Aphrodite

Hey all, its been a long long time since i've been on here, had my car in storage for almost 3 years while i was in japan. just pulled it out yesterday, and was on the way home when it died. Engine, electrical, everything shut off. Once we got it to the shoulder of the road a ton of smoke came out of the engine bay for about 30 seconds then stopped, after a min or 2 the lights came back on and everything works fine except the engine wont turn over. It was dark when it happened and my flashlight had dead batteries

I checked the oil but it was full, radiator was cool enough to touch. The other wierd thing is that the temp gauge was acting crazy, even with it turned off and just the lights on the temp gauge was bouncing up and down in the red. Unfortunately i was not driving it at the time and was in my other car when it happened so I cannot say for sure if the engine went hot before it happened or what. I do know the battery light came on but thats the only indication I know of.

I had it towed to a shop and will be giving them a call later today after they check it out but I thought mabye an idea or 2 could come from here.

z-hag

my z31 na coupe did that on my way to work one morning 0330--turned out to be a wire burned from the air conditioner--i hope that is all that is wrong with yours....goood luck...btw--she ran another many miles after that incident......easy repair...i hope for you is the same!.

KasbeKZ

yeah sounds like some wire somewhere had a bad connection and burnt up. since everything else worked, but it wouldn't turn over, it makes me think that it may be the connection at the starter. should be pretty easy to find by looking for the melted plastic if it does just turn out to be a bad wire though.

Aphrodite

So it seems a ton of the wiring harness is burnt up and I am being told I should replace the whole EFI harness, I was quoted a 900$ ish labor +part. Is this about right? If I do go ahead and do this what other maintenance should I have done while the engine is out, has 155kish miles on it.