SteveJ

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.

I'm glad the good Captain got me thinking. (The thinking part happens rarely.) I'm used to diagnosing long distance. The most likely problem is a short around a bulb base in the dash lights. The next likely culprit is in the splices in the dash harness. You could also look at the connectors for the lights on the speedometer and tachometer since the positive and negative pins are next to each other. (Ref page BE-16 of the 260Z FSM) Bruce hit it perfectly. The short is bypassing the load on one of the branches of the circuit. To trace this down 1. Get an ohmmeter. 2. Remove the fuse. 3. Disconnect all of the gauges except for the speedometer. Also disconnect the illumination for the heater control panel. 4. Turn the rheostat to the brightest setting. 5. Measure the resistance from the outside clip of the fuse to ground. It should be high. If it is a couple of ohms or less, inspect the connector, wiring and bulb sockets on the speedometer. 6. After eliminating the speedometer as the source of the short, plug in the tachometer and measure the resistance from the outside clip of the fuse to ground. It should be high. If it is a couple of ohms or less, inspect the connector, wiring and bulb sockets on the tachometer. 7. After eliminating the tachometer as the source of the short, plug in the oil pressure/temp gauge and measure the resistance from the outside clip of the fuse to ground. It should be high. If it is a couple of ohms or less, inspect the connector, wiring and bulb sockets on the oil pressure/temp gauge. Keep doing that for the ammeter/fuel gauge, clock and illumination on the heater control panel. Edit: I missed that this circuit also can go to the radio illumination and hazard switch illumination. Include unplugging those in your diagnostics. Those are on page BE-17.

Check the sockets on the running lights. They are subject to corrosion.

One correction to my earlier post. MSA only has the 240Z relay harness. You need to contact Zs-ondabrain directly to commission one for your car. It's also well less than $350.

Light output is directly proportional to voltage. Using really neat H4 bulbs with the old wiring is p!$$!ng your money away. Blackdragon Auto has a vastly inferior generic relay kit. With the kit Dave designed, you can find replacement components off-the-shelf. If a relay goes bad in the Blackdragon kit, you will buy another kit. If you don't understand how to do wiring, the Blackdragon kit is more difficult to install. IMHO, you get what you pay for.

Go to Z Car Parts.com -- Motorsport Auto -- Home and search for the headlight relay kit. Dave Irwin designed & built them, and I have yet to read a real complaint about them.

The ZNationals Car Show pictures are up. While the event is dominated by the Z32s, Z33s, and Z34s, there was a nice showing of the early Z cars. If you are in the Southeast, or if you want to take a vacation in October, ZNationals is a nice Z event. Steve's CARtography | Combining a love of cars and photography

ZNationals Track Day photos are up at Steve's CARtography | Combining a love of cars and photography.

Yes, it does. See page 14 of the owners manual. The stock switch does pull back. Look at the parts manual at CarPartsManual.com - Online Parts Catalogs for Classic Cars. Find the turn signal switch and see if it looks different from what you have. If it does look different, I suggest you post a picture.

I think it's time to do some reading. http://xenons30.com/files/Owners%20Manuals/1970%20240z%20ownersmanual.pdf - Different year, same principles. http://xenons30.com/files/1971%20FSM%20Supplement.pdf

The Kia Sportage seals were for the doors. There are threads here that go into it.

Matt seems to have good fortune. He got the car itself for a song.

Matt, if you're worried about your SUs, get this video from Welcome to ZTherapy.com. Then some time when you're off on a weekend, see if you can take your car over to Tim McGovern's house and learn. It will be time & money well spent.

Not if we bump it.

It doesn't matter if you had the only Z there. Most of us like looking at photographs of nice cars.

It was another Caffeine & Octane day. The cooler weather made for a smaller classic Z turnout than last month, but it's always an enjoyable event. You can find the rest of the photos at Steve's CARtography | Combining a love of cars and photography

Go for it.

I'm glad to hear you got it working.

Read through these. Most of your questions should be answered. Focus on your turn signal switch. Turn Signal Repair | Fiddling With Z Cars Hazard Switch ? Brake Light ? Turn Signal Circuit Analysis | Fiddling With Z Cars