- [James] We just bought this 2004 Nissan 350Z.
It's a beautiful car, but there's just one problem.
It doesn't run.
This is Vinh, he's one of our actual subscribers.
Now he's never seen this car before,
but if he can get it to start in the next two hours,
he can keep it.
We are down to the wire ladies and gents.
The wire.
Along the way,
we'll talk you through what's going on
in Vinh's head so that you can learn
how to think like a mechanic
and have the skills to take on a problem like this yourself.
What's gonna happen?
Will he be able to fix it?
I don't know.
Let's find out.
Vinh are you ready to fix the car?
- I'm ready.
- Start the clock.
- [Vinh] No crank, seems like battery's good.
- [James] Now to be clear,
this car ran just fine when we bought it.
We took it on a test drive and everything,
but we've taken it upon ourselves to sabotage it
in a handful of ways.
But we are nice guys and everything Vinh needs
is in this garage.
If he ask us for the right part, we'll give it to him.
But if he asks for the wrong part,
we're gonna take some time off that clock.
- [Vinh] You got a flashlight?
- [James] Flashlight, on it.
- [Jeremiah] Well that was quick.
What were you fiddling around with down there?
- I was checking the clutch safety switch.
- [Zach] When you park a manual car,
you don't have a park like you do in an automatic.
So you either leave it in neutral and set the E brake
or leave it in gear.
The problem with that is that when you go start the car
if you don't have the clutch in,
then you would lurch forward if the car is in gear.
So to avoid that there's a neutral safety switch
so that you have to have the clutch pushed in
to be able to start the car.
He sussed that out super quick
because everything seemed to be working,
but the car wouldn't crank.
So he just reached up there and pushed the button.
The car cranks.
- [Vinh] Went underneath and noticed that
it's missing some of the linkage to push on the button.
- [James] Would you like the replacement parts to fix that?
- [Vinh] Sure yeah, let's do it.
- Welcome to my parts trunk.
- [Vinh] All right let's check it now.
- First sabotage down, clutch safety switch.
- [Zach] So he figured out the first thing,
we gave him the replacement parts.
It's been a whopping 11 minutes and 28 seconds.
- [James] Okay so already I'm a little nervous
because one of our heater sabotages was the clutch switch.
- Yeah the neutral safety switch, but there's more to this.
- We did a lot of stuff to this.
- [Nolan] What's your thought process now Vinh?
- Well, it takes three things to start right?
Air