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ok that plug and the one next to it i put the red in where the yellow wire is and the black end went to the neg side of the battery. ok then when i connected the two yellow wires from each plug together i got some numbers to appear on the multimeter thing. anywhere from 180-150 ohms.

ya dave its the 280zx 60amp alt. i checked for resistance and seem to have nothing. maybe i did it wrong. i can take pictures of where i connected it if you would like. actually i may just do that. give me a few for that. but there was a time that i had been messing with the fuel relay (the big one under the dash) i replaced it with a newer relay and on that it has a yellow wire. are they connected somehow? cause i do remember that one time i had hooked it up a little wrong and the wires got hot. maybe it sent it all the way to there? but then again maybe not. however after taking my datsun to doug at crawfords he unhooked the inline fuse and its been using the mechanical pump ever sense. oh and thanks for that fuseable link help. haha i feel dumb now. but now i can look into the upgrades for that and modernize it a little.

alright sounds good. i will check that here in a min i gotta find my multimeter tool. also just while im at it. here is a picture of the starter area where im told the fuseable link is located but i cant seem to find it or maybe im looking for it but it doesnt look like what i think it should look like. anyways heres the pic.

ok will do. this may sound dumb but how or like i guess where should i connect the ohm meter to the alt to check for resistance on the alt? well its a multimeter i should restate that.

and heres a link to the upgrade too Dave's 1972 Datsun 240z: Alternator Upgrade

yes the yellow wire and the used to be while wire next to it were connected. thats how the DIY said to do it too.

heres what i did. i had a tach that didnt work. so i installed a blaster 2 coil. the 280zx dizzy. i forgot if it was the turbo kinda or non. i believe non. then installed the 280zx tach with the 240z face. and what do you know it started to work. Now my car is the 6/73 so it had a three wire system. i assume you had the 4 wire system. beermanpete helped me out too! great help.

so i followed the instruction on the alt upgrade and it all works and worked well. however today after starting it up and i finally got the heat going! i noticed the plug with the diode looked funny. heres a picture, any ideas on what may have caused this? it was running before i took the tape off and ya. heres the pic. almost forgot, another question is where or what is the second ground wire for on the climate controls? heres a picture. i found on what the one on the left side was for. the right side i dont know. also im gonna add that the design of these things and taking them apart and putting back together was not well though out. having the screw in the back and reaching around n stuff. man a PITA for sure. well thanks for the help guys. mainly worried about the first part of this post. ok heres the picture.

What year and month was your z made.? Mine was 6/73 and it was the three wire tach style. Had me confused for the longest time. There is a thread on here on what I did as well and a thread about swaping the tach too.

Ok, got the 280z tach, swapped its guts to my 240z tach. it works!!!!!!!!! well anyways, i now can tune the carbs! cause the tach works. haha. thanks for the help beermanpete! also i hope this thread helps others. if anyone needs pictures ill post up what i can.

ok thanks, ill give it a try when it arives and let you know how it goes. Thanks again for the help.

Alright, ive installed the 280zx dizzy. It starts and runs and sounds pretty good. I followed the wiring from this where it talks about getting the tachometer to work with early z's. http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/distributor/index.html The tachometer still wont work. I have a three wire tachometer. Ive connected the GW and BW wire together and put on positive side. Also there is a wire coming from positive side to the e 12 80 and the neg side to the e 12 80. Is there something else i have to do sense its a three wire tachometer? I also have bought a 280z tach from someone on hybridz. will be here in the next few days. Ill try that one to see if it works or not. ide like to keep the orginal z if at all possible. heres an overview of it all. close up of the e-12-80 the black wire is going to the neg side of coil. and the grey wire is going to the positive side here is the coil side of it all.

Ok, i think i get it. my z actually has a working electric fuel pump with stock wiring, however what i dont like it when i turn it to acc the pump it on. I hope to fix that with the oil pressure switch. Yes i enjoy your blog very much! thanks again for doing that!

I have a 6/73 240z, perhaps they changed it over for the later models and so on to the 260z. I have found this post cause when you pointed out that i have a three wire tach i went to good ol google and did a search. this is what i found. Tachometer - Page 3 - Ignition and Electrical - HybridZ however after reading it i dont think the guy came to a conclusion, or if he did, he didnt post how he solved it. Im going to wait till I do the 280zx dizzy conversion to mess with the tach a little more, however i will hook that black wire i cut back up. ha. by the way according to autozone they should have the dizzy in on the 6th. Also beermanpete, THANK YOU FOR HELPING ME WITH THIS!!!! I feel like im on the way to solving this issue. and im going to document it on here for many other to hopefully search and find. I do wonder when they decided to switch the 240z's to three wire? oh well.

Sp just a little while ago I disconnected the black wire from the harness, now it just goes from the - neg side of the coil to the points on the dizzy. The tach did not work still, which i expected but it didnt change anything either. I have some pictures I am uploading. In these pictures you will see i have changed the coil with another one. Its name and brand are unknown. The guy i got it from said it might or might not be an orginal z coil. but sense the tach still did not work i believe it to not be an orginal z coil. Anyways here are the pictures, i apologize for the messiness. When i get the 280zx dizzy and install it, and try the dizzy upgrade ill let you all know if the tach starts to work. another question that poped up, there was a BY wire. this comes from the ignition? well anyways i believe it to be a hot 12+ wire. as i tried to hook it up to the coil and it started with it hooked up. it was just a simple test so right after it started, i turned it off and unhooked the wire from the coil. Plug that goes to the back of the tach. Back of the tach Ignition switch plug coil and its wiring.

