bhermes

Great guys. I am a little confused but learning about cars quickly. Redid all of the brakes, rewired with updated internally regulated alternator, new horns and horn relay hookup among others and now tires. John, I went to the link and did not see anything about wide track. Is this a style of tire that several people make or just pertaining to a certain brand. Just a little education please.

Anyone know if you can still get the Widetrack tires?

I currently have Widetrack radials P195/70R14's.

Went to drive my 76 280 today and found one of the tires flat. My tires have good tread however the one tire had signs of dry rought and eventually started leaking. I am debating over just getting one tire for now or getting 4 new tires. If I get new tires does anyone have a suggestion. I plan on getting new rims down the road and would like to have nice looking tires as well. Just thought I would check in before spending money and wish I would have done something different. I am getting the car repainted in about 1 month and the car will be about 90% restored. A few things left inside but mostly good. Thanks

Alright both horns working. Found the horn relay and for whatever reason it was not plugged in to the connector. Just need to find someway to mount the horns now. No bracketry seems to be available in the car. Not a big deal. Thanks for the help. On to the next electrical issue.

OK. Found GW wire tucked in behind some things. Bought both horns. Connected GW to one terminal on the horn and grounded the other terminal to the car. No horn. I am not sure if it maters which horn terminal to connected the GW wire to and which one needs the ground wire. The terminals are a little different in that one is dark and one is light in appearance. I have not tried to jumper to the second horn but it seems that the one horn should at least work. Looking at the relay next. When I push the horn at the steering wheel I do not hear any clicking at the relay. One of the previous posts mentined a curved wiper and I am not sure what this is refering to. Something at the steering wheel area but just not sure.

I checked the FSM and it appears one GW to the first horn an another GW to the second from the first horn. I have none of this wiring. The two pin connector appears to be for the side light. I have one on each side of the car. One side has the mating harness to the side light location. I have neither side lights. I guess I will be running new wiring just not sue where to go from the horn to what?

OK, hopefully I am not banned from the forum. After looking at the FSM and finally realizing where the horn is located, I beleive that I have no horn. The FSM mentions two horns. Are these sold seperately and are the mounted together somehow. I am trying to located the wiring and not sure if there is a connector at the horn. I have a unused two pin connector in that area but not sure if for horn or side light. A side note: I also noticed a 3 prong plug that appears to go to the engine block. I assume a heater. I guess an after market modification. Any insight here would also be appreciated.

This may sound stupid; however, I really do not know how a horn functions. My horn in my 76 Z is not working. I have removed the center part of the steering wheel and the plastic piece directly behind the steering wheel. After that I am not sure what I should be looking for. Where is the horn? What other parts need to be considered? I did check the fuse. I looked at a couple previous posts on this topic but did not understand the details. Any help would be appreciated.

Great. OK to get to the horn connector is that something I can get to without taking off parts. Not with the car right now but want to start on this in a few hours. What does the connector look like. It appears some rewirnig may have been done around the steering column area. I currently do not have a key swith and start the car with a screw driver into the piece that the switch would attach to. I probably will find the horn switch but a little guidance may help. Also where is the combo swith and what does it look like. Again I will start searching just trying to use the expertise of those here. Thanks.

Yes, running lights work.

OK, now that I have my over voltage situation resolved it is on to the next problem. My horn and dash lights do not work. Headlights and map light do work. Brake light is working (laugh all the time the car is on) Not sure if the horn and dash lights not working could be caused by one problem or not. I will be looking at the rheostat for the dash lights. Comments? Any direction would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Yes on the zcarcreations. I will start working on the relay and light issue in the next day or so. If anyone is reaqding this post now or in the future give up on the external voltage regulator and go straight to the internally regulated alternator. I went through a few alternator swaps, a couple voltage regulators, and a battery before I woke up.

Finally...... After trying a few screws in the new alternator I determined that the threads for the adjustment bolt on the alternator were bad. I returned the alt on Friday and pciked up the new one today. Installed and rewired and voltage at all rpms was 14.5V. So voltage is good. I am not sure if this is what was supposed to happen; however, my brake light stays on all the time that the car is running. When I turn the car off the light goes off. I was thinking that the light should have stayed on even with the car off but not in my case. Not sure what to do with the thing but will begin looking into this. Back on the road. Thanks to all.

