1990 Nissan 300zx the detonation sensor pigtail plugs and wiring need replaced due to corrosion/old age. My question is about the type of wire it has an inner wire but also has some kind of fine metal wire sheathing in between the outer layer and inner wire ive never seen wire like this. Do i splice the inner wire by itself and what about the metal sheathing? Also this section im replacing goes from two wires in the pigtail down to one. thanks for the help

Need to solder something that low in voltage. Inside is knock signal and outside likely the shielding wrap which is often grounded. The two wires split into them. The two cannot touch each other, typical antenna shielding method.

xm22rx wrote: ↑

Sun Nov 25, 2018 1:17 am

1990 Nissan 300zx the detonation sensor pigtail plugs and wiring need replaced due to corrosion/old age. My question is about the type of wire it has an inner wire but also has some kind of fine metal wire sheathing in between the outer layer and inner wire ive never seen wire like this. Do i splice the inner wire by itself and what about the metal sheathing? Also this section im replacing goes from two wires in the pigtail down to one. thanks for the help

I'm all for fixing things, but.....

Too much work to go in there again IF your soldering doesn't hold up. Just buy a new one, they are 20 bucks.

amc49 wrote: ↑

Tue Nov 27, 2018 4:07 pm

Typical millennial behavior. Of course, if you can't do it..........but can't learn that way.

LOL, is that for me??

I'm far from being millennial, close to retirement. I would fix that my self but if you are still learning to solder, this is not the fix to learn from. JMHO.
$20 bucks is good insurance not having to spend a couple days removing stuff to do it again.

You can check the cable fix in seconds with a VOM for good or bad before you put it back in car. No need to remove it again.

You know I usually go along with the punchline being that I am usually one of the youngest in my office by a large margin but I really resent this "millennial" BS. I'm 32 years old, have worked since I was 14, have a bachelors and a masters, have built street and race engines (and complete cars), have participated and lead studies and seminars on Mars exploration and actual space travel, have designed and built (both working with my hands and as a manager) houses, commercial structures, and LNG installations, have ran heavy equipment and hand tools and yet because I'm 32 when crusty baby boomers meet me they make assumptions that based on my age and the way I look I am a good for nothing millennial. But I digress.

As for the OP's issue, the RIGHT way to fix this is to replace the sensor and pigtail because
1. electronic parts, especially those that are hypersensitive to things like signal loss and deterioration should be maintenance items.
2. The connector is likely brittle from heat cycling and age.
3. The tolerances on these engines are far beyond what Detroit was producing at the time and are part of the reason why well maintained VG30Es and DEs run for 300k miles with ease, so maintain it properly.

Take this opportunity to do your timing belt, idlers, tensioner, water pump, lower and upper plenum gaskets, do the coolant tube delete, and perform general cleanup, if you get all the parts before starting the job you should be able to knock it out in a weekend with the help of the FSM. Now if this is your only car and you have to have it to get to school or work then you may need to reevaluate your priorities because the Z32 is not a good daily unless you are 100% up on your maintenance.

NolimitZ32 wrote: ↑

Wed Nov 28, 2018 6:25 am

You know I usually go along with the punchline being that I am usually one of the youngest in my office by a large margin but I really resent this "millennial" BS. I'm 32 years old, have worked since I was 14, have a bachelors and a masters, have built street and race engines (and complete cars), have participated and lead studies and seminars on Mars exploration and actual space travel, have designed and built (both working with my hands and as a manager) houses, commercial structures, and LNG installations, have ran heavy equipment and hand tools and yet because I'm 32 when crusty baby boomers meet me they make assumptions that based on my age and the way I look I am a good for nothing millennial. But I digress.

As for the OP's issue, the RIGHT way to fix this is to replace the sensor and pigtail because
1. electronic parts, especially those that are hypersensitive to things like signal loss and deterioration should be maintenance items.
2. The connector is likely brittle from heat cycling and age.
3. The tolerances on these engines are far beyond what Detroit was producing at the time and are part of the reason why well maintained VG30Es and DEs run for 300k miles with ease, so maintain it properly.

Take this opportunity to do your timing belt, idlers, tensioner, water pump, lower and upper plenum gaskets, do the coolant tube delete, and perform general cleanup, if you get all the parts before starting the job you should be able to knock it out in a weekend with the help of the FSM. Now if this is your only car and you have to have it to get to school or work then you may need to reevaluate your priorities because the Z32 is not a good daily unless you are 100% up on your maintenance.

