Sunbaked '76 Cali 280z

Robbie J

Robbie J

Club Member
Robotsan said:
I'm not 100% sure which bits you mean, but here's some photos Mike sent me shortly after he got the car. It was pretty dirty back then as apparently the owner lived up in the hills!

View attachment 52778

View attachment 52781

View attachment 52779


You can see the hole in the floor that Mike had welded up in this photo:

View attachment 52780

View attachment 52782

Bit of surface rust on that seam underneath here, which I'll treat, but the actual doglegs are incredibly clean:

View attachment 52783
Click to expand...
looks good, might have some rust around the riveted trim but it underside looks OK
 
G

Geoff-R

Club Member
Robotsan said:
Haha! You know what, I've been really lucky with my E46s. This M3 is my 3rd, and its in really good nic. The inner rear arches have a tiny bit starting which I need to get on top of before winter though. But apart from a bit of surface rust on the subframes, its remarkably tidy.
Click to expand...
Far luckier than me, mine started to go on the inner arches before I really had a chance to spot it, underneath the underseal, only really noticed it once the outer arch had started to blister. Stripped the underseal back off the inner arch and they were completely shot. Think I went a little over the top on it though and had the inner arches replaced and put full new rear quarters on the car. Still, I'm sure once I get it back the noise of that engine and induction will put a smile on my face, the S54 was peak BMW engine, all the rest since have left me feeling a little numb, they lack the character.

Anyway, that 280 looks like a great base, be good to see what direction you take it in.
 
Robotsan

Robotsan

Club Member
Geoff-R said:
Far luckier than me, mine started to go on the inner arches before I really had a chance to spot it, underneath the underseal, only really noticed it once the outer arch had started to blister. Stripped the underseal back off the inner arch and they were completely shot. Think I went a little over the top on it though and had the inner arches replaced and put full new rear quarters on the car. Still, I'm sure once I get it back the noise of that engine and induction will put a smile on my face, the S54 was peak BMW engine, all the rest since have left me feeling a little numb, they lack the character.

Anyway, that 280 looks like a great base, be good to see what direction you take it in.
Click to expand...

You're making a me a bit scared now! I definitely need to get round to that.

Agreed on the S54 and BMW's in general. They just don't sound good.

280z will probably be going in quite a predictable direction - stock looking, 240z looking, and no arch flares :)
 
Robotsan

Robotsan

Club Member
Ok I've just taken the spark plugs out, and they look very sooty indeed.

Plug 6 (I think? Closest to the windscreen anyway!) is the only one which maybe looks a touch oily as well as sooty:

PXL_20220818_124847775.jpg

The rest all look identical, like this:

PXL_20220818_125815235.jpg


I also took the radiator cap off, and it all looks nice and watery in there with no hint of oil. Phew.

PXL_20220818_131315149.jpg


So I'm guessing something is causing the car to run rich .. and I'm guessing that something could be a vacuum leak? So as planned I'll take that AFM to Throttle hose off and see if I can seal it with silicone.

Btw, I can clean spark plugs with brake cleaner right? Or is electrical contact cleaner better?
 
yellowz

yellowz

Club Member
Robotsan said:
Ok I've just taken the spark plugs out, and they look very sooty indeed.

Plug 6 (I think? Closest to the windscreen anyway!) is the only one which maybe looks a touch oily as well as sooty:

View attachment 52790

The rest all look identical, like this:

View attachment 52791


I also took the radiator cap off, and it all looks nice and watery in there with no hint of oil. Phew.

View attachment 52792


So I'm guessing something is causing the car to run rich .. and I'm guessing that something could be a vacuum leak? So as planned I'll take that AFM to Throttle hose off and see if I can seal it with silicone.

Btw, I can clean spark plugs with brake cleaner right? Or is electrical contact cleaner better?
Click to expand...
What plugs are you running?
 
