clive01

i have his email address. Good guy. Came and helped me out with my car a couple of times. His zed is mega tasty in real life! tp_ventham@msn.com Good luck. Cliff.

thanks mate. Do these cars have CV joints as they are RWD and front wheel steer?? other than the 2 methods you suggested is the "play in each wheel" method a good way of spotting suspension problem? What type of problems would this miss?

........[of] suspension problems. in the title.

my car was raised and each wheel checked for play in all directions. seemed fine. if this is the main method for checking common suspension problems (such as bush failure) and bearing problems and it was fine can i pretty much rule this out? see below thread for more background. http://www.300zx.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=106561&highlight=bearing

ok been to the garage and one of my exhaust pipes has come away from the centre box which is causing all the bangs and noises. They shook all the wheels and they seemed fine so does this pretty much rule out most suspension problems?

thanks bladebloke. Yes it is a TT with HICAS. i took it into work for the first time this morning to see if the problem was still there. It was and seems to be be constantly present now even in a straight line not just turning left as before. At low speed when i was coming into the work car park someone said my car was sounding like a flatbed truck which is pretty spot on. I had a look underneath breifly and nothing appears to be hanging off..... Going to take it to a garage at lunchtime to find out the problem but any advise from you guys would help a lot because i dont want to see clueless when i go into the garage.

really need some help here guys!!!!! Got a big journey on friday and really want to take the zed instead of my girlfriends boring VW. Can someone advise me whether this is likely to be the bearing/bush and what i can do to check it out or fix it. Im sure there is a few of you who are around who could advise me......... much apreciated.

thanks for the responce. Which bush? when you say the same sort of thing did you have the same symptoms as me?

any one who was not on here at the weekend have any idea what is wrong with my car????????

thanks wow. Any ideas guys? to describe the noise better it is like in bugs bunny when he sees the sexy woman rabbit and he drums his big foot of the floor. No messing that is really how i can best describe the sound.

this happened for the first time last night. Took a LH turn from a roundabout onto a motorway slipway quite fast not too fast and there was a rumble vibration from the rear passenger side. Fine for the rest of the journey then when went back to the car and drove off the vibration was back on a left turn. It seemed to go after the car warmed up and havent touched it since. only happened when turning left and noise continued a bit after had straightened up. banging, knocking, vibration sound that was very audible and could feel a slight shake through the steering wheel i think. What is this? wheel bearing? is it a big job to change a rear wheel bearing? Thanks guys. Pretty worried about this as my car has been good as gold recently and i have a big journey coming up next friday.

got plug from nissan. took the old one off and saw that the thread part of the ebay plug had completely come away from the magnet and bolt part. fitted the new plug with a new washer and everything is ticketyboo! panic over! thanks all

thanks for the reply wow. just phoned nissan and they have them in stock. Will pop up there and get one. dont really want to drain all the oil again so think i will just swap them over as quick as possible and not over tighten and hopefully it will be ok.

just done an oil change and it was all going fine until i was tightening the sump plug and think i tightened too much as it then became turnable by hand. have i sheared the plug or the sump casing?? the sump would be alot worse. I have a sump plug from ebay with a magnet on. I am hoping this is the softer part and would of sacrificed or is this false hope??? do halfords do 300zx sump plugs or how much will nissan charge me? hope to get a reply from one of you guys in time for me to go to the shops before they shut. my big question is will i more likely need to replace the plug or the sump???

I know you are all going to say the stock oil pressure gauge is buttons dont worry about it and i am not as i have an aftermarket gauge too but it is a nice to have and it is good to have everything working especilly when i come to sell it. since my last oil change i noticed that the oil gauge is slow to respond and even more accurate than ever and struggles to show higher pressures. At one point it was actually reversed (going up when the oil pressure was going down and visa versa) but this was solved by the old electrical fix of turning off and turning on again. Have i knocked something when doing the oil change? where does the sensor sit? anyone ever experienced similar problems?

thanks for all your help guys. I will try and few of these things and report back.

thanks mate. A lot to take in there. I found water droplets around the bar that sits above the ECU where there is the patch of rust shown in your picture. Pretty hopefully it is not heater matrix as this incident only happens in really really bad weather. The car does have a boost controller but not installed by myself so dont know the routing through the firewall but thought it went through the other side where the bonnet release cable is. is the air con grommet in the picture as the large looking hole to the right and up of the ECU mounting? I guess my problem is more likely to be the drain cock in that case as the water seemed to be coming more from the left (door side) when it was dripping on the mat. How do i diagnose and fix this? It probably says it all in your post but i am having trouble to picture it without the car infront of me. many thanks for your help.

result and i recomend everyone to have a clean of their ECU and see if it makes a difference, 30 mins job at most. problem is still the water getting in somehow. Cant be good and could cause interior rust not to mention all the elecs round that area. I have tried to waterproof the ecu a bit better by wrapping and taping it up in a tesco bag to stop the water penetrating it (heat build up shouldnt be too excessive and there are ways the heat can escape). where is the water coming from and how can i stop it getting in?????

this is still happening to me. It seems to be kicking up from the road rather than rain from above and it is getting through to where the ecu sits and caused it to have a funny turn where it was running rough. Dried it out throughly with the missus hairdryer on the cool setting as is fine now (in fact it seems to be performing better than ever before, crud building up on ECU circuit boards over a number of years causes a slight drop in performance??). Any idea how water could be getting through to this area?

when driving through the rain on monday i had a few drips on my passenger side matt, in the far left corner. It is not the heater matrix as the drips were pure rain water and the problem hasnt happened before or since. Only when driving through heavy rain.

sounds like there is some serious drama! http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/wales/6998191.stm

Thanks guy. Could you expalin to me exactly which pipes you are refering to, maybe you could use the picture andy posted on page 2 to highlight which ones you are talking about.

thanks chief! pressure testing does seem the way to go so i can see where that pesky leak is coming from. cheers for taking time out of your birthday drinking to answer my question!

more steam today. Was fine when i took it to and from work yesterday with an extra stop at the petrol station but when i came in this morning it steamed twice when i was idealing before the thermostat was open (i have aftermarket temp sensor on radiator out hose). The steam stopped when i raised the revs. Raising the revs must speed up the waterpump putting the system under more pressure. This hasnt happened before when driving and cold. still the same diagnosis?

best news i have had all day! something that is dead easy to do on a zed! Should i replace that hose in the green box with a silicon line or will a standard rubber one be good enough to take it another 100k miles? What is that hose called or what does it do so i know how to explain it to smithy, danny or whoever? I will see if the garage next door has go got a cap that fits the rad which they can do a pressure test with. Never know today might be my lucky day!