I am doing exactly what you are suggesting except I only have one adjustment bolt. I still have some play in the adjustment, about 1 more inch. My problem is that the adjustment bolt will not tighten. I starts to thread and then looses grip and becomes loose. I tried to tighten it the best I could and started the car and the belt squelled. I assume because the belt is not tight enough. Any thoughts?

Took alt nack off and I see no way of getting the brkt on the other side. Any idea why the adjustment bolt will not tighten? Should I tighten the bolt and then pull back the alt?

OK. I think everythign is rewired and I have the alternator in palce; however, I am having issues with the belt adjustment bolt not staying tight. I am not sure and this may sound like a really dumb question "but is the mounting braket that the bolt goes through suposed to be on the, front of the car side, or back of the car side, of the alternator. It currently is sitting on the front side. I started the car and the belt was squelling a little or maybe a lot.

OK. Getting ready to pick up the new alternator, go to the dentist, and then install. The wire changes seem straight forward other than I am a little confused where and how the best way is to jump them. I am currently planning on jumping on the engine harness side just prior to the 6 pin connector. I am going to use the quick splice connectors to blade into the current wiring. I am going to jump the white and yellow wires with one quick splice and the white with black strip and the blue wire with another. I think I can remove these later if I decide to go back to the original alternator. Hopefully this will not be needed. I realize that this will leave me with a brake light issue and I will address that next. I am not sure what male contact to use if I jump at the 6 pin connector unless I cut the voltage regulator and use them. I supose I could always butt splice them back on if needed. Any comments? What way would you go?

Yes. Ext regulated. I guess tomorrow when I put the int reg alt on and make the electical changes needed I will find out if there is some other issue. Not sure what is going to happen if I have a wiring issue of some kind. I have removed the alternator and waiting for the new alt to arrive in the morning. I have some dirrection on what changes are required and hopefully things go smoothly.

Threw in the towel today. Bought the internally regulated alternator. Part will be here in the morning. Hopefully this works. Sad, really wanted to get the ext reg alt to work just for discussion purposes. I will post when completed or sooner if I get in trouble.

Not sure if anyone is still out there, would not blame you. After reading a few other psots I am beginning to think that an aftermarket ext reg alt and an aftermarket voltage reg are not compatable. Does anyone out there have this situation and have you tested your voltage at the battery to see if it is working? Just trying to make a case to help others. I bypassed 5/6 wires, will be bypassing the 6th today, at the ext regulator with little to no change in voltage. I have noticed that with the lights on my voltage stays in or around 15V. I will be checking again at elevated rpms and may start driving the car a little with lights on. I can not find any other wiring issues and have been through enough regulators, alternators, and batteries. Buying int reg alt in about 1 week and giving up. I hate to give up but no other choice.

Not sure if I should even ask; however, if anyone has an external regulated alternator and has the multi pin connector to the extrenal voltage regulator, I am just trying to determine how easy it is to mate and unmate? Mine almost wants to fall off. Maybe a little over stating. Also, if this plug is not connecting properly or if I have a wiring problem then even switching to the int alt I may still have a problem. Not sure if I can find a connector, checking around. If you feel in a really helpful mood I would be interested in how your connector mates and unmates. Thanks.

You know me to well. I just bypassed the yellow and white with black strip wires from the 2 prong plug off the alternator to the voltage reguator (bypassing the voltage regulator plug, assuming the connections may be bad, with no success. Still getting in excess of 17V when enginer is rev'd. Yes I did want to tame the ext alt beast but just about to give up. Other option is to take the car to electical auto place but this really defeats the purpose that I bought the car and that was to become a self made mechanic. Or maybe after this post a forum made mechanic. Thanks to all that have stayed with this.

I am going to try the 7063k32's unless anyone has an objection. I will atempt to bypass only the wires specific to the regulator. I will then consider the internally regulated alternator. Comments?

First of all I would like to thank everyone for walking me through the voltage issue with my 76 280 2+2. I beleive that through everything I have a non internal regulated alternator with an external voltage regulator. I think the alternator, voltage regulator and battery are all good. However, I beleive that the plug going to the voltage regualtor has an issue. Looking at the female connectors (metal pieces) they seem a little out of round but hard to realluy tell. Also they look a little discolored. Again hard to really tell. Seems to mate a little to easy. The connector is allowing the alternator to work but not the regulator to regulate. When unplugged the alternator does not appear to be working at all. My question here is does anyone know where I can get just a replacement plug that I can splice into the harness? I am also considering switching to the internal regulated alternator but I beleive I will still need this connection and jumper afterwards. Thanks in advance for any help.