Ok, I am the proud owner of an 82 280. The person I bought it from said it needed a new alt. He purchased one but never installed it. Bought the car and drove it home on just the battery. Today I wanted to install the alt. I took the old one out but it didnt match the new one. I went to autozone to make sure the right one was purchased. The alt in the car matched up to a 77 280. The wiring on the back is hacked up so I am not sure how to hook up the alt. Can I make this alt work or not and if I can which wires go where.

If the alternator matched up to a 77 280Z, did the car have the external regulator that goes with a 77 280Z alternator? Either your guy at Autozone was mistaken (that would come as no surprise!) or someone went to a lot of trouble to downgrade the charging system from the internally regulated alternator it should have. If that's true, you'll have to look at both the 77 280Z and the 82 280ZX wiring diagrams, compare them and see what's been changed. I hate PO hackjobs. There's no easy answer to this one. Got any pictures of how the wiring is hacked?

Ok As far as the alternator I went to all of them and the one that was bought was the same at every store. So I am going to go return the 77 alt and get the 82. I still need to figure the wires out, theres two white wires right now have female spade connectors crimped on.

Edited October 26, 200816 yr by jay1161970

Click on this link. It will take you directly to a pdf of the 82 factory service manual which should have the info you need.

Good news for me. I went to pick and pull and grabbed a pig tail off of a path finder. I put the new alt in and it is charging like it should. So thanks for the help. I will be checking in here alot.

ok, so I hadnt touched the car in 3 days and today the battery was completely flat.

I put a meter on the battery and pulled evey fuse to find the draw. No fuse stopped it. I then pulled the pig tail from the alt and it stopped. So I am second guessing the pig tail wiring. There is a blue and a white wire. Which spade does each wire go on so I can re check them.

If it was an earlier car like 75-78 I could likely be of some help but, not being at all familiar with ZX wiring, I'll have to defer to someone who is. David (zbane) comes to mind but I guess he hasn't seen this thread yet.

Here are a couple pages from the 79 FSM. "alt" is just that-the wiring diagram for the ZX alternator.

Now, I'm not sure about the wiring you are talking about (pigtail). If it came from a different model, I'm not sure that the colors would coincide cross-platform. Regardless, the other

pdf is just the magic decoder page for Nissan color abbreviations.

I saw that Stephen provided a link to your year's FSM; I hope you've taken the time to download it: it will be of invaluable service to you (trust me on that).

cablecodes.pdf

alt.pdf

Edited October 30, 200816 yr by zbane

You did not tell us if it was a turbo model or NA model. Thats ok I can help you figure this out. Take a look at the PDF I got for you. Here is the pages you need for the 82 model turbo and NA.

Now after reading the latest poll. I will have to charge you a discription fee, a thought fee, and a pdf page fee.

In all seriousness, you will have to pay nothing to ebay or paypal for this info but you will have to repay us here with pics and progress you make on the new girlfriend.

Pages from Electrical System-2.pdf

Thanks again for the help. I figured out the wires to the pig tail were backwards. I will get some pics up here soon as I find the camera and have some good day light.

As a bonus I found a guy here local that specializes in all Z cars. East Coast Z Car Center.