WillieO

My daughter won a box. Had me some on toast for lunch - brill!

....and the stock engine built in diagnostic method is no good? Worked fine for me and exposed a bad connection on the connector blocks.

Its usually on the pipe connection under the FPR leading down to the injector rail which you cannot see until you take the cover over the throttle cables off. When this is leaking due to very cold aged shrunken fuel hoses about a teacup of petrol is being dumped down the vee of the engine and running down the back of the bell housing onto the ground. Thats what you smell. Once there is a little heat in the engine said hose connection warms up flexes and seals and no more leak - till it's cold again. Often garages will diagnose leaking FPR because thats what it looks like but then the petrol smell never goes away and you remain at risk of an engine fire!!! Tightening hose clip usually fixes this but the cure is to buy 8mm fuel hose and replace all the old hoses on the fuel system after the fuel filter in the engine bay.

You might find the rear bumper has to come off as well to get at further rot passing down behind it. Then you find the steel brackets that hold the bumper to the body are all frilly and you have to fabricate those. It goes on and on!

The moment you turn the ignition to on the fuel pump pressurises the system. You can hear it if you turn on the ignition with the door open. It takes a second or two. Maybe it's something else going wrong? Mine starts instantly unless its been unused for weeks and weeks then it might churn a bit before catching.

You can download the manual in pdf from the Clifford site. You can then see how to set the various settings also.

Mine's the same, its lack iof use and lubrication. Once its being used frequently it works fine. I find I need to double check it locks on the central locking sometimes. This weather its not been on the road for 3 weeks so it will probably have started sticking again.

You might also need to get it to re register the remotes. The Clifford system registers the remote to the alarm installed. Otherwise you use the valet code to get it mobilised again and then use the menu system to re register the remote fob back to the alarm. You need the manual in front of you to figure out the menu system access. I just put new rechargeables in the siren unit as they were no longer holding charge and I think contributed to the car battery draining when left unused for a week or two.

So are you going to see it?

Even running cold with a duff thermostat stuck open would stop it ever getting out of safety boost. I dont think that would show up on diagnostic codes either. Check your top rad hose for getting pressurised and properly hot. Also the main (big) temperature sender connector for the ecu. It could be a bad contact that is failing to tell the ecu the engine is now hot and allowed full boost.

Whats really quite spooky in an auto is going slow on snow and ice and touching the brakes, locking up the fronts and still enough power and traction in D even on tickover to keep the car heading on even though you are on the brakes enough to lock the fronts. Took me seconds to realise what was going on aand knock the gear into neutral before I almost hit some bollards. I guess ABS does not work at really low speeds.

I can be 40 then 40. Willieo - Willie O'Donnell - Falkirk - 1992 TT UK Red Auto

Mine are down to the limit also got an advisory on last mot, they are around £85 from MJP, is it worth looking out for some 2nd hand ones, as you say they don't wear much?by Beermonster If you had an advisory it must have been for the handbrake operation as they cannot see the shoe condition. Remember you have disc pads as well as shoes on the rear. They can see the pad condition of course. If the adjusters are stuck or there really is no brake shoe friction material left then its another story but check the shoe condition first.

Handbrake shoes should almost never wear out on a 300zx unless the car is used for daft things like drifting. Otherwise its just a parking brake. Unless they are really through to the metal and wont adjust up you should re use them.

You can quickly prove the stuck open thermostat by starting it from cold and leaving it running. If the top hose slowly warm, and I mean slowly in this weather, then its stuck open. What should happen is the hose stays stone cold while the engine itself gets warm and only when the stat reaches the right temperature does it open suddenly and only then does the top hose heat up. There can be heat inside the car by that time but it sounds like you don't even get that. Temporary measure can be a large peice of cardboard over your radiator. You can cover about 2/3rds or even more in this weather and check the gauge to be sure its not overheating. Obviously not if your doing a track day or cruising at illegal speeds!

Or can be a well sagged centre bearing with the prop giving a good waggle before stabilising naturally at speed. With a bit of heat in even a sagged cracked centre bearing it stabilises it and cuts vibs. Fits with vibs on gear changes or low speed torque application

Sounds different between NA and TT on this exhaust. I guess the turbos change the note a bit. I heard one on you tube and it sounds very different to my TT.

Is the smoke coming from the tyres rubbing on the arches?

Watch that there is the connector onto the end of the TPS and another connector on wires going just below the TPS. It was that connector below the TPS that would make mine idle high and it would drop to normal when that connector was given a wiggle. The issue seems cured now and I never identified exactly where the problem was just that the wiggle of those wires always made it settle down. Worth checking and carefully cleaning any green oxide out of each connector.

Have a wiggle of the tps sensor connections when its idling fast. Sometimes that connector can cause this.

The HICAS is worth fixing. It does work well when the outer and inner joints are in sound order. Removal is more work for what real reward and you still need the ball joints in good order plus your insurer will consider it a mod which needs extra premium. The rear shocks must also be in good condition otherwise the bouncing exaggerates the bad rear steer effects. Also the rear toe in might need checking. If this is out you get a world of bad tyre wear and weird handling.

and its summer where you are and maybe you don't have the insulated box around the battery any more? I would guess that heat soak is hitting your battery here after a long drive and shorting some plates in one cell?

You might have an intermittent short circuit going on here. It can even be in the battery plates in one cell intermittently shorting! The whine you are hearing is the alternater working flat out delivering charge to where it is being lost. Have the battery checked out on a discharge test.

245's on the front is a litle bit too much and would tend to make it tramline and follow grooves and cambers. If you have play in the rear steering also then it becomes like a shopping trolley. That's the first thing to fix.

Basically if the nose panel is vented it can let the rain in. The rain then wets the air filter that then wets the gizmo in the airflow meeter and that then confuses the engine about how much air it is sucking in. Basically the MAF of AFM has a little heater coil in it that the engine management computer tries to keep at a steady temperture. The amount of current to do that changes with the amount of air that comes in. So more air means more current and that way the engine ecu knows how much fuel to feed it. When it gets wet it gets cold naturally and it thinks no air is being breathed in and then gives the engine no fuel or the wrong amount. The ECU decides there is a fault and then puts the engine into "get you home" mode which won't let the engine rev past about 2500rpm as already mentioned. Worth opening the nose panel, take off the filter and check for wetness, try a hair drier on the MAF if all is wet.