I have to totally agree with NoLimit here, it isn't a "millenial" issue if you decide to buy new/upgraded parts to repair a Z32 rather than try to salvage whatever remains of the problem child at hand. The Z32 was a whole new ballgame when built, and when Nissan got behind quite a few compromises were made to get the car out there and sold and which for the earlier models means there are a lot more unprofessional, stupid issues to dig out and deal with.
For me (one of the crusty 50+ baby boomers for those who like to label things) the main need from a repair is professional quality- whether or not a repair can meet that criteria beyond of course working and fixing a problem. This almost always in my experience means doing away with stupidity and replacing it with sanity.
With the way that Nissan messed up their connectors and a few other items in the Z32, too often it becomes necessary or "best practice" more often than other vehicles to simply replace the item for best results- and often because the new item has been upgraded for the current issue at hand or been fabricated to allow easier future work in an area. I HAVE repaired quite a few things when that is possible and used them if the result seems durable, but in other areas (PTU harness, IACV, injector arena, etc.) replacement is truly the best solution and which if necessary I generally check out through a couple of trusted sources, or consider after failure of the repairs attempted to correctly solve the issue at hand.
I think everyone starts problem-solving with the hope to simply repair something, but there is too often more to it than just a simple repair with the Z32. When facing issues such as crispy, non-weather-shielded plastic couplers and wiring, green-crud-encrusted and deteriorated terminals, and stupid fuel hose clamps that loosen every time you run the car among many other dumb and age-related issues, IMO replacing the whole stinking mess with a correctly-built and engineered solution wins out EVERY time, hands down.

Ok Ok you win soldier of fortune, let us all bow down to the marvelous radio shack connector guy. Not everyone is a genius like you and most don't understand the concept of signal shielding. We do our best not to cater to the lowest common denominator here but we also are realistic about what it actually takes to do this work. Most of the advice given here is because we've worked on our Z32s ad nauseam and realize just how labor intensive even changing spark plug on #6 is, so our advice (I say our because we've all kind of figured it out, experience with the chassis) is usually to minimize labor input, time, and possible rework. For most people its a time-value of money debate and with these cars labor time is ALWAYS high so getting back on course. And with these cars being classics we also try to do our best to preserve the originality instead of going rouge.

OP:
1. Yes you can fix the pigtail yourself as a temporary measure.
2. AMC is right in identifying the signal and shielding wires
3. The shielding wire needs to be grounded at one end, I've never opened up a new pigtail but I would assume its grounded at the sensor, easy to check by running continuity from the broken end to the engine block.
4. Familiarize yourself with the FSM in my signature and do some searching, a few have done write-ups on this, good way to learn is from your own mistakes, best way to learn is from the mistakes of others.

Gentlemen, the discussion in this thread has gone far to the side of what the OP asked for. If you would like to continue this topic please move to an OT forum. Thanks.

I've cleaned up the thread, so if you don;t see your post it's because it was off topic. Thanks.

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT.......................you did NOT 'clean up' the thread AT ALL, you only preserved YOUR friendly half of the discussion and removed my half. Where I come from a moderator that does that in the fashion done here is considered incompetent. Look up the word definition, you actually ramped UP the extremity content by omission and suggestion in your prejudice toward the ideas of others and your resulting actions. No, No, moderators do NOT do that.

Utterly millennial behavior. You have experience in many things but apparently not the maturity to go with it.

Your response and warning are in your PMs. Cool off!

amc49 wrote: ↑

Tue Dec 11, 2018 3:37 pm

WITH ALL DUE RESPECT.......................you did NOT 'clean up' the thread AT ALL, you only preserved YOUR friendly half of the discussion and removed my half. Where I come from a moderator that does that in the fashion done here is considered incompetent. Look up the word definition, you actually ramped UP the extremity content by omission and suggestion in your prejudice toward the ideas of others and your resulting actions. No, No, moderators do NOT do that.

Utterly millennial behavior. You have experience in many things but apparently not the maturity to go with it.

He removed your content as it was deemed offensive and not relevant to the topic at hand. He's doing his job, and pretty competently - yet you still won't let go of your "millennial" shtick, which is why you cannot see that.

I implore you to do your job as a member of this community, and that is to conduct yourself in such a manner that is beneficial to the community at large here. If everyone knew how to do everything, there would be no need for a forum here. And not everyone can lose days to weeks at a time testing fixes - everyone has different needs and different skillsets and that is OK. Everyone starts somewhere, sometime.

Back on topic. Thanks.

amc, you're super-damn-helpful everywhere else. Not sure what this was about, and it's a TL;DR for me to dig thru the deleted stuff...

In fact, I think you've checked me a time or two for generalizing folks - and I deserved it.

Let's roll this one back and make sure everyone understands there's definitely 2 ways to fix something like this - and certainly one of them is more 'right' than the other, but to each their own.

Thanks gents!