Zed Head

I lam lovin' my EFI! It is smooth and clean running, and starts right up in the cold. Funky-P, I was talking to a guy doing a V-8 swap the other day and he mentioned that he is using an inexpensive relay he picked up at the auto parts store to get 12 volts to his fuel pump. Since you are deep in to your wiring diagrams, it might be a simple, cheap solution for you. I don't think that there is anything extraordinary about the Datsun relays. You could probably put together something that works for under $20.

It was probably a one hour ride in a real car...

Does the exposed box look like the attached picture? It would be the Air Flow Meter (AFM) then. Not a good sign that the cover is already off, some one has been messing with it. Might be the reason it sat. And the thermotime switch is only active during starting. It lets the cold start valve open or not. You might be thinking of the water temperature sensor. The first thing I would do is to download the Factory Service Manual (FSM) for your year and read the Engine Fuel section. http://www.xenons30.com/reference.html Drain all of the old gas before firing, if it's bee sitting longer than a year. Run the fuel pump with new gas to flush out the fuel rail and tank lines. Check for rust in the tank. Check your basic electrical connections to make sure you don't have a short. Make sure that the fusible links are in place and correct (no pseudo links made of regular wire). How far to go depends on how good you want the odds to be that it will fire up and run well right away. Depending on how long it's been sitting, removing and cleaning all of the electrical connections might be a good idea. Search "slave cylinder" for ideas on the "no tension" clutch pedal. If it's gone, the clutch master cylinder and the brake cylinders might not be far behind. It's worth spending some upfront time preparing to start it before doing it. These aren't like the old barn find carbed V-8s that miraculously fire up after sitting five years. Have fun and patience...

FW, I have never heard the "exhaust manifold banging off of the head" explanation for the knocking sound that a bad exhaust gasket makes. Do you have any background reading for that? I'm curious. Cast iron or cast steel flexing that much would be an interesting thing.

How recent is "recent"? If you drove it for a week or two or more and it was quiet, then it got noisy when the bolts came loose, you might have worn something out when the bolts were loose. And you probably mean where the half-shaft is connected to the axle, not axle to hub? I don't think that you need to remove the axles to change the shocks. Some people can see a loose u-joint by sticking a screwdriver in it and prying around while it's on the car. It's easier to see though if you take the half-shaft off and examine it up close in the light. The diff mount usually clunks during shifting as the nose of the diff lifts up then drops back down on the mount. My understanding...

If it's a manual transmission car, the only way for it to slow down without losing rpm is clutch slipping. Smoke and/or a nasty smell coming from the car when it happens would be a confirming sign. If an automatic, I believe that bad clutches and/or a bad torque converter could allow the car to slow down without a change in rpm. Burnt transmission fluid would be a sign.

Find the thing in the picture with the green arrow pointing at it (throttle position switch - TPS). Take the black cover off and dry out the insides. Spray it down with WD-40 (water displacement formula #40). Start it with the cover off to make sure it's working. Put cover back on. Don't spray the engine with water again. Edit: No problemo!

I think he meant "replace" when he said "swap". He has the correct parts working in his car now and he's been driving it. A simple side-to-side eyeballing will tell him if there's an issue. Edit - Actually, a good mechanic would have already compared the new parts with the old to make sure that they will fit. I would be worried that his mechanic is showing concern over the number of springs in the clutch hub and the fact that the clutch tool goes "pop" when he pulls it out. That's either a general lack of experience or preparation for adding charges for a "more difficult than expected" job. Seems odd that the mechanic even mentioned those things...

Since you have the old clutch out, why not just compare dimensions to the new parts? Don't forget to look at disc diameter, if you got a 280ZX 2+2 it would have the 240 mm disc. And the clutch hub spring differences are not a big deal, just different manufacturer's designs. They are there to absorb some shock and vibration when you engage the clutch and when your driving. As tlorber said, the alignment tool might be tight just to give a more centered alignment. The disc hanging on the tool tends to drop the center of the disc down while the pressure plate is bolted on, making it difficult to get the transmission in afterward. As tlorber implied, the tighter the better on the alignment tool. Measure the diameter of the tool and compare it to the diameter of the end of the trans shaft. The trans shaft will probably be smaller.

I didn't see this on the classiczcars classified so assume this guy doesn't hang out here. I'm assuming that a complete 240Z dash in decent shape is hard to find. http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/pts/2058155665.html

:alien: Liquid-filled pressure gauges under the hood are apparently not a good idea, unless you only read them cold. I did this on my car for a while but was using the JEGS ~$18 liquid-filled gauge. Eventually I found out that it is well-established that the liquid-filled gauges are temperature sensitive. In my case, the gauge read low as it got hot. But my fuel pressure regulator was regulating high as it got hot. So the gauge hid the problem, for quite a while. What I thought was a 0.5 to 1 psi variation was actually about 4-5 psi. Below is a link to an article with more info from Aeromotive, a supplier of aftermarket engine products. I discovered my error after I got one of their FPRs and read this bulletin. http://aeromotiveinc.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/TB-902-Tuning-EFI-with-Fuel-Pressure.pdf Edit - Forgot to say that I also queried over at Hybridz about liquid-filled gauges and got some very good information from Tony D. To give due acknowledgement. It's interesting to me that JEGS and Summit will put their brand name on a product for use in an application that "they" (whoever they are) should know will give poor results. They're just distributors. Side note - Aeromotive is offering a free Aeromotive dry gauge with some of their FPRs, at JEGS.