Im totally doing the oil switch so i can have an electrical fuel pump too! im just a little confused on the wiring from the relay. like 87 on the relay. the + wire. does that connect to the inline fuse behind the dash? and from the oil pressure switch, the wiring running from I. did you run that to an existing wire before the fuse or install one? I will have to physically go and look at this stuff soon, trying to get my tach to work and switch to the 280zx dizzy. Ive got some strange wiring going on there. hmp. again awesome write up and awesome illustrations for the ALT upgrade!

Ok ill start with picture one. The wire with the arrow and 1. should only be coming from the -neg side of the coil and going to the points. I need to see where that wire goes to. I thought it looked funny cause the wiring diagram doesnt show it connecting to anything else. On my post with the pictures post #14 i believe, you asked where did the green wire go. First let me say that i may have had it connected wrong but changing it around didnt change anything, car still started and tach still didnt work. anyways. the GW wire is infact the BW wire #2 and #3. so its like a Y where the stem is GW but the top parts of the Y are BW. that doesnt make sense to me, thos two numbers come from the green wire. That picture was taken before i tore back some more loom to reviel the GW wire. The all BW wire is #1. so pretty much #1 is all BW havent found anything tapped into or from it yet. #2 and #3 go to the GW wire. GW----<BW. I should have taken a further out picture showing more ha. my bad.

I have this blog saved! I just did the alt upgrade! Seems better. However, I was checking amps and volts at the battery. volts were like 13.80 up to 14.09 i believe. anyways im not worried about that. the amps is what i am concerned about. I installed it and it was like 30~40 amps. then i went for a drive, the car died, i believe it was vapor lock, anyways got back and checked amps and it was like ~50. my question is, is that ok? also im gonna need some help locating the fuseable links on my car as i dont want to overload 40yr old fuseable links.

And hey beermanpete, would you please look at the pictures i posted and double check the wiring. looking at the link here. http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/distributor/index.html the way it says its wired seem to be different. but if you look at the wiring diagram. it shows a BW wire coming from the key run position going to the ballast. however if you look at the pictures i posted it looks like its missing. maybe its fine, but ide like a second or third opinion of the wiring. Im the third owner but the second owner had someone in cali that had a shop in mexico where they worked on the car. so idk whats been done to it.

Thanks beermanpete. So i went to the jy and the 280zx was still there. i might try to talk my dad into heling me to get the diff from it. any ways. I pulled the dizzy off of it. its an 83 280zx. the ICM doesnt say e 1280. but it does have the cb points and it looks like it has some other points on the side that say I W. Does that matter? or should i get an e 1280 module? also got an altenator from a 280zx as well non turbo. hopefully that will work.

im sure the wiring is right. just doesnt make sense to me how its wired in with the resistor. oh well. however ive been researching the 280zx dizzy conversion and how it works with the tach. so i looked up online at my local jy and located a 280zx 83 and will just spend that money to get the dizzy and e 12 80 thingy and ya. hopefully that solves my problem. have this link here too.http://atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/distributor/index.html

And beermanpete. if i got a voltage pick up tach wouldnt i need to swap out the dizzy too?

Alright, so the 0.8 ohm ballast resistor did not work. I hooked it up just like the pdf file showed. I did some more reading and found out I have a 6 or 7 series. So I believe ill need to pick up I believe 6AL. Ill have to call MSD and double check. But I do have some other question. I got pictures too. But I tore back some taping around the wires. I think part of whats confusing me is the fact that in the haynes manual the wire diagrams show a GW wire going into the ballast and some wiring coming out the other side connecting to a BW wire which is going to the igntion switch. Also Shows a BW wire coming from the positive side of the coil and going to the tach, looks like it loops and turns GW which turns into a GL wire going to the ignition switch. on my wire harness I could find the GW wire till I tore some loom back. What I found was the GW wire. then a BW wire coming off that going to the resistor and then on the other side of the resistor a BW wire going right back to the GW wire where the first BW coming off the GW wire is. That really confuses me. I get that its an inductive loop and current triggered. I probably dont understand it tho. Ok this shows the GW wire. see how the BW wires connected to it? the other ends of thos go to the resistor. doesnt make sense to me cause I thought that current wants to flow freely and if theres a short cut then its gonna take it. pretty much i think the way its set up doesnt work. Pretty much made the GW wire split into two. this picture just shows the BW wires that are connected to the GW wire. this one just shows a solid black wire coming from the loom. it was split into two. one goes to the - neg. side of the coil and the other goes to the point on the dizzy. all in all i think some wiring is wrong. but i could be wrong cause im not to familiar with this and wiring in general.

Thanks for the info. Ill make sure to just call the place first and order it that way. I really want a speed hut guage. but in the mean time im going to see if just this 10$ ballast addition will work or not. Im so ready to get to tuning up my carbs!

I would install that with my current ballast correct? to give it the correct ohms. no I would replace it.