JeffTT

How bizare after posting a thread the other day about a damaged tyre inner wall, today I was changing some tension rod arm for adjustable ones, always an ideal time to check tyres I checked out the front inner walls of the front tyres and was surprised again to find the example below, again whilst in place the side view looked fine but gave little indication as to the poor condition on the inner wall, this looks to have been a pot hole or kerb strike. Make checking your tyre a regular job, even if you do smaller mileage and your zed is standing still for long periods. Jeff TT [ATTACH=CONFIG]69021[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]69022[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]69023[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]69024[/ATTACH] [ATTACH=CONFIG]69025[/ATTACH]

How bizare after posting a thread the other day about a damaged tyre inner wall, today I was changing some tension rod arm for adjustable ones, always an ideal time to check tyres I checked out the front inner walls of the front tyres and was surprised again to find the example below, again whilst in place the side view looked fine but gave little indication as to the poor condition on the inner wall, this looks to have been a pot hole or kerb strike. Make checking your tyre a regular job, even if you do smaller mileage and your zed is standing still for long periods. Jeff TT

The fan shroud is very important as it seperates the plus and negative air pressure to ensure it is been drawn through the radiator rather than around the fan, fitting the shroud can be tricky on the larger rads but can be done. Jeff TT

To anyone who has done a fuse box removal knows well the rather un-natural neck breaking , back cricking, arm and hand wrenching position you have to work in, but when the result clears two issue`s in one go it has to be worth it. Todays workshop folley was presenting a rather strange habit of loosing all of the volty sparks from the battery after two or three days, the owners had tried a couple of new batteries and alternator checks passing with flying colours, the thing that made this even trickier to find was that occasionally such as when owner went on holiday for 2 weeks upon his return the engine fired up with no problem? Leak testing for stray battery sparks was made several times and with out any real issue been found, with something like less then 0.07amps when locked and the alarm on which is perfectly acceptable. So it came to us for a longer four day test, this was done with checks done at 3 hour intervals and over the four days and surprisingly when all the data was put together it was found that when the drain was worse during the daytime! and was also raising and lowering through the test period on one occasion raising to 0.75 amp which is way too high and would leave most batteries dead within 90 to 100 hours or 3 to 4 days. however this figure did only display once. So as the fuse box is often the culprit behind most of these kind of issues it was removed and inspected, however as it was removed the connectors were revealing the all to often nasty green colour and when the fuse box was actually removed completely all of the relays was removed and everyone of them were very corroded. Been within reach of the targa drain it was checked and you can guess the rest, disconnected from the drain point meant water had been pouring over the fuse box for goodness how long, now I know the targa drain and fuse box issue is a well documented having done a few threads myself but what makes this one stand apart was the fuse box was working 100% with no obvious electrical problem it was only the flat battery issue that prompted looking into it, so just because you zed seems to be working in this area does not mean all is ok, so said before I know but check the targa drains by pouring a small amount of water down the drain hole to check it comes out of the sill area. The carpet was not that wet however there was a sense of moisture in the area and the extra drain during the day may well be due to the daytime sunlight slightly warming the interior so raising the humidity of the air within the car which would increase the conductivity of the green mess on the connectors and relays, ventilating your car when ever you can should help. Jeff TT

The nuts were not loose, the wheel was really thick and there was only three turns of stud thread coming through the wheel. Jeff

Quick clutch service last month also revealed these scarey nuts fitted on this zed rear wheel, there was barely three turns on each nut, goodness knows how they stayed on? (sorry pic blurry) Jeff TT

Its an owner off the 350z forum we look after, oh and I bet your delivery today came in some big boxes, nice one looks exciting! Jeff

What is it with big boxes? must be a guy thing, however big boxes often mean big cost and this one was no exception, we fitted a replacement exhaust for on a 350z and the owner wanted genuine Nissan and well here is nearly £500 worth of rear back box and intermediate pipe...yikes! Jeff TT

Just a heads up to be careful when adding additional cables into existing circuits on your zed, cable size and fuse ratings need to be taken into account, and Nissan do things a bit back to front with the switching circuits electing to switch the earth rather than the live supply on most of the smaller circuits. Case in point I dealt with over the past week, a zed displaying some odd electrical issues with the lighting circuit and dash cluster. No fuses were blown and no obvious reason for the problems with the lights and non functioning dash cluster. Digging deeper and following the wiring looms nothing showed out, removing the dash cluster also intially failed to show where the issue was. (pic one) however logic suggested I was close and looking a little closer the right hand loom just dod not look right, sort of oddly out of shape. The loom is bound tightly with two layers of insulation so was a bit of a mission but I finally got to the individial cables by cutting right back to the main dash loom and all was revealed. ( pic 2) A single overheated cable had caused a lot of damage to all of the cables around it, bearing in mind no fuses had blown so this owner was super lucky that the offending cable actually melted through completely and broke the over heating circuit. The chances are this fault occured whilst the car was not been used and parked up as the owner had not been aware of any smoke or burning smell. Cutting out the loom section and grafting a new section in with new connectors was a mare, of course many of the cables had melted insulation from adjacent cables and made for a very confusing mess. Having a donor breaker helped massively as it supplied the new wiring parts and was used as a guide where the loom direction was. The problem cable had an additional cable cut into it and was running to an after market lighting unit that itself had an electrical issue due to chaffed cables, the original circuit was served by a 0.5mm cable the one adding in was a 1.5mm and no secondary fusing....be careful guys could of been so different. Jeff TT

