TXblue240Z

good deal, that's what i was wondering! thanks

So a couple of months ago while changing my thermostat, I noticed that both the upper and lower portions of the housing had damage to them that made them unusable ( always like it when a new gasket and scraping all that old crud from a seal reveals a leak and thus a bigger job) but I digress. In removing the water temperature sending unit ( the only thing wired into my thermostat since the PO removed the other units which connect to the EGR System? anyway, the only thing I have is the one which gives me the temp at my dash. The 30+ year old wire, being old and brittle breaks off at the sensor, I patched in a new piece of wire, soldered it etc, after a couple of months, it keeps coming loose so I bought a new one from MSA. My question is, it has that little nub sticking out to wire it, but does anyone know what size/type connector I need to attach the wire to the sensor? also where I could get one would be helpful too! Thanks!

yeah, i think the first incident caused the fan to get all messed up, i'm just gonna go a head and replace the fan blades too, thanks for the help.

i should clarify one thing: they aren't conatcting the core as before, they are contacting the upper lip that extends out past the core on my radiator. this lip is sometimes catching a corner and causing the fan to bend underneath it which would eventually cause it to bend enough to seize the whole fan and might rip a new whole in the core at the uppermost part

there is plently of distance normally... but when it is running, esp at high rpms, it oscillates front to back slightly and sometimes this causes contact, when the engine is hot, the fan blades get very pliable and when this contact occurs, they bend, and then that blade is more likely to contact b.c it is bent funny...at least that's my theory...it obviously had some front end problem at some time...which was sorta repaired and i didn't really notice until i had the radiator out...the radiator mounts in the car, where the holes for the bolts are are bend on one side, but there is still what looks like very ample clearance when the engine is off.... from what i can tell...i am getting very frustrated with this radiator/fan trouble since this car is my daily driver, therefore i am not driving... should i return this fan clutch and get a new one as defective or what? i guess i need to replace the warped blades, maybe the slight warps in them is causing the oscillation..i don't know.

So i got my radiator fixed from last fan incident...turned out my motor mounts were fine, just an unbalanced fan. I replaced the fan clutch and the water pump and the fan is still unbalanced! I noticed that some of my fan blades have taken a new shape almost (one was warped) when i had taken the fan out for the replacement of all of these, i tried to bend it back, it's still off balance...my only thought is that i need to replace the plastic fan part... right? i mean a new clutch/water pump probably wouldn't be the problem would they? The damned thing is touching my radiator from time to time so i don't run it anymore because i don't want another radiator hole... If i do need to replace the fan part, what is a good a source, and what years/models are interchangable for this part?

Got the radiator repaired, found a good radiator shop... replaced the water pump, fan clutch and made sure that everything was good and tight...problem solved!

thanks for all of the help..Still trying to track down a good radiator shop in the waco area. I went and looked over the damage again today and I noticed something strange...the fan blades are all fine, except for 2 of them which have notched up corners from rubbing on the radiator...these two are 180 degrees from each other... The radiator is mounted securely, and since none of the hoses, lines etc seem out of place, I am starting to doubt my lurching engine theory because, if the whole engine moved forward, then all of the fan blades would show signs of contact with the radiator... therefore, would a fan clutch going out cause the fan to rotate out of balance? And since I heard the contact the radiator when I was slowing down, but when idling it was fine, driving it's fine, but only when I decellerating quickly did it make contact, would this still be a problem that is consistant with a bad fan clutch? would a bad water pump also cause the fan to be unbalanced so that two blades only would touch the radiator? thoughts? thanks

the raditaor happened aside from the bumpy road. IT happened when i was braking pulling into the driveway. so I'm sure it's the motor mount allowing the engine to slide forward.

ok, the one i have in there now is a three core. The rupture looks as if it was caused by the fan actually coming in contact with it, which i guess means that my engine isn't mounted securely....bad news i guess...thanks for the help. I guess I'll try to track down a good radiator shop... anyway ideas on why my engine would slide forward enough for the fan to contact the radiator other than a broken mount, and where would I start to track this issue down.... thanks a again for the help.

