Working on the silver car over the weekend trying to finish off all the wiring. I'm going for an entirely new generic loom so had to figure out the steering column controls and wiper motor wiring which all went pretty well. I then found out that the wiper motor I had got working was a RHD motor so this led me onto converting them to RHD configuration. This involved a bit of cutting under the cowl to make room for the RHD mechanism plus removing the redundant fresh air intake to relocate on the other side and fitting the RHD fan motor to get the location for the new intake.
Getting there but it does seam never ending at the moment.
Rob - they park on the opposite side. No, I'm not going to start manufacturing generic looms. I used an EZ-loom on the red 280z and I'm doing the same on this car. It simplifies the wiring and provides a single fused supply to each device that is clearly marked on its entire length of wire so fault finding should be very simple. It is quite easy to wire the existing controls to use switched lives rather than the way Datsun did it. None of the old Datsun relays ,fuses or wiring is reused with the exception of a few pieces of dash wiring (which could be replaced).
The wiper wiring was the hardest part to get my head around but once you understand what is going on it's pretty simple. The motor has an ignition fed live plus an earth and 3 additional wires to the switch. When the wiper switch is turned to the first position it earths the slow speed wire to the motor along with another wire to the motor. When the second speed is selected it earths the fast speed wire to the motor along with the same additional wire as the slow speed. When the switch is turned to off it disconnects all 3 wires from earth. The motor earth wire and live wire are still connected which allows the motor to move the wipers to the park position before stopping. It is the additional wire that is earthed in position 1 and 2 that brings in an internal relay that allows the wipers to work. When this additional earth is removed the wiper motor polarity is reversed and the motor runs backwards until a set of contacts stop it in the park position. For switchgear and motors with intermittent wipe another wire is used for the extra position and is controlled by an external controller. I thin once you understand how the motor and controls work then it should be easy to wire the honda motor in.
Yep, it's going to be running ITBs. Didn't know that about polishing the inlets with FI. Will research further! I was thinking about going over the inlet with a scotchbrite buff anyway to just give it a little extra smoothness over its current finish.Looking good. Are you going injection on this engine? If so then you can polish the walls of both exhaust and inlet.
I've been getting the engine bay ready for dropping the motor back in.
Removed all of the engine loom tape and fitted new.
Swapped the fusible links for a fuse box.
Swapped out the auto pedal box for a manual and installed the master cylinders.
Made and fitted the brake/clutch lines
Just need to bleed the brakes and check for leaks then make the penetration for the throttle cable (plus a few other small jobs).
I done mine around 10 years ago with those AGU fuses as well, after i read about it on an American website, you're the first person i've seen do the same!
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I finally got the brakes bled after sorting out a couple of leaks.
I had used a pre-cut and flared kit from Germany that I found on eBay but the lines were the wrong lengths and I had leaks on two of the flares.
I thought it might save a little time but I ended up making up a load of the lines from scratch.
The engine is in, albeit without the gearbox.
I went to install the flywheel and the recess on the back of it won't fit over the end of the crank.
I'm giving Z Car Depot's FAST EFI kit a go to see how it performs.
I'm going to trim the harness a little to tidy things up, rather than have cable tied loops everywhere.
Looks great, Mark!
What fuel rail are you using?
Keen to hear how your Fast EFI experience goes. Redline280z on Youtube installed on and it looked a good bit of kit to replace the old system. This is a route I will be considering if I run out of ideas with my stock injection.
I am pretty sure a Mustang specialist I know uses a FAST injection system on some of the builds he does. Installation has just removed all the uncertainty of running on the carbs - cars start at the turn of the key, every time, tickover is superb. I saw a system he'd put on a '71 which previously ran like a dog.