tornoutlaw

Hi guys Dumb question, but I was wondering if anyone knew anything about the spoiler on my car. It came with it when I bought it, and looking at the import docs it seems like its been on the car since import. Anyone know what it is? I'm not sure if I like it that much. It seems to be made of two parts, and the bit that says 'Fairlady' at the back seems attached. Cheers

Is power steering meant to be marked as off?

That's cool, just wanted to rule it out. I have a totally new ignition barrel, and I gave the gear selector a good check over and it works fine, its just the park lock doesn't disengage like it should. I'm thinking it must be the wiring for it, as I think the cable runs from the gear selector -> brake pedal -> ignition barrel from what I can tell. I think it has it's own fuse for the solenoid one the gear stick so I'll check that. Cheers

I've been using the over ride button to move it till now. What it is is that after my car got broken into, I fixed the smashed ignition barrel but now the parking lock on the gear selector won't come off when I press the brake down. They smashed up the drivers side door lock to get access, and the car seems to think the door is open all the time. I wondered if the two things were linked. Cheers

Hi folks Just a quick question to help me track down the source of my gear stick problems! Can you shift out of the park setting with the engine running but the drivers door open? Probably a really dumb question but I'm struggling to find out why the shift lock on my car isn't releasing when I put my foot on the break. Cheers John

Well I've fitted a new ignition barrel, and the car now starts okay. I've lost a lot of skin off my hands rummaging around under the dash though! Couple of problems still exist though. One is the 'Door Open' light stays on until I turn the headlights on, which seems strange. It may be something to do with the damage to the door handle though. The other problem is that I can't get it to shift out of park at the moment. Pressing the break down is meant to unlock the shifter but it isn't. I can put the car into drive by pressing the little red unlock bar down, but obviously this isn't ideal. Any thought? John

This is great, as my car only has the Japanese user manual with it. The pictures are amusing but as I can't read Japanese its pretty useless! John

Sounds good Mark. I'll sort you some money on monday if that's alright. In other news I've now finished both pods with red LEDs. I found the AC one easier to do for some reason. I thought it would be harder for some reason. Next thing is the light under the auto shifter. That's never worked so I think the bulb might already be blown. I've got a bunch of 5 direction 501 LED bulbs on the way so that should be easy. John

Thats cool Mark, is it for a TT or NA? Mines a NA. That said my speedo and water temp gauge are spotless, its just the RPM and fuel gauges that are screwed. Would they be swappable? John

Cheers for all the info everyone. I re-did the first pod with different resistors, looks loads better now! Gonna do the second pod tonight. Got sidetracked removing the Indiglo dials from my dash, but gonna fit a load of red LED's in there too. Maybe even a strip light. Sadly when the Indiglo dials were fitted they were glued down to the old dials and have damaged them. Anyone have any ideas where I can get a new set of dials? I can pick a whole dash cluster off ebay for about £40 so i might just do that. Cheers John

Jackpot dicky! I misread the color codes on the back of the packet and was using 4700 ohm resistors! In my defense I'm colourblind :P That should sort it out I'm sure. Cheers John

Thanks for the input groover. The way I have them set up is with the resistor soldiered in place of the long leg, and like I said they work when plugged in, they are just really dim. Maybe red isn't a great colour to use. Cheers John

Evening guys Seen as my car is off the road till I replace the broken ignition barrel, and I've had to pull apart the dashboard, I've decided to replace the lights in the control pods with red LEDs. Everything seems to work as far as I can tell, but the lights are really really dim, and I'm starting to think I've made a mistake with either my LED's or my resistors. I'm hoping someone can help. I was under the impression from reading the guides in the FAQ section that I needed 5mm LED's and some 470 Ohm resistors. The resistors and LED's came from Maplins. The resistors I'm using have the colours yellow violet red on them. The packaging says 1/4 W 5%. The LED's have no markings on them. When I attach them without the resistor they light up really brightly, but get pretty warm so I guess they wouldn't be safe like that. As you can no doubt tell electronics isn't my strong suite! Any help would be great. John