Well, I got my Z fixed yesterday, the electrical problem. Today, I was pulling into my girlfriend's driveway, when I stopped, the car made a strange noise, like th ebrakes lockingup, which kinda makes sense b/c I kinda stopped quicker than usual...except it wasn't my brakes. When I shut the car off and got out...my Radiator is leaking coolant, at an alarming rate...infact the whole thing drained faster than if I would I have removed the plug....so I put a hose in it, turned it on to see if maybe the plug had come loose or if i could determine the source of the leak...from best that I can tell, the damned thing separated at the bottom, or in some other way ripped open near the bottom... I couldn't see well because like all major car problems, this one happened after dark.... I'll investigate tomorrow...assuming it wasn't my lower radiator hose bursting or something easily replacable...where is the best place to get a new radiator for a decent price? THanks!

Thanks, I checked all of those out. They were all fine. It was the voltage regulator.

so i tried jumping it, it started fine, took the cables off and it died. so alternator or battery?

I was driving home a few minutes ago and i was ona pretty cruddy road (bumpy, potholes) nothing too serious...when I hit a bump and lost all my electrical power... lights, engine, everything dead. All my fuses appear to be ok (although I only had my cell phone as a light) fortunately I was able to pullinto an AC Delco parts shop/repair shop... I need to knwo what possibly caused this so I can salvage my car ASAP...the only reason this is urgent is this happened in a pretty sketchy part of Waco, TX and I fear for my cars safety...as when I was leaving a small crowd was watching me from in front a seedy hourly rate motel... anyway, any pointers on the little info I have is very useful, also if any one here lives in waco, and can possibly help, PM me. Thanks.

Idon't have any hose that goes to the air pump or something right now, and I can't firgure out where it should go, b/c the current srtup doesn't have one., and the bottom hose on the diagram that is of the narrow variety, where does it go?

so what about my diagram? it doesn't look to me like my aircleaner box that i bought for my car off of ebay has all of the ports my book shows for a 73 air cleaner, but more than the ones for a an "early aircleaner", were there some in between... and why would that vacuum port be bypassed? I should probably get in touch with the mechanic who owned this car before I did...he probably did all of these mods...notioce in the picture that the thermostat housing is missing some wire connections that appearantly are supposed to connect to the EGR valve (or so I was informed by the guy at MSA)....

Also, look at this photo of my current setup, is this vacuum hose supposed to be connected like this? what should it be connected to? thanks

I have a 73 with SU carbs, and when I got the car, it has a make shift aircleaner, (see my gallery for a picture) and I bought a stock air cleaner box off of ebay, and as some holes were probably plugged to make this make shift setup work, I need help with knowing what on the air cleaner goes to what... I have attached a diagram. Right now my setup has a plain metal backplate with a hole for the crankcase hose, and two holes for the front and rear carb hoses. There is no air pump hose, and definitely not the hose at the bottom of my diagram. Any help is always appriciated! aircleaner.bmp

Thanks for all of the quick replys. The electronic ignition was installed when I got the car, It's a Crane system, not sure of the model, or what exactly they did... I spent all day working on the car today, oil change, air filter change, radiator flush, replaced the thermostat...and found out that the corrosion around my thermostat was due to a leaky housing, the top had a piece missing in one of the bolt holes, and the lower section's other bolt hole was stripped out pretty bad and corroded...so I won't be driving until the replacements come....

I dunno which forum to post this in, since it is kinda scattered, but since I am gonna start with electrical, I guess I'll post it here. I finally got to driv emy Z around for any decent amount of time, streets freeways etc... MY choke light keeps coming on as if my choke was engaged, but it's pushed down, like when i hit a bump, but it stays on...my guess is that something is contacting in ther or the choke cable needs to be adjusted...any thoughts? My guages are screwy... My tach is completely dead (possible b/c of electronic ignition installation?) My speedometer appears to read correctly, except it bounces around with every bump...is this an electrical problem with the guage or a cable problem? My ammeter reads just past the middle on the positive side most of the time, the alternator appears to be fairly new, is this problem, it is only slightly past the middle mark, and goes to the middle when driving at night with lights on... Finally, what is proper oil pressure when not idling ...when idling I read right in th emiddle, when driving it stays fairly constant, topping out at 50-60... any help with these, and what will probably be a laundry list of other help i need wil be greatly appriciated.

