Jeepers92

Thank you ill check ot out

My son is smelling antifreeze in his car and yesterday after a long trip at 75 mph he found a small amount of antifreeze on the passenger side carpet. I assume heater core or something, we pulled off a lot of the dash as we could in the rain but see no obvious place it's leaking, after leaving the car running we still see nothing but can smell it. Maybe a pinhole thing. The puddle was about 3 tbls Since we don't have a garage to get into and want to get through the rain, here's the question we need some advice on. I've read that you shouldn't bypass the heater core lines you should plug them on this 78 280z. What we were thinking is, bypass or plug it until we get a day without rain so we can get in, pull the core out and see if it's plugged, leaking on a hose we can't find, or the core is leaking. We don't want to have it just go whoosh next time he's driving. The forum messages I've found are conflicting, should be bypass temporarily, or should we plug the lines? Only needs to last about a week maybe 10 days until we get some clear skies to work on it without a garage it sucks. bypassing I see is relatively easy and parts aren't hard to come by. I haven't found plugs that look like the way we should go. Any advice would help.

Just wanted to report back to everyone thanks for the help, once we got the combo issues fixed it's running the way it was meant too. Thanks everyone.

So far, so good, got everything in, took it for a joy ride and it lives. Need to get the fuel pump back to the relays from the switch, and put the skid plate back on, but first, the timing. I'm reading 10 degrees BTDC in the manual under tune up but, I can't tell what the numbers are on the piece mounted on the engine. Worn down. Now i'll have to jack the car up to get to the crank to turn it and line it up. This car is turning out to be fun. Thanks everyone, We are going to be driving it around tonight and tomorrow and see if we can flush out any problems, i'll report back. In summary it seems it was a combination of the fusible links, the fuel relay, the alternator, and the battery. All the joys of classic cars.

Just got the new alternator back, about to mount it. it's not a refurb it's new. they did bench test it for us and the battery is new from yesterday so i'm gonna mount it see how it goes and do the rest of the testing you asked for. Thanks everyone.

From autozone the alternator is 60Amp and there is an internal voltage regulator.

Thanks everyone I'll get some better details for you as soon as I can. Most likely tomorrow due to the downpour of sleet we have now. We did rev it up to 2500 RPM and I did check the ground on the alternator. It was just .7ohm. I did not test the T plug wires. I'll need to do that. We decided to pull it out and take it up to AutoZone and have them test it. They were the same ones we bought the battery from that is apparently no good. They are telling us that the Alternator is no good and they are ordering a new one to come in tomorrow. I do not recall off hand the Amps of the alternator nor if it has internal regulator, I'll call them and check. They have the paperwork on it as a return. I'll get details back to you prior to putting the new alternator in and get the other tests done and see how it goes. Anything else you think I should do let me know and I'll get it all done tomorrow. Steve, thanks for the suggestion on the signature line, I've fixed that now. Thanks.

so the battery was bad much to the disappointment of AutoZone who didn't believe me. We got the new battery back and put it in and tested it, with the meter. With nothing on it sits at 12.26 When we start it, it drops down to 11.80 and slowly rises up to 12.01 When we turn on everything electrical, we go down to about 11.36 and it bounces up a bit to 11.46. So the alternator is apparently not charging. Just took the alternator up to be tested by AutoZone. We replaced the alternator not because it was bad, but because the other one was old. It looked like the original but AutoZone tested it and said it was good. I did wiggle around wires from the harness, the fusible links starter, etc. no change in anything. (I'll do the amp test between the fusible link in just a bit after the rain stops, I didn't want to open the case) It seems strange to me that an Alternator that tested fine and is made for the car which is stock and doesn't have any mods of any kind and does not even have a radio, has difficulty charging. I'm back to wonder if it's a drain some where or maybe the alternator just isn't putting out enough current.. I've read a bit about some folks that have used a GM alternator or others in a 240 and a 260 but I haven't found that yet in a 280z. Should I even be thinking that at this point? Ideas?

