Zed Head

Are you sure that you unplugged the right relay? Since you have the AFM switch, and the one wire oil pressure sender, the relay should be a 1x1x2" silver box, with two connectors and 11 pins.

I can't decipher your train-of-thought-dump-to-paper writing of your results and don't want to open an FSM to try and figure out what you're reporting, but you must have power to the injectors if they spray fuel when you ground the pins at the ECU. You said that you had continuity from Pin 1 at the ECU to the negative side of the coil (I think). If this is the case, and you want to test the whole circuit and the ECU, then take a jumper wire and connect it to the negative terminal of the coil, leaving the other end free but not touching anything. Turn the key on (listen for the fuel pump to be sure that you have fuel), and tap the end of the coil negative jumper to ground quickly. Every third tap, the injectors should click. If they do, that means the circuit is correct and complete and the ECU is seeing the negative side of the coil. If they don't, and you have Pin 1 connected to coil negative, then you might be missing the resistor in the tachometer wire. Or your tachometer is disconnected. The ECU needs that wire and resistor to work right.

Pretty normal for a car that's been sitting for many years, except for the moaning steering rack. If you put the old parts back in maybe they weren't so fine. The good news is that all of the other things have been covered many times on the forums. Check that you didn't put the calipers on the wrong sides with the bleeder on the bottom. you should be able to bleed them even with a whooshing booster. The whooshing probably means that you need a replacement booster.

If the cam is on the base circle (off of the ramp to the lobe) it shouldn't matter whether the chain is loose or tight. The cam's action on the rocker arm is independent of the chain. A fine point, but one less thing to worry about. I use the high gear and roll it by hand method. It's so easy that I bent my license plate on the garage recycle bin. I would rather use the crank snout bolt but I can't get a tool and my hand down there past the fan shroud.

That's why it's a "funny?" story and I'll be driving at low speeds if I ever have to put it on. It's better than a flat spare.

My spare tire has been flat for quite while, it won't hold air since the rim had rusted and pitted from sitting in the water-filled wheel well before I got the car. I was in the wrecking yard looking for a short drive shaft from an early 240Z and thought the local 1971 240Z might have one. The drive shaft was the typical 280Z length, so that was a no-go, but the spare tire in the car still had air pressure and looked in decent shape. So I bought it for $15. I just looked up Bridgestone RD-150 to see what I had and how old it might be and find that it's probably the original 1971 spare tire. 40+ years old. They sold it to me as a "space saver" mini doughnut tire so I guess I'll use it the same way and stay at low speed if I ever have to put it on.

Agree with Blue, take some good pictures of everything, including parts like the distributor advance mechanism. A video of the engine running would be even better, if you have an ECU and an AFM you can get it running on a stand. There are lots of used engines out there but most of them are mystery motors, that have been sitting for years. Somebody who needs an engine would probably pay a premium to know that it's ready to drop in and run.

Thanks for the link. It might also be convenient for connecting an aftermarket engine management system at the ECU connector, with easy added functionality, if it does what I think it does. I couldn't find a simple explanation of functions on the web site though. It looks like a programmable multi-input, multi-output relay.

It's the switches and connections that are the problem, after 30-40 years of time. What is "the ISIS" system?

Looks fairly normal. If you lowered the back end, it wouldn't be so obvious. The wide gap at the top makes the gap in the front look narrow. Compare the back gap to your front tires' gap, with the wheels straight. There's really only two bushings on each side that would let your rear wheel sit forward. The inner control arm (transverse link) bushings. Have you taken a look at them?

Try any old Nissan or Datsun key in the ignition. It will probably work. The ignition locks are usually worn out and any key that goes in will turn it. The door locks are a different story, but my 1995 Pathfinder key will start my 1976 Z. p.s. I wouldn't waste much more effort on it until I saw the title. If he's lost the key and you're getting the run-around, I would bet that the title is unavailable also. Don't take just a bill of sale, unless Texas has really easy title transfer laws.

There was someone on this forum about a year ago (can't remember his screen name) doing the same thing (maybe in reverse, 78 in a 77) and had nothing but aggravation. Is yours destroyed are you hoping that a full replacement will fix some problems? Many parts of the factory stock harness look like they've been "hacked" on but are actually built that way new. Most of the problems in the old harnesses are at the ends where the connections and corrosion are. Might be more worthwhile to work through the problems one by one.

Here's a YouTube video from one of the more popular aftermarket engine management system suppliers, DIYAutotune, comparing a stock 1978 BMW 325IS ECU to their EMS (tuned by them), and including the effect of removing the AFM. Pretty interesting. Of course, it's the tuning that gives the benefits but the tuning is much easier with today's technology.

The 14.4 volts he's measuring at the alternator should also show up as 14.4, minus the voltage drop along the way, at the thick white wire on the starter lug, which should be connected to the battery through the positive cable. That's where it ends up after it feeds the fusible links along the way through the wiring harness. Did he forget to connect the white wire at the starter? He should see voltage at each of the fusible link terminals also. Has he measured there? The charge light is controlled by the L wire, which comes though the VR plug and harness, if I remember right (it's one of the wires that is reconnected if you swap to an internally regulated alternator). The charge light going out when he revs the engine seems to say that the L circuit is there though, since it's feeding back to the light. I would guess that the alternator is bad and is not getting, or properly using, the excitation current from the L wire. More measurements at more points might show something. Edit - found a mistake in the FSM. Deleted my post-comment.

