ferrariowner123

Hate to raise this from the dead, but does anyone know where one could find that bumper repair kit, or an equivalent? As was stated, Napa doesn't carry it anymore and I would love to attempt this project! Thanks -Kyle

Okay, really hope this isn't what I get to look forward on here, but I guess thanks for the help? I made the disclaimer that said I probably missed something, and you found it. I apologize for not including every single detail in my lengthy story. Did my best. At any rate. I am also leaning toward it being heat related but I can't imagine anything other than the voltage regulator causing strange miss charging issues. Am I at least going in the right direction? The battery drain, is plausible but not in the sense you hinted at, I drove maybe 5 miles (after sitting for a few weeks after the battery change, from the return trip from Eastern washington, or the last time it broke down), it sat for about 10-12 hours after successfully reaching my destination, tried to drive it home made it about 3.5, before it died from the originally mentioned symptoms (not advancing, back fire, dead on side of the road). Not as long of driving and in much cooler conditions from the original trip it broke down, maybe rules out heat issues? I'm unsure. Still looking for some direction I'll try and check the alt today, see what it's output is. -Kyle

Uhh, well is it related the the charging system? Because I'm even more confused now. Because it wouldn't turn over after each of these breakdowns, charge the battery up and poof the car works again, so your gonna have to spoon feed me this one if those symptoms are not caused by a low voltage battery. And maybe you miss read, because while I get that the numbers I posted are good, it's the fact they went from 14.1 to 13.8 in a matter minutes, I'm no expert, but I'm pretty sure that means the battery is discharging, correct? -Kyle

Hello all, I have been on Hybrid for a little while for some newbie question while my dad owned a Z, but now that hes sick of how much work it needs, he went out and bought a Corvette, and i'm going to be buying the Z off him in about a week. I'm very excited, wanted this car since the day it showed up the house. IT's a 1977 280z with a couple of basic mods, but most importantly for me, is it euro bumpers, the diving boards ruin that car. At any rate, i'm having some electrical issues, that i would some assistance in solving. i'd like to think I've done alot of research on this, but there is a lot of contradicting information, specifically on what should be idling voltage at the battery. And im just looking for some more info on what i should do... But first, my problem! We have had this issue for quite a while, it appears that the alternator wasn't providing enough voltage to keep this battery charged. I found this out the hard when i tried to go on a three hour road trip to eastern Washington, and made it about a hour or so from my start point. What was in there was the battery the came with the car when we bought it, a POS o'rielly alternator (didn't know any better at the time), and some voltage regulator i bought to try and get the thing working from some brief research. Anyway, i managed to have a friend close by to where i broke down on my road trip, had the car towed there so i could work on it. I also had some parts ordered the next day from a local auto zone, where i also tested the O'Rielly alternator, it check out fine according to the,, so i bought the new regulator, and installed it. That morning however, i had stuck a 6 amp charger on it, and was on for probably a good six hours. After re-installing the alt and installing the regulator i finished my journey. The ride back is a different story, i tested the battery voltage at my uncles upon arriving in eastern Washington, it was reading around 13.8 ish voltage at the battery on idle. The gauge was reading in the range from what i could tell. However on my journey back it happened again, no power, no advance on the timing, began to back fire, and then it dies on the side of the road. Happily i was following my parents who turned around and we charged the battery using their car. We motored to another autozone, bought a new battery as the original tested Bad on the autozone battery testing thing. After the freshly charged battery went in, i made it all the way, probably another hour or so left in my journey. Drove it a couple of weeks later, same issue, not enough juice in the battery to keep in going. At this point i was getting really frustrated, and insisted to my dad that we buy a new, quality alternator after my other experience with another car, going through 3 o'rielly alt's in about 5 months. I also had him ask "Z-Man" who is somewhat local to my family in Washington, and he told a similar story with the awful quality of these alternators while they were chatting about some other Z related work he was doing for us. So my dad ordered a standard amperage remanufactured alt from Z man, Issue persisted. Z-Man had also hinted at the old fusible links being a common cause of electrical issues for the Z's. So i bought this and installed it in place of the old links. I had been trickle charging the battery when i decided to start working on this issues, so the battery had a good charge. After finishing the fusible link replacement, i started her up and with a volt meter on the battery, watched the voltage drop from 14.3 starting to about 13.81 in about 10 to 15 minutes of mainly idling and the occasional Rev to see if the alt would increase voltage, which it kinda did, at about 3k rpm's it went from 14.1 to 14.15. So this is kinda where i'm stuck. I have read that atleast one person ran a direct, thick gauge wire directed to the positive battery terminal with a high amp circuit breaker and have seen some improvement in voltage stability. But what would experts suggest i do at this point? I'm kinda wanting to drive the car while its nice out, but also wouldn't mind upgrading the alternator, after reading this article about the benefits of a high amp, idle stable alternator, i definitely want that. I also want to future proof this car as best as i can, as ill want to turbo it, at some point. So an alt that can handle a decent stereo, a stand alone ECU, and E-fans, is something i'm after. So yeah, that's my Z story, sorry for the big read. i try to include as much detail as i can so that maybe someone can identify any small thing i did or didn't do during my process. I'm sure i forgot something so please bare with me and ask question, i will provide as much detail as i can. Thanks in advance and looking forward to hearing from you guys! -Kyle

