daeron

Dude, believe me, I know EXACTLY what you are feeling right now. the short version (no pun intended) of my Datsun story is, something caused a short, burnt out a fusible link that had been black in color as long as i had owned the car.. so i replaced that burnt out link with a black fusible link. (high amp rating, didnt think about it) had a problem that night driving to the store; parked it, next day drove around and couldnt get problem to recur. pulled into driveway, walk inside, accidentally leave front door open. Ten minutes later, the neighbor kid knocks on open front door as I walk out of the hallway. he says, "your car's on fire" and i shat a brick. look at the car and i see my windshield wipers halfway up the screen like this, except with smoke pouring out from under the hood: AND, I havent driven the car since that day 2 1/2 years ago. The fusible link block got burned, along with the wiring all the way down TO the main wire harness, but NOT into it at all.. so I lucked out there. It got as bad as it could get without completely destroying anything BUT the fusible link block, knock on wood. the ONLY "silver" lining to this story is rather rusty and more grey than silver; since the car needed other things that I couldn't do to my daily driver, I parked it and fixed my brothers subaru, which is my GL-10... But the Z was my dream car and my daily driver for five reliable years. My first memories are in my dad's 240Z, etc etc, that car is one that I love and it came to me through sheer good luck. I miss her. Obviously your car is not one to fall into this scenario; my car got parked more because of the OTHER things it needed than because of the electrical problem.. But my point is, I have made the innocent, yet brutally stupid mistake and had this same thing happen. My buddy's little brother toasted his Camaro with a poorly wired amplifier; THAT is a little different because it was due to a sloppy job installing a major-draw accesory; not a single stupid wire, or a sigle stupid miscolored fusible link. (the one that should have been there had about half the current draw of the one I actually put in there.. stupid, stupid... why they classify the things by color alone is beyond me.) Ugh, that was supposed to be the short version.. I suck at being "short and sweet," sorry folks.

wow. For the last six years, and ESPECIALLY for the last 2 1/2, I have been despising fusible links, and not understanding why they didn't not just use a fuse in these circuits instead. I have been explaining how the fusible links on my datsun caught fire, and then always having to explain that a fusible link is a fuse basically.. ..AND in all that time, no one has ever explained a fusible link to me like this. Thank you, now it makes sense and is obvious.. but what might the potential problems be from replacing a fusible link with a fuse of the same amperage rating? In other words, what might be a "con" to the idea of retrofitting fuses or circuit breakers into place instead of fusible links?

:eek: he has never caught a fuel pump actually using the return line????????? So then, all of his cars have always run on low fuel pressure? also, gotta love the fact that this painted fuel pump looks as unpainted as the rust on my rear quarter panels.. as for "fast" ECU.. hey, all it has to control is the engine and the AC!! of course it would be faster than those stupid 4WD models; THOSE computers also have to control the 4WD lights....

Cool, I just figured I would let you know.

thank you!

Holy Handgrenade of Antioch!!!!!!!! Dude!!! I FEEL FOR YOU, believe me.. something similar bit my Z almost three years ago.. I just yesterday "got around" to snapping some pics and posting her tale of woe up on the HybridZ forum, http://forums.hybridz.org/showpost.php?p=786856&postcount=1 if you care to read the book I wrote (or just look at pics) That sucks, at least the hood was the worst damage. Could this be an excuse to try a rustoleum paint job? Good luck rebuilding, post up if you need any help. Finding the cause of an event like this is not always fun.

Like a Third-gen.... wrenched for the very first time.........

I have gradually browbeat him into abandoning the auto-tragic box in his car, and I thank you and salute you from the other side of the country for helping him with the actual work.

Isn't it nice to be able to say something like that? Now if only I could say the same thing about my dentist

great deadpan I was a veterinary technician for several years, and so whenever anyone says "turkey baster" I think "60cc syringe" because thats what I have always used as a turkey baster... I also use one as an oil tube, for household use. handy as all get-out, and super easy to refill. Brake bleeding, anyone? ive got a quick and easy to use "vacuum pump" for you!!

if you are an inventive guy (going out on a limb here, talking to someone with a top mount radiator ) it is a VERY EASY swap to put in a 90 amp internally regulated alt from a ~86-89 Nissan Maxima. (This EA81 came with an internally regulated alt, right?) The casing is a *bit* larger, but on my EA82 it fits good. The inventive part comes in when you have to find a way to put a V belt pulley on the thing, spaced to the right spot. You can't just take the V-belt bits off of your stock alternator and put them on. Now, I did this on my EA82 with no problems. I found a local auto electric shop that helped me get a pulley for it that fit, they didn't charge me anything. From what I gather, this experience is common; maybe a fiver as a tip to the guy but they have odds and ends like that all over the place. On my EA82 I have the factory equipped AC, so the alternator is on the OUTside of the engine; the only tricky part is that I DID have to put the alternator into place, and then loop the belt over the pulley BEFORE I threaded either mounting bolt on the alternator; with the bolts threaded I couldn't quite slip the belt over the edge of the pulley. If you do this, go to the junkyard and get the wire harness for the alternator, too. The plug is different, but easy to see how to retrofit the Maxima plug onto your car. (two wires, one BIG one not.) There are two large wires that attach to the back of the alternator; one of them goes into the fusible links. This (should be? someone correct me or support me please ) the alternator charging wire; it would be wise to completely remove this wire from your vehicle and replace it with a new, slightly larger one. Larger is a good idea, but new is the most important part. Replacing this wire alone often helps cars with "crummy alternators" that have dim lights etc, varying with engine speed, totally overcome their problem and make you feel like a fool for thinking you needed more amps in the first place. Or yes, apparently you could just bolt in a EA82 unit.

