josh817 Posted August 4, 2008 Author Share Posted August 4, 2008 Yup... today was ruined. We didn't even unload everything and failure prevailed. Oh well. Already found another clip from a store. Lets see how long it takes them to ship it. I'm guessing 2 weeks. That leaves me with one week left until school starts. Lovely. :] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Careless Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 I would have tried to order one from Nissan for a 240sx or something. they would get it in one day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
woldson Posted August 4, 2008 Share Posted August 4, 2008 With out going all the way back through the thread, are you still going to get the engine in a started? (Your such a wiseguy Careless;) ) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josh817 Posted August 4, 2008 Author Share Posted August 4, 2008 I know its taking forever... :[ All Z Car has my clip, Dad is getting it today or tomorrow, this gives me time to put in my fuel pump, filter, reg. and cut down the exhaust. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josh817 Posted August 7, 2008 Author Share Posted August 7, 2008 Alright men, lets feast. Mom had the camera so the pictures weren't really note worthy... But hey, at least we have some. Tomorrow we start her up. Nothing to really hold us back for an entire day now. I do have some question about the clutch as the pedal is much softer than with the other clutch. Thats going to bother me, I like hard pedals with little slip. I find it strange because the other clutch was stock, this is stronger, and the pressure plate should have more... pressure... Maybe its just some sort of new material that wasn't used in the 80's. Still hate a soft pedal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quin Posted August 7, 2008 Share Posted August 7, 2008 Boo for soft clutches, yay for motors going in! I'm going to be gone until Saturday or Sunday, you better have vids up by the time I get home... Congrats Josh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garvice Posted August 7, 2008 Share Posted August 7, 2008 I have found that clutches always get a harder feel with time. I know this is a bad comparison, however each time I have changed my corolla clutch, it feels like the pedal is falling to the floor when I press it. After 20-30k kms it always feels so much better. By the time I hit 100k kms, it feels perfect. Although by that time it is starting to slip and I am thinking about changing it again. BTW, I know hard clutches are cool, but when it is a daily driver, it does get old very quickly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josh817 Posted August 7, 2008 Author Share Posted August 7, 2008 I just hate that in between feeling. I want it either engaged or not. The old one was very nice and it had the lump sortah feeling in the pedal. Like you press down and its hard and then all of a sudden its easy. I can't really explain it other than a lump in the pedal. I know that in the lump area is where you can ride on it, any other area its either engaged or it isn't. With this pedal its nice and smooth all the ways through the length. so I'll have to find the sweet spot. I didn't take the slave cyl. off its line so everything SHOULD be air bubble free. I may bleed it and top it off just to be sure though. And Quin I should have satisfactory videos by the weekend. :] Well I hope. Can't say its easy breezy just yet knowing my luck in this thing... Oh also, anyone who wants to get an electric fan, off set it to one side because I almost made a mistake of centering mine, the water pump is very close and my fan is particularly thin. 3 1/4" at the electric motor I think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josh817 Posted August 8, 2008 Author Share Posted August 8, 2008 Well there you go you guys... Here I am getting excited and pulling the car out ready to prime and fire and then I was pushed back into my place. Never get excited over this stuff, it will fail. Always happens to me. Absolutely no power to the fuse box, no ignition, no fuel pump, nothing. Now I don't want to talk bad about previous owners and what not but dude... some of this wiring even I would cringe at... We fiddle around and after several different languages of the same curse words were thrown around and the fifth time of saying "Dad, that really are for the lights" he finally stopped touching the white wire... So we see a lonely plug, its thick, its white, its suppose to be on the starter so I hook it up and it smoked violently... Now we're all throwing our hands in the air saying things about the previous owner and how persnickety this stuff is. Every wire outside of the harness, every relay (which by the way are the types that don't show whats what so you have to ohm out all the prongs), every crimped wire, is all his creation. He has made a big wiring monster which feeds of my moral. So... after studying the diagrams for an hour and going ok wtf is this, we finally figured out how it SHOULD be and now we are set back yet again to Sunday. :] Oh my life. It is funny. I would say lets pull this harness out and quickly make a very simple, very plain harness. However, write that down on my list of things to do and by the time the list is complete, I will have a brand new show car... H-heyyy! We all know how it is. The car will never be perfect. On the other hand my new task is to find where the white w/red stripes THICK wire leads to, and the white THICK wire leads to. It SHOULD go to the ammeter, however I never hooked it up because the PO said that when he switched to a stronger alternator, it melted the gauge *cough*he ****ed around with the wiring and didn't get it right, along with everything else*cough* Basically that white wire comes into the cabin, and from there it reads a dead short in the line, thus the smoke. Somewhere back behind the dash its getting screwed up. I'll find it, tell Dad, he'll fix it. If we can't find it then we will just run another big thick white wire to where it should be. Its not the right way to do it because if something else shorts out, it may lead to the original white wire we never found. After this I THINK.... THINK I may be free from technical difficulties. We will have ignition and carb tuning from there and thats it as far as major headaches are concerned. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
