Fuel Rail and Injectors

I noticed that the hose connecting the sections of the fuel rail was starting to crack.  The previous owner had replaced the injectors although I wasn't sure about the seals so I used this as an opportunity to inspect, clean up and replace the rubber on the fuel delivery components in the engine bay.

Removal of the components was pretty straightforward, although it is noteworthy that care must be taken with the fuel rail so that you don't bend or otherwise damage the tubing.  OE fuel rails aren't impossible to find although they aren't exactly inexpensive.  Each side of the fuel rail is removed after loosening the hose clamps on the rails and injectors then gently pulling the rail away from the injectors while pivoting the rail at the hose connecting the rails. There are a lot of wires and other hoses that might be in the way, so remove what you can and work around what you don't.

Once all the components were removed, I performed the usual wire brushing and prepping for paint.

After testing the injectors I returned them along with new injector seals.  New injector clamps were used on all hoses since this part of the system is pressurized.  Since these hoses and tubes are very visible this work made the engine bay look so much better!

Rogue Oil Change

 On December 20, 2020 the Rogue received an oil change.

Restoring Misc Cooling Bits

Many brackets and tubes in the engine bay are showing their age.  In April of 2020 I took the opportunity to address the heater hose brackets, auxiliary air valve water block and the coolant passages that feed the water block.  As a bonus, I also cleaned up the engine lift bracket as well.  For all the metal pieces I used a wire brush to take them to bare metal then used Rustoleum Metallic Paint & Primer in a champaign mist color to coat the parts.  I've found that this paint both closely matches the cadmium zinc plating on the original parts but also holds up well in the engine bay.

Engine hoist bracket and water outlet

Water block tubing

Water Block

I also replaced the rubber hose that feeds the water block.  I often use my garage door to cure painted parts in the sun!

To finish things off I also used OE-like hose clamps to attach the heater hose.

As an added bonus, I also performed the same treatment to the alternator wire harness bracket.

Dealing with the Isolation

With the COVID-19 pandemic keeping us at home (and working from home) I find myself busier with work than when I was actually in the office.  To keep my sanity during this busy time I find myself retreating to the garage for brief periods of mechanical delight.  For tonight's installment I found myself rummaging through a box of parts I had acquired from ZCarDepot and found sets of hood and tailgate bumpers that I had never installed.  These made for perfect short distractions!

Removing the old bumpers was easy.  As you can see they were the original units and the rubber was hard and cracked.

Using stainless fasteners and a little 3M Dielectric Silicone Paste for protection and lubrication, I installed the new units.

 

While the replacement of these bumpers was not critical for the function of the car itself, they were critical in keeping my sanity...

No longer clicked off

I had previously converted all exterior lights on the 280z to LED.  When converting a classic car to LED lights, it is common to need to change the flasher(s) to an electronic unit due to the lower current draw (older flashers used a bi-metal that was heated from the flow of current to disrupt or flash the bulbs).  One thing that I also found common on this type of conversion is the fact that the flasher will sometimes click even then the blinkers were not engaged.  For me, this clicking was not a bother as it only occurred at higher RPMs (when the voltage was higher from a fast spinning alternator).  Recently, the clicking started at lower RPM's so I decided to do something about it.

First, I noticed that my voltage seemed higher than normal when the RPM's were above 2500 RPM.

When seeing the higher voltage my mind immediately thought of the voltage regulator.  When testing the voltage with a multimeter, I found that the voltage was reading as high as 15.6v when revving.  This is high by today's standards but for older cars this high of a voltage was not uncommon.  Even though I never took an official reading before, I decided to change the voltage regulator anyway since I already had a new one that I purchased when Black Dragon Auto was going out of business.  This unit was similar to the OE unit although it did seem to have a lesser build quality (OE on the right).

One thing I noticed right away is that one of the contacts was stuck closed on the Black Dragon unit; had I not taken the time to open the unit I would have never known this.

I also took the time to clean up all contacts at the alternator since they had years of corrosion built up.