Found some drawings of the three shifter types - http://www.gracieland.org/cars/techtalk/gearing2.html Down at the bottom.

Do you still have the old one? You should be able to count what's left of the teeth. Fewer teeth will speed up the speedometer. 16 is the smallest change you could make to the next level. Here's a link to study, go down the page about half way to see the options and colors - http://www.geocities.com/inlinestroker/ratio.html Looks like you might have a 3.36 and you installed a 3.54 gear. Edit (slow writer) - looks like agreement on 16, color undecided...

Take the cracked one apart.

Just pointing out the reasons that a blanket statement about any single transmission fluid across all Z transmissions, new and abused, is hard to defend. The Swepco blend that I'm using is working well, considering how bad it was before, and I 'm glad that you pointed me that way.

I wrote a whole dissertation in reply, but realized that it all comes down to the fact that nobody has really shown that to be the case. No offense. I do appreciate your sharing your experience. I've done more straight comparisons between lubricants than any thing I've seen on the forums so far. I ended up at 75% Swepco/25% ATF. Is it better than 50/50? For my one situation and what I wanted, it was. Jon Coffy seems to know quite a bit, and he reported that the Swepco blend destroyed the synchros in his worn transmission. Who to believe? It's a problem. Plus it seems to me that a worn transmission is not the same as a new transmission. New transmissions have more texture on the baulk ring, sharper baulk ring and dog teeth, sharper splines and tighter clearances. It seems to me that these factors would be affected differently by the lubricant used. If new and old were the same, why doesn't plain old 75-90W keep working as the transmission ages? There are tons of opinions out there but little reason shown for the results. Most accounts are "I tried X and it worked - I'm happy and done". We haven't even mentioned Synchromesh yet. Without a good study on the subject, I can't say that one is better than another, for solving any distinct problem. The studies that can be found are all suspect in that they're done by companies selling a product. That's the essence of what I meant by voodoo. Who knows, the OP might have 85-140 wt in his transmission and sawdust to stop a leak? Anything might be better. Crap, I wrote another dissertation. Oh well.

http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/forum/37-nissan-4-cyl-forum/

This is a little awkward. That's me over on Hybridz. I never planned to post on these forums so I have multiple identities. To clear up my situation - with my well-used 1978 5 speed, I had gear-grinding from 2nd to 3rd at high RPM using Valvoline 75-90W gear lube. I went to Redline MT-90 and the problem disappeared, and the low temperature notchiness also. It was like magic. Subsequently, I installed a well-used 1980 5 speed from the local wrecking yard and with MT-90 I had gear-grinding from 1st to 2nd and from 2md to 3rd. I never tried the Valvoline 75-90W in this transmission because the MT-90 had worked so well in the 1978 transmission. That's when I started the thread on Hybridz and, at Jon's suggestion, tried the Swepco 201, Swepco 201 50/50 with ATF, and finally Swepco 201 at 75/25 with ATF. That blend is working very well at this time. I should have added some detail, but based on your description of slight grinding when cold, the Royal Purple or Redline, along with the clutch adjustment seemed like the right path. But, in retrospect, since you don't know what's in there now, maybe going directly to a Swepco blend would be the way to go. I didn't want to complicate what seemed simple, but may have over-simplified. I tried to summarize at the end of the Hybtidz thread but it seems like the solution probably depends on what problem you're trying to fix. fandsw, in summary, it's difficult to tell what is causing your problem, but the fluid used can definitely have an impact. You can see in the post #11 in that Hybridz thread that I'm currently using 75% Swepco 20, 25% Dex-Merc ATF blend. It works very well, for the bad synchros but is still a little bit notchy when cold. It's only like that for a few shifts though. To add to my own perplexation, I just took a junked ZX tranmsssion apart (it sounded like a blender on a motor I have set up to run in my garage, due to someone breaking two shift forks and destroying the main countershaft bearing) and found that the brass synchros looked fine but the dog teeth on 2nd gear were wasted. I had thought that the brass was supposed to go before the steel. It's possible though that someone "rebuilt" the trans with new synchros but left the bad gears in. Anyway, good look and sorry for any confusion. By the way, you might be able to tell something about the fluid that's in there by the smell. The synthetics like Redline have kind of a sweet smell, while the old-style fractionated fluids smell like the dead prehistoric lifeforms they're derived from.

You'll find that all of the little things add up. But the EFI 280Zs don't seem to get a whole lot better than low 20s mpg, mixed city and highway driving. Highway driving with a 5 speed would probably get you to mid-20s.

What brand and model of brake shoe do you use? It's a factor.

If it's the 1979 3.7 R200 it will bolt right in. If it's a 300ZX R200 it will have a different bolt pattern on the pinion flange. But, apparently, you can easily (with a big wrench or an impact wrench) swap the pinion flanges between R200s. Many of the 300ZXs came with open 3.7 gears. My understanding is that the LSDs were 3.54. Sounds like gira can tell from the pictures that it's open. I'm not that familiar with the insides to know.

The diff mount can look okay but still allow quite a bit of movement from the diff nose. The clunk is from the nose coming back down (my theory). The diff is supposed to stop the nose from coming down too hard also (you can see a little bump of molded rubber between the metal pieces), but it gets compressed over time. If you look at the front metal portion of the mount when it's on the car, you'll probably find that there's only about 1/8" or less separating it from the metal cross-member. If it's old and you clamp one of the metal portions in a vise, you'll probably be surprised at how easy it is to spread the mount apart with a screwdriver in the middle. The rubber gets weak over time.