Well after a couple of hours of work I managed to get the ignition barrel out. We removed the shear bolts in the end by drilling a hole into the end of them, and then hammering a screwdriver into it. Still took a huge amount of force to remove. The reason of this became clear once I had got it off. The entire cast metal case for the ignition barrel was twisted and even the steering lock rod was bent. Someone must have really hammered at it to warp it as much as they did. Anyway I've ordered a replacement ignition barrel and I'm hoping I can swap the section with the tumbler over so I can keep my old key. I'll have to wait and see. Cheers John

Cheers for the info guys, especially Slick Pete. I'm gonna take a look at removing the barrel tomorrow and see if I can sort it. I'll check back and let you know what's going on. John

My breakdown cover wouldn't sort it I think. Its the steering lock that's gonna cause me problems I think. I'm so gutted, feels horrible that someone would mess with my car John

Hi guys Went out to my car tonight to find all the trim around the ignition smashed and the ignition barrel looking like someone has jabbed a screwdriver into it. I'm pretty pissed off, good thing the immobilizer works. Car was locked, looked like something has pulled the drivers side door handle out. Anyway I was wondering if anyone knows how I can start my car up? I can't get the key to turn in the ignition and the steering lock seems stuck on. I really want to move the car away from where it is. Any advice will be really appreciated John

Just thinking out loud really but on a past car I have a problem with the stereo not working unless the engine was running. Turned out one of the connectors on it was loose from the cars 'constant' 12v ring. I would assume the 300zx has something like this, and it would make sense if the turbo timer and wing mirrors folding were wired to it. I could be totally wrong but it sounds to me like those things rely on having constant power to function after the engine is turned off. I'm not sure if there is a related fuse that could be checked, but might be something to think about. On my last car constant 12v was supplied by a rather crude wire spliced onto the batteries positive terminal. Cheers John

That's brilliant, thanks so much. I'm off work for a few days now so I'll have a proper sort out and see if I can't solve it once and for all. At the moment it's not too major a problem, just irritating, but I feel it's the sort of thing that if left alone could cause other problems later. Cheers for the help Medallion Man! John

Cheers Medallion Man, I will check that. Do you know if its possible to get at the sender without removing the fan? Cheers John

Thanks for the info AndyP, sorry for the late reply. I've checked the connector on the idle valve, seems okay. I put the upgraded chip back in, the idle problem still persists so I've ruled that out. I have a few other things to check this week, but something crossed my mind earlier: I recently fitted some bungs to my exhaust, that changes the volume of them. It brings the end pipe diameter from around 5 inches across to about 1 inch across. The exhausts are stainless steel and I think they have had the cats removed. Fitting these had the desired effect, and I haven't noticed any loss of power or performance with the car. I was wondering though weather this change could effect the idle running of the car, maybe due to changes in the air flow or back pressure. I might be way off the mark here but I thought I would ask anyway, as they are a nightmare to remove and I don't want to pull it apart if it isn't going to make any difference at all. Cheers for the input!

Hi guys A few days ago I swapped my ECU chip from a TurboNoz Stage 1 back the the OEM one, to see the difference. The car mostly runs fine, and it might be my imagination but it seems a bit smoother and quieter which is nice. Anyway the one problem I am having is with the car idling. When cold it idles perfectly, rock steady at around 1000rpm. As the engine warms it goes down to around 700ish, which I am led to believe is correct. After a bit more driving (maybe 15 minutes) the idle starts to fluctuate, sometimes dropping as low as 500 rpm. It also feels like it hesitates a bit from a standing start. I was wondering if anyone had any thoughts on why this might be? I was also thinking that some adjustments to the timing etc may have been made when they installed the stage 1 chip? I'm gonna re install the chip on my day off and see if the problems go, but I would really like to use the original if I can. Cheers John

Hi guys random question for today, what is up with these two parts of my car? Red circled part is attached to the window frame in front of the targa panel on both sides. Doesn't move or anything but I was curious because I hadn't seen it on other peoples Zed's. The other circled bit looks like something on the window is broken, but the panels are solid and the top edge of it is smooth. Also the window runs up and down fine, and seems to seal when closed. Any ideas welcome! John

Sorry its been a while but I gave the thing a good wash and wax, and started to sort a few issues, so I thought I'd finally take a picture. Hope you like it!

And just like that its sorted, for now. Went around pressing all the fuses down firmly, re attached the battery terminals and its come back to life. Thanks everyone for the advice again!