1976 280z Lost power, charge light came on. Turned off car and it wouldn't restart. Put jumper cables on started it up. Pulled the negative battery cable to test alternator(read later was a bad idea on these z's), the car shut off and will not restart.

Did some tests: checked spark thats fine, air flow is fine, fuel is getting to the rail and thats it. The cold start valve is not spraying and no "clicking from the injectors". Starting fluid sprayed into the intake will start the car for a few seconds. Put a volt meter on the fuel injection relay and it showed battery voltage. Is my ECU cooked? Does that happen what the battery cable is pulled? Or do I just need to put on a new alternator? Should have a new one tomorrow. Is there a test I can do on the ecu?

This is my first post on Zdriver. Have a white 86 300zx and just got my 76 280z back from the garage, new wheels, body kit, new emblems, fresh forest green paint, wanna drive it!


Thanks for any help!

Tim

 

Welcome to Zdriver bro'. But yeah...you should never pull the battery cable off when the car is running. You can fry the electrical system that way. I don't know what I could tell you at this point in time. You might want to hunt around...and see if you fried any wires for starters. Otherwise...it is possible you might have cooked something. Hopefully somebody else on here...can help you out more.

 

probably cooked, the ecu that is... lol, i still am astonished at people pulling off cables on any car to "test" the alternator. just drive it to autozone and have them test it! its free and you dont have to do ****. lol

 

If you're going to pull a cable pull the positive only on carb cars. There is a fusible link on the red wire from the positive side of the battery that goes to the ecu.

 

That's true, check your fusible links. They're designed to blow out to help protect the ECU and EFI system. I think it's odd that you're getting spark and fuel. Since the injectors don't seem to be firing at all, I'd say there's a good possibility that the ECU may have been fried. Or partially zapped. Have you tried to see if the car would start again with a jump?

 

....also sounds like your alternator is toast.

 

sounds like a relay or a $200 ecu ... what about fusible links? ...

i so hate EFI....

 

also sounds like the toast is done

 

i just had to replace my alt. the best way to check an alt other than vatozone is to use a little magical tool called a "multimeter"

 

if ya need an ECU pm me with an offer I have one from a 77 280z that I pulled when doing the V8 swap