I was going down the road, and my car started sputtering like it was running out of gas. The needle was close, so I stopped to fill up. Several minutes laterit started doing it again to the extent that I had to pull it out of gear to keep it from stalling. After pulling into a parkinglot, I idled for about 10 seconds before the car sputtered and died.

When I tried to crank it back up, it would fire and run for a second or so and then die again. I was able to get it going by working the throttle and for a minute or two I was able to keep it running by keeping the revs up, though you could feel it studdering or bogging or something even just sitting in neutral and revving.

It stayed going long enough to get from the middle of the parking lot to a real parking place which is where its resting untill the sun goes down some and I can attack the engine bay. Hopefully it won't get towed before I can figureout whats wrong with it.

I tried to start it 4 or 5 more times after parking, and all it'd come on for a second or so, and then immediately die again.

Any suggestions on where to start looking first?


Thanks, rxKaffee

 

I'm hopeing its the fuel filter all clogged up, but I'm not sure I'll be that lucky.

What should my fuel pressure read? I'm going to take a pressure meter with me when I go back to the gas station. It should be the same everywhere right?

rxKaffee

 

Check all your sensor connections... especially the AFM & cylinder head temp sensor connections. Also, make sure the AFM boot to throttle body is secure & not leaking.

 

Is there any way to pull engine codes on this car? I couldn't find anything in my chilton manual that mentioned error codes of any type.

 

hahahahahahah my laugh should give you an idea..but thats so funny engine codes!!! im sorry hahah...


unfortunately no...you will have to test one thing at a time and fix as you go...

 

What emissions related equipment can safely be removed without a negative impact on performance? I'm not concerned with emissions testing here.

Might help to eliminate some of that crap as possible problems, eh?

 

uh... first, you should know which parts ARE emissions parts... (EGR & Cat)

That's not going to solve your current prob... but if you want to... go for it.

 

Sounds kind of what my car is doing. I was real low on gas then it started, im guessing i sucked something of the bottom of the tank.

 

my guess its the filter crossing my fingers for ya

 

when you turn the key on can you hear the fuel pump kicking on? Your fuel pump may have decided to start taking a crap on ya. Just something else for you to check into.

 

Don't we have a fresh air pump that dumps into the cat?I think most cars with an air pump also have a valve to control the air flow. Most cars with a cat also have a high idle ( or two? I think my rx7 had one for vacuum and one for engine coolant through the TB. ) valve thinggy. I believe there were a few other emissions related valves/sensors (besides the O2 of course), but cannot remember what they were.

I know I took a hell of a lot off that 13B. Maby it just had more "un-necessary" stuff because it was a rotary and took less to keep it going?

 

I think your luck pulled me through! Thanks, lol.

I bypassed the filter and the car cranked right up. Fixed a few small fuel leaks around old hoses that had worked their way loose while I was at it. Only thing I'm worried about is that I had to drive about 30mi without the fuel filter hooked up. Is this going to cause any problems? Maby I should run some injector cleaner or de-carbonizer or something through the system?

Thanks for the help guys!

 

If your Z has enough fuel probs that it clogged the fuel filter (& depending on your year & prev owners, there's as many as 3), then bypassing the fuel filter & running the engine at all is very likely to cause bigger probs, most sig., clogging your injectors. I'm pretty sure it'd be real wise to get a new filter on before you crank that engine again, it may already be too late. The filter's not that expensive, esp compared to the expense & agony of redoing injectors. As you pulled the hoses off the old filter did you notice nasty stuff coming out the bottom of the filter (that's the 'in' side)? If it was real bad, buy several filters & or plan on having to clean your entire fuel system including the fuel tank. Zs are notorious for having issues of this type.

 

The 240 - 280z had air pumps... and I think some 79 280zx's did too... thats about it.

 

Remember, by 1980, Datsun/Nissan had accumulated 5 years of practical experience with electronic fuel injection on a mass production scale when most US auto manufacturers were still using carburetors.

The air pump was no longer necessary on the 1979 or 80+ L series engines as their engine management systems were sophisticated enough by then to be able to manage the Air/Fuel ratios close enough and better catalytic converters were used eliminating the need for the air pump to lower emissions.