Listen, man. I am a SUPER nice guy. First off, I have to say that using your first post to browbeat like this and infer that a number of longtime members and major contributors to the knowledge base of this forum, makes for an awful impression. Secondly, I must add that every vehicle is going to be a different experience, and nobody here expects everything from the internet to translate directly to their own experience with their own cars. This forum is dedicated to the collection of experiences (mostly mechanical/repair wise) with certain older automobiles, and the sharing of advice on how to deal with issues that arise in ownership. No one here REALLY expects Dad to show up with all the answers. And finally, nobody really appreciates someone coming along pretending to be Dad about it all. now like I opened with, I am a super nice guy, I hate to just jump off and say this to you.. (especially if you are actually an experienced, no-nonsense type owner who can contribute in a major way here) but when I read the first two lines of your post, my jaw actually dropped and I had to read it again. Please, my friend, have some courtesy? I can accept that you might believe that nobody else could ever use the methods described above, but you can find a much more polite way to voice your own concern over the relative ease or reliability of advice given by established members, in a community you are just stepping into. Knowledge is great, but so is tact. I hope I don't sound too much like an rump roast.

What I do to "look for subarus for sale" is pretty simple. I use mozilla firefox, so i do not know if other browsers have the option.. but one day I took some time, and went to the craigslist page for every city in florida, one at a time. I went into the Cars For Sale section, and searched the term subaru. I then bookmarked the URL of each city's CL search for "subaru" and put all the bookmarks into a single folder. When i move the mouse into that folder of bookmarks, I get an option at the bottom of the list to "open all in tabs." I click this, and suddenly I have 14 different browser tabs, each one listing any CL car for sale ad that had the word "subaru" in it. I can visually scan these pages and easily filter out the later models by model year and price, and only ever click on the ones that interest me. I have to go statewide to EVER find any results for older gen models.. but I live in rusty, snow free south florida. Soobs of this vintage are rather rare. The best way to acquaint yourself with the local market is to look look look at whats for sale. See what cars DONT sell and get re listed; those cars are overpriced. It is a waiting game; I see people charging over $2,000 for a 92 Loyale in decent shape, but I cannot believe for a second that you could sell either one of your cars for that much in Utah. Honestly, I cannot believe for a second that anything sold in Florida at that price, but I have seen prices that high or worse.

there is no remapping; changing over to MPFI includes changing the ECU and wiring harness. You are talking about as much work as swapping an EJ into the car. Except, if you were to re build your engine, you would wind up also building an engine rather than just yanking a donor engine. A far far far far simpler answer would be to sell off your rusty Loyale, and buy a turbo EA82 wagon somewhere with less rust. Otherwise, (if you choose the rusty one for your "ea" car ultimately" you are talking about hundreds upon hundreds of hours "polishing the terd" because quite frankly, the EA82T is not a goal worth hundreds and hundreds of hours of work. It is a worthwhile engine, they are worthy vehicles with their quirks.. but to embark on a project of rebuilding an SPFI NA engine into a a turbo shortblock, then converting the vehicle over to MPFI, on a vehicle that has that much rust.. I mean, you are snowballing the project and adding major task onto major task onto major task onto major task. Just rebuilding an NA shortblock into a turbo shortblock is one major task, the vehicular conversion is another, the rust is another, and you are guaranteed to run into issues that nobody runs into simply because this is not a very common path to tread. Sure, most of the steps on this path have been taken by someone.. but you don't want to bite off more than you can chew. ESPECIALLY not when you are already planning to do all the swap/conversion work on the other vehicle. If you want a turbo EA82, then my advice is buy one and drive it and keep it up while you build your EJ. And, regarding the gauge question.. I don't want to scare you off from replacing guages like water temp and oil pressure. I was just pointing out that to replace six gauges is going to get expensive quick, thats all Sorry to burst the bubble, but someone had to say it.

here is the part where I throw in my obligatory plug for two products, one name brand the other not. First off, a can of spray White Lithium Grease is possibly the most under rated lubricant in the world. Every garage or household should have one, and the vast majority seem not to. excellent lubricant for lock cylinders, because it actually stays there. Top quality fishing reel oil is another favorite trick I have for icky locks. I imagine ATF might be even better because of its "enhanced detergent qualities" over motor oil.. but thats just an idea that popped into my head while writing this. Secondly Sea Foam Deep Creep is the BOMB, its worth the exorbitant price, it makes PB look as bad as PB makes WD 40 look. In fact, I don't even buy PB Blaster anymore, just WD for bulk use and deep creep for "the big guns."

