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I've had my '73 240z for a couple of years and its always run pretty decent, but it overheats in city driving. Last fall I was driving and hit some rush hour and it got pretty hot (about 3/4 of the gauge). After a while I got out of traffic and it started to cool down some, but about a mile from my house it started running really rough and 1/4 mile from my house it died completely. I coasted downhill to my house and pushed it into the garage. It wouldn't start, but I was so tired of the overheating I took the radiator out and got it rodded out. I also installed a fan shroud. After I got all that put back together, I've been trying to get it started, and it just won't start. I took the coil wire off of the distributor and held it next to the valve cover while my daughter cranked the starter. I expected a spark to jump across to the valve cover, but there was no spark. Doesn't that automatically mean the coil is bad. When it WAS running, it would hesitate when it hit 3500-4000 rpm. Doesn't that indicate a bad coil, too? I went and got a "IC70" coil from NAPA today. That's what their computer spit out as a replacement. Its a little skinnier than the old coil, but I tried it anyway. I don't get the coil-to-valve cover spark with this new coil either! What else can I try?

Hello and thank you taking a look at my issue. I've just finished turbocharging my NA 1978 and have been running into many issues. Firstly, the car will crank for days but never starts, I've narrowed it down now to spark. I have disconnected the transistor ignition unit as it has an e12-80 module and distributor from a 1980 zx, with a new cap, rotor, and aftermarket ignition coil. Verified rotor is spinning. On the ignition module I have C going to Negative post on coil and B going to Positive. I have the Blue/Black wire & Blue wire connected to Negative on the coil, and Black/White connected to Positive. (There's a skinny white/black wire that I have no clue what to do with, can't find anything on it). I also have a wire connected to a post the distributor going to chassis ground (that wire got a little warm while trying to start the car, strange, disconnected and still no start.) The coil is getting 12~VDC at both posts with key at ON, and 0.00 with key at OFF. Any leads would be greatly appreciated, just want to drive this thing again 😔

I have had my z for a couple of months (1976 280z) had some trouble with the ignition relay at first (accessories did not work) but got them working in the end. Started driving it 2 weeks ago no problems everything worked fine. Then last week I went to start it and it had no spark so after messing with the ignition relay and coil for a bit I found one of the fuseable links was bad (the one that goes to the lights, whippers and washer motor controls.) I replaced it hooked up every thing tured the key, and nothing worked then I heard a relay click and a fizz frying type sound comming from the passanger side didnt smell any thing. I took out the igniton relay and took it apart and all the wiring harness conectors. Checked the relay and filed the contacts and hooked it back up and still nothing. If I turn the lights on the voltage gauge pegs below 12 volts and the lights dont turn on the head lights will on the second click. I tried unhooking all the wires connecting to that control arm and still nothing when i tured the key. I could still hear the clock ticking aswell. I am thinking about taking the dash out I also need to replace the heater core, do some rust work on the fire wall and under the battery, and carpet aswell as some lights and what not behide the dash. Thank you.

Hi all, have been reading these forums for a long time but first time poster. Happy to be here I bought a 71 240z that was sitting for 4 years. Engine is complete, and cranks well but does not start. I already suspect a carb rebuild... But I thought I'd start with spark. When I first got the car in my garage I noticed no spark at all from the coil to the valve cover, cranking or not. Saw that the guy i bought it from wired the Pertronix Ignitor negative wire to the positive post on the coil, and the positive wire from the Ignitor to the ballast resistor. Since its a 3ohm coil, I wired the Ignitor properly to the coil. Now the coil wire does not spark to the valve cover while cranking, but as soon as I let off the key it sparks strong 1-3 times. I have replaced the ignition switch, rotor, coil, and dizzy cap with no avail. Jumped the battery to the Ignitor and still, same condition. Next steps are new Ignitor, and new starter. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated, thanks for having me on the forum.

