Please help with car trouble

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ACEGOLFCARTGUY

Cartaholic
My brother will be going to college but his car, a 1984 Nissan 300zx turbo is having some minor issues and I want to help him out and get the thing running again. One day when he was driving it the car suddenly died. He said it seemed like no fuel was getting to the engine. Then when he tried to restart it nothing happens. No starter turning over or anything, but the dash board lights do come on. This is a fuel injected car I believe so if there was electrical failure could this be why it died in the first place? What could cause that kind of problem? I was thinking maybe the solenoid is fried or the distributor cap is bad. Thanks
 
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Bob-o

Member
I'm not a car mechanic, but if I was asked to look at it. I think I would start by load testing the battery. Sometimes its possible for the battery to have enough "power" to run accessories like lights, but not have enough to turn a starter over.
 
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ACEGOLFCARTGUY

Cartaholic
Oh thats what I forgot to mention. I tried to jump start it with a jumper box and it didnt help. Then I tried jumping it with another car and it still didnt work.
 
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Bob-o

Member
Don't abandon the battery just yet, although someone with more experience might be able to lead you better. I'm just going on what I've experienced with a similar situation. I found that a really really dead battery won't be able to jump start. One thing I learned from my dad is that you can take another car, hook the jumpers up and then run the good car at a "high" idle (200-400 rpms higher than normal idle) for about 3 mins or so. It helps to use the good car's alternator to recharge the dead battery some Before you crank it. After it sits and charges, try cranking the other car. If that doesn't work, take that battery out and recharge it if you have a 12v charger. Oh... almost forgot, if you have a voltmeter you can put that on the dead cars pos and neg posts and when you crank it, see what the voltage drops too.... again not a auto mechanic, I think anything lower than 9vs on a car and it can't start.

I don't want to lead you in the wrong direction, its just that your situation sounds just like one I ran into... with the dead battery that is. I had hooked up some new speakers and an amp to my radio. My radio is one that has a 5 min delay shut-off in it... you know turn car off don't open doors and it keeps playing. Well, I hooked up the wrong fuse size in the wrong fuse and my amp never turned off... draining my battery. Took me about a week to figure out why, but when the battery failed on me... I ran through the same kinda things.

Bob
 
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spriddle

Post Decoder
Since the starter will not turn over, I would start with the solenoid. It could also have a starter relay. There should be some fusable links that go to the battery also, check thoughs.

Most problems I have seen with Nissans not starting is either ignition module or fuel relay but they will still crank over just not start. Hope this helps.
 
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ACEGOLFCARTGUY

Cartaholic
Thanks guys for all the help. The battery and cables are all new(about 1 month) so I still dont think its a dead battery , this may be a bigger problem than it seemed like at first.

Im not very familiar with solenoids or distributer caps. What do they do? Is there a way to see if they are bad?
 
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csf1975

New Member
ONE OTHER THING TO CHECK IS THE INGNITION SWITCH.. THEY DO GO BAD DO YOU HEAR ANYTHING CLICK WHEN YOU TRY TO TURN IT OVER? JUST SOMETHING ELSE TO LOOK AT... I WOULD TRY TO JUMP THE STARTER TO SEE IF YOU CAN GET IT TO TURN OVER..
 
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ACEGOLFCARTGUY

Cartaholic
Nope, my other brother bought the car from my brother who got it first so hes going to mess around with it and someday sell it and then buy another car and fix it and sell it.
 
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autoteacher

New Member
Since it appears the car is no longer a priority, I will still give my 2 cents. If you want to work of a golf cart, you should have a DVOM and know how to use it. That being said, I would take the DVOM and see if I have 12 volts or more at the battery and at the starter. An old GM trick to load test a battery is to turn the heater on high, put the headlamps on high beam and press the brake pedal, then try to start the vehicle. This test will simulate a carbon pile load tester. I would want to more about what works and what does not. Is the vehicle manual or auto? I thoroughly enjoy working on golf carts due to their simplicity, but I have worked on automobiles for over 40 years and currently teach at a local technical college.
 
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