professor229

Hi.... I searched for window cranks but I do not know if that is the correct term, so I thought I would just post the question and see what happens. When I got the car, it was already stripped down and I found only one window crank and that one was not usable at all. I can walk into a store and buy window cranks for almost any car, but not a Datsun. Are they proprietary? or is there another window crank from another car company that is compatible with Datsun? PS... I won an Ebay auction for two used, sent the money and was stiffed by the seller. Ebay got my money back, but obviously I am back to square one, and if I can buy something that will work locally at a reasonable price, I would rather do that..... all help is appreciated. Thanks.

First, thanks to all who replied.... I have tried several of the suggestions and need to find the time to check out the remainder of the ideas presented here. We did have some major success yesterday, and like always, two steps forward, three steps back but we did isolate the ignition problem... well, let's just say we narrowed it down... but we also failed to observe a few things too.... A friend came over to help because one guy cannot turn the key and run a test light at the same time. We did hot wire the car (leap of faith kind of thing). I never thought about moving the 12 volt wire at the ballast to the other side temporarily (we had already tested the ballast resistor circuit; 9 volts so we knew it would run but...)... so we ran a wire from the battery to the positive side of the coil and turned the key to start with the test light on the negative side of the coil first to make sure we had a circuit that far. We did... good spark... so then we moved on down the circuit towards the motor... wire at the dizzy leading in and that was all good... but still no fire from the motor, so pulled a plug wire, and attached a new plug to it and grounded it... and turned the key to start... LOTS of spark there too... So two things come to mind at this time... as someone pointed out, fuel delivery, and the ignition circuit for the 12 volt circuit has problem before the coil... But we wanted to get the car to run, a little bit at least, so I changed all the plugs... We had primed the carbs early, and that gas was built up on the plugs so we took that variable out and just put in new plugs. We sprayed a mist of fresh gas in each carb, closed the choke, and turned the key... and it ran... for about ten seconds... we repeated this twice, with the same result. So now we are down to fuel delivery... pulled the hoses leading to the carbs and turned the key... fuel flowed fine from the pump... so now there are two theories here too. One, we were not patient enough and should have tried to prime the carbs a couple more times to get enough fuel to the float bowls... or the floats need to be removed and possibly the needle too..... Before I go on, and I will research this on You Tube and my manual a bit, but can I remove the float bowls to see how much crud is in them without removing the carbs completely? I could then also see how much fuel is in the bowls... I might want to order out two carb kits before I try this though... new gasket on the float bowl might be necessary... hate it when that happens... OK... so now we know the components from the coil on are fine... the timing is OK within reason.... and I will do as suggested and check the continuity back from the coil to the switch.... and it was good to know that the switches in these were notorious for failing..... So, what did we fail to do? The 12 volt circuit needed to start the car, runs through the tach... Neither one of us checked the tach to see if it was operating at all, when we had the motor running for the three 10 second bursts... I think excitement overwhelmed reason at that point... But if we had looked, it would have helped in tracing the problem location of the circuit; at least cutting it in half if the tach worked or not... open circuit before or after the tach kind of thing.... Something for next time... Again, thanks for all the help and suggestions. I am leaving the ignition system alone now for a good week with the knowledge that we can get the engine running properly (it sounded excellent) and I have to spend the remainder of this entire week on the body work and floor project. I made great progress again on that yesterday too.... I hope I didn't wear out my welcome here... but this car has been modified heavily from previous owners, so much of the time, I find myself researching how the car should be.... and I know for sure, that whoever repainted the car will never be known as a meticulous painter... nobody can possibly be that bad taping the weatherstripping around the windows!!! or simply removing some assemblies instead of trying to paint around them! Thanks again... time to look again, at the You Tube videos on the SU carb... some good, and some well, not so good and so it goes... Enjoy your day... Dennis

Good Morning: I am going to try to make this short without all the interventions I have tried on the car, but to make a long story short, when I bought it, the seller started it and drove it on the trailer and that is the last time it has run. Through a lot of research and personal messages to some members, I know that it is electrical in nature (no spark at the new plugs) and that the ballast resistor circuit works (key on run), but the start circuit that bypasses the ballast resistor when the key is turned to start, does not produce any electricity to the coil (starter motor turns fine). There are a lot of variables to look for, but first I want to bypass them by running a wire from the positive side of the battery, to the positive side of the coil (bypassing the ballast resistor), and then turning the key to start (hot wire the car). It should run, and then I would immediately remove the hot wire when the key is released to run on the ballast resistor circuit. If I succeed on getting electricity to the plugs and the car stated, then I can start tracing back the problem (IE broken wire, bad connection, bad switch, bad coil, open thermal relay). I can also check to see if the coil is working properly (new one on order already). This is a 1971 240Z manufactured in August, so it is a series two car. Has anyone hot wired their car and if so, the do's and don'ts would be appreciated. Thanks... Dennis

I just wanted to take the time to introduce myself and hope some members will take the time to help with some solutions to my 240Z problems. I did buy this as a project car and it was advertised as "having potential." I am learning what "having potential" means. Enough for now. Anybody up for a bit of problem solving?