NewZed

The FSM, for 1976 anyway, says to support the engine at the oil pan when removing the transmission, using a block of wood to distribute the load. I did as directed when replacing my tranny and there were no signs of oil pan damage afterward - leakage, dents or other. On classiczcars.com I saw someone using a piece of 4x4 or 4x6 wedged between the valve cover and firewall to hold the back of the motor up. Have no idea if it will damage anything. It looked easy and convenient though.

The 78s have two in-line green fusible links mounted to the back of the metal housing that other fusible links are attached to the side of. Right in front of the battery. Looking down at the two fusible link housings from the passenger side, the other two EFI green fusible links should be just to your left. A large (4 or 6 gauge?) red wire comes out of the harness, splits in to the two green link wires at a snap-in connection mounted on the housing which then connects to two heavy gauge white wires that go directly to the battery positive. On my parts car, the two white wires recombine back to one white before the + terminal, but it looks like a PO may have done that. But the mounting position and wiring into the harness look original. I was going to take a picture but my camera battery is dead. Let me know if you don't find them and I will send a picture later. Fun, fun, fun...

You might already know this and it doesn't look like you have messed with the oil pressure sender, but the 78s used an oil pressure switch to power the fuel pump after the engine is started, not the AFM switch. No oil pressure, no fuel. I think the the AFMs might still have the switch but it is not used, they last used it in 77. According to the FSMs. The diagram is on page EF-7 in the 78 FSM. Also, I couldn't tell from your description if you had disconnected the starter and turned the key to Start to see if the fuel pump runs. I think that Start bypasses the oil pressure sender to allow the engine to start, then uses the oil pressure switch to keep it running on On. It's easier to hear the pump, check fuel pressure, etc. without the engine cranking.

The T/C rod nuts and bolts are much easier to get in (Post #11) with the car on the ground (laden suspension) also. They are easy to reach from the side with the wheel turned. I have done it both ways, on the ground is like buttah...

I have a 78 parts car in the garage. Not modified as far as I can tell, it's all original. It has AFM part#A31-604-000 and the motor runs fine. I also have a 76 driver, also original, that has AFM part#A31-060-001.

I had the same problem on my car when I got it. I hosed down the internals of the dimmer/turn signal switch with contact cleaner (Deoxit DN5) while I was trying to figure out how to get it apart and it started working. I never did take it apart and it's been working correctly since. That was 5 months ago.

I had a similar problem with my car. Here is a wordy description - That thing you're pointing at that "might need a vacuum line" is the dashpot. It does not need a vacuum line, it is just open to atmosphere. It is designed to hold the idle up when downshifting or lifting the throttle, for emissions purposes mainly, as described in the Emissions section of the FSM. The dashpot can get stuck or sticky. Mine needed adjustment due to wear (76 car). The plunger had dropped down and was hanging up below the pad it sits on, holding the throttle open and giving a high idle. It took a while to figure out. I had to lift it up to the limit of play in the mounting bracket to get the plunger back on the pad. Work the throttle from the engine bay with the engine off and you'll see how it works, and if it is close to hanging up or not. Some people just remove it but I have found that the car shifts smoother (for casual cruising) with it on and adjusted. I adjusted mine for driveability, not according to the FSM procedure. You may also have a light throttle spring, or one broken (as I did also), allowing the throttle to hang. There are two springs pulling the throttle closed, one around the throttle body shaft and one underneath it connected to the linkage. The one underneath on mine had rusted and broken. It is difficult to get to, and hard to see, so the previous owner had stuck one on the linkage on top, which did not work well. I put an Ace Hardware spring in the proper spot. You might have to try a few different strengths and lengths to get one you like. There are also lots of joints in the linkage that can dry up and stick.

Thanks rejracer. I probably should not have trashed the Precision brand. And this may not be the right forum for my comments/question anyway, since I was looking for smooth shifting and driving not high performance. I get the impression that Precisions are very tough, durable and asequate. Mine just had a lot of slack in them right out of the box. Tight tolerances are expensive, that's why the OEMs are more expensive, I assume, and that's why Nissan recommends shimming the U-joints to spec. with the installation clips. I think the Z drive train design is very sensitive to play in the components. I ended up using the old Nissan half-shafts from my parts car, probably original, but still tight. The car sat for ten years so that's ten extra years of use for me. Thanks for the suggestion.

http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=114142&highlight=spindle+pin+rental Here is a puller that seems very popular. I have not seen the design but apparently it works. I think it has the typical gear puller concept behind it, but pushes the rod through the hole. Of course, it takes away the fun of digging through your stuff to make your own extracting device. A slide hammer puller might work if the threads would hold up. I forgot to mention that the first pin actually got stuck in the bushing. I had to heat up the LCA and burn the bushing out with the pin in it. So if you're pulling the pin to replace the bushings, you might as well apply heat to the LCA from the beginning. If you're working on the struts and want to save the bushings, a tight collar on the pin to hold the bushing in, while you pull or push, might be needed. I pounded the second one out while it was on the car. There is room to swing under there. One of those might work also - http://www.amazon.com/Desa-International-494C-Remington-Driver/dp/B000W80SZ2

