SteveJ

I should be home over the weekend if you need some help. Send me a PM.

Pull the alternator and take it to a shop to be tested. Sometimes their testing equipment will reveal a bad VR.

Another possibility is the failure of the internal voltage regulator in your alternator. If you are mechanically inclined, I believe replacements are available. Check the T plug first.

Also, quality tools are usually purchased once and used for a long time. For instance I have a Fluke multimeter that has held up well for close to 15 years. My brother still has my dad's old Simpson meter (in addition to a Fluke) that has held up great for close to 50 years. Maybe a good thread would be to rate parts & tools, especially the quality tools. Sometimes the inexpensive can be good, too. I bought new front turn signal lenses and gaskets from Blackdragon Auto. They were much cheaper than the competition, fit well, and gave me no problems. They look really good, too.

It worked fine for me.

This is Mark's car. He did not end up selling it. Update: I sent a message to Mark via FB. He should be making an appearance here.

I don't think Mark is on this forum. He may be on Hybridz, though I don't know his screen name.

I took the Z out for a drive up to the BMW plant in South Carolina today to enjoy the Eurofest auto show. As I drove on I-85 in South Carolina, I had a red 911 convertible shadowing me, and later a green 914 was in tow. Going back, I had a black 911 convertible shadowing me for the entire time I was on I-85. Maybe they thought I would get pulled over first should the troopers show up. I had issues uploading the pictures to my Flickr account today, but I should have them online tomorrow if you want to check out my website. Update: The pictures are online at http://stevescartography.wordpress.com

Mark Blasko put a BMW engine & transmission into a 240Z. I don't remember what engine he put in. Track me down via the Classic Z Cars FB page & friend me, and I'll put you in touch with Mark if you would like.

Corrosion at a connector increases resistance. Corrosion that bridges between the positive and negative terminals in a socket provides a lower resistance path than the bulb does.

Rewire the car? All you have to do is use a Tridon 34 and run a ground wire. If that's too difficult, consider selling your Z and buying a new Honda. *SMH*

Rewire the car? All you have to do is use a Tridon 34 and run a ground wire. *SMH*

No. Increased resistance will not cause a fuse to blow. Ohm's Law V - Voltage I - Current R - Resistance P - Power Any way you cut it, increasing resistance will not increase current. Poor connections, such as the clamps holding the fuse, will cause hot spots. A prolonged hot spot in the fuse box will cause a fuse to fail and possibly cause the fuse box to melt. A common problem with the Z cars is that corrosion can form on the sockets for the side markers (and front markers if the gasket is bad or the lens is cracked. As was mentioned, it can drop the resistance in that branch and possibly short out the fuse. The worst case scenario is that you have dropped the resistance, but not enough to be above the curve for the fuse. That, combined with the hot spot scenario described above can really heat things up. I agree with Zed Head. The engine running is most likely a red herring. You probably won't have the parking lights on for very long if the engine isn't running. The first recommendation is probably the best. It might also be good to remove the fuse box and soak it in vinegar or a mild rust removing solution such as Evapo-Rust. After that, gently squeeze the clips together so they have better contact with the fuses.

It's probably not your LEDs. Most likely, you're using a flasher that isn't designed for LEDs. Find the Sold on LEDs thread and look at the last few posts.

As I described it in another forum, an essential tool for working on cars.

I'm still trying to figure out why you think the corporation is soulless. What you do mean? Are they evil? They are trying to manage risk, comply with regulations, and earn money. I doubt it was a lack of caring or an overabundance of greed. The regulations put in place increased the risk for the corporation and unfortunately the consumer when the government bureaucrats went overboard with the regulations. I have seen many cases where negative attributes are assigned to corporations, much as you have done. Those corporations are made up of people, and while some may be evil, most of the people are interested in making money from the mailroom clerk to the shareholders. All of them expect their company to make money, the same as you expect money to do work. From my standpoint, you seem willing to make a judgement about people's motivations without accounting for the risks they had to manage to fulfill their livelihoods. I have yet to see you try to explain how there would have been a problem like this if Honda and Takata were not compelled to design supplemental restraint systems that protected people who were not using the primary restraint systems. Keep in mind that the NHTSA was warned 30 years ago about the problem. So it can easily be turned around. Does the end justify the means for the NHTSA? Is everything you produce at work perfect and free of risk? If not, how are you not guilty, albeit in a lesser extent, than the people working for Honda and Takata? I do not think they are lacking souls or greedy any more than I believe you are lacking a soul or are greedy. At least I've never seen you write anything here that would indicate as much. Individuals at Honda and Takata may be guilty of mismanaging risk more than guilty of malice. Now I would be more inclined to think malice was at play if people at Honda and Takata would not buy Hondas because they believed they weren't safe. Is there any proof that was the case?

