not noticed and had most of the parts to replace pieces here and there. He even pointed out that the precision kits were quite well made and that in fact the fault usually was with the door alignment. He installed a replacement alternator (a stud on the stock one had rattled loose on the inside of the housing, the brakes were adjusted, and the throttle was lubed and such, the car was tweaked so much that I stalled trying to drive the car off the lot! 

 

Armed with new knowledge and motivation I will start to tackle the issues I faced on the trip:

The doors and body panels not lining up.

Windows not winding up all the way.

The right turn signal could not be used as the autocancel stub was sticking right where the signal wanted to engage at a straight line, I would have to turn the wheel a little left or right before signalling for a right turn.

Front right turn signal would not work.

Wouldn't be able to tell when the signal was still on (after market tach, exhaust too loud to hear relay)

Lack of heater made driving around very cold.

Low grunt in the mid range power band

Lack of brake pedal feel

Really slow cold starts

Running rich?

 

Some have been addressed, and some I have parts/clear direction to address them. Will update at a more sane time. Made it home from a 100 mile trip with minor issues, so good news there. 400 miles to go before changing my oil and taking the car up to redline for the first time .

[Pac_Man]

Oliver is a knowledgeable guy... likes to tell stories, too.

 

Unfortunately I can't afford to hand him my car and ask him to wave his wand and give it back in tip-top shape after a couple weeks. I'm trying to figure out my door situation but it's a genuine PITA.

[seattlejester]

He sure is!

 

But the car feels quite a bit better now, he sold me a check valve for my brake booster as well as a tougher hose and the brakes feel very firm from the start, and the hose on the distributor must have been leaking because after I replaced it, the car seriously pulls quite a bit harder. 

 

I hear ya on the doors. I'm going to try and give it a real serious effort with rulers, shims, and all that jazz and see if it pays off. For the windows I'm thinking of making some spares in lexan so I can slam to my hearts content. And I think I will seam seal the windshield gasket to fill the gaps.

 

Immediate goal for this weekend is to get the car running a tad better, lowering the idle (I've had it set a little high so I don't stall, a very neat little trick ), adding the chokes, re sync the carbs, separate fuel overflow lines (apparently having them linked can cause a rich issue), leaning out the fuel mixture, setting floats, replace air filter, adjusting timing and maybe even throw in a valve to adjust the distributor advance.

[Pac_Man]

If you have to raise the idle to avoid stalling you need to learn how to drive it lol. Learning with a crutch will only make it harder later.

[seattlejester]

I have about an hour of driving a manual over 8 years before this car so cut me a break, eh ? I did lower it last weekend as part of my to do list, I just really enjoyed the help it provided on hill starts . And I think a lot of things should actually be learned with a crutch. Sink or swim can be pretty rough experienced first hand.

 

Anyways, so I've been addressing some of the issues lately. As well as looking at some things I shouldn't have...

 

I split the fuel overflow as I was told that can cause some richness issues, and adjusted the clutch to be a little more friendly. 

 

Ordered a hydraulic e-brake to replace the line lock, as it will actually lock regardless of temperature (I hope).

 

I even got around to readjusting my signal stalk using zeiss's video. I thought, "well I won't loose the ball and spring like he did, I'll work in my living room on a clean desk." And it seems like the karma fairy heard me and within a minute I lost the ball bearing. Luckily his little blurb on getting new ball bearings from zerk fittings saved the day.

 

One problem everyone has been pointing out is my super touchy throttle. Initial push on the throttle was very stiff, and then it would let go, making for a very jerky action, making it very difficult to drive. A little googling showed this is actually a fairly common problem, with solutions ranging from a little bit of grease, all the way to cutting and welding the linkage arm at a different angle, and even replacing the linkage system altogether. I decided I would try some of the mild methods first before resorting to some other extreme methods. I pulled the swivel linkage from the firewall and liberally greased that, noticed it was bent a little and straightened it out. Greased the bearings on the carb and even went with the hockey stick bend on the final linkage from the throttle to both carbs. And now the car revs very smoothly!

 

I still think I have a small leak somewhere, still have to trace that to it's source, but the car is fairly drivable.

 

I bought some ceramic heaters which look absolutely silly but will keep the windshield clear so I will have to look into mounting those either skip the form and mount on the dash, or try and make a funnel and mount it underneath to blow air through the stock vents.

 

Another thing on the list is a carbon monoxide meter, when I drive I usually don't notice, but if I'm testing something in the garage, it becomes quite unbearable very quickly, for 30-100$ I think it's pretty fool hardy not to have one until I'm 100% sure the cabin is CO free.

 

I don't think I will update for another two weeks as I look into the future of what I want for this car. Will update with pictures later tonight.