datsun723 Posted August 8, 2008 Share Posted August 8, 2008 what a nightmare O_O my head hurts jus from reading this haha. GOOD LUCK!!!! oh how i look forward to electrical issues down the road.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josh817 Posted August 8, 2008 Author Share Posted August 8, 2008 Rewire a whole harness yourself and leave out all the stupid sensors you don't need. Even though its down to original wiring, there is so much stuff that isn't necessary at all. Wire it up like a race car where you have only what you need. Simple, and effective. Dad makes it sound easy but he's an electrical engineer by heart so he blabs on and on and I just say ok when we hit a confusing spot. Most of it seems like logic and mind set rather than hard stuff. He shows me something and its the easiest concept ever, but I would never think of it myself. I've bitten way too many bullets today. First the car, now some valve cover and flywheel I shipped out in the same box arrived to the person, however the flywheel some how didn't make it. I find it hard to believe yet it was going to a very credible person so there isn't any other reason besides UPS did it again... The plan is to split the cost of the flywheel ($45) and just go on. Problem is, I don't have $20 eat... I'm in debt to Mom by $250 for parts and stuff which will be taken care of in a week or two from work. I don't want to think I'm in the hole by another $20 though... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Careless Posted August 8, 2008 Share Posted August 8, 2008 josh, I'd hate to see this thread go sour with z's on fire, so when you get the chance.... ... do yourself a favour and pick up an EZ2Wire kit from ebay, or an Autowire 22 kit or something. It's fairly simple to wire, and all of the leads are labelled. Think of it this way... if things are smoking when you plug them in, you're burning something... and something else may be burning too... and that could be melting switches and whatnot to the "ON" position and causing A LOT of potential fire hazards. Drive the car, make sure it works, and then plan ahead and get a wiring kit. when the kit comes, go to the dollar store and get some white paper/mailing labels and start writing the datsun wire color codes and/or connection location and tape them to the corresponding wires, and have them ready for when you install it when you're back from school or whatever. also grab the pin removal tool from a local auto supply store. i bought mine for 4 bucks, and it came with two types in the pack, each with 6 different pin removal tool ends. it's what you need to remove the pins from the sockets so you can wire them up and shove them back in and reuse the same connectors. also, i'd recommend a battery disconnect switch (so you don't have to keep undoing the battery cable). use it every time you leave the car, it takes 2 seconds. just lookin out man hate to see all this go to waste cause of something the Previous Owner did and blah blah blah Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josh817 Posted August 8, 2008 Author Share Posted August 8, 2008 I know dude. The car was just wired up poorly. The original stuff was tampered with. It only smoked for a split second but it was enough to give us a scare that we screwed the wiring in the whole car. Funny thing is before the day started I said if we have to rewire the whole car its not going to be moving until October with school and Dads work schedule. I think we just have to fix a couple of wires and it should be good. As soon as we get 12v to the fuse box we should get everything else. I'll tell you what scares me is that the fuses never blew. When we were playing with this relay and Dad is being an idiot hard wiring stuff and then putting a fuse in so it sparks, smokes, and gets hot quickly, but never blows. Maybe they have to get crazy hot but non of the fuses blew so I question at what point they usually go. They're all new too. We'll try everything once we get power so I don't go to school and catch on fire. There are only so many switches in this bad boy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garvice Posted August 9, 2008 Share Posted August 9, 2008 A fuse has a thermal damage curve (so does the wire it is protecting), the more current that goes through the fuse, the faster it will blow. It could be that the fuse you were putting is was too large for the circuit it was trying to protect. You can also buy fuses that blow at different speeds. So your problem is most likely that your wirings insulation is degraded and or the conductor in your wires are oxidizing and the result is your cable will not take the current it use to take. I would consider a rewire in the future as it will give you a good appreciation of what is going on. P.S. Dont lose the motivation, your doing a great job with the car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josh817 Posted August 9, 2008 Author Share Posted August 9, 2008 No it started smoking because he shorted out to ground on the plug by accident... The fuses in the box are all good, new, and correct with the 10 amps and 20 amps. I have boxes of those that came with the car for guess who... previous owner when he was doing the l28et conversion. It