tiberis

If you are turning the key, and the engine turns over, the starter motor should be fine (unless it is turning rather slowly). How recent is your battery? have someone check the battery volts as you crank the engine (just from the jumping point in the engine bay should be fine), if the voltage is dropping too much then it may be stopping the electronics from working properly. Otherwise, if battery/ starter are fine, start looking at either fuel or spark.

I've opened mine to sus out why they weren't folding properly (1993 R33) It's a similar concept on all the mirrors (i fixed a set on an 89 180SX). There is a set of sliding contacts, one way or another, those contacts stop touching. on the 180, is was a case of the metal tabs had worn through the copper layer on the little circuit board. I added a thin layer of solder over the copper tracks and they started working great (even went on to make a little circuit that would fold in my mirrors when i turned the car off, so i was folding them in all the time and not a single glitch). What i have seen on the R33 is that the little metal tab comes loose, hence stops touching properly. I'm yet to figure out a good way to re-attach them without making a new one. For reference, the bits i'm talking about are in the side view mirror, you have to take the whole thing apart and disassemble it a fair amount.

Thicker core == larger body of water + more surface area. This pretty much just means that you can provide more cooling capabilities. Unless you plan on pushing some serious horsies out from your engine you shouldn't need much more than stock core size (though with Aus weather, a little bit extra wouldn't hurt).

Could that plastic bit be past of the boot light? Almost looks like a tube globe could slot in there...

Printable Fuse Box Translation I'll just leave this here.

Looks like what would have been a switch on the dash. The R33 dash has a couple of slots on either side of the steering column for factory options (like antenna up/ down, parking assist up/ down or the blank is like a coin holder or something) That has the same profile as one of those switches and explains the arm that moves on the inside.

A small leak can very easily result in you having no pressure. The leak is only small because there is no pressure, there is no pressure because there is a leak etc... etc... I just replaced my radiator because it had a small leak out of a tiny crack, cap was fine but system was never really under pressure. Thermostat only regulates temperature, does not affect pressure. So only replace it if it is broken. +1 for O2 sensor on the end of its life could also be combined with temp sensor not having a correct reading (your coolant system isn't 100%) and therefore always keeping it a bit rich (is your idle always high even after car is hot, like over 1k RPM? that could be a sign of temp sensor not reporting correctly).

Somewhere around here is a tutorial or 2 about taking apart your dash, those might be a good place if you do need to dig deeper. Otherwise, first check is to take off the vents themselves and have a look if there is anything obvious blocking it. The dash piece is one huge piece that goes from just above your ash tray, up around your climate control then across your cluster to the other side of your steering wheel. It can be rather annoying to take off some times, but again, find a tutorial and it will help.

Yep, turned out to be alternator had a dead diode which was making a constant current draw. alternator would still charge if you gave it enough RPM interestingly enough, it just wasn't as efficient. So, 1 new alternator later and car has been good since then (except for the battery being old and dying, but thats another story)

green eh? i know one of the light green wires was from the lock signal from the switch on the door (the other wire that pairs with the brown i had cut above) But from the pics i can see a darker green wire... Thanks for the heads up, i am now intrigued enough to really want to find this out...

Cheers. Personally i like the auto-lock, but each to their own. I wouldn't mind finding out myself, just for future reference and there has to be a way to manage it... i mean i just created a way to stop the security flaw and keep base functionality. I would imagine one of those dozen other wires going into the control box needs to be... "dealt with" in some fashion. I will look into it when i get a chance, although i'm off to Melb for the next week or so, so it might be a while before i get time to play with my car.

A Fix for the security flaw in R33 Skylines. For those who have an R33 skyline and have central locking. There is a bit of a security flaw/ oversight from Nissan due to the way the door lock controller operates/ the location of the switch. This solution worked for me and i have favoured it over other examples from SAU and the like because it retains a lot of the original functionality. The fix i have here basically disables the switch when the driver door is locked. So a little more technical detail for those interested: The idea behind this and how it works is that the controller has a wire to be able to sense the state (locked or unlocked) of the driver's door. I am using this signal wire to effectively connect or disconnect the unlock function of the central locking switch. ********************************************************* Do this at your own risk, it's pretty simple but if you screw it up, it's your fault i am more than willing to answer any questions or offer assistance. You can download this as a word doc if you want to view it offline or store your own copy. REMEMBER you are dealing with locks here... always make sure you have your keys on your person or have a spare. ********************************************************* Tools Needed: · Screwdriver (Phillips #2, some mid sized flat head) · Soldering iron · Clippers Parts Needed: · Relay (rated 12V obviously, doesn't need to do much current) · Spare bits of wire (need like 3 colours if you want to be awesome like me) Process: Step 1: Take out glove box and plastic surround. This where they hide the "Smart Entrance" control module. btw it's a small black box to the left of where the glove box was, maybe about 6cm square. You will need to disconnect/ remove the box, the harness plug thing has a weird latch over system which you need to figure out. Step 2: Cut the brown wire! This is where most other "solutions" stop, which is disappointing, but anyways. This brown wire is the 'unlock' signal from the switch on the door panel. What we need to do here is to solder on some wire and put spade socket lugs on them (well, for my type of relay it has spades so that's why I did). The picture below shows the wire cut and extra (blue) wire soldered on to BOTH parts of the wire. Step 3: Take out the guts from the control box. We need to connect to a couple of the wires that are on the harness and I figured it would be easier to solder onto the inside of the box than to cut more wires. The 2 wires we want are the thicker gauge cream coloured wire and the thin gauge cream wire. (the thick one is constant +12V and the thin one is the sensor wire from the driver's door). The picture below shows how I connected the wires onto the back of the socket (thick cream wire is in red and thin is in yellow). For reference on the inside, the red wire is soldered to the thick contact closest to the centre and the yellow is soldered to the 2nd contact in from the left. Again, I put spade sockets on the other ends of these wires for my relay. Step 4: Attach the relay. I have a pic here of the relay I used, it's far far overkill in terms of current (this thing does like 20/30A) but it's what I had handy. The wiring up of the relay is also rather simplistic. The red and yellow wires you have connected will go to the coil of the relay (it's a coil so it doesn't matter which way they are connected) in my relay it's contacts 85 and 86. The blue wires I made in step 2 will now connect to the switching part of the relay, in particular the NO (normally open) contacts, again doesn't matter which way around it goes, and for me the contacts I wanted were 30 and 87. Step 5: It should all be done! And look something like this (except maybe neater): Now to double check that it's operating properly: Drivers door is unlocked: The central locking switch should work normally. Drivers door is locked: The central locking switch should let you lock but not unlock.

