xonix_digital

Hey all, I have a weird electrical gremlin that I need some help with (well two of them actually). I ran into an intermittent issue the other day where turning the key to the off position doesn't turn off the car, it kept running. Now I've read a few threads about other people having this issue and people were pointing to the Alternator regulator etc. But I realized for me that the car would turn off if I released the brake pedal. I'm also seeing intermittent whisps of smoke from my steering column area while driving (thinking these things might be related). I took the steering column wiring apart, and I can't seem to find anything melted or discolored and looking through the wiring diagram isn't giving me any ideas. Is there anything on the steering column harness (besides the e-brake light) related to brakes? Any thoughts on what could be shorting out around the column causing the smoke? Thanks in advance for any thoughts or insight.

Hey all, My paint shop misplaced my passenger door lock for my 1973 240z. I have purchased the ebay crap online and they all come setup for different key types so I cant even re-key them. I would like to buy an original 240z door lock that works with the same key blank as mine so I can have it professionally re-keyed. As far as I can tell I have an "R-Type" key as indicated by the image below. I am looking for a door lock that will work on the passenger side of my car (I think they are both the same) but will accept an "R-Type" key. Please let me know what you have and if you can confirm that the key type is correct. Thanks! - Alex

Hey all, I have found many threads and many inconclusive advice or comments about wiring under the dash. I have a very important Z Club event to attend in a little over a week and I need to get this sorted. I have 90% of this stuff figured out between searching for posts and reading the wiring diagram. On my 1973 240z, I have these few remaining wires that I cant figure out where they go. They don't appear to match up with any of the items on my wiring diagram, or any of the relays in my bundle. I could very well be missing some parts down here too. Here goes: 1. The two here that I am questioning is the three prong (WB - W - L) and the two prong (B - RL). These are coming down from the passenger side 2. This one is two wires coming together in a female spade connector? Seems odd... (R - B). 3. This next one has the double headed two prong connectors (TOP). Both are (G - BW) coming from the right passenger side harness. I have read that this has something to do with the electric fuel pump that this car was equipped with and has since been replaced with a Carter electric pump. Then there's the two prong (R - GW) that comes from the center harness. and the three prong (K - K - G) that comes from the center harness. I will continue sleuthing through the FSM and whatever posts diagrams I can find, just thought I would toss this up in case someone already knows everything and wants to win some hard earned forum cred. Thanks! - Alex

Success! Ok so try and follow me here. Here is my theory of the melted fuse box: (Please correct me if my logic is flawed.) The Flasher fuse melted above due to a faulty fuse. The fuse was supposed to fail and break the circuit, but instead of blowing out the connection it sort of tried to turn into a light bulb. Meaning the fuse element did not blow out it just sort of melted causing a high resistance heat source. Replaced the fuse above and all of my dash gauges started working again as expected. Back to the high beam issue: After a few days of studying the wiring diagram and talking to everyone and their uncles about WTF. Noone has ever seen this issue before but everyone agrees that there is a short/ground issue in the high beam circuit. My wife (of all people) was looking at the wiring diagram and said: "If you think you hooked all of this up right, then you are looking for something that is not on this diagram".. .lol EUREKA! I installed some LEDs to replace the indicator lights in the stock gauges (Directional signals, brake, and HIGH BEAM indicator lights). Turns out the High Beam indicator LED is in line with the actual high beam circuit and I installed it like an ass of jacks. Red lead to the RED/WHITE high beam circuit and black lead to the dash ground that I created for my gauges effectively grounding out the high beam circuit at all times. I also read that the high beam selector switch just changes which circuit is grounded (!) and not which circuit is getting power. That means that all I was doing my flicking the high beam switch is changing the path of least resistance hence changing which headlight's high beam element is illuminated (booyah). Thoughts? Shit is working. My passenger high beam isn't as bright as the driver so I'm not completely out of the weeds, but the indicator and high beams are operating properly enough. I want to thank everyone that chimed in here. Even the little assumptions and facts that were brought up assisted in my overall understanding of the system, thus making it more and more obvious what and where I screwed up. Thanks!

Thanks SJ. I will update the blog soon. Just been focusing on getting this damn car up and running so I can enjoy it again. Turned into the project that wouldn't end so I had to start banging things out. So here's a fun development! First Z club meet of the year and the car is running great. Halfway home my dash lights go out on my four center gauges. Take a look at the fuse box when I get back and this is what I see: Even without the fuse the two leads test 4ohms between one another. Woops! Gonna track the source of this down. Hopefully there isn't permanent damage to the harness beyond what I can see here.

SeattleJester, thank you very much for putting this together. I will take this and review tomorrow AM with my new multimeter. I will report back results with the requested information.

I really liked the faulty bulb possibility but it isn't the cause. Swapped both bulbs and there was no change. The bulbs I pulled out of there came with my cheap Chinese eBay headlights and were 90/100w. This sounds extremely high no? I could only find 55/60w at the store. Seems that is more the norm... I have several troubleshooting steps that I came up with by analyzing the wiring diagram. I will attempt these in the am. Any other ideas?

Hey z240. I'm not sure I understand what you mean by: "Grounding either side of the switch would like both High or low beam filaments." Could you elaborate for me? Thanks in advance.

I'm going to try swapping out the bulbs since they are cheap and easy. Thanks all for the thoughts and ideas. I will report back tomorrow afternoon. Tonight I tried swapping out the high beam switch with the same result. Tried known good ground from the switch with same result.

The reason I think something is hooked up wrong is because everything worked as expected when the car was completely disassembled. I was hoping that I had just done something silly and this was a common issue but I guess not. All the headlight wiring is stock and correct. The H4 headlamps have been installed but also worked normally prior to disassembling. Going to dive into the relay bundle now and see what I can find.

So after looking into the wiring diagram a bit more it looks like both headlights have at least one wire that goes to the "Passing Relay". Note that this is different from the "Flasher" relay that ticks the signals on and off. I have not been able to get a photo of this relay. There are four wires running to it according to the diagram. Anyone got a photo of a passing relay so I can identify it in the bundle?

The highbeam indicator light is always on if the headlights are on. The wires on the headlight harness haven't changed and their configuration matches my wiring diagram so it would be really disconcerting to switch them around for a fix. I'm fairly sure that something else is either hooked up wrong or there is something else that I am missing. That being said, I think that what you are suggesting would make the headlights work as expected but whatever else is wrong would still be wrong. Do I sound crazy?

Hey all, I haven't had any luck finding people who have this issue so I thought I'd toss it up here to see if anyone can help. Headlights work, but one side is always high beam and when I pull the high beam switch, it toggles to the other side. https://youtu.be/xzObvNaI9yE Its a 1973 and the wiring diagram I'm going off of is close but not exact. Anyone have any thoughts?

Excellent. DJ Warner, I noticed with my multimeter that everything is working normally with the switch removed from the lever. I will try the washer idea. Thanks for that. Sort of thing would take me days to figure out. Much appreciated. KTM, Thanks for pointing out that the hazards operate off of a seperate four contact switch. I heard the relay under the passenger side dash and suspected as much. That whole circuit will go under review after I am done with this switch. Will post my results after the weekend. I read up a bit on that but didn't find any info about whether or not it has any impact on the voltage drop when the lights are flashing. I can hear the difference in my fuel pump when the lights blink... Common sense would tell me that it would since it is lowering the amount of voltage used for the operation of the lights, but again I am just now learning about how electricity works in a system like this.

All great info. Thanks a ton!