appears he was learning by the fuses... So when one blew he new he had to change the wiring to make it NOT blow, which can be various ways but as far as I am concerned there is ONLY ONE correct way to wire up the car and tahts by its schematics. It also appears that he had a big bucket of white wire and blue wire because he didn't bother to follow the color code either. You can tell he was experimenting and learning because some wires were cut, and then crimped back together. Of course I don't want to chew him out too much because I would do the same thing if I didn't have Dad to slap me outside the head going "What the **** is this ****?!" The one that he was smoking and stuff was the in-line fuse, linkable fuse, whatever you call it. It looks like a little plastic chip with 2 prongs coming out that you plug into the thing. In the future I want toggle switches and such without putting a panel in for the air controls. I'm thinking put them inside the ash try so you can cover them up. :] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daeron Posted August 9, 2008 Share Posted August 9, 2008 electrical fire == BAD. Trust me, I know.. I had always thought that my car escaped a full raging inferno by a matter of minutes, but when I tore into the wiring a month or two ago, I discovered it was likely more along the lines of 40-60 seconds before my entire car went up. I will never know exactly what caused my short, (because it is almost certainly burnt; I have a suspect that is almost certainly the culprit but it is impossible to tell...) but it sounds like your problem may well be the fusible link that supplies the entire fuse box, along with other aspects of the car.. I am not familiar with how the wiring on the 240 is set up; I have never been made to do any electrical work on anyone else's car, so all I know is my 75 280. But, if you have your shcematic handy, all you need to do is start at the positive battery cable, and define a few waypoints on the path from + batt terminal to the fusebox and the rest of the pwoer circuits on the car, and test for continuity from battery post to point A, then A to point B, then B to point C, then C to fusebox. Repeat for other main power circuits like the alternator output circuit if needs be. I found a .pdf of the 75 FSM wire diagram that is HUGE, and all one page. I zoomed to 33% and copied an image to my clipboard, then pasted it into a .bmp file to play with in paintbrush. I started by looking at a few of the main power circuits. I had a blown fusible link that was my main issue, and I had to replace the block because it was completely toast; From there I traced my short issue that made the links a problem down into the fuel pump power circuit. Start tracing wires out, I used different colored dots at each corner, and every so often along long lines, to ensure I was tracing the right line. And just STARE at it, tracing different lines, saving or not saving as you like, and get to know how it is laid out. These wire diagrams are more of a tool stating the nature of the connections made between pieces, rather than an actual line drawing of how the wires are all laid out... and it takes some time just becoming INCREDIBLY familiar with the diagram to REALLY be able to translate the line drawing to reality in front of you. As a final note on "reading datsun FSM wire diagrams for the beginner," sometimes the wire diagram IS wrong about a wire, or a wire color, or something. It happens. BUT.... before you EVER draw the conclusion, "well, that wire is Blue, with a yellow stripe, so the stupid drawing is wrong!" you should check it sixteen ways to sunday to make sure you didnt trace something wrong, or read something wrong, or count to the wrong pin somewhere, or something like that. So far I have only found ONE wire on my diagram that didn't match my car; I have come *very* close to "finding" about a dozen, but all have been mistakes I made reading either reality, or the diagram. So yes, the diagram CAN be wrong... but YOU can be, too. Make sure you are right before acting when the diagram contradicts what you see. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josh817 Posted August 9, 2008 Author Share Posted August 9, 2008 Actually both my 280zx and 240/260, PLUS the diagrams online (which is basically the same thing) have typos which annoy us. The wire will go from like Black White, to Black Blue, but never enter into something like a relay which would essentially make it a different color coming out. Supposedly its one big long wire and half way down it, it randomly changes colors? We found 2 of those so far but its nothing major really... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Quin Posted August 10, 2008 Share Posted August 10, 2008 Just rewire it now dude, it's not worth the fire. 240s have what, like four sensors in the whole car? (lol) Couldn't possibly take that long. Keep it up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josh817 Posted August 10, 2008 Author Share Posted August 10, 2008 Dude >_> you have all the crap on the inside. I don't use half of it (seatbelt light, defroster for the hatch, and the choke light. Along with the E brake light. I just want my car on the road. XD And it won't catch on fire, we will rewire what we need to, and then hook it all up and test everything. Nothing is going to be unexpected, you can see the smoke. :] Engine bay is: Oil pressure Water Temp Head Temp Starter Alternator Fan Ignition Thats it. Makes me so very happy. :] Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
josh817 Posted August 10, 2008 Author Share Posted August 10, 2008 Feast while I work today, men. Its not pretty yet because all the wiring and hoses are dangling around... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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