Hey guys, New to the forum, new to the 74' 260z 2x2 as well. Long post, i do apologize but i figure i should provied a full picture to the best of my knowledge. Any and all advice is greatly appericated in advance, Thank You. My roommate basically has had this car since high school, and in the past 10 years it got neglected. I started working on it cause i was bored. Anyway not a car guy so lots of reading trying to make sense of things and ask other car people questions and advice. Car is now running, almost never need the choke cable engaged to get it started even in cold weather. It has other issues i will list below but im concerned about a spark that keeps happening anytime the key touches the door lock to lock or unlock. Ive been driving it for a week and hadnt noticed the spark but i wasnt paying attention. The shifter was very loose, did some research figured it was the bushing so i took the center console apart unplugged everything and sure enough no bushing. Bought a nylon piece that fit from OSH, Dremled it a bit slipped it in. All in all pretty happy, still have a lot of play in 1st and 2nd so figure i got more problems but atleast i can find 1st and 2nd now. So putting everything back together i reconnect all the wires, car turns on runs fine everything looks like it was prior to the take apart however i get this spark when i go to lock the door. So i walk to the passanger door and try to put the key in there and i get a spark again. (It cant be my body and clothes as i just discharged on the driver door). NOTE THE CENTER CONSOLE PICTURE PROVIDED SHOWS "FASTEN SEAT BELT", MY CARS SAYS "CHOKE" 1. I noticed a black ground wire in my center console, when i was taking it apart it wasnt connected to anything so i attached it to the silver bar under the rear defogger and throttle toggle switch (the bar is connected to the chasi, figured this would be a good ground). 2. Also im worried that the metal wire from the AC TEMP CONTROL dial between the REAR DEFOGGER and the THROTTLE TOGGLE might have gotten lose. I dont know what its for and there is no air conditioning unit in the car. (It was removed when it failed years ago). It does into the crazy mess in the dash, cant trace from there. 3. There is also a plug in my center console that doesnt connect to anything, ive attached pictures below of the outside of plug as well was the inside. 4. Earlier this week my tail lights/dash werent working, tried to resolder but it made no difference so i soldered them straight into the headlight. Pictures also below. 5. Last possibilty is that i removed the wind shield wiper motor and that plug under the hood has nothing connected to it and for some reason is creating sparks? So the above 5 things are what it could be cause the spark im assuming numbers 1,2, or 3 most likely. Being not so good with cars, and concerned and the fact that my gas tank leaks when i fill up all the way i decided i would disconnect my battery just because i dont want any charges sparking anything. I would love some guidence on this issue, i know the weather in the bay are recently has been very dry, wet and cold so i understand that static electricty gets generated especially with the warmer clothing but to spark twice in less then 1 minute is kind of scary. Other things done to car to get it running: -Replaced throttle cable. -New battery (the negative side also has a ground attached to it) -Turn singles were disassembled cleaned resoldered, added some solder to the inside of the switch also cause it just wouldn't catch. -Shifter bushing -Tail Light/Dash switch soldered directly into headlight Things i need to do: -New air conditioner unit -Suspension is shot -Fix leak with gas tank, (think its the neck leading to the tank) -Center console guages work, (clock is always off), They do light up -Speedo and Tach not functioning, They do light up -E-brake must be fully engaged in order to work, and when fully disengaged light always flickers on dash "Brake" -New light bulbs for interior of car (interior dome light, glove box, CHOKE, REAR DEFOGGER) -Wind Shield wipers dont work (the motor clicks once but no action beyond that) -Either axel or e-brake seem to lock up when car is cold, thus i get a jolt in 1st, 2nd, sometimes in 3rd. -Tranmission i think needs some work, shifting into second it grinds sometimes so i go into 3rd instead -RANDOM CLICKING NOSE WHEN CARS OFF FROM FRONT OF ENGINE, (between radiator and litterally front of engine) -Need battery clamp mechanism to hold battery in palce (bungie cord right now) -Door locks are a nightmare, and occasionally doors wont stay shut Questions: -In the driver side center console theres a toggle switch with no labels, assuming it was added post production. It has 2 blue wires coming out of it and goes into the steering column. Dont think it does anything, does anyone have any clues? (Roommate thinks it was cruise control switch added later) -Under the driver seat theres a silver box with tons of wires, 1 blue wire is split. It says PACESETTER with a number dial and on/off switch. Any clues? -A friend was saying maybe some SeaFoam into the gas tank, and engine, maybe the vacuum lines inorder to get junk out. But SeaFoam scares the **** out of me so i want to hold of on it till someone experianced can help with it.

'73, stock distributor, Pertronix Igniter, MSD 6A. Symptoms started one day last week after winding out 2nd gear. My tach jumped from around 4K up to around 6K, then back down to around 4K. After that, the engine was running roughly, not revving easily, and backfiring under anything more than light load. I thought maybe a plug was fouled because it definitely felt like it was down a cylinder. Here's what I've done: 1) Changed the plugs 2) Checked to make sure the distributor didn't move. 3) checked the cam timing, thinking it was timing chain slip or the tensioner broke. It was dead on. 4) Checked valve clearance, since it'd been about 2 years. No difference. 5) At this point, it occurred to me to pull the plug wires one by one. This is when I found that #6 was not firing. 6) I swapped the wires for positions 5 and 6. The problem stayed on 6. 7) Swapped in a new rotor. No difference. 8) Swapped in the last distributor cap I had. No difference. 9) swapped in another new plug on #6 just in case I had a bad new plug. 10) Propped the #6 wire and plug up on top of the value cover so I could start the car and watch for a spark. No sparks. At this point I'm thinking that something is wrong with my distributor, but I don't know what to do next. Help?

