FastWoman

BTW, we electrificate our tools down here: [ATTACH=CONFIG]http://thereifixedit.files.wordpress.com/2009/12/129057438342972414.jpg[/ATTACH]

Bart, I had that happen to one of my thermo housing bolts. It was the craziest thing I had ever seen. The bolt turned great, but it would get jammed in the unthreaded thermo housing hole by corrosion. I could NOT wiggle/work the corrosion loose, and the bolt head eventually rung off. Then I had to pry the thermo housing off of the bolt's stump. (It wasn't easy.) Anyway, thanks for the warning! Blue, that looks far superior to the round ones we use down here!

No, don't run the engine when you're bleeding the brakes. The sinking of the brake pedal when you start the engine is the result of vacuum being applied to the brake booster, which pushes harder on the master cylinder's piston. However, pedal movement is all that is important. Moreover, you don't want to bleed brakes with the sort of pressure that will be created with the master vac working. You say the brakes will pump up, but will fade away if you keep steady pressure on the brake pedal. This makes me think you also have a bad master cylinder. If the car has sat a very long time (years), then I would not be surprised if you have multiple problems with the brake hydraulics (air in lines, bad master, bad cylinders, bad calipers).

Additionally, Hanes manuals are useless. You can download Nissan's Factory Service Manual at www.xenons30.com. That said, a points ignition system is pretty simple. With the ignition on, you should have +12 constantly to the + post of the coil. The points in the distributor are like a telegraph key and will alternately ground and lift the ground to the (-) post of the coil. When this happens, a spark will be generated. If you connect the black probe of your multimeter to ground and your red probe to the coil's (-) post, you should see the voltage fluctuate between +12 and 0 as the engine slowly cranks. (Well, there might be a drop resistor inserted in there, so maybe these are not the correct figures, but it will fluctuate. If the voltage is fluctuating, but you have no spark, then your coil is bad. If the voltage isn't fluctuating, then something might be wrong with your points.

about 800 (assuming you have a manual transmission) If your idle is not steady and reliable, you might need to tweak it just a bit higher. Just curious -- Why had the wire become disconnected? (Enquiring minds.... )

Maybe one with a nice automatic?

I got the fancy Canuck-styled vicegrips. Cool! Now all I'm waiting for is the @$%ed EGR valve for my Saturn. I had ordered from GMPartsShop.com, and they took nearly a week to cancel my order, when I had been expecting to receive the part in the mail. Grrrrrr.... So my Saturn sits in the driveway, disabled, and I have to get it running again before I launch into the Z. Soon...

Supposedly the home-brew acetone/ATF mixture is the best performing stuff, by far. I once saw some controlled test results comparing various penetrating oils and the home-brew stuff thrown in just for laughs. You might try whacking the end of a long wrench with a big rubber mallet. You can get quite a lot of torque that way.

Download the FSM for your car (www.xenons30.com), and/or refer to the schematic Blue posted in this thread. The FSM diagram will show color codes. Follow the color-coded wires from point to point. I believe there should be a wire from your relay to the firewall connector and then another from that connector to the fuel pump. Unplug your relay, disconnect the firewall connector, and disconnect your fuel pump. Check continuity separately for both lengths of wire. Also check for shorts to ground. You should quickly discover where the problem lies. You might have to unwrap some of the wiring harness to find the problem, once you narrow down where it is. If you want a fuel pump cut-off switch (e.g. as an anti-theft defeat switch?), buy a DPST or DPDT switch from Radio Shack. Use the switch to interrupt both wires 76 and 36 (each with its own pole of the switch), as shown in Blue's diagram. If none of this makes sense to you, I'd advise not attempting it.

If your ECU has power and you are certain there is no pulse at the injectors, you might have a bad connection (or disconnection) between the (-) terminal of your ignition coil and the #1 terminal of your ECU. This is the signal the ECU uses to trigger injector pulses. It's also possible you don't have +12V to the drop resistor assembly (beneath the master cylinders), then feeding to the injectors. You can test this at the ECU connector, per the instructions in either the Factory Service Manual or the EFI Bible.

Cool! That was pretty fast!

coolant temp sensor

That doesn't look too bad, Slight, especially being from Arizona. I had a 4 speed in my '75 from long ago, and I longed for a 5 speed. Now that I have a 5 speed in my '78, I'm not sure that it's such a big deal. I suppose it depends on where you drive it. However, my '75 with its 4-speed got along just fine on the highway.

That's the kind I put on my engine -- probably from the same seller, although I don't see any link or auction number in your post. No problems with mine. They hold pressure just fine, and all my cylinders are burning at the same mixture. I had two minor complaints: (1) The rubber pigtails were too short by about 3/4". I had to cut them off and replace them with longer lengths of hose. (2) The plastic molding had tiny burrs around the electrical connector that I had to trim away with a razor blade (not a serious issue, just annoying). BTW, get some of these clamps from Summit Racing: http://www.summitracing.com/parts/CCA-G3912/ I don't remember whether this was the right size for the fuel injection hose. (Measure.) However, these little clamps are outstanding! They're smooth on the inside and won't chew up the hose. Furthermore, they're flexible enough to conform very well even to a small hose.

Thanks, guys!