I'm going to guess that that is the flame arrester that I've seen arrows point at the location of in the FSM but have never actually seen one. Thanks for the drawing.

These are the 5 mph damage control bumpers, with shock absorbers inside the mounting struts. I have seen somewhere, that you can either compress the shock, drill some holes and lock it in place (creating a big surprise for a future owner) or I think that you can carefully take them apart and remove the springs before locking them in place. There is actually a section in the FSM, BF-8, for testing the bumper shocks, bracing the car with wheel chocks and putting the factory jack between the wall and the bumper. It's illustrated, showing a jack, and a rag to protect the bumper rubber. I don't know how much distance you'd get, but it might be enough. Edit - I see that compressing the strut was mentioned above, but here's a little more detail anyway...

Looks like a nice car, 44,000 original miles - http://portland.craigslist.org/mlt/cto/2061288479.html

I would get on to Oreilly Auto or NAPAs web site, or Motor Sport Auto (the Z Store) or Courtesy Nissan if you want to go more original (but more expensive) and check out prices. If it's been sitting longer than 2 or 3 years, it could very likely need all of the hydraulic cylinders - brakes and clutch (masters and slaves), rebuilt front calipers, new brake shoes (the front pads might be okay), probably needs tires, lug nuts, maybe u-joints, maybe an AFM, new exhaust/intake gasket, new fuel pump, the gas tank might be full of rust, maybe fuel injectors, maybe an air regulator, new clutch, alternator, voltage regulator, brake booster, wiper motor rebuild, and wiper blades. Plus maybe the water temperature sensor. And some bushings. You could be in to it a couple thousand dollars pretty quickly like cygnus1 says. Actually those are the parts I have replaced on my car, except for salvaging one wheel cylinder and one front caliper. And my car was on four wheels and tires when I bought it (non-running) but had actually idled it's way through an emissions test a year before (after having sat for quite while though). But it's been a lot of fun. And I understand how things work much better than if I had bought a running car. Edit - just noticed that the injectors are missing so you can remove the maybe from above...

Didn't mean to come across harsh. I was thinking nice. I should have put an emoticon in there I guess. bggilmore, there is a lot of information over there about what you're talking about doing. You could just RB alone in the title and you'll probably get 10 replies within an hour.

You should be on Hybridz - www.hybridz.org

Nice to now that's out there. Thanks for posting that link. I wish I had one. 1.5 times as strong as stock. I got $105 for price at today's exchange rate though. Which, coincidentally, is exactly 1.5 times the $70 that g9m3c did not want to shell out.

As I understand things in Oregon, E10 has been mandated by law for all gasoline retailers since 2008. You're getting corn in your gas whether you want it or not! Is this "Clear" sold behind the station or out in the open? http://www.salem-news.com/articles/january142008/ethanol_11408.php

It sounds like the wire to the starter lug, where the positive cable from the battery is also located, may not have a good connection. It's the wire that goes up to your alternator, but along the way all of the power to the car is spliced off it up through the fusible links. Take a close look at the main lug on the starter. You should have the big cable from the battery and one more heavy gauge wire that disappears in to the wiring harness. That would explain the "zero" voltage reading. SteveJ is right, that wiring diagram will help you out. I think that you'll have to unzip it though.

"starter is with switch to the battery" Do you mean that you can power the starter separately from the ignition switch? Sounds like you should make sure you have power to the ignition switch. Make sure that you have power to the fusible links also. On my 76, three of the four fusible links have 12.7 volts all the time, key off. Only the headlight link does not. If no power is running through the fusible links then you can trace the lines in to them to find out why not. The old Z ECUs don't reboot. They're not like the modern ones, they just take signals from the engine and sensors and then send signals out to the injectors.

Here is one possibility, based on how I think the master cylinder pistons are set up. I believe that holes to the reservoirs are supposed to seal off after a very small amount of piston movement. Did you pull the rod from the master cylinder back from the firewall to get it to connect to the pedal? Maybe you are pulling the pistons back in to the bore, loading up with fluid that has to come back out. The fluid squirts until the hole gets sealed again. The rod end should be loose enough to wiggle back and forth a little bit. Does the fluid squirt at the beginning of stroke, then stop as pedal pressure builds? I haven't a master cylinder apart so don't really know if that's possible, but if it is, it might be plausible. Edit - just realized that if the MC is defective, it should squirt during bench bleeding too. Edit 2 - One more thing - if you connected the rod to the pedal, then pulled the pedal back to connect the spring, you could get the same fluid loading effect (if it's possible).

If you haven't read these "tips" from Paul Rusch of Rusch Motorsports, they are worth a look. He goes in to detail on how the sensors work and has some good examples of experiments he ran in the past. http://forums.hybridz.org/index.php/topic/95316-braaps-l6-efi-induction-advice-and-tips/

If you had a lot of air in your lines and pressed the pedal, you would create a pressurized bubble in the lines that would then re-expand and push all of that volume back into the reservoir when you released the pedal. I'm betting that the pedal went way down and that the squirting happened when you let the pedal back up? There is a a lot of volume behind the disc brake pistons. You probably did not have the bleed valve open far enough. Open the valve farther, leave the cap on the reservoir, and try again. Wipe that fluid off of your paint with a damp cloth too, or you'll end up with some stains.

28 years of dry storage and only 21,000 miles of driving. Original tires - 32 years old, who wants a test drive? http://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/ctd/2058313599.html