roger.svoboda

got silverstars on my 83 zx and they are great you can see down the road now.

or you can buy one from courtesy nissan on cd. I found one at books4cars.com

you can download a manual from carfiche.com. keep trying they limit downloads.

aabout all it can be you got a hot wire going to it and a ground to get back to the battery. check the connector in the back of the light for corrosion or a broken wire.

I figure it was vibration or stress fatigue because it was cleanly sheared off. There is no wear on fork or fulcrum pivot had some lube on it. there is no way to get shear force on the fulcrum pin as everything would just slide off. tranny guys I talked to said yes it happens not often. anyway easy to get off it is a 10mm thread into the bellhousing hex shaft with the hardened round head on that.

pull the oil filler cap when its idling and see if it runs worse. If it doesn't then you have a big vacuum leak. It does seem like you may have something in the plenum that is leaking.

Son and I swapped an 86 engine in to the good 85 we have. Used the 85 tranny as it was working fine the old engine just had leaky valve seal so bad she was burning oil at 1 qt per 500 mile. still dynnoed at 185 at the wheels but anyway changed out the throwout bearing bolted her up and away she went. Few weeks later clutch went out on #1 son. what up! pulled the tranny today found that the hardened round steel pivot point for the fork had sheared off. asked a friend with more experience and he said yes it happens. some folks just automatically replace that unit when the tranny is out. Something to think about if you got your tranny out sitting on the ground.

guarantee that a 5 spd manual from an 81 will drop right into an 81 turbo cause i did it. Believe that would be the case for the 82, 83 but havent' done that.

why bother with the t5 check on the posts but I haven't heard any raves about that tranny. the n/a five speed works just fine and is the same length as the auto so no need to find the right drive shaft. the 81 I did took an n/a 5 spd from an 81 and she is still running fine. Only problem I had was matching input and output flanges/splines from the various components. cv half shaft can be found on turbo and 2+2. you need to pull the hubs to make them mate up. they just pop out of the diffy and are same if they both come from either an r200 set up or an r180 setup. the r 180 shafts are different length cause the diffy is narrower.

yeah it would be nice to know that. something like 2n6505 in a TO-3 package would work. Need to know whether it is a pnp or npn. Most any power transistor in a TO3 can would probably work. seems like someone of the many folks doing this would have found that out by now.

you have to remove the fan shroud and then look at the front of the engine to the right (looking at front) of the thermostat housing buried back in there you should see a unit with two wires. same connector as a fuel injector. the wires run up and over to the passenger side of the engine. there is a write up on how to change do google search. basically you bust off the plastic end of the sensor (after removing the connector) and then you can get a socket on there and remove the unit. It isn't very tight (or shoudln't be). then you need a wobble socket or an overlarge socket to get the new one in. If you have a new FI connector you might want to change that they are usually fried by now. Follow the wires all the way up to the top of the engine and make sure the large plastic oval connector up there is good. Doesn't need to be brutally tight. all it does when you tighten the new is bring the nose of the sensor in contact with the metal of the engine too tight you might crush the sensor. hope that helps.

actually the end pieces are different depending on which drive shaft you get. Had a problem when I changed out auto on 81zxt. the manual drive shaft inut spline is smaller than the turbo shaft. there is a round end piece and a rectangular one. If memory serves the rectangular one fits most r200 but I did see one off an r200 supposedly that would fit the round end. On the the rectangular one save the bolts cause they are special half moon head to fit. also when you change from r200 to r180 or vice versa there is U bolt looking piece that carries the front of the the tranny. that will need to be removed and rotated 180 degrees then reinsert. you need to drop the gas tank some to get at the nuts. not total removal just needs to drop down an inch or so. safest bet on the drive shaft is to insert it into the tranny you are using and see if it is right size. match up the end piece to the tranny input flange. you also need the clutch hydraulics and the cage that holds the pedals for a manual tranny. All the holes are there but you need the pieces. that cage does come out but takes some wiggling seems like you forgot a bolt then suddenly it is sitting on the floor. four bolts that hold the vacuum assist and two up under the dash outboard of the steeing column.

