chaseincats

The trim panel is not going to do you any good unless you seal the metal opening behind it as the piece won't be airtight even when bolted down. Get a bunch of duct or painters tape and seal that opening in the hatch then poke holes in the tape where the trim screws are going to go - that's the only way to be sure its air-tight.

Absolutely agree, just passing on what we did/worked

There is one on the ZCCA page but all it is, is me opening the door and having smoke pour out. It really is as simple as throwing the machine in the back of the car with all the windows up/hatch down and waiting. I didn't dangled the cord out of the window and rolled it all the way up, then sealed the rest of the area (maybe an inch) with painters tape. Sucking smoke in from inside the car arguably works better. I had someone hold the fog machine near the hatch, and placed the shop vac hose in the trunk area and squeezed my way back there as well with the vac on. You do not need to seal the car, just having the vacuum on is good enough (my doors and windows were open for example). I hope that helps!

You absolutely are. Just tape it shut in the interim - you're not losing anything but braincells outside of a bit of ducttape

Glad to hear it but I'd be really nervous to remove the lights and sever that 'glued' seal

We found that after the car fully pressurizes, the larger leaks show themselves but the smallest ones stop which didn't make sense but that's what happened. The rivet leak for example only showed itself after we held the smoke machine behind the car and turned on the vacuum

All of the above. I will say, though regarding the trim panel, I sealed the back of it with a bunch of tape then poked holes in the tape where the screws would go. That trim panel tends to sag since its so old and no longer seals that hole. EDIT: I forgot to add that I found the reproduction hatch gaskets were a bit too small and ended up ungluing itself in the top area by the dome light since it was too tight. I ended up buying the OEM one but it wasn't cheap (I think around $250) but worth it at the end of the day.

Yep!

Yeah, I finally had enough too. Even though I used my friend's fog machine, it is definitely worth the price of admission to buy one for this project. All your local Z friends will be happy to come over and do their cars too I bet haha.

Yep!

Yeah, the PO made a poor connection that was hiding under a bunch of electrical tape

Final update: We fogged the car like in that video again last weekend and confirmed sealing the taillight gaskets with Seal 'N Peel (one bead between the gasket and the light housing and a second between the gasket and body) worked perfectly - no smoke escapes there anymore. That said it didn't 100% fix the issue meaning there were leaks else where which we found due to a shotty weld job done by the PO when replacing the hatch base which must have been rusty. Fogging: - I saw this originally on another thread which I cant find but besides what we did (throwing the fog machine in the car and shutting the door) there's actually a better way to do it. - Once the car is fully pressurized with the fog machine, the smoke will escape from the paths of least resistance, which isn't the tiny pinholes in the back. The trick is to have someone hold the smoke machine behind the car and move it around while you turn on a shop vac and let it sit in the hatch area creating a vacuum (just like how the car works while driving). You will see where the smoke is sneaking in then just wipe some seal 'n peel or whatever sealant you have left and its game over. You'd be surprised where smoke sneaks in, for example, smoke was sneaking in AROUND one of the rivets I found. This is definitely worth your time to do at least in my opinion.

I completely forgot to update you on this, sorry about that. Wiggling it worked and I haven't had an issue since. What a waste of time changing all those alternators out ended up being lol. Thanks Captain

Correct, you need to modify the box to get it to fit. The general consensus is (this is what I did) getting some literal tin snips and cutting away the metal until you can fit it in. Don't be discouraged by this, it's absolutely worth the effort.

Haha sounds good, I'll wiggle away!

Gotcha. I took it for a drive today and it was behaving, next time it misbehaves I will.

By 'jumper' you mean take an ohm measurement with a multimeter, not stick a wire between the two, right? (please say ohm measurement)

All my measurements are on post #23

The W/R wire that goes to the alternator’s T-connector isn’t included in this check, right? Good catch on the tape flap, I grabbed another shot after giving it a haircut. It does go back into the harness:

Gotcha, it's just odd that it fixes itself everytime I change the alternator out. But I'll give that a look today.

Thanks all, good to know. Before I jump ship on this alternator though, I do want to find the possible issue with my wiring harness

From the pic on the rockauto part page it looks like I'd need to yank the fan off of my current alternator and transfer it to the new one somehow, no?

Could you send me where you got the alternator/2-pin connector? I'd like to keep working on getting the current one working properly since the theory so far is my car's wiring is the issue but that sounds like an upgrade I'd like to make later on

Did you need to do any hardware modifications to the alternator housing or mounting brackets? I know most non-Z alternators need that which I'd like to avoid if possible.

The wire colors differ from my 78 FSM which is interesting but it looks like @Captain Obvious's is more on point. I've attached a picture of my alternator's wiring (I unplugged the T connector for a better view of the wire colors). E: Black wire B: White with red stripe wires (condenser's WR has been connected to the terminal via a ring terminal instead of the original bullet connector) S: White with red stripe L: Blue with white stripe that becomes blue with black stripe after the electrical tape I think (the wires are dirty so it's hard to see)