Oddmanout84 Posted September 15, 2008 Author Share Posted September 15, 2008 from looking at all you've tested, the most likely reason for your car not starting is the cold start injector which is controlled by the thermotime switch. I spliced in a switched nine volt battery to mine because i was having the same problem. If Im not right, you've only wasted 15-20 minutes. Oh and do not pay 1500 for a L series motor unless it has an aftermarket rebuild or something (forged pistons etc) You can always find running motors for under few hundred if not free. For 1500 you could buy a red top sr20 I hear ya. Thing is, the motors are so rare around here (alone) that just about the only way you can find one is in a car (which can also be a challenge). I have a guy looking for me around here now, but if he can't get just the motor (he thinks he knows a guy who'd sell me one), our only other option is buying a whole car that some dude wrecked. So in essence I'm not paying $1500 for the motor, but for a whole car worth of junk. But if the engine is the only thing I'm using, well...... I don't like the situation either. On the car not starting, I used to think it was the cold start, but I did test it several weeks ago and a spray of fuel came out. I've since cleaned all the connectors like a madman. After that though, I troubleshooted the ignition (which I had thought was good) and found a corroded distributor. No spark. I'm waiting on it now, once its here I'm thinking she may start Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phantom Posted September 15, 2008 Share Posted September 15, 2008 By your later photo's/descriptions it's obvious this is a 280Z motor that maybe had the cooling fan added later. When you are cleaning up the thermotine and engine temperature sensors at the thermostat housing you have several steps. FYI - the single wire sensor is the one for your temperature gauge in the dash. One of the two-wire sensors is the engine temperature sensor for the ECU which is used to modulate fuel injector pulse The other two-wire is your thermotine sensor which tells the ECU to fire injector #7 on your intake manifold when the car is cold. NOTE: you have to clean the sensors, clean the male and female connectors at the sensors, and coat them with dielectric grease AND - here's the good one - follow the wiring from the sensors toward the main harness about 16-18" where you will see/feel a lump under the insulation. Strip the insulation away at this point and you will find the aluminum bullet connectors where the leads from the sensors plug into the harness. Even though these are fully wrapped they will corrode over 30 years - causing you to run very rich. Scrape these clean, coat with dielectric grease, reconnect ,and rewrap with electrical tape or heat shrink tubing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddmanout84 Posted September 16, 2008 Author Share Posted September 16, 2008 By your later photo's/descriptions it's obvious this is a 280Z motor that maybe had the cooling fan added later. When you are cleaning up the thermotine and engine temperature sensors at the thermostat housing you have several steps. FYI - the single wire sensor is the one for your temperature gauge in the dash. One of the two-wire sensors is the engine temperature sensor for the ECU which is used to modulate fuel injector pulse The other two-wire is your thermotine sensor which tells the ECU to fire injector #7 on your intake manifold when the car is cold. NOTE: you have to clean the sensors, clean the male and female connectors at the sensors, and coat them with dielectric grease AND - here's the good one - follow the wiring from the sensors toward the main harness about 16-18" where you will see/feel a lump under the insulation. Strip the insulation away at this point and you will find the aluminum bullet connectors where the leads from the sensors plug into the harness. Even though these are fully wrapped they will corrode over 30 years - causing you to run very rich. Scrape these clean, coat with dielectric grease, reconnect ,and rewrap with electrical tape or heat shrink tubing. Thanks for the info! Yeah, I've been thinking this was a retrofitted 280Z motor the more time goes on, just something the dealer/someone added later to cope with the southwest climate. Same with the mystery "T-tops" that seem to be retrofitted onto my car and a good amount of other guys'. I still have yet to ID the transmission, so far my scraping has only uncovered what looks like a serial number on the bell housing. Not the part number. So I'll have to do some more investigating to see how the (eventual) L28 turbo is going to mate up. I have plenty of dielectric goop for my project, but I haven't gone crazy with it yet as I'm waiting until my testing is done with the electrical system. That way I can be certain that my problems are being caused by a bad sensor/connector/wire, rather than accidental coating of a component in grease. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zoobee Posted September 18, 2008 Share Posted September 18, 2008 Don't know if it's been mentioned, but that split sunroof was not any type of Nissan option. A previous owner had it put in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddmanout84 Posted September 18, 2008 Author Share Posted September 18, 2008 I bought this while ordering a new ignition coil online from black dragon. Unfortunately it was late at night and I had several beers in my system prior to ordering... so... Yeah, I love how it looks. But really it has nothing to do with my current goal of getting the car back on the road, it was just a waste of money that could have been spent elsewhere. The next images are just of random progress, if you can call it that. I may have all day every day to work on this car seeing as I still don't have a job, but it seems like things are moving slower and slower. And I'm running out of money. New shocks, springs, and my new rear disk kit. New bushings are out of the frame. Its killing me that these aren't installed yet, but battling with spindle pins, outer control arm bushings and killing rust have taken their toll, and refuse to die. One spindle pin is out, finally. Both, however, are destroyed. Failure to remove them intact with my tool forced hack saw surgery, then driving out te remainder with a drift. The remaining one refuses to budge now, despite being halfway out and soaked in blaster for several days. My second control arm, bathing in my mad science experiment involving baking soda and electricity. I'm suprised this method doesn't seem to be more widespread, its very effective AND cheap for rust removal. This is the other control arm. I might put it in the solution again, as you can still see a slight brown tinge. Most of the rust is dead though. I wish i took "before" images... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddmanout84 Posted September 24, 2008 Author Share Posted September 24, 2008 Holy crap batman! 2099 views? Ummm... think theres any way I can change the title of this thread? Something like... I dunno... Oddmanout's 280Z misadventures? It's not exactly a *new* project anymore... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daeron Posted September 24, 2008 Share Posted September 24, 2008 whats the mad scientist rust removal, baking soda and distilled water plus 12VDC? Proportions of each? youre right, that IS a duh.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
palauoriginal Posted September 24, 2008 Share Posted September 24, 2008 everyone loves pictures...and z's.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddmanout84 Posted September 24, 2008 Author Share Posted September 24, 2008 whats the mad scientist rust removal, baking soda and distilled water plus 12VDC? Proportions of each? youre right, that IS a duh.... Well, from what I've seen on video, its 1 teaspoon of baking soda for every pint of water. But really, it doesn't matter terribly if you put in more baking soda. Its just your money. The baking soda from my understanding is just a medium to make the water more conductive. As for power, I have a car battery recharger hooked up supplying a constant current of 2 amps. It was enough to kill a fly that landed in the water but to me it only tickled. Just don't mix up the polarity (pos goes to sacrificial metal, neg goes to what you want clean) and don't let the metals touch directly. You can also reuse the baking soda solution for at long as you want... it just gets dirtier, but it still does the job. I'm going to do my fuel tank soon, before I add the POR coating to the inside. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddmanout84 Posted September 24, 2008 Author Share Posted September 24, 2008 All I know is that it WORKS... and it works good. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddmanout84 Posted September 25, 2008 Author Share Posted September 25, 2008 Bringing new life to old components I was silly and forgot to cover the threads The blue appears lighter in pictures than it really is I found out differentials are heavy... And everything was covered in oily filth... I wonder if I'm going to have to drain the fluid and service it... Hidden serial... Mustache fire Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddmanout84 Posted September 30, 2008 Author Share Posted September 30, 2008 Well, last night I finally got the motor. Time to go to work. And I don't say this lightly. There is much work to be done on this little gem. Some goober tried painting the head baby blue at some point. Not only did he do a crummy job (flaking paint, and non-high temp), but he also failed to mask off the parts that he didn't want to paint. You really can't see much from the pictures, but there's overspray on some of the valve springs, lifters, and even the camshaft! Trying to get the downpipe off the turbo is an endeavor all its own. One of the nuts is positioned stupidly so its impossible to fit the box end of a wrench, and of course its the one thats stuck. The good news? The turbine seems to spin freely, as does the rest of the engine. The timing chain looks damn new, but I don't know if that's an indication that I'll find anything else new inside the block or head. I'd hope so, but I'm not holding my breath. Mainly, I'm just hoping nothing is seriously wrong in there. Besides that, I have almost no clue how i'm going to get it running! Hopefully I can track down the needed sensors (the crank angle sensor is gone, for one) and megasquirt it (another thing i'm only beginning to understand). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddmanout84 Posted September 30, 2008 Author Share Posted September 30, 2008 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddmanout84 Posted October 21, 2008 Author Share Posted October 21, 2008 More progress, just because I haven't updated in a while doesn't mean the ball isn't rolling. The pumpkin is in! Its a little dirty, but I'll clean it up once I get the rest of it installed. Still waiting on a set of spindle pins. BTW, do you like my home-made trolly jack? For some reason I decided to spray the hood. I guess want to protect the car from rust until I REALLY paint it, but it wasn't nessissary. More than anything its a test to see how I like the two tone scheme... Thats a preview of what the finished product will look like in the future. The DUBS however, will not be a part of it. The manifolds are off. Interesting fact; I removed the exhaust manifold from the car entirely before touching the intake. I just had to try it since everyone said you had to remove the intake first. My secret; I'm not telling. Hopefully I didn't do something that I'll regret later. This is the mockup of the new exhaust headers. Yes, I know... My car's goal is one of the forced induction kind. You'll be happy to hear that even if my L28ET is sitting on the garage floor at the moment, it will eventually go in the car. Right now however I NEED to get this thing on the road, so the headers were a temporary solution. The turbo motor will be getting rebuilt over the winter, because I want to do it right. With luck, once I install the exhaust and the pickup coil in the distributor, the car will once again start. I know I was unsure of it at the beginning of my build, but now I'm almost 99% positive this is my problem. The engine IS getting fuel, I don't even need the noid light to tell me that now. What it isn't getting is spark. After testing the system with a new coil, testing with a spark checker thingy and running a multimeter on the pickup coil I know I'm not getting any spark. And since I can't find a reman distributor ANYWHERE, I'll have to go with replacing a few of the internals on mine. Bonus: Lets see if someone can recognise this car from the recent CTZCC outing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rwdawg2 Posted October 21, 2008 Share Posted October 21, 2008 Looks good so far man. Keep up the good work. Can't wait to see the finished product. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WizardBlack Posted October 22, 2008 Share Posted October 22, 2008 Don't forget to remove every last bit of overspray from the rear hubs where the spindle pins slide through. That's gonna be fun to fit otherwise... Cool idea on the rust removal. Water hydrolysis uses the same solution. Keep up the good work! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddmanout84 Posted October 22, 2008 Author Share Posted October 22, 2008 Thanks for the encouragement, its needed! Its been over four years since this thing last saw the road. After finally coming home and seeing her again its really discouraging to have to keep waiting till I can take her for a spin. I'm just about to scrape the last bit of protective paint off the headers so I can apply some VHT. I'm also going to need new boots for my ball joints (steering connectors). I don't know if the groove that I see in the ball is excessive wear or a design function for channelling grease(hoping for the latter). Regardless the condition of the boot shows me that this item in question has had close to none in terms of protection from the outside elements. One more headache. I just hope to god that with the headers on and the dizzy components installed that the car starts, or at least sparks. If not I may lose my mind. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddmanout84 Posted October 23, 2008 Author Share Posted October 23, 2008 I think it looks better.... Besides, its VHT ceramic. The black stuff was applied by motorsport to protect it in shipping so it scraped off easily (but it still wasn't any fun to sand it off) I painted the vinyl a while ago too. The seat trim came out well, but the fuzzy fabric middle just soaked the paint to the bottom, so it still looks brown. The goal was to have a two-tone black and grey scheme. Paint used was duplicolor vinyl/fabric spray paint. The krylon colorbond plastic paint also worked great on a few pieces of the interior trim. Last night I bought a grease gun and warily decided to test out my zert fittings on the fwd suspension. To my suprise, they weren't clogged and purged well. What wasn't suprising was the nastiness that came out. Hopefully I'm using the right stuff, just general purpose grease. Autozone was out of the moly-based stuff I prefer. I'm going to try to use these steering arms for a little bit while I wait to get replacements. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oddmanout84 Posted October 24, 2008 Author Share Posted October 24, 2008 AAAAAAAAAAAUUUUGH!!! Damn it! They're two different tones!!! Flying twice pipes Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Sprenger Posted October 24, 2008 Share Posted October 24, 2008 Hey, that's no big deal. Just paint the valve cover to match the headers and it will look sweet! A great place to get quality used parts (like a distributor) is Roger at http://www.zbarn.com. 1-800-247-2793 He is great and ships right away. I bought tons of parts from him when I built my 3.1L stroker. Pete Sprenger 1972 240Z Stroker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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