Looks like you got it figured out. I wrote the below while you were writing above... "Those "bolts" are actually the threaded ends of the same long rod. Called a spindle pin. The AtlanticZ site shows the worst case, going ahead and destroying the pin by sawing it in to three pieces, then driving each piece out. I just destroyed one two days ago, unintentionally, trying to use the nut on the spindle pin threads to pull itself out by stacking washers. It came part way but then a problem arose. The pin material is weak, the threads stripped. Then the end snapped off on the second try with the remaining threads. But the second one came out after putting a lug nut on each side, (same thread size and more threads plus a cap to beat on), and beating it back and forth to loosen it up (described on atlanticz) and spraying with Liquidwrench down the lock pin hole and on the ends. Then using a long rod to drive it through. It took a very large amount of force, a three pound mallet at high velocity, and some time to get them out."

Fun, fun, fun. I think that I see bolt heads and nuts on your half-shaft (acck). Take a close look. Compare it to the drawing I sent. Try to fit the splines into the r200 hole. Take those nuts off and see if you are left with two parts, a half-shaft with a four-hole flanges on each end, and a spline shaft with a flange on it. My guess is that someone tried to lift your R200 by the half-shaft and the side flange popped out. I think you have a complete R200 there. As far as names, it looks like both sides, wheel and differential, can be called stub axle, depending on who is writing. They look similar. Search "stub axle" and you'll see people using the same name for both. Here is a link about broken stub axles, wheel side - http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=70261, and a discussion about stub axle diff side - http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=122412 Zboy are trying to fix an R180 in your 240 or swapping an R200 for a 180? It's not clear what you're trying to do. Here is some good reading too - http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=116207 Is this a Pacific Northwest only topic? Must be the rain...

Are you sure that the half-shaft does not still have the side flange bolted to it? The shaft might have been popped out with the half-shaft attached. You should post a picture of the "29 spline 280z halfshaft". I think that you'll need part or two more also for your swap. Here's a link to a thread from a guy who did something similar. http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?t=26067 Re my Edit comment above - I was just referring to the fact that I'm not really an expert. I only replied initially because I'm working on my 280Z diff right now so was interested. A 240 guy probably knows exactly what you need. Good luck.

Picture of the 280Z half-shafts. R180 has splines, R200 has two flanges. Hope this helps.

I think Nissan/Datsun called it the "companion flange", not adapter. Might help with your searching. They pop in and out, held in place with a circlip (I believe). Put "R-200 companion flange wanted" in Parts Wanted and you might get a hit.

A comment/recommendation and a question - Short- Precision brand u-joints seem to be of surprisingly low quality. Can anyone recommend a better u-joint brand than Precision, that’s not super-spendy? Not brute strength, but tight, high-quality and durable. I put four new u-joints in and two of them are loose already, after 5 days. The car is a stock 76 280Z manual and I don’t use it hard, although I do like to get to speed quickly. Long - In my efforts to reduce the clunk in my stock 1976 280Z with manual transmission, I found that I had a loose, dry u-joint bearing cup in a half-shaft. I replaced the half-shaft with one from a parts car and the clunk got quieter so I went down to O’Reilly’s and bought four of their Precision brand, Hecho en USA, Part #393 U-joints. List Price $33.88, Net Price $19.99. After the battle to get the old ones out, the new ones went in easily. Everything was clean, no dropped bearing cups, no loose grease or dust to dirty things up. Used a vice and shimmed the flange to get the cups parallel to avoid any binding. They slid right in. The Precision joints only come with one clip, so there is no fine-tuning axial play as with Nissan brand. They felt nice and tight, but moved smoothly, when I was done. So I pumped them full of U-joint approved lithium grease and installed the half-shafts. The clunk was dramatically diminished and the drive train felt tighter. Life is good. Five days later, after a few drives and a couple of hard runs through the gears (but no standing drag-style starts), I started to hear a little clanking from the back again. I crawled under the car to see if a nut had come loose or if some new part was wearing out and found that two of the four new u-joints were already loose. I can see play at the grease seal when twisting by hand. So it looks like Precision is either not very precise in their manufacturing or their materials are of low quality. Anyone planning u-joint replacement should avoid these u-joints. Back to my original question – can anyone recommend a brand of u-joint, better than Precision? And/or is anyone familiar with the McQay-Norris brand, they have what looks like a higher quality option for a few dollars more (as far as I can tell from O’Reilly’s web page) that I can get special-ordered through the same store. I was really surprised that the Precisions failed so quickly. All of the stores sell them and they are not the least expensive (cheapest) of the various brands available. I assume that some will think that I “must have†done something wrong. But I’m fairly certain that my installation was cleaner and easier than many I have seen described. Has anyone else recently had a Precision joint go bad? Or be bad from the start? I hate to trash a brand name but I spent some time and effort installing what appears to be a bad part. Thanks for any help.

This wiring diagram that Saridout on ClassicZcars did is pretty good - http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?p=308490#post308490 It's for a 76. It looks like the BY wire from the ignition switch comes from/goes to many places. It seems to be part of the START circuit, from what I can tell, with various safety features in-line. A in a circle is for automatic, M in a circle is for manual.