After installing the Black Dragon unit into the car I noticed slightly lower voltage but it still bothered me that it would run in the 15v range.  I did some reading and found that this was common on the cheaper regulators and found that there was a particular regulator that seemed to be recommended from Intermotor.

Internally this regulator seemed to have an identical construction to the OE regulator I removed.  I installed the new regulator and also ran a ground wire from the chassis ground directly to the base of the regulator to ensure that the unit received a good ground.

In addition to the new regulator, I also read that the intermittent clicking from the electronic flasher relay can sometimes be caused by current leakage in the car wiring.  This minimal current would not be enough to generate the heat required to cause the disruption in the old bi-metal flasher.  While this clicking in the electronic units is common when searching for the problem, not many people have found a solution.  In my research I found one customer response from the manufacturer of my flasher on the Amazon Q&A section which  recommended a small resistor between the hot and the load terminals of the flasher.  No other details were given but this made sense for a solution since the units "detect" engagement of the flasher by sensing ground.  I tested this by creating a jumper harness with a resistor across the leads.  I used a 1k Ohm 1/4 watt resistor.

This harness eliminated the "ghost clicking" when the signals were not engaged and all lights worked perfectly except for the dash indicators which dimmed and brightened instead of flashing on and off.  I probably would have left it this way if I weren't already planning on making a more permanent solution.  I purchased a Dorman flasher socket pigtail with the intent of making this permanent solution.

I wanted to use a resistor with a higher resistance but still 1/4 watt of capacity.  The next resistance value I had on-hand was 4.1k ohms.  Since this was all trial and error, why not give this one a go.  I created a new harness using this resistor that would plug-in to the existing female spade connectors in the old harness.

While the electronic flasher I used would work even if the leads were swapped, I wanted to make sure the harness matched in the event that another flasher was used in the future.

I then removed the terminals from the old flasher socket and connected the new harness, using heat-shrink tubing over the connections.

So what was the result of all this work?  My voltage now stays very consistent at just over 14v no matter what the engine RPM and I have a flasher that no longer clicks when the turn signals are not engaged.  If I were to do it over again I would have used a resistor around 2k ohms as my flasher clicks one extra time after the turn signals are disengaged; this is still a very minor nuance that is still much better than previous behavior.

My floor is a peeling

When I built the detached garage about four years ago I knew I wanted something over the concrete floor.  After researching a few options I decided I would go with an epoxy covering from Epoxy Coat.  As I normally do with any project, I over-researched to ensure that I would apply the coating correctly.  In this case I used the acid etching process first.  Not being satisfied with the results I then rented a diamond floor grinder from Home Depot. 

After applying the epoxy coating in one afternoon and the clear-coat the following day, I had a beautiful covering over my garage floor.

After three years of this floor holding up very well to my abuse, I noticed that I had a section of floor that began to crack and peel.  I figured it must be an area that I had not properly treated and planned on purchasing a patch kit for the area.  I didn't apply any patch right away and the following year I noticed another section starting to peel...  and then a third.  

After pondering why this would be I realized that every time a new section appeared was after a drastic temperature swing in the winter.  Such temperature swings are not common but also not unheard of here in middle Tennessee, swings such as 30 degrees in the morning to 60 degrees in the afternoon.  Since my garage is unheated I thought these drastic temperature swings were likely causing these crack and peel sections.

If epoxy wasn't going to work for me in these conditions I felt confident that my second flooring choice would do: a floating floor from SnapLock industries (specifically GarageTrac and GarageDeck). While not much preparation is actually required to lay a floating floor I did use a floor scraper to remove as much loose epoxy coating as possible.

Laying the new floor was really easy.  Any difficulty I had was simply cutting around the posts for the lift.  While you can use a carpenter's knife for cutting the tiles I found that a Dremel with a large cutting wheel was much faster.  I heard someone describe the process of laying the tiles as "playing with adult Legos" and that's exactly what it felt like.

It took me a few days to lay the floor only because I don't have a lot of contiguous time to tackle the project in one day; the overall project took about 3 hours total.  The end result is a good looking floor that I feel confident can stand-up to the temperature changes as well as handle the occasional dropped tool much better than the epoxy coating.