I'm in Downtown DC, but in 4 hours I leave for good...back to Texas, back to my Z.

I bought mine off of the Houston Z car Club Buy and sell ads, so you might want to check, capital of Texas Z club, and if not that, the Dallas and Houston sites usually have at least one good car between them...plus most of the people selling them are Z car fans, and didn't let the car go to waste..

I'm moving to waco first of Jan, anywhere close to there?

it sucks even more, having a Z and being in a different STATE as it. But, next week, i'll be back will my Z indefinitely.

I am working in DC and have been since early August. I am from Texas (if my name isn't a dead giveaway) and I am returning there tomorrow to start Graduate School in January. The sad part of my tale began in march, when I had low speed (5-7mph) encounter with a pickup truck on I-35 in Austin Gridlock traffic. I was driving and had had a bad day, with lots of annoying circumstances and I really pissed a friend who had ballsout lied to me about a radar detector I was gonna pick up from him in Austin, and the whole reason for my trek there... So i wrecked my car, which was at the time, a 1981 Toyota Celica, that I was the third owner, my dad had purchased it from the first owner in 82 and and when i was in eight grade, I was told that if I wanted a car when I was 16, the celica was it, but I would have to fix it. It had sat, not run for 7 years, rusted out etc, and over two years, we took the engine apart, sanded thed whole thing down to metal and repaired the holes in the quarter panels, and trunk area...full car restoration. SO i had had this car always, and knew backwards and forwards, and how to fix it all etc, so this was tramatic loss. (a loss that still sits in my parents driveway with horrible body damage, but a perfectly functioning mechanical car) See, my bumper went under the pickup trucks, buckling the hood, smashing the grill, etc in about 4 inches ( even though it was a 5mph collision) The upswing: Well this was the perfect opportunity for me to buy the car that I had been looking for since about 2000, A datsun 240Z. So I found one, Bought it, it's a 73 with roundtops, new paint, numbers matching, no rustouts, turn key car. TWO DAYS LATER, I leave for DC with my car still in texas, and I haven't gotten to have much Z time with my new car. SO over thanksgiving when I returned to my car, I got to play with it for about a week. I still don't knwo the car as well as I did my celica, because this one it obviously a lot different. This car I am also the thrid owner of, the first being a mechanic who owned it until 1999, a kid who was gonna do a V-8 swap, but let it sit around and never did anything to, but it sat for 5 years but still started fine. THings I learned about my car: Needs a carb tune, balancing, clean out. Fuel system, could be better, the fuel filter was filthy. Replaced some of the fuel lines ( not the ones that were still original braided ones, but some regular fuel line hose that had become hard and brittle) Has the infamous gas smell when the tank is full "forcing" me to drive it a bunch the day i fill it up Definitely needs a good radiator flush, and probably a new thermostat and maybe a water pump (has some of that telling "blue crystals accumulation around some of the hoses) The "professional who did the paint job, didn't clean the car well enough or something becase the door has cancer, eventhough I can't find ANY rust under the carpets or a framerails...so I'm kinda pissed that this kid had him destroy the original paint job...the interior paint in the truck area is BEAUTIFUL! Also the kid who I bought the car from said he had swapped engines from another 240. I went to check the numbers, so that I could find out possibly what year the engine came from and guess what? The engine numbers matched the number behind the cowl in the engine bay...as well as with my chassis number...wonder why someone would lie about putting a non original engine in? (unless of course to hide that it isn't the original engine) SO anyway, I've been meaning to post my car saga since thanksgiving, but just had time today... Oh, and the car drives amazingly on the freeway...barely pushing down on the pedal at all in 4th and going 80...