chaseincats

Wow so the flappy bit is supposed to flap around when closed it seems

Hi all - Inside my 78's center console cover is a rectangular piece of metal that flaps around along with another piece that looks like it pops into a small hole but won't line-up to fit. Below is the flapping piece I'm talking about along with a quick video I made which should be of more help. The video is here. Curious what this is for, how to connect it, and if I am missing a piece to do so. Any ideas? -chase

Understood, thanks!

Hi all - now that the car is running properly, stops, and the new interior is sitting pretty, I'm looking for new things to do because keeping the car in one piece is difficult for me haha My indicator switch doesn't click and hold into place like others do which is to say I need to hold the stalk up to make a right turn and when I let go it falls back down into the neutral position. The indicator electrical functionality works perfectly well, it's just the physical portion where I need to hold the switch up is the issue. Is this a 'you need to replace it' issue or is there something in there that I need to bend or something?

I ended up purchasing the pre-wired connector from thezstore and then using those solder/heat shrink sleeves to join it to the harness. Besides the pins having corrosion in the plastic plug itself (the AFM's teeth were fine), I had to keep snipping further and further down the harness until I got to copper wires without any green to join the new AFM connector to. The car now starts VERY quickly and has an incredibly capable torque curve to the point where I'd forget to shift because there was torque wherever you were on the tach. I know everyone swaps out their injector/temp sensor connectors, but folks should really not overlook replacing this one. I've had the car over 10 years now and it has never ever felt this capable. Swap this connector.

Gotcha - so you just snipped the connector off, crimped on the new one and called it a day?

Fair enough 😭

When I went through the large ECU connector test using the efi bible, the temp sensor value came out around what the air temperature was in the garage. Do you think it still could be that wire even if the car runs perfectly after a hard start?

Ok so I cleaned all of the terminals on both the connector and AFM side and plugged everything back in with de-oxit and its harder to start than ever. I don't understand this at all...

Thanks - I'll grab one of these and see how it comes out. If it still looks not-great I'll look into replacing the connector as a last-ditch effort

thanks

Gotcha. I had my injector connectors replaced and the coolant temp/thermotime done but not the afm's. Sounds great, thanks.

Do you have a link (I'm not familiar with what AMP is)? Also it looks like a lot of soldering which I kinda suck at - how tough was it?

Final update (ideally): we are good and now have a VERY quick start. The issue ended up actually being the AFM's connector. The single pin that plugs into the AFM's air temp sensor was green. Since the AFM's air temp sensor leans the car out with resistance (the opposite of the coolant temp sensor) it was sending wrong temp data to the ecu causing it to lean out during starting. Another clue was driving the car during the day when it's warm out, the car ran noticeably leaner than when driving home at night when it's cooler. This should have hit me beforehand. I sprayed the heck out of it with deoxit and wiggled the connector a lot since I couldn't fit anything into the connectors tiny connector. Have any of you ever successfully cleaned these tiny pins? Outside of cramming a needle in there or something, I'm not sure how to scrub the corrosion out if it.

Update: using the below chart from the FSM to narrow down where my missing 'start' enrichment is, I tried cleaning the air temp and water temp sensor connections with Caig Deoxit and it seems to have helped on the one time I started it (tonight) after it sitting since Saturday. After working on them with deoxit, I sat down with the EFI-Bible and went through all of the multimeter checks and everything is in spec. Honestly, I should have done it before spraying just to get a definitive answer, but with the mild corrosion in there, and the process of elimination on this chart, it has got to be one (or both) of those sensor connectors as we seem to be back in business. The one thing I don't get is if there is corrosion on them, that should increase the resistance causing the ECU to run richer instead of ignoring the starter enrichment layer entirely, but maybe I'm misunderstanding? As a side note, my ECU connectors look clean, but should I spray Caig deoxit on there anyway, or is that just used if there is visible corrosion?

That checks out, I'd say your dog is safe. I went through the engine tune-up chapter of the FSM probably 6 months ago and the valves are within factory spec. Good idea though.

Thanks for all of this! My coolant is definitely above 72 degrees though, so this shouldn't apply. Also it getting worse weekly is odd I'd think...

The cold start valve is actually only a few years old since when I wanted to wire it so it could be triggered manually I discovered that the original was indeed dead. That said, when its 90 degrees out (today) the cold start valve shouldn't be triggering anyway I thought, no? I thought the thermotime switch only triggers it when the coolant is below 50 degrees or something.

I have had the cold start injector wired to a manual toggle switch for years so that shouldn't be it since this is a recent issue. There was a time when I wanted the car to start on the first crank regardless of ambient temperature and wiring the cold start injector like that is how its done.

For sure, but it seems to be getting harder to start each week and it has always had the same low-fuel pressure issue when starting where it took 5-6 cranks instead of 10+ now.

I'm not sure, but I drive the car about once a week. That said, since I've had the car (going on 10 years), the fuel pressure has always gotten down to 0 after a few days, so I'm sure that's still the case and shouldn't be the culprit since the hard starting issue (with it running great after starting) is a recent issue. It's weird since it seems to become harder and harder to start each week.

Back for more - really getting tired of this Every time I try and start the car after its been sitting for a few days, it seems to take longer and longer to start with more and more difficulty, but once it gets running, its like there was no issue at all. It isn't the battery as the starter is cranking strong with no changes in speed during cranking. I checked the color of the fuel via the transparent fuel filter between the tank and fuel pump, and the fuel looks perfect (new tank of gas as of a few weeks ago). The numbers on my air-fuel gauge are perfect/same as they have been before the issue, as if there is no problem at all. The only issue is the arduous cranking and cranking and cranking stumbling then eventually starting when cold. If it helps, starting it after the car is warm is a very quick (2ish cranks) process. Any ideas?

No, they’re identical

This happened to me actually. What happened was the self-adjustor inside the drum seized. I'd say pull the drum and check that out.

Yep, cutting a slit in the oval grommet is definitely the way to go - thanks. I was thinking about just using 2 circular grommets instead (from the generic grommet kit I have), unless that doesn’t jive with the firewall and that’s why Datsun used that odd oval grommet?