Days and Days of searching, I need help please?!

[RyuZ32]

Almost two years ago, I got my dream car. A classic Datsun Z!(77 280 EFI) After trial and error working on it trying to figure out why it would not run for longer then twenty minutes I finally just pulled the motor. Blown Piston rings, crappy injectors, and after some financial issues, I finally got to finish up my rebuild this past winter. Motor is in, trans is in. My car does not work.. at all. Everything worked before the pull, now something is toasted. I have no lights, no electrical power what so ever. New batt, new cables, new terminals, new EGI relay, new ignition control module, still no juice. While testing theories the other day with a wire jumper to test connection I popped a Fusible link under those little white caps, now im fixing that, but still no juice. The batt has continuity, the harness shows juice with a test light, but still nothing works, also the other day while testing what had power the ECU started to heat up rather quickly. I hope someone can help, all the money i just poured into her shes still sitting still. Any help is greatly appreciated, i have searched forums after forums and no one seems to have my exact same issue. Lmk what you guys think please?

Thanks in advance

Thomas

[Zed Head]

You'll need to be more specific, for your own testing and for describing what's going on. You said the harness shows juice, but what does that mean? A couple of sentences before you said "no juice". If you're using a jumper to apply power to various spots, that's not good (as you've found with the blown link).

Are you sure the ECU was heating up? It's rather big and the components would have to generate a lot of heat to heat up the whole thing. Maybe you meant coil or some other component? No offense, but it looks like you're in unfamiliar territory and could do some damage while you're learning.

If the battery is hooked up correctly (don't trust the colors of the cables, verify that negative goes to ground and positive to the starter lug) and the fusible links are intact, you should at least get dome lights, radio, heater fan or something. The headlight dimmer switch is notorious for killing the headlights so "no headlights" after two years doesn't tell much.

Good luck and be careful with that jumper wire.

[d240zx2]

What Zed Head said, plus make sure your grounds are grounded.

[madkaw]

Okay- take a deep breath- Aahhhh

Onemore time now- deep breath, now exhale - good

Welcome to Classic Z car. We are always willing to help, but help us help you. Your first post is a lot of info crammed into one paragraph- too much actually .

Start from the beginning- " I just recently rebuilt my motor and have installed it and...

It does seem as if you have missed a very important item somewhere since you have no power anywhere in your car. Have you looked at a wiring schematic? Besides the actual battery cables there are some rather important wires that if not hooked up would kill everything.

Did you make any changes to any wiring?

Battery tested good?

Grounds very tight ?

Fusible links intact?

Dilithium crystals on impulse power?

All kidding aside, give us all info, pics you can and we can help you figure this out

[RyuZ32]

Ok sorry. Stressed to the max.

Previous to pulling the motor everything worked. Motor is rebuilt and back in the car. Now, I have no headlights, no tail lights, no interior lights, no power to anything inside or outside the car. When I put the test light on the harness it lights up. Terminals are new, batt cables are new.

[RyuZ32]

And every ground I could find is hooked up.

[rcb280z]

Check fusible links, all of them including the one that connects to the battery and report back what you find.

[RyuZ32]

The one that goes to the battery, has been spliced into before. I popped one of the fusible links the other day so I'm putting a fix on it to see what's up. But hopefully I get some sort of response with that later today. I don't know. I will probably take some pictures so people can see what the PO did before I bought it.

[rcb280z]

That's a good idea. I have a 77 also and was crusing one day when everything stopped working....a fusible link was loose!

[RyuZ32]

This is all the pics I just took. I'm stain right next to her as I post this. Any help is greatly appreciated. All the splices were done like this when I bought the car.

[PastorMike]

Those battery terminals are notorious for making poor connections.

Start testing at the battery posts (the lead post itself) and move further away from the battery; keep one test lead on the negative post, and move the positive test lead, and vice versa. At some point, you will find no power.

IMPORTANT POINT: With a low-current tester like a small light or especially a VOM, you might read a voltage, but not be able to deliver any current past a high-resistance contact.

Mike

[RyuZ32]

I've done that a few times and lost power inside the car. Found out why and solved that problem but still no electrical power or nothing