thats comedy right there.. I have a 75 datsun 280Z that was my DD for 5 years, and at one point I got a "new" door on the passenger side. I ALWAYS had to go back behind people and close the passenger door because they never got it all the way shut, and if anyone who didn't know the car well tried to close the passenger door they had to hold it by one specific spot on the handle to get the force to fully shut it properly. I could do it sixteen ways to sunday, but thats because I knew how to "tweak" the door as I was pulling it shut. The car had some severe damage to the bottom of the original door, and some damage to the door sill, when I bought it. Hence the replacement door. I ALWAYS figured that the problem with the door was related to the shape of the hole.. IE, the car was whacked out from the mystery accident in its past. For that reason, I never seriously planned on doing much with the car.. its frame was buggered, so I figured she just might be a goner. I had worked on the latch, and know these door latches VERY well at this point.. I lubed it up many many times. One day in frustration at the fact that it was being particularly difficult to close (it was almost like a tight fitting wooden front door on your house, in the rain it swells and wont fit right kinda stuff) I went to get some WD 40 or something. Like I had in the past several times, I was going to try lubricating the latch in a futile effort to make the door fit into the janky hole in the car. However, I couldn't find the WD, so I grabbed a bigass syringe full of motor oil I keep around as an oilcan. I could have SWORN that I had oiled the latch with actual oil at least once in the past, most likely the day I put the doors on the car. That is just how I work. However... a couple of drops of motor oil, and a couple of open-shuts.. and the door works like BRAND NEW. it even SOUNDS like an almost brand new car door, except for the SLIGHT rattling if the window isnt tightly rolled up. This Z has now sat undriven for 2 1/2 years, and the passenger door STILL sounds this good. Oil, REAL OIL, does WONDERS for certain mechanisms sometimes. Car doors (as I so embarassingly learned from having to shut the door for almost anyone who ever rode in my car) are one group of those mechanisms.

convert this thing over to run LPG!!!!!!!! THAT is what this diamond in the rough calls for. LPG can run high compression turbo, too, because its like 115 octane, MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA

Speedo and tach are accurate enough that I would not bother. Same goes for fuel level. Besides, to replace the voltmeter, the temp gauge, and the oil pressure gauge is going to be fairly expensive as it is. you COULD hack up the original cluster to install small gauges in the place of the originals.. i *think* that if I ever do any of this, that is what I will do.. but if you go so far as to get new fuel gauges, speedos, and tachs, unless you cheap out on the gauges you are getting then your gauge cluster will end up costing you more in each car, than each car did..... and cheaping out on the gauges makes no sense, if you are trying to replace cheap gauges in the first place.

Where is this thermoswitch that powers it in the 3AT??? Im going out to my car now to look for this light. I thought I had categorized all the idiot lights in this car by now, but this is a new one on me.

me shut up

(GD, are you ready for this?) I think you oughta leave the OHV in there, MAYBE swap the SPFI on it but thats all I would recommend. Granted, I have little to no experience with the ea81s, BUT all of what I have read in the last year (and I have read most of it) tells me that the ea81 is no worse an engine than the 82, AND it lacks timing belts that can cause problems, AND the headgaskets are slightly less likely to blow. They should bolt up to the same transmission, right? So why bother swapping the OHC in there? On the D/R, go for it.

Are they "turbo" cams or cams for an NA motor? Most NA cams will simply not work well for a turbo motor; a turbo camshaft needs to have very little valve overlap or you wont spool your turbo very quickly; you lose exhaust pressure to the valve overlap. If the cams you put in were for an NA motor, I would suspect that the problem lies right there. However, if they ARE turbo cams, then its possible you arent feeding your motor enough fuel now. stock injectors? you might want to upgrade to the 280ZX ones.

well, I figured that made enough sense, so I went back and re scanned the original post... I repeat.. huh? I mean, if its a 4EAT thing, then yah I don't have it.. but why does he?

Capital, excellent to hear that the damage was minimal and as we expected. what year is the impreza?? personally, I have been fond of the earliest generation ones since they came out.. which was WAYY before I had the GL-10 (heck, I think my dad still had his XT6 at that point) There is something about the rare sedan that is handsome yet not masculine, and the impreza has it with a bullet. Certain maximas also have it, IMo.. but it is an elusive quality. I have never driven one but can only imagine; it must feel like ten loyale/GLs stack on top of each other (metaphorically speaking, of course)

where is this AT temp light at?!?? I have never seen hide nor hair of it on my car; i can tell for SURE it isnt in the actual instrument cluster, is it down in the bank of red lights that has the CEL and the Brake Fluid warning light? I read the subject and thought you had to be daft or something, but everyone else here seems to find it reasonable so *I* must be the loopy one.. (big shocker, huh guys? :-p)