dave280zx

Eric, Yeah, I hear that. I just about died and went to heaven when I found out my 2nd Junkyard tranny was a later ratio! Cruising 75 without breaking 3,000 revs is fun. I put about 30 miles a day on it, on average. Weekends are spent on a 160 mile round trip, but thats factored in to the average. I put this tranny in just when the weather was getting warm, so around March? Yeah, sounds right. The Z breaks every March... MTL will go in tomorrow night, and I shall cross my fingers. It should at least give me a few thousand buffer miles while I wait for a good weekend. Unless somebody pops up today and tells me its useless and my tranny is shot. Until then, *hijack over!*

So do I throw this used tranny in my car while I have the rare opportunity to work on it this weekend, or throw some MTL in the one I have right now? Its got about 6,000 miles on this stupid GL-5. It shifts like a tractor, whines like jet turbine, and clatters like it got a few marbles in it. I guess my question is: --> Does the GL-5 permanently, unfixably degrade everything in the case, or is it "heal-able" by putting GL-4 in it? If it does degrade certain pieces (the brass ones apparently,) will my bearings be okay, or will I need to replace those as well? I've got the glorious later ratio in right now, despite the whining and "sack of marbles" clattering; the used one is the early ratio that doesn't like California highways. Ive rebuilt one of these before, but I wont have the time or the money for quite a while. Schwarzenegger just jacked up my tuition again, and this Z is my daily driver.

Argh! I just read this. Twice. The first time, it didn't register. The second time, with my bottle of Valvoline on the coffee table, it all made sense. I wondered why my perfectly fine transmissions busted within 5k miles of use. I though I was just bad luck, but this totally makes sense. Im getting some Redline MTL tomorrow! Ive got my third tranny to put in this weekend. Ghey.

I got a bad valve stem on Highway 99 yesterday, right between Fresno and Madera. I was stuck there for 2+ hours right in the afternoon. It sucked. I want to thank all you guys in the Zs that past by me and waved, honked, etc... There was literally three or four of you who drove past and sent some sort of sympathy! I also want to personally thank Aaron (Sorry, I dont know how to spell it!) I dont know if he's on here, but he's got an '83. He wasn't in his Z, but he turned around and added about 10 miles to his trip just to see if he could help in any way. Dude, you rock. 99 in the afternoon sucks, but you guys are awesome.

I 12th that motion. I dont know about Florida, but here in Cali you can get the same year, same condition for 1/3 that! If you're fine with over 100K miles, then think even lower... I would take everyone else's advice and show up with about $1500 cash. Cash seems to make people a little more interested in lowering their price. Tell the guy you could fly across the continent, buy the exact same thing, drive it home, and have almost a grand left over.

Hey man, You might want to try your throttle position switch or sensor (I think thats what its called). Its what was wrong with mine. Its thing on the side of your throttle body with the 3 prong connector on the top. It has a black plastic cover, and is held on the body with 2 7mm screw things. Undo the clip, the screws, and pull it out towards the fender. Anyway, if you search "throttle position sensor" here (specifically, http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=131132&highlight=throttle+position+sensor), you'll find that people are talking about water getting in there and whatnot. You can try blowing it out with compressed air (water could be shorting it on occasion.). However, if that doesn't work, I would also suggest cracking it open. You'll have to be careful with the plastic cover; its gonna be brittle from being in the engine bay for 30 years. As long as you can save at least 2 of the clips, you should be fine. I got pissed at mine, and now its held on with some duct tape! When you crack it open, you'll see how it works. Basically, there are 3 positions the switch can engage. On mine, I had broken a piece of the plastic, and the switch wasn't engaging anything but "Idle" right around 3000 rpm. The throttle extension was just spinning freely whenever it wanted to act up. If this is the problem, you can either grab a new one, used one, or do as I did and grab some JB Weld and just epoxy it in place Hope that solves your problem and good luck with the move!

Here's a pic from mine that I stole from an old post of mine. Its a 79, so I dont know how much that will help. Hope this works: http://forums.hybridz.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=4600&d=1198453235 (Copy and paste I guess?)

Actually, Xander was right. I checked everything but that alternator warning light, and it was the problem. Luckily I have 3 manuals for this thing; only one told me how to fix the light... Now she puts out a healthy 14 volts, and everything works fine. Thanks for your input!

Sorry bout that... Here it is:

1979 280zx: Last week, my voltage regulator on my old alternator went out and sent 18V+ through my system. I caught it within a minute or so, and turned everything on full blast to deal with the voltage long enough to get me home. It blew some of the fuses for my lights, but other than that I couldnt find anything. I bought a new alternator and installed it last Saturday. I drove for about 30 miles before I realized the alternator wasn't charging the battery. I brought it home, and did all the checks, took everything off in turn and took it to Kragen, finally taking the whole car. I had them do the in car check. They told me the "alternator isn't making a charge" and that "the field wire sends a signal to the alternator to make a charge" and that somehow that wasn't happening. After having it checked, I searched the threads here and followed the advice. I went through all the wires (Except for the blue on the SL connector; I coulnd't find the end of it) to make sure they were not shorted, then went through my fusible links to make sure those were fine. Then I cleaned all connections and the ground wires. The indicator light for the alternator (near the voltage regulator) is not coming on,(Possibly blown by the voltage surge? Or something else) And the voltage regulator only shows the voltage that is in the battery, which slowly drains as the car runs. Therefore, the alternator is not producing a charge, or the charge is not reaching the system... Right? Knowing me, I might have installed the alternator improperly, so here is a picture of the alternator. The post on the left is labeled "E" in the casing, and the post on the right is labeled "BAT", so I hooked the black ground to the "E" terminal, and the White to the "BAT." Is this right? Does anybody have an idea as to what to do? I dont wanna spend the $$ taking it to a shop, its the only car that has heat, and the little lady refuses to ride in anything else.