They still have an EGR though, so don't confuse the two. The EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculator) is a significant contributor to lowering emissions and it actually makes the car run more fuel efficient. But, as old as these cars are, many of them are failing and a lot of people choose to remove them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automob...#Air_injection

 

Not the best idea At the least try to tap or blow out the old filter and reinstall it til you can get a new one. If you have any rust or sediment in your tank and it gets to the fuel injector you will have problems. Injector cleaner wont be able to get that stuff out. Also, DO NOT run any cleaner through your sytem until you put a filter in. You dont want to break anything loose without your filter in there to stop it from reaching the injectors.

 

it's also a possibiltiy that something crappy was in there that just clogged the filter, and you were ok for the time of the bypass, but I'd definitely not reccomend driving without the filter again.

 

Yea the stuff coming out of the old filter was pretty raunchy looking. There didn't appear to be any chunks of stuff, but it was really red in color... maybe rust flakes from the fuel tank??

I already purchased a new filter durring those ~30mi of driving. I don't know if my car has more than one filter or not, but I replaced the large OEM filter that has a bracket on the inside of the passenger fender area of teh engine bay. Big filter...

What do you mean about buying several filters? I don't understand how to use more than one fuel filter, or how it would correct a problem caused by running without the old one for a little while.

 

So this means that all of those sensors with vacuum hoses hooked to them are necessary?

 

By several filters he means to buy a few of the same filter, the one you just got. Install it and put some miles on it. Then pull it and see how nasty it is. Then put on a fresh one and repeat until you're not getting a bunch of nasty crap up in the filter. Its just a drawn out way to get the fuel system cleaned up. A quicker method would be having the tank cleaned.

on your last post above, no, not all the sensors with vacuum hoses hooked upa re necessary. For example, there is sometimes a TVV that controls the EGR, there can also be another that controls the Vacuum advance. These are meant to prevent those devices from operating before the engine warms up. If you remove the EGR then you can remove the TVV that controls its operation, etc...

EDIT: And just so you know, there is only the one filter.

 

jfairladyz, reading your posts here at ZDriver I sure notice that you know a bunch about what you're talkin about. You also write well. Are you a mechanic by trade? It's nice to have you here...

& rxKaffee, yep, I guess the crap would be rust/crap from the tank, although I thought there's a sock on the pickup/sender that ought to block that, plus another strainer in the inlet side of (the factory) pump. About the 'buying a few filters', yes, I meant several of those 'big ones' 'front' or 'eng compartment' filters, & mostly, so when it clogs next time, you have one right there in the car w/you & can change it on the side of the road/wherever you are at the time. I have an '83 ZXT w/209k miles w/bad tank rust & it was clogging filters regularly, I learned a bunch of this stuff from it. I never cleaned the tank because I quickly realized that car could suck all my $$$ right out of my life if I let it. So I kept a few filters on hand & changed them when the eng started running badly (it really runs great exc that fuel sys prob). & ultimately I bought this fairly low mile '82 which is super owner-friendly & now the '83 just mostly sits.
Cleaning & lining the tank is prob a great idea for you, but I'd imagine that you'd still go through a few filters after that as the rest of the crap flushes through. & if you don't 'do' the tank, it'll never end. One thing I did notice w/my '83 was that no matter how bad the gas coming out the bottom of the filter looked, the gas after the filter was perfectly clean, invariably, attesting to the quality of those filters.

 

cleaning the tank yourself totally isnt worth it, get it done professionally, trust me, i found out the hard way, easiest thing to do is go to the wreck yard and pull a tank, pull out the sender and look inside, those little flakes are killer on a fuel system, before re-instaling the tank, blow out the fuel lines to get the little flakes out, youll be surprized by what comes out.

 

What kind of treatment is done to tanks to fix this problem? What sort of place would do this cleaning and tank treatment? And, would this treatment make the gas tank alcohol compatible?

 

radiator shops usually have a hot tank they can clean them in. Call around and see who does hot tanking and sealing on gas tanks. Some shops won't mess with them because of the fumes, but there has to be at least one place that will do it.