:disappoin I was warned and worried about fouled/contaminated fuel so I wanted to do a lot more fuel-prep work than just drain and refill the gas tank. I pulled the gas tank, got it cleaned at a local shop who gave it a Castic acid bath for a day, got it back last week but haven't reinstalled it yet. Blew all the bad gas out of both the feed and return lines with an air compressor (the feed line between the fuel damper and the fuel filter; the return line between the fuel rail and the fuel tank). The fuel in the feed line had some black flakes in it, the fuel in the return line had a bit of thick white junk similar to a jelly but otherwise the decade old gas looked clean and new in color. Changed the fuel filter, changed the oil and oil filter, drained and replaced coolant, replaced a bad fuel hose, replaced the leaky bypass hose(s) (why I stopped running it long ago in the first place), got some 93 octane gas with some gumout fuel system cleaner in it, and here I am. I have a 2-gallon fuel container sitting on a box right behind the fuel pump I'm feeding the fuel hose with gas. Incidentally, I have the rear of the car up on jack stands (using the proper jack stand points as instructed by the repair manual). The rear wheels and drums are off (bad break hoses and brake fitting nightmare but that's another story) and I don't think this has anything to do with why the car won't start. :stupid: The hole on the container was wide enough to put the return hose in there as well, I've already verified the fuel pump is pulling fuel at a good rate, and there is fuel coming out the return hose when I'm cranking the engine. I verified there is spark in #2 and #3 cylinders by using a test light. I hooked the negative alligator clip up to ground and stuck the needle up against the metal contact inside the rubber boot of the spark plug wire and when someone else was cranking the engine I could see sparks in there. The cranking is really healthy sounding. Not too fast, not too slow, just like I remember it when it was running. It just won't fire up. I lifted the distributor cap to inspect inside. There was a bit of corrosion on the rotor head and contact points. Nothing to keep the car from starting I would think. I cleaned them up and put the cap back on. I felt air pulling into the air filter housing when the car was cranking. I know these are rudimentary checks I'm doing but I'm afraid I don't know much. Most of what I know about my Z I've learned in the past three weeks just reading the repair manual and hobbying away on it. Suffice it to say removing the fuel tank was a challenge for me, especially the venting vapor lines, but I succeeded at it without breaking anything. Not looking forward to putting the tank back on. I presumed it would be running by the time I got to that point. Anyway, I read elsewhere on the site that vacuum hoses can prevent the car from starting. There are some small rubber hoses around the distributor I observed today that were cracked and hardened and didn't seat together that good. I'm not sure why the timing would be off, it's only sat in the garage for 10 years. Not sure how to check for a bad timing chain or even set the timing. I see the adjustment screw on the distributor and I see the two little plates with the lines on them, and that they're offset from each other by a certain angle. If the rotor head spins counter-clockwise, the little bit of white corrosion on it would have been closer to the leading edge of the head rather than the trailing edge (relative to the middle of the rotor head). I presume this would signify a more "advanced" timing than "retarded" timing. Which is what I figured already anyway: The car is advanced and I'm retarded, it's okay, it doesn't mean that life is unbearable. I pulled the spark plugs out last night. They were all blackened on the electrodes and the insulators. I lightly sanded them and wiped them all clean and checked their gaps with a feeler gauge I bought. Not really sure how tight the fit is supposed to be but they all seemed to be gapped around 0.8mm. Anyway the car should be getting fuel as the pump draws the fuel out of the container nicely and I have fuel coming out the return hose. Doesn't mean the injectors are good but I don't know how to check the injectors and wouldn't they go bad one at a time? Would two or three bad injectors keep the motor from starting? I have spark inside the spark plug wires by using my test light probe grounded to the (-) battery terminal, but that doesn't mean it's a "good enough" spark. I haven't done a compression check. Seems self explanatory enough to put a compression gauge into the spark plug holes and check the cylinder compression but I don't know if this is a likely culprit of why it won't start at all. Seems implausible to me that it would prevent the car from starting when it ran very well the last time it ran a decade ago. Anyway, any general wisdom of what/how to check next, or most-likely-culprit information would be greatly appreciated. :stupid: Thank you in advance! Shawn