thanks for all the replies. and yes I did get the running lights repaired. loose connector fried the plastic and allowed the connector to get loose. squeezed everything down and now good. The moral is don't unclip the spring. I assumed (you know about that) that it had to come out to remove the combo switch thingy. WRONG just needt to loosen the screw some more. What it was is what hughdogz said. there is a flexible rubber piece inside the engine bay which pulls the steering column down. This is why i thought the spring needed to be compressed quite a bit. Not true. If I had a buddy to push up on the steering column no problem but I'm all alone in the dark. Luckily being an old guy I studied catapult technology in school so I did the trick shown in the photo. this then makes it a finger push to get the spring down and the clip back in.

anyone else been stupid enough to undo the spring clip thus releasing this spring on the steering column under the steering wheel. If so how did you fix it.

While repairing the running lights on my 83 zx I made the error of removing the spring clip that holds the little (but very stout) spring that is mounted below the steering wheel as I thought it had to come off to get the multifunction stalk unit out where you can work on it. Any one else do this and know a way to get it back together.

watching the tailights dissappear in front of you as you vainly try to keep up.

Yeah zx electronics are real voltage sensitive. I had a brand new battery that was bad out of the box. If fully charged and started right off it was okay. But a little extra cranking or sitting a couple days would do weird things. After much cussing and hair pulling saying can't be the battery it is new I took it to a battery place and had them do a load test sure enough. replaced with another under warranty. check your battery cables for corrosion. sounds electrical either that or some sensor is putting you in the go home mode of the computer which only allows the engine to rev so high.

check the part about air flow. after ten years you might have a mouse nest in the air intake system. check battery electrical connections. particularly grounding portion. zx real finicky about voltage you can have enough amps to crank and not enough volts to run the ecu properly. where you at in seattle I"m up north. you can contact me direct krs@whidbey.com

there are some posts about this somewhere. If I remember right it has to do with alternator not charging the battery correctly. when this happens all the lights come on. check to make sure your battery cables (pos and neg) are both clean and free of corrosion, tight both ends. On the zx the ground cable (neg) should go from the battery post to a bolt on the frame just below the battery box and then to the starter. Many times people cut off the frame ground and go direct to the starter thus creating a poor ground situation. If this is the case on your car I would try going back to the original configuration (negative post to frame to starter). clean everything up good to ensure good electrical connection and bolts are tight. be sure battery clamps themselves are mechanically sound. If you have one of those clamp on the cable one size fit all type. throw it as far as you can and put in a well made new cable. the oem strap type connectors have a habit of cracking from overtightening and look okay on casual inspection but don't actually give you a good connection.

rotten egg smell not unusual with cat converter. Some maker had a big problem with that years ago. My subaru does that going to the mountains in the winter when I hit the long uphill to the ski area. Sometimes get a whiff in the Ford Ranger. Both vehicles less than five years old. My 83 doesn't but I don't push it up the mountains either. this happens when engine is running high load. perhaps you are running lean and exhaust is getting hotter than usual.

put in a 5 speed you won't need the oil cooler. clean that engine bay right up

Are you sure you got the wires all back in the correct holes on the dizzy cap? Or the replacement coil is shot. You might try lighting her up at night and then looking under the hood (without bright lights around) and see if you see some electrical sparking. Very seldom does something coincidental happen. Always ask yourself what is the last thing I did and then check that thoroughly.

well there aint much going there. You got the yellow wire with a spade connector to the solenoid and the main wire from the battery positive and a main wire from the battery negative. (actually that should go first to a bolt in the frame below the battery box and then to the starter) Keep the ground on the bolt don't run the cable direct to the starter. why not run some new wire. follow it back til you get to something good. It can't all be fried unless you had an engine compartment fire.

if you have a degree in electrical engineering you might be able to redo the circuit but other than that I haven't found anything. (and I have a degree in electrical engineering.) the speedo circuit is designed to only read 85 mph once a setpoint is reached regardless of the input voltage. the other choice is analog speedo from 79 or 80.

is that an arming switch off an f-16