How well did it run with that crank (assuming it did)? And what do the other engine components look like? Port work on the head, intake matching, etc. There must be some other goodies in there. Just curious...

I think that the early 5-speeds had more of a reverse "avoidance" system of springs and check balls in the shifting mechanism. At least as far as I can tell from the FSM diagrams. I actually spent some time comparing the 78, 79, 80 and 81 5-speed shifter diagrams and can not find a difference in parts, except for what appears to be one extra "check spring" in 1981. So I don't know what the 1980 "lockout" is that is referred to in the other thread http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=101796&page=2 I was hoping that someone with more experience with Datsun shifters than me would be familiar with what I was talking about and have some recommendations. Compared to other 5-speeds I have driven this one is just way too easy to drop in to reverse while moving forward. I don't know if it's design weakness of the early 5-speeds or something that can be adjusted/fixed. There is very little guidance back over to 4th gear when pulling the shift lever down from 5th. The transmission came out of a car that sat for 10 years. It may just be that the spring is tired or things are gummed up. I didn't take the tranny or shifter apart, but the oil was clean so I didn't expect any problems. Thanks for the help. It's not a show-stopper as far as driving, but it definitely needs improvement if I can figure it out.

So what y'all are saying is that he should move the red arrow and the "gas goes in" text in his picture down to point at the the white mesh on the bottom of the pump. And the tube with the hose clamped to it is probably the "gas goes out" tube. There's still one tube left in the picture - return line? Looks open at the bottom. Just trying to help clarify...

Thanks for the ozgarage link. I did not know that was out there. Fairly informative, although, as you say, the main lesson seems to be that more ethanol in the fuel means you need more fuel in the engine. The E10 was estimated at 95 octane so it's not clear how much of the timing adjustment is from ethanol and how much is from octane number. I was hoping someone had actually noticed and recorded performance and tuning differences between 91 E10 and 91 E0, on a somewhat close to stock engine. Maybe there is none, except for slightly poorer mileage. Thanks again for the information.

I took a large plastic food container, cut a small hole at the bottom corner, stuck some fairly large diameter clear tube (thin wall for large inner diameter plus you can see the oil) in to the hole (make sure it's a tight fit), placed the container in the car, ran the tube to the fill hole, then just took the top off the gear oil bottle, poured it in and went off to do other stuff. I think it took about an hour to drain in and I had a 1/4 pint too much (residual still in the transmission) so it overflowed, but once it was set up, it was easy. One of those plastic coffee cans would work great.

With ethanol you run more advance? I have been Googling around trying to figure out what Oregon's E10 10% ethanol fuel mix does to an engine's timing requirements, and find that many people blame all of their engine problems on ethanol in the gas, from bad mileage to detonation to slow destruction. I haven't found a good discussion on how to tune for it's use. I have a stock motor, 1976 with EFI, that runs well but seemed a little down on power and gas mileage. I added 3 degrees initial advance (working my way up to more extensive {low budget} modifications, but I need to understand how these motors work first) and it seems to run better - smoother, more responsive and quicker. But I worry about the detonation that I've read about on this site and others, especially once the hot summer gets here. Any insights on using ethanol/gasoline blends would be appreciated. Thanks.

Long as you're downloading, you should really get the manual. It is free at http://www.xenons30.com/reference.html . It describes how to check the AFM and all of the sensors. Plus it shows where the sensors are and what they look like. You can download the WinRar program to unzip it, there's a link to it on the page.

I have a 76 280Z with the original motor. I feel your pain. The 1976 engines used the water temperature sensor as an input to the ECU for fuel supply. They don't come with a CHT, it came in to use a few years later I believe. The water temperature sensor is on the front of the motor, in the thermostat housing, and will cause the engine to run rich if the connection is corroded or it is not working correctly. Mine also backfired and had poor power when I got it. It turned out to be the Air Flow Meter. That's what it's called, not Mass Air Flow sensor. With a bad Air Flow Meter (AFM) the car will idle well, but run terrible at part throttle, stumbling and backfiring, then run great when you floor it. If you have an ohm-meter you can check a few pins at the ECU connection and get a good idea if the AFM is OK or not. The AFM also has an air temperature sensor that the ECU references to add fuel. It can be checked at the ECU connection too.

I just put a 5 speed from a 1978 280Z in my 1976. It works fine but I find that it is scarily easy to hit reverse accidentally on the way back down to 4th gear from 5th. I saw in an earlier post that the 1980 5 speed was the first to come with a reverse lockout. http://forums.hybridz.org/showthread.php?t=101796&page=2 Does anyone know of a fix, mod or upgrade to the 1978 transmission or shifter or console that will provide a reverse lockout? Are they all this way or could mine be broken? As it is, I have to downshift to 4th with a very light grip to keep it away from reverse. I have a 5 speed 95 Pathfinder so I know what a "normal" 5 to 4 shift feels like. The drain plug came out really clean in mine, so it looks like the PO didn't grind things too many times, but I would like to be able to drop down to 4th gear at speed quickly without worrying about destroying reverse. Any ideas are appreciated. Thanks.