260z fusible link to maxifuse upgrade question

[FastWoman]

Mike, interesting! Thanks for the short history of Z shunts. And that's a nice little fuse block for $30. The only thing scary about it is that they describe "anal" fuses. Hmmmmm...

I think maybe a flux capacitor should be mounted just below the thing. Oddly, they are available on Ebay. They're a bit pricey (and of course tacky), but I'm tellin' ya', if I had a Delorean, I might be tempted.

Hyper, yes, it's OK to do away with the ammeter and install a voltmeter. Then you'd also remove or abandon the shunt and any ammeter wiring that might go to your dash, depending on year/design.

[Hypertek]

Cool. Car now has electricity =)

I ordered a 280z volt fuel gauge from a hybridz member.

Car however doesn't crank. Took the starter out and tested it on the ground, looked ok but gonna go get a new one tomorrow as this one could be in crap shape (autozone reman is like $30 bucks, plus my employee discount) . Meanwhile, I am soaking the cylinders with a little atf, just in case the motor seized, but i really hope it didn't.

[S30Driver]

I have decided its time to upgrade the ageing fusible links on my 77 zcar.

A week ago, I must have breathed a little too hard on one of the white covers & the plastic top disintegrated. They are about 3 years old, plus one of the mounts has been broken since I have owned the car.

Anyway, I ordered the DB Link SFANLFB12DA Strandflex 2-Position Digital Mini ANL Fuse Holder that Mike W used from Amazon to replace the 4 fusible links under the covers. The other 2 for the EFI, I will replace with a smaller 2 fuse unit later. Thanks for that info Mike.

It looks like it comes with 1 100 amp fuse. From my research, the 77 car uses 3 red links & 1 black. Does this equate to 3 50 amp fuses & 1 80 amp to replace the links?

I also read Fastwoman's excellent write up on her upgrade, but I don't think she included what fuses she ended up going with unless I missed it.

She also relayed the headlights, which I will probably do with Dave's harness upgrade as soon as I can source some 280 connectors to adapt his 240 harness so that it is plug and play. I don't want to hack up my wiring unless I have to.

Any info or tips is appreciated.

[Zed Head]

The fusible link versus amp rating topic pops up occasionally. Somewhere along the line, either Nissan made a mistake in their manuals or a translation error in color versus rating has occurred, or in what color Nissan was really referring to in their manuals. The cars were supposed to come with brown links, not read. And Brown is the smallest gauge, therefore the smallest rating. So if Green is 40, the Brown must be less than 40. Copied the page from the FSM.

Apologies to anyone who's tired of hearing this. My logical brain just can't let it go...

Edit - and just to make it more confusing, MSA now has a diagram for the links on their site. But they use a brown color to show where their red links go. They chickened out!

http://www.thezstore.com/page/TZS/PROD/12-4336

And just to round things out, the atlanticz site shows the red as 0.69^2, but the FSM's say 0.3^2. So are the MSA links 0.69 or 0.3? Regardless of color, it's a confusion.

http://www.atlanticz.ca/zclub/techtips/fusiblelinks/

Edited August 21, 2014 by Zed Head

[S30Driver]

Thanks Zed, you're right, it is confusing.

Maybe when this upgrade is complete, i'll set up a bench test to measure how much dc current it takes before the individual links melt & post the results.

[SteveJ]

The blow characteristics are actually a function of time and current. For instance: Fuse Time-Current Curves - Specialty Control Systems