if brushes are worn it is pretty easy to tell. if they are completely gone, your battery voltage won't be up at 13.4, because there is no power coming in from the alternator. if they are slightly worn, the voltage should dance around a bit and not really be stable. I recently had the alternator in my 33 die, was a case of one of the diodes packing it in so the system always had like a 3A current draw. so maybe check that? make sure your battery has some charge then disconnect one of the terminals and put an multimeter (set to 10A or something to be safe) in series and see if there is any current draw while the car is off. i did hear an odd whine kind of noise when mine was playing up, but it wasn't very loud. They aren't too hard to replace either, you could even get away with not taking off all the other drive belts if you just loosen that one and let it hang (or do what i did and use it as an excuse to replace them all because they were old >.< )

i know my R33 S1 4-door has the cable type electric windows. not sure if it would be a direct swap but it may be a place to start or if you can mod them to fit or something.

well, there is something in common between the R32 GT-R and R33 S1 sedan at least then, who would have thought one day i might bother seeing about a new one way valve, but as i said it's been working ok without one. Just makes a little squirt when i hit high boost and she gets excited.... oh right, we are supposed to be talking about cars >.>

well i'll be... a 33 with the battery in the front... seems odd that they would change it from the S1 sedan but weirder things have happened and speculating doesn't help you now. that doesn't look like many relays so i imagine that there must be another set somewhere unless again, they did something weird in the S2 and reduced the amount of relays needed. sorry, but i'm a bit out of ideas without poking around the car myself. hopefully someone with a S2 Sedan can help you more.

Pretty sure thats how car radiators are meant to work, plus it's basic laws of physics. the top part of you rad will be hotter than the bottom simply because heat rises. so thats perfectly normal. you need that difference in temperature because then the engine can take in cooler water from the bottom. the top hose will be hot because that the out from the engine (again, heat rises so it makes sense for it to be the top one). i would imagine if you gave the car a good hard drive you may find that more of the radiator is warm to the touch as the cooling system is being used closer to capacity.

Yeah, i have seen mechanisms like that in newer cars, although they usually had a way to over-ride it. (in the honda accord i saw it on, next to the gear selector there was a little plug you took out and then put the key in to disengage the gear lock) maybe look for something like that?

temp sensor to turn on thermo fan? not sure if the R32s have this but the R33s do.

i am also rather interested in knowing if there is a removable filter in the R33s. in the past when i have taken out glove box and surround, i have never found what would appear to be a removable filter of sorts... maybe i'm just not looking in the right places. surely someone would know, or someone with with their dash removed has seen it.

check that one way valve that i have mentioned before. in theory even though the water is flowing in the direction it is supposed to, that valve would put up some resistance (which is overcome when the water has the extra force provided by the pump) that or someone has taken the 1-way valve out, because after i removed mine i noticed when i hit high boost my car wets its self

yeah, i meant as the car body moves as going round the corner that the spring will 'see' less weight. sorry if i didn't make that clear the first time. i imagine rebuilds could be costly as well. when mine died i was able to find someone here on the forums selling a set of stock replacement springs and shocks for only $180. they aren't much of an improvement at all, but it's kept me on the road until i have more $$$.

yeah, +1 for broken hose somewhere. with the issue i described before, the way i found out was exactly like that, went outside to find my car taking a leak i would check the place i mentioned first, just under the parcel tray/ shelf.

yeah, it would. had a very similar problem in my R33, would give vibrations/ judder when turning left. turned out rear left shock was dying/ dead. (as the shock is dead, you just have spring so with the less weight on the spring it becomes more 'bouncy'. scared the crap out of be just before i fixed it because it was my rear shock, went over some lumpy bit on the road and the diff kicked in and jumped the rear sideways a bit :S ) replaced shocks and it's been all good

would be helpful to know car model... i'm going to assume R33 (because thats what i have/ know) but on the R33's the tube runs down the drivers side of the car then up the side of the rear seat, under the rear parcel tray and to the nozzle. One thing to check (was an issue with mine) was that near the end of the line at the back, under the parcel tray was a little 1-way valve (so that you didn't have to pump water along the whole tube every time). this had perished and cracked for me hence why mine wasn't working. i just removed it and taped the tubes back together and it seems to work fine enough for me now.