Might not be my hands..........lol

It has an 07 manufacture date, not excatly ancient, but the tread amount suggests it has stood around a lot. Jeff TT

**update pics** Inside view of the tyre, the inner wall had completely degraded and the rubber that had shed off is very clear to see. Moral of the story is check the whole of your tyres not just the outside bit. Jeff TT

Yes the tyre area made by Wanli, however I dont think the the tyre brand make was the issue as budget or branded have to pass a certain level of quality, the car had been stood with four flat tyres for some time on a dealer forecourt and the rest of the tyres have side wall crackes or/and splits on the outer side and this particular one was on the inside. The other tyre issues are unlikley to have occurred after the MOT two weeks ago, given that also the steering coupling was seized so turning the steering wheel was horrid with parts of the turn been much harder than the rest, a couple of minor bulb issues and a non retracting seat belts just feels like it was a an "easy" MOT. I will say though 99.9% of the time testers will be fair but safe when it comes to older cars so the 0.1% are letting the good guys down. Jeff TT

Whilst doing a routine assessment for a new owner last week we came across the wheel and tyre combo below, with a low ride hight and body kit fitted the wheel and tyre that was visable in normal use appeared just fine, in fact the tyre tread was very good. However whilst underneath the car we could see the inside wall was a very different affair, take a look and imagine the outcome of a long sustained motorway journey with this fitted to your zed, makes me shudder! what though makes me absolutely furious is the 12 months MOT that came with the car from 2 weeks earlier.....used car dealers!! and that was the tip of the problems. Worth checking the inner walls of your tyres periodically to be sure. Jeff TT

The propshaft balancing test was most likely misleading, most propshaft vibration on a zed is caused by the two piece prop been misaligned due to the rubber section that the bearing is housed in become very hard and not compliant, this leads to the rubber drooping and then staying in that position and hence leading to the alignment issue, when they tested it they would have leveled it up so the drooping bearing issue would not be tested . One piece unit is the best solution as the bearing is silly money from Nissan UK and the cheap bearings on ebay are very poor quality and become noisy in operation. Jeff TT

Ecu received and tested, cannot vouch for your other chip as dont have it but the ecu is fine and working with another eprom fitted, the chip is corrupted / damaged. Jeff TT

Hiya Yeah sorry about yesterday spent the afternoon at hospital with Jeff! Just checked the paperwork on your car please find listed below work carried out on 23/10/12; De-Limiter, Front Fog Light Bulb, Oil & Filter, Main Power Steering Pipe, Hicas high Pressure Pipe (customer supplied) So as you can see no Water by Pass at the back of the engine, the customer did not want an assessment on the car. Didn't you speak to Jeff last week about this car?. If you can call Jeff after 12 today he will be able to speak to you. Hope this helps you on the work we carried out. Regards Lynda Zedworld.

Hiya Can you let me have the reg please so I can look it up on our database, Regards Lynda Zedworld.

The one in the background you cannot quite tell but it is a swb TT. Jeff TT

Have a TT auto in Gunmetal grey in the workshop came in for a cambelt and water pump, the owner mentioned he is selling and from what he said would be well in your budget, was previously owned by an old guy who did silyl low mileage over the past few years, think it has something like 60k on the clock. Will be doing the cambelt etc. in the morning so will take some pics of the car and get you some more info if I can, will hook you up with the owner if its to your loking. Jeff TT

Different wheels are ok providing the correct ratio tyre is fitted to keep the rolling radius the same or as close to the orignal tyre size. Is your zed a UK or Jap spec? reason been the import will have been converted to MPH and sometimes this is done by fitting a dial face, and sometime the needle is removed and not put back on in the correct place, also some of the face changes are inaccurate especially the ones that only go to 120mph, if yours goes to 180 mph and is an import it means it has an electronic convertor and this may need changing for a more acurate one. Panel fit should be very good and wind noise not a problem. Jeff TT

Ah no not quite, most are in for service work. Jeff TT

Seems you had one fault and ended up with more now, not an uncommon problem with looms etc. assuming the engine light issue was not present before then something has changed, the only reasonable thing is the chip carrier where it is soldered to the motherboard pcb, remove the bottom ecu cover and check the 28 soldered pins carefully with a magnifying glass and a strong light,may be just a fracture that has opened up when swapping the chip. We can do an ecu check for you in person or by post, your not that far from us either way. Jeff TT

Fan running and engine light on is a sign of either corrupted ship or an issue with the chip carrier connection, have you tried going back to the first chip? you may have a faulty injector causing the original misfire, so a resistance check with a multi meter should be around 13 ohms. Jeff TT