I MENDED SOMTHING! (again)

I know that it has been a while since I have last updated the blog, but I have a good reason why. I was too infuriated by the car to put into writing what was going on. I would think I had it fixed only to have it start having the same problems all over again. On top of that, the junkyard MAF that "fixed" my earlier problem crapped out and I had to replace it again. Luckily Smith's Auto Parts does exchanges, so it didn't cost me anything to get a different one.

Well, with the "new" MAF the car was back on the road with only one problem, it would stutter under very light acceleration (like when going down a hill and trying to maintain speed). After some research, I decided that my Throttle Position sensor had gone bad, but I figured I could live with the minor inconvenience until I could replace it. Then one day I was headed home from church and lost all power and had to pull over. What did I find?

You are not supposed to be able to see all of those metal bits, it is supposed to be completely covered with black plastic. (To be completely fair, it wasn't broken quite this bad but after I got angry and hit it with a hammer, it became this bad, you will see why I got angry in just a second.) It was officially time to buy a new TPS, so I ordered one off of Amazon.com and waited patiently on it to arrive. When it arrived, I received a text message from UPS saying that it had been delivered and I couldn't wait to get home and fix my car with this part that I was fully convinced was the root of my car's problems. When I got home, I ran inside, ripped apart the envelope the TPS came in and ran outside, grabbing a screwdriver in mid step. I put the new (yes, a brand new part!) TPS on and fired up the car and it idled for 30 seconds and then the poor idling returned and then the car stalled. I then proceeded to go ape on the old TPS and finish breaking it. It felt good. However, now I had to figure out what this problem was.

I started reading every forum post I could find about idling problems and had started to fear that my engine computer was fried, not a cheap fix as even a used one costs upwards of $200! Not wanting to spend that much money I decided to see if there was anything else that could cause these problems and did research on basically every sensor on the 300zx and couldn't really decide on one thing that could be causing my poor idle until one day, on my way home, it hit me, I should check my distributor cap. So I did and it looked like this:

CORROSION!!!!!!!!! At last I had finally found something that I knew how to fix that could be causing my car to not want to start sometimes as well as the poor idle. I went to Autozone, walked confidently up to the counter and said "I need a distributor cap for a 1984 Nissan 300zx Turbo." and the guy at the counter replied with "We can have one in tomorrow.". So I left and went to O'Reilly's because I was bound and determined to fix this tonight! The had one in stock and I paid the lady $23 and hurried home. I installed the new distributor cap and fired up the car and it idled very poorly for 2 seconds, then leveled out and idled beautifully! VICTORY!!! I took the car out for a test drive and it drove better than it ever has. Tomorrow I am going to check the spark plugs just to make sure that I have that entire system up to spec and I am also going to adjust my TPS because it is idling a little higher than it should (not a big deal, but something to fix).

Onwards to the next problem that will inevitably arise in my 29 year old sports car... hopefully none do so I can start restoring/modifying my car!