Your warm resistance sounds like it's in the right ballpark. It would be great to get a cold resistance. It should be around 2.5 kOhms at room temperature. If you're not getting any reading at all, the CTS might be defective. That would make your engine run really rich when it's cold. The slight shifting around in your readings is normal. If the numbers only change a little, you've got good contact. If they change a LOT, then you don't have good contact, and you need to have cleaner contact points. The lowest reading is the correct one.

The AAR won't make any noise. There's a heater inside it that will heat up a bimetal strip, which will slowly turn a damper to close the passage between the two tubes. Check the resistance between the two connectors. It should be about 65 Ohms, give or take. If it's ANYWHERE in that neighborhood, it's electrically good. That doesn't necessarily mean it's mechanically good. You'll know the mechanics are good if the engine starts with a higher idle and smoothly drops to a lower idle over a minute or so.

You're going to have to get a Californian to help you with that. We don't know what CO is here in Virginia!

My reputation preceeds me! It sounds like everyone else has covered it so far. Go through your entire fuel/intake system to find any vacuum leaks (there are probably at least a few), anything out of spec, and parts that don't work, etc. After you think you have your intake tight, you should leak test it. Find a way to stuff up your air intake air-tight. The easiest way I've found is to remove the AFM and stuff a plastic yogurt cup into the rubber boot. Then pull off the brake booster hose, attach a clean hose to the manifold, and blow into it like you're inflating a balloon. You'll be able to feel how tight the entire intake is by how fast the air leaks back out. You can compare to a controlled leak by pulling the little vaccum hose next to the power booster hose. Air will come shooting out of it as you blow. You should notice a very large difference between air leakage rates with and without this controlled leak. If there is a very obvious/large difference, your intake is probably tight (enough). Check that your vacuum advance is not stuck by removing the distributor cap and giving the breaker plate a twist. It should rotate smoothly under spring tension. This feature is weakly engineered. Rebuilt distributors are available at your local auto parts store. With your distributor working, set your timing. Adjust your valve lash, and check your timing chain alignment per the FSM, using the marks on the cam sprocket. Go through all your engine wiring to ensure that your connectors are clean and good and that your wiring hasn't been creatively altered. (Mine was altered.) Once you get to this point, then we can start diagnosing the AFM and ECU for the proper mixture. If your engine is running lean, the fix is both mechanical (AFM adjustment) and possibly electrical (adding resistance to the coolant temp sensor circuit).

Thanks, ncolz! I've got a pair on order now. I have high expectations out of this tool. Chris, ah do declare... I've had very good luck lately. I went to the auto parts store to buy an OBD-I reader for my '92 Saturn and was told I didn't need one of those expensive things. They gave me a "key" to plug into the the data connector and told me how to read the codes off of the dash. No charge. Almost the same period of time, I pulled the Miata into a garage with what appeared to be a nail in the tire. They pulled it out and found it was only 1/2" long. It hadn't quite punctured the tire. No charge. So you've got me curious about this book... Obvious, that makes sense. Fortunately I have a very friendly inspection station nearby. Last time I took my Z there, only a few days ago, the kid who does the inspections said, "Oh yeah, I remember THIS car!" I showed him the prior year's improvements, he was impressed, he checked the turn signals, and that was it. Hey, can y'all tell me about old brake tubes? Do they get rusty, or are they probably fine? Should I consider installing new hard lines? Also the last master cylinder was 2007 (probably new, not rebuilt). The fluid is slightly murky. Should I rebuild it?

I don't know how much a non-matching, non-original engine hurts the value of a 240 now, but it will surely hurt the value in the future. See if they have the original engine. The common advice here is to buy the most car with the best body that you can afford. However, I'll give you some different advice. Ask yourself first why you want the car. If you want it as something to tinker on, then it might not give you that satisfaction. If you want it as something to drive around and enjoy, you might get too wrapped up in protecting it, afraid to park it anywhere for fear of getting a door ding. (And people can be mean, BTW. There are two dull dents in my roof, apparently from where someone pounded it with his fist.) If you want a car that you can drive and enjoy, consider one that's not quite so perfect. This is been-there-done-that advice from someone who once owned an absolutely-too-perfect-to-have-fun-in-it '66 Mustang. Of course if what you want is a pretty show car, and you don't like tinkering, this might be your ride.

Just curious -- are you sure 3/4 is the right size? On my '78, the vent hose is 5/8. Hopefully yours is the right size. In the future, you can find large fuel hoses of various sizes at tractor supply companies or from www.hamptonrubber.com (who will ship to you if you ask them nicely).

Try inserting something smooth (a thin piece of sheet aluminum or plastic?) between the grommet and the hose. Slide the grommet into place, and then remove your improvised tool.

The block is the same, so I would think so. Geezer gave me an '82 ZX manifold that I stripped down. It appeared to mount up the same way as on my '78 Z. It's shaped a bit differently, but it has most of the same parts on it too.

Perhaps wire the bulb to the parking light circuit. Then wire the blinker wire to a relay that interrupts power to that circuit. If you want the lights to dim when they flash, instead of going out completely, then bypass the relay contacts with a very low value power resistor. Or maybe you can use a DPDT relay to run the two lights in series to ground when they are to dim. I believe there are also adapters to convert between car tail light wiring and trailer tail lights. I don't know what's available, but check with your local RV dealer.