Robotsan

Robotsan

Club Member
Took it off, cleaned it up, and I can see that the holes don't actually go through to the inside. So now I feel like I'm following in someone else's footsteps who was also trying to diagnose this issue 🤔

PXL_20220818_163919108.jpg

PXL_20220818_163930090.jpg
 
jonbills

jonbills

Membership Secretary
Site Administrator
R is for 'resistor' - EFI systems are meant to prefer resistor plugs, less electrical noise (unless you're @Faster Behr )
Air leaks won't make it rich, they make it lean.
The plugs might be like that as @SacCyclone suggested - it might just have been started cold and run briefly multiple times.
try warming it up fully and see if the plugs get cleaner.
 
Robotsan

Robotsan

Club Member
Refitted the hose and cleaned up the spark plugs, and started it up again but still running poorly. Not sure if cleaning the spark plugs was even at all likely to improve things anyway?! I can barely stand to be near the car while it's running, the noxious cloud is that bad!

Off to the Lakes for the weekend so I won't be able to try anything else until next week now anyway.

PXL_20220818_171026523.jpg

Also, this doesn't look good.. nice sooty water escaping from the muffler in quite a big way..


Is this likely to be related?
 
Robotsan

Robotsan

Club Member
jonbills said:
R is for 'resistor' - EFI systems are meant to prefer resistor plugs, less electrical noise (unless you're @Faster Behr )
Air leaks won't make it rich, they make it lean.
The plugs might be like that as @SacCyclone suggested - it might just have been started cold and run briefly multiple times.
try warming it up fully and see if the plugs get cleaner.
Click to expand...

Thanks Jon. OK, do you think the R plugs would make any difference here?

Interesting about air leaks making it run lean. Ok. What could be making it run rich then? I've read that the AFM could be a culprit? Was going to go through the EFI Bible troubleshooting when I next have time, but also found this canny little guide to fixing the AFM: http://xenonzcar.com/s130/afmrefresh.html#

And you're saying just running it a while could visually clean up the plugs? Unfortunately I may have ruined that particular test by cleaning them myself just now. Oh well.
 
Robotsan

Robotsan

Club Member
SacCyclone said:
Transport or shipper could not figure out how to get the radio mast down so probably removed the mast hold down assembly...maybe check inside the car for the assembly?

Who knows how many times the car was started briefly to move around and it may just be loaded up due to cold start activation every time and never brought up to temp. Plugs are new so remove and clean up and then warm it up a bit.

Previous owner said that the tank had been done and when I got the car there was hardly any gas so I put in a fresh 5 gallons.

Happy that it and all the parts arrived safely.

Mike
Click to expand...

These are all the parts in the oddments tray which look like they could form part of the aerial assembly. Anyone able to tell me which ones specifically are part of it and which are not?

PXL_20220818_173419472.jpg
 
jonbills

jonbills

Membership Secretary
Site Administrator
Robotsan said:
Thanks Jon. OK, do you think the R plugs would make any difference here?

Interesting about air leaks making it run lean. Ok. What could be making it run rich then? I've read that the AFM could be a culprit? Was going to go through the EFI Bible troubleshooting when I next have time, but also found this canny little guide to fixing the AFM: http://xenonzcar.com/s130/afmrefresh.html#

And you're saying just running it a while could visually clean up the plugs? Unfortunately I may have ruined that particular test by cleaning them myself just now. Oh well.
Click to expand...
Cold engines need to run richer - that's what the choke does on old carbs. With FI it uses a signal from a temp sensor to know when it's cold, and make it richer. I have a vague recollection that these old Nissan FIs might even have two related temp sensors. I guess it's possible that it's failed and it thinks it's cold all the time.
The other point I made was that if it's been run repeatedly for only a couple of minutes when cold, then it won't have had the chance for the plugs to clean up when running at a leaner, warm mixture.
 
Robotsan

Robotsan

Club Member
jonbills said:
Cold engines need to run richer - that's what the choke does on old carbs. With FI it uses a signal from a temp sensor to know when it's cold, and make it richer. I have a vague recollection that these old Nissan FIs might even have two related temp sensors. I guess it's possible that it's failed and it thinks it's cold all the time.
The other point I made was that if it's been run repeatedly for only a couple of minutes when cold, then it won't have had the chance for the plugs to clean up when running at a leaner, warm mixture.
Click to expand...

Thanks Jon. That does make perfect sense.

Time to go through the EFI Bible methinks.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top