Steve's 75 260z 2 seater

[PZG302]

God some people talk sh@t. Why not weld a piece of steel in there. Save money on nails. Also get some wire from the overhead electricity lines for your wiring harness.

 

Not all of us can weld, but we all have some spare nails laying around somewhere in the house/garage

 

Have to agree the thicker the wire the less voltage drop!!!!!

[xa1973]

Got side swiped at the carpark at Uni yesterday. Some guy reversed out and obviously started turning too soon. After cleaning the black shiver in the area up it's not nearly as bad as I thought. I'll just wait a couple months until I'm taking the car back to the painters to get the dent and paintwork fixed. It's been a bad month for Zs...

 

As Shaun suggested I took off the console and redid a lot of the wiring for the Retrosound head unit so that its easily removable and much neater. I've blanked off a couple of potential causes of the fuses blowing and it all went back together nicely. I even managed to chop off the broken end of the aerial wire and reattach the same end from a newer cable. I didn't think it would work but surprisingly as soon as i put it back in the radio I had better reception than I can remember.

 

To facilitate this work I bit the bullet and went to supercheap to spend about $100 on small tools and consumables to do the wiring properly.

 

I've also run 2 RCA cables and the amp switch wire under the console so I shouldn't have to remove it when I buy the amp I plan on getting. This amp will power the speakers that are going inside the MSA style speakerbox Shaun made.

 

So did you sort the problem with the blown fuses???

[stevo_gj]

Actually no. Blew after 10 minutes driving again. Not sure where to go next I might inspect the wiring around the indicator lever. I should mention that it never blows when I'm actually using the indicator.

[xa1973]

 

A thought...

 

Are you using an after market steering wheel....?

 

I had a similar problem with one of my cars, the boss interfered with the indicator control mechanism causing an earth and blown fuse

[stevo_gj]

I AM using an aftermarket steering wheel. How does it interfere exactly? Is it on the self cancelling bits? I could probably try removing them since it doesn't self cancel anyway.

[garvice]

Steve, if you cant find an obvious problem then start fault finding from the fuse. It sounds like the fuse is going out on an overload rather then short circuit as it is taking so long to blow (however having said that it may be an intermittent fault). So I would remove your battery cable (so that your not reading resistance back through the battery), remove the fuse and start measuring resistance from the load side of the fuse to a good ground. Remove/disconnect wiring as required to locate the fault.

 

By the way, every time I have had a flasher go, it normally smokes the wiring (pulls too much current) which should blow your fuse too. Quite often the flasher will still work for a while before it completely goes out.

[stevo_gj]

Well when I took apart the steering column cover again on close inspection I noticed that the high beam 'pass' button wire (button located on the end of the indicator arm) which runs next to the self cancelling linkages on the indicator had a tear and was possibly grounding out.

 

I've fixed the wire with some of my new crimping bits and will report back tomorrow after taking it for a drive as to whether this fixes the issue. I'm not sure if grounding out on that wire would cause the indicator fuse to blow, but it was close enough to the problem area that it could well be the it.

[Riceburner]

Doesn't all datsun wiring run constant power and switch the earth? If so when you're driving around that wire could be floating around and intermittently earthing out, causing the fuse to blow.... Good find regardless steve.

[garvice]

I'm pretty sure that the headlights run off a separate fuse to the indicators mate. Keep looking. Although I have a later 260z then you.

Brad

[Riceburner]

Yep they do, seperate wiring circuit too... Stinks of a dead short to me steve, the soldered contacts on the indicator stalk are pretty fragile too.

[stevo_gj]

Hehe well I think I'm giving up on trying to sort out this fuse blowing problem myself. If it blows tomorrow when I drive to uni I'm going to signal with my hands and hope that the battery has enough charge to last me until uni. For those of you who don't know I'm in my final year of Mechanical Engineering and that means I've got a thesis to write and no time to spend making the problem worse mucking around with the Z wiring.

 

Clearly I would have made a terrible electrical engineer  Garvice explained to me tonight that I was connecting the multimeter wrong, I had it in parallel to measure current. 

 

It also doesn't help that my car is being used as a year 12 formal vehicle the weekend after next so I really need to get it fixed asap. I've got a couple auto elecs that have been recommended by a panel beater mate so I may end up calling them.

 

I hooked up the multimeter correctly and went for a drive around my suburb and it never registered a current higher than 6 amps in the 10 minutes I spent driving. Garvice suggested it might be due to a loose wire that only hits on severe bumps, and therefore I wouldn't have it happen every drive. I shall post back tomorrow to tell you how long it takes for the fuse to blow on the way to uni

[.]

formal car??? Does that mean you have to dress your car up in taffeta? Or will you bein taffeta? Pics please

[stevo_gj]

The fuse did not blow at all on my drive to uni. Apparently mucking around with the wiring has caused me to inadvertently stop the earthing from occurring. Yay!

[garvice]

So when are you completely rewiring your car then?

Don't celebrate too much, it will come back.

[stevo_gj]

and when it does I'll be fully prepared to locate the problem with my correctly connected multimeter

[garvice]

HA!

Good comeback. Good luck with the car.

[sexual_sushi]

and when it does I'll be fully prepared to locate the problem

 

Haha this reminds me of the end of X-Men, far less epic though

[stevo_gj]

Better than a limo.. 

 

[C.A.R.]

No offence mate, but tell your Missus to eat a Hambuger or seven, STAT!

[garvice]

Are you really that young mate (Looks like year 12 formal), or are you just a cradle snatcher?

[.]

No offence mate, but tell your Missus to eat a Hambuger or seven, STAT!

 

I should give her seven of mine. I think I can spare them. Stevo could do with one too. Maybe any idea for our next QLD run.....Where is the best burger place around SE QLD?

[Zeddophile]

No offence mate, but tell your Missus to eat a Hambuger or seven, STAT!

 

Cruel!  Although, is it just me, or does she not look too pleased about Stevo insisting the car must be in the photos? 

[garvice]

Stevo insisting the car must be in the photos?

I thought steve looked none impressed that they both had to clog up the photo of the Z.

[Hunter]

I hope that is non alcoholic wine in those champagne flutes.

 

 

[stevo_gj]

To follow up on the tacho problems I've been having:

 

I've purchased 2 tacho's from other 260s and both of them have had the same problem. The needle does not move at all.

 

As you know I've recently put the new 280zx distributor into the car and it's been running well. I was wondering what else I could check to see why the tacho isn't working now that I'm sure it's not the gauge itself.  :-\