Hey guys, I'll just start out with a little back story. I've got a 77 280Z,relatively stock apart from previous owners stuff, 240Z euro bumpers, some weird intake and MAF, and some deleted stuff (IACV, EVAP,etc) and I'm having some, what I think is a charging issues. I tried to take the Z on a little road trip awhile ago, and made it about half way before the car seemed to run out of juice and started back firing and no power, so I thought it was the voltage regulator, so I put the car on a charger for about 6 hours, got my new regulator, and had the alternator tested (checks out fine, but it is a crap orielly's alt), but I got to where I needed to go after fixing it, but was still skeptical and rightly so. Coming home, the car did the same thing again. I got the car jumped and "charged" the battery with the jumping car, to try and keep going. Drove it to an autozone to have the battery tested, they said it didn't have enough voltage to test, so we bought a fresh battery and made it home. That was a few weeks ago, fast forward to this week and with the starter dead on my pathfinder (my main driver) dead, I tried driving the Z, it appears that the battery slowly died the more I drove it, and repeated the same symptoms as my initial road trip, the back firing and lack of power. I jumped it again, and made it home, but I'm sick of this issue. I want to get this car more reliable again, so I think I'm going to do the ZX upgrade and lose that external regulator but what of this other issue. Is it just a matter of me tracking down a bad wire and cleaning up some of the crap that's on their or is this a different problem? Thanks for any help and suggestions. -Kyle

What happened to your grill? I'll buy it off you. -Kyle

That has to be the sketchy-est yes most creative rotisserie I have ever seen. Looking forward to more, where are you getting your 2j from? EDIT: HORRAY FOR NOT READING! Lol I've always been curious, though, is there a step by step guide for going GE to GTE on the 1 and 2j motors? -Kyle

Still, sort of on the hunt for the interior parts, but have the adapters now.

bump, really need those interior bits.

Hello all, Really need to get a hold of the adapters that are needed from an original Z master cylinder in order to complete the Wilwood conversion, i've got 2 masters from some 280's both do not have the correct fittings, so i was hoping i could buy them off someone. Also need some misc interior parts, main the parts that fit around the rear side windows that cover the factory speaker, drivers side, in black. Thanks -Kyle

Yeah I ordered a new regulator last night and should be here by Wednesday, so I'm praying that's the problem. I'll report back and let you guys know. -Kyle

Okay, I'll bypass the core. Just get a brass double flared tube like 3" long? I haven't checked anything for voltage, I'll do that later today or tomorrow and post up what I get. I do like that idea of it being corroded cables, some nice gauge audio wire Will work, right? This thing has such a ghetto wiring job for the stereo that I hate. So hopefully this will give me a reason to rip it all out. Thanks for the help guys -Kyle

So a few months ago (august 2012 ish), my Dad bought a 1977 280Z, we really like it and has been fairly good so far, but recently things have been heading a little south. First, we started noticing that after driving it, the passenger side of the front window would fog up, my Dad and I never thought much of it, I had just assumed it was something old cars did. But upon further inspection after a tip off from one of my friends, I found that the carpet on the passenger side was SOAKED in coolant. Yes, I know, how we didn't notice is completely beyond my understanding. But, I got to work. I pulled off the center console, labeled everything for later, and plastic bagged all the hardware. Re-did some of the HORRIBLE wiring for the stereo the previous owner did, and pulled the blower unit, fairly easy to get access (other than having to stand on my head). But i'm starting to get get fairly fed up with this issue. I have replaced the two lower coolant hoses with better condition ones purchased from the junkyard, after getting it all together, it still leaked, this time I actually looked to see where it was leaking from, turns out it was the upper hose, so went to NAPA picked up the PERFECT heater line, cut it to length, and slapped her on (obvious this took about 3 hours to swearing and complaining to do all that). Also got rid of all the stupid Nissan ring tie things, and replaced them with new jubilee clips. So again, got her all back together, filled her back up with water, (cleaning the block out of really brown coolant) and for a little while, I thought I fixed her, got her up to temperature, it started smoking a little bit from the under the dash, I ignored it, and continued to warm her up (should I be worried? ) and what do you know, after getting her all warmed up, I turned the HVAC temperature gauge on the center console from hot to cold, starts GUSHING hot water on to the floor, from the top of the plumping that controls the temperature inside the car. We have a rally coming, this Saturday actually, and we would really like to have heat (not a huge deal if we cant, but having it is preferred), but my question is, can I replace this assembly from Nissan? or can I replace the seal that has inevitably failed over time, or that I caused it to fail, during my swearing escapade. And if I cant get parts within my deadline, is there any issue to me putting bolts that fit into the coolant lines that feed the interior, making sure they don't leak of course, just as a temporary setup so it doesn't leak? My second issue, is we have had some kind of charging problem. Every time you start it, the "CHG" light comes on from the volts gauge, so I pulled the alternator, had it tested, failed, bought a re manufactured one from o'reilly's, (not ideal, but it will do the job). Surprise, surprise, it didn't fix it. I can rev it under no load, up to 5K ish and the light will turn off briefly, but come back on. Any ideas? The Volts read about 12ish volts. The car hasn't left me stranded, but its only started happening the last few times I've gone to drive it, within the last month, it is starting to sound a little different when I do go to start it, like its a little harder than it use to be, it has what looks to be a fairly new battery, but I have yet to check the actually health of the battery. One thing also worth mentioning, I think right around the same time the "brake" light stays on after lowering the e-brake, but eventually turns off after a little while of driving, weirdest thing. Just thought i'd mentioned it. The car just recently got all new suspension, Eibach Pro-kit progressive rate springs, and KYB shocks, and we also flushed new brake fluid while we had to bleed the car anyway. So any and all help well be greatly appreciated, ill be checking back regularly for any questions you guys have. Thank you for making it to the end of my massive post, hope there is someone who can help. Thanks -Kyle UPDATE: It was the regulator for the electrical issue, in case anyone cursing through had the same problem