You tried to assign the problem to a lack of soul. Another poster tried to assign the problem to greed. I pointed out another pathway. If you want proof, start with this: http://www.nhtsa.gov/cars/rules/rulings/OccCProt.html. I posit that it's not greed or lack of soul, but risk driving these problems. If the companies feel they cannot comply with excessive requirements without increasing risk, should they stop building cars? I ask that as a sincere question. Everybody on this board aspires to have more than the minimum required for survival. I do not view people as greedy or without souls just because they want more. Sure, I have a superior tone when I see people railing about a problem without considering the root causes. I assert that there is a bigger problem of displacement of risk. The NHTSA was trying to insulate the people they were trying to "protect" from risk. However, the risk was moved elsewhere. I don't like where the risk moved to, either. Why should a short woman who is belted securely into her car be at bigger risk of injury because the NHTSA bureaucrats refused to modify their requirements when the risks were stated to them? Now I ask that you admit your superior tone with the comment about "good true engineers". Frankly, I see large corporations as a big pain the in @$$, and I see the large federal bureaucracy as an even larger pain in the @$$.

Actually, I believe that if someone wants to drive around at 70+ MPH unbelted in his/her car, the government should not mandate that car companies build safety cocoons to protect that idiot. The average, know-nothing journalist (I apologize for the redundancy.) isn't going to mention why there has to be such an explosive reaction for the airbags to work. Did you read what I wrote? No, you read what you wanted to read. There is a distinct possibility that the excessive standards put forth by the government create a greater risk in these kinds of components. Attributing it to corporate greed is very narrow minded. The point you are missing is that bad regulation leads to bad solutions. If the regulations only required protection of a belted passenger, the car companies could have dialed down the force and reduced the risks. This should hit home for good true engineers.

My thoughts are that Z Therapy would probably have any Hitachi specific parts needed (except for floats).

He gets to pull his speedometer, remove the bulbs and do a continuity check between the G/W & R/L wires. Then with the fuse pulled, he'll do a continuity check between the G/W & R/L wires on the dash harness.

So why is there a powerful explosive in the dashboards and steering wheels of new cars? The government, in its infinite wisdom, deemed that airbags should be able to stop an unbelted 200 pound man. That meant that airbags had to inflate with enough force to save an idiot. The government should have let Darwin cull the idiots from the gene pool and dictated kinder, gentler airbags to help protect the people. Place the blame where it belongs. By the way, I assume both of you work for free.

I believe you got all of the center stack lights. I never had luck in reaching behind the speedometer & tachometer. To pull the speedometer & tachometer (assuming all of the fasteners are in place) 1. Pull the screw in the top of the bezel. 2. (Speedometer) Reach behind and unscrew the speedometer cable. 3. Contort yourself so you can see under the dash and remove the screw that holds the meter to the dash. 4. Pull the gauge forward through the dash. (Hope you don't have a full dash cap glued on...) 5. (Speedometer) Use a small screwdriver to loosen the set screw for the trip odometer. It's a pain to get the trip odometer cable in place with the set screw tightened when you go to put it back in.

Don't forget about the lights in the center stack & center console.

The connectors for the lights are the connectors for the gauges. Then there is the socket that attaches to the back of the gauge. I would take pictures, but I'm overworked & have to fix the things my wife is breaking at home. Make sure you look at the FSM. I gave you the page numbers.

The first thing to remember when doing the troubleshooting online, Bruce, is the Dr. House philosophy. Patients lie. Mind you, it's lies of omission, but the person with the problem didn't say what modification he/she made or what system he/she was messing with before the problem happened. While there is a chance there could be something wrong with the dash harness, the main thing is that there is enough information to say that the GW & RL wires are short circuiting somewhere. The bad thing is that it's a 20A fuse in the circuit to protect wire that I wouldn't want more than 10A going through. I can't say if that's poor engineering on Nissan's part or if the standards for ampacity have changed between when the circuit was designed and now. There are splices in the harness, too, where the wiring make the parallel circuit. These splices have a little bit of electrical tape covering them. When I was changing the light sockets on the speedometer on the 260, I used uninsulated splices covered with heat shrink and offset the splices to prevent overlap. I haven't taken apart the dash harness to see if they avoided overlapping splices.