Jump to content
SAU Community

Recommended Posts

I dunno whats wrong. Driving well one day. Not starting the next morning.

Here are the symptoms. mind you i dont know what everything is under the bonnet.

Cant start the car. at this point it seems like a typical battery failure. not enough voltage. and seems to need replacing.

Hicas light is on once i jump start the car. Power steering seems to be off.

Hicas light flickers and then goes away when i accelerate enough and power steering then returns

When i brake the Voltage on the battery Goes from 12 volts to about 4-6 volts and power steering goes off.

When i accelerate the Voltage on the battery goes back up to 12 volts and power steering goes back on.

This mind boggles me. please help me figure out whats wrong. otherwise ill just have to head to the mech. tho i prefer to fix my owns problems... when i know what they are!

Help!

mabye a grounding problem in the hicas unit, have you touched anything reacently?? has the hicas ever been played with if so mabye a grounding nut or bolt wasnt tighetened enough and has vibrated off?

im just guessing i have no clue just something to check

Check ALL the front belts, FAN, ALT, Power Steering, sounds like they are slipping bad and maybe battery is stuffed as well?

LOOK CLOSELY AT YOUR TERMINOLOGY AND CLARIFY your symptoms.

Skylines are EXTREMELY sensitive to voltage. If you sudeenly lose voltage to any of the ECUs floating around in the car, they will start to misbehave.

Replace the battery. And check the alternator and the fan belt.

Hey dude sucks about the issue.

your HICAS light might be coming on because you are running low on power steering fuild, they used a shared resivour. what you need to do is get some power steering fuild from super cheap or repco and top up the fuild level.

your power steering fuild is located towards the front of the car just next to your front passenger side wheel. its like a medium sized can looking thing with red fuild in it.

in regards to the voltage issue, because of the high reving nature of the RB engines the alternator wont start turning over until you hit 2000+ RPM so give it a solid blip and see what volatge is carries maybe?

good luck.

Had the exact same fault last night in my car.

Threatened to not start this mornig but did go so being the lazy unadventuruos type

I took it straight to the auto-electricain.

Turns out it was the alternator worn bushes or some such thing.

Alternator to be serviced no major dilemma or cost.

Hopefully it's nothing more sinister in your case.

Definitely check your battery first, then the grounding (negative terminal), and then your alternator - one of the diodes could be busted (problem happened to my Bluebird - the only way i got it home was too keep the engine revving as it suddenly failed) - the best solution is to buy a reconditioned or a new alternator.

I have had similar problems - turned out it was the wiring to the battery was corroded. There are a multitude of connectors on the positive cable going to the battery. touch them to see if they are warm - if so probably a bad connection, disconnect and clean them out.

good luck

Hey everyone. thanks for the replys and all the help.

here's what i've found so far.

I've checked the belts and even spray a 'belt grip' spray on them and it doesn't look like they're slipping.

I found that when the jumper leads were still connected to the 'other car's' battery, the car worked fine without revving.

so i replaced the battery ($15 for a used but still good 480 battery)...

Problems fixed. or so i thought. it was running normally again. the voltage remained at a constant 12V. then a few days later. voltage goes to about 9V and the hicas light comes back on. Yep. same problem.

Im either going to source a used & working alternator or just get my current one fixed.

does anyone know how much it costs to get my alternator reconditioned... or bushes fixed?

if you need to jump the car every time to start it, the battery is not charging. Make sure all connections are tight and jump it, drive for 30 min or longer, and that should be that. find a new alternator if that doesnt work, or a reco, either way you wont be installing it the auto electrician will

  • 3 weeks later...

Finally got a used replacement alternator like a week ago... and i put it in myself. That was a lil tough, only because its a bit of tight place to get to under the bonnet but it wasn't too hard. I could do it again, easy.

Problem's fixed. been driving for a few days now, its recharged the 2nd battery that i ran flat, All good! and costing me a total of $40 for alternator, and $15 for battery. battery was a good condition used 470 CCA. =P im happy again

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now


  • Similar Content

  • Latest Posts

    • Biggest thing is you're okay!   It sounds like between the accident, and the drive home, it was a pretty torturous trip again! On the bright side, you took the opportunity to enjoy the event more from the perspective of a spectator, than as an entrant!   Sad to see so much damage to the car. It really has taken a HUGE hit in the front end. If/when you choose to repair, hopefully the rails are straight (At least from shock tower backwards). Hopefully the extra cage coming through there has save most of the chassis rails, and HOPEFULLY saved the motor too. Best of luck when you eventually get motivated to start pulling it down to check it all out
    • Sounds more like what Brad said, that it's mainly transfer. What pad bed in procedure did you use, and did you replace/machine the rotors, or just swap pads?
    • The stutter is almost entirely in the pedal. I don't feel the brakes release and reapply as you would with ABS engaging but the pedal feels that way, without the brakes releasing. It only lasts for less than a second and the pedal is fine again. It's hard to explain, sorry.  I'll get under this weekend and just double check everything is tight. Fluid is at max where I left it.
    • What bedding in procedure did you use?   When you say stutter, what exactly do you mean? Like it feels like someone letting go of the brakes momentarily and regrabbing them again to get you to stop? Re-reading your post, and that is what it kind of makes me think you're explaining, like theres a little bit of a jolt, likely just as you're reaching a stop. I've only had this issue once. And if its caused by what caused mine, you will want to get the car up on stands again and check it over. Mine was a case of a caliper mounting bolt coming out and letting the caliper rotate on the other remaining bolt and gave play in a wheel as it came to a stop. But not every stop either!
    • Yeop... binned it   This will be a summary will not many pics atm and cbf  Fixed the samsonas - it was totally munched Put a new precision 7675 T4 on with proper split pulse mani Got to Sydney to get to car - drove to canberra to get racecar - drive back to sydney that night Next day all day at Plasmaman putting on new clamps cleaning some things up and adding another large engine oil cooler sitting at the rear above diffuser to keep things cooler Next day - Tuesday - on Dyno - killer wikid awesome pumped out really good numbers - more mid range and on lower boost levels Wednesday - first prac - all day again getting the suspension right - had to borrow front suspension again - out do a lap come in - out do a lap - in - what i had just couldnt handle the load at the more consistent higher speeds - got a lap in at the end of the day that was pretty reasonable  Put it this way that lap wouldve had me in 4th in Pro am for the whole event - with only 700 hp and used tyres Thurs first official prac day - lap out warm up - then entered a hotlap with above setting and 80% effort took corners 1,2,3 and into 4 car felt awesome -  rear came around out of nowhere bang into the wall near front on at whatever 140 kmph Done, over, gone Just one of those how did that happen apparently as all indications show nothing out of the ordinary Got to spend the rest of the time at the event like I hadnt done before - was actually Ok mainly as I had my family and my boy is 9 and got treated like a rockstar Long trip home, lost a trailer wheel in nowhere land, X5 airbag suspension gave up half way across nullabour and rode on bumps stops (its now completely fine) had to do a 19 hr drive day on day 3 as accommodation got screwed up so just had to keep driving till found a town with some Now to reassess - hopefully the motor and other things are OK but yet to be seen too. There is no easy fix there is no i'll just order that part and get it sent - we'll have a talk to people see what can happen and what the go is but at minimum its rebuild from scratch struts forward and alot of time effort and $ should and if I return and if but maybe/ when  I have the cage tied into the front strut towers - if I didnt have that things couldnt been worse you can say its just a front end but if you know what goes into these cars... you'll know what that actually means in reality   Car was very fast. Disappointing we just didnt get to show it Effort doesnt win you races though     Apparently this is motorsport !  
×
×
  • Create New...