Hey Everyone, I'm back. Hello Cap thanks for all your advice I've really appreciated it. The snow is gone and I've been able to get out and do some more work. I pulled out that relay from under the dash and did some testing. I did the 12v test and found that only 1 of the 2 solenoids were clicking. I opened it up and found that there is a ground wire (oddly) that goes from the one not clicking and it appears to ground to the metal casing of the relay. I replaced that wire and re soldered it. Put it back in and the car starts again and runs. Also we bought all new fusible links and replaced all 4. I wasn't sure that they were the problem. The links aren't particularly expensive, so we replaced all 4. As one more test because there was a bad wire. instead of having the fuel pump hooked up to the relay, we put a manual switch in the car just temporarily until we can replace the wires. The wires run strait to the battery and it has a 30 amp fuse. somewhere in the wire just behind the passenger seat it looses current so we'll have to find that but that's the only bad wiring we've found. I am going to go unravel the tape right now on the harness under the relays and see what it looks like as suggested. The ignition switch as I said is new, the starter and alternator are new. So we went out, started it up and it fired up. we ran it for 33 min with it warming up and no problems, however, we didn't turn on the lights or anything electrical. After that time was up and it was still running we turned on everything we can turn on, accept the radio it doesn't have one. Instead of the flashers we turned on a blinker. after it had run about 10 more minutes with everything electrical we could turn on. It died again. Checking the battery the voltage is down again, so we are going to replace it. Of course Autozone wants to charge it for us first to confirm that the batter is bad before replacing it so we are waiting for it to charge and we'll put it in again and see what happens. Any advice on what to check maybe before or after the battery is in and the process we should follow? I've compiled all the steps above people have recommended so I have them all I'm just wondering about the order you would do things in. Something I read on another forum was that alternator is a common issue and have replaced it with a Chevy alternator and have gotten past a power issue. Is that something you'd recommend. I haven't found which one they are using however. Some things I don't get, the alternator runs the car after it's started not the battery. If the battery is bad and it's running things like certain relays still instead of the alternator that obviously could be a draw in something that battery is running. If that's true, what is it that could cause the car to die once the battery gets low on juice.

The new Fusible links will be here tonight and I'll put them in. I'll get back to everyone when I get this in and test it and let you know what happens.

The red closest to the windshield was burned through. Yes the colts go all the way left.

Captain Obvious I did check as you said. the blinkers do not come on ,I'm guessing that means that the other side of the relay is bad, I'll need to find a way to replace it. One of the fusible links is bad as well. I'll need to find a place to replace those. I was wondering about an old school temp fix. remember in the day those fuse links that were in car stereo's fuse in the middle good wiring? Do those work interim or is that just a bad idea? Put a 20 or 30 amp fuse in it? wal280z I have not had time yet to check the wires, I most certainly will be doing that Saturday when I can get out in the sunlight. Thank you. I'll let you know how that goes. Thanks again for the help, I'll report back on Sunday.

Thanks Cap, I'll give that a try, we did find one that was bad previously. it was obviously burned through. When we put the cables on the battery there is a spark. Can't tell about the radio though, the guy we got it from took his out. Haven't prioritized getting one yet. Does anyone have anything showing how to properly test the ignition relay that's under the passenger side kick panel?

Thanks Zed. Here is the long story. The original problem is that the car would run for awhile until it reached operating temperature, maybe a 10 minutes later. At that point it would die. There would be no electricity in the car. dash wouldn't work at all. jumping battery does nothing. No lights come on. Once it dies if you have the key on accessories the headlights will stay on, the defogger will stay on, the hazards will work and the fan will work for the heater, as well as the electric antennae . The oil gauge, fuel guage, volts guage do not work. The battery is in great shape, brand new and the voltage is where it is supposed to be. At least unless I've been cranking on it awhile. Originally when you turn the key on and off without trying to start it, the fuel pump would not come on after the car had died. Once you let it cool off, then when you turn it on, the fuel pump would come on and you could start the car. At first it would drain the battery and we checked the air flow sensor and for a parasitic draw but those checked out fine. Continuity checks on the harness appeared to be according to the FSM. Once the car died we started checking individual pieces like the fuel relays, they appear to check out fine. We ended unchanging the starter and the alternator because they are original very old. Those work and check out fine. The other thing we did was check the fuel pump. We ran the car til it died, then put direct hot and ground wires to it to make sure it would turn back on, and it did. I bypassed the fuel relays, directly ran the fuel pump from the battery to a switch so I can manually turn it on and off, wanted to make sure that the pump wasn't bad though continuity came up fine. After the car dies I can flip the switch and the fuel pump comes on, but no power to the dash.as i said before. I forgot to mention that we did also change the ignition switch. I also put on a clear fuel filter so I can see the gas is going through. I did some more testing just to see what changes happened when you try to turn the car over. Once it dies if you have the key on accessories the headlights will stay on, the defogger will stay on, the hazards will work and the fan will work for the heater, as well as the electric antennae . The oil gauge, fuel guage, volts guage do not work. The batter starts out at 11.31v. when I turn the pump on with the switch, drops to 11.10. if you crank the car with the pump off drops to 9.6 if you crank the car with the pump on battery goes down to 9.5 Never noticed but when you turn the key to the accessories there is a click behind the glove box, I assume that is normal. I checked all fuses in the kick panel too to make sure they work and are the appropriate sizes. I've done some forum searching and there were some mentions due to the specific gauges not working that maybe the ignition module isn't working right. I can't find one in the FSM. I found reference to ignition coil, which I tested and it's fine. I finally found the ignition relay after searching the FSMs At this point I'm thinking I need to test this ignition relay, however I can't find anything in the FSM that will tell me which pin is which nor what readings I should get.

Thanks for the help, I got the relays working as they should, unfortunately didn't fix the issues. Anyone know where the ignition relay is on the 78 280z? I pulled the bracket down above the fuse box on the passenger side. None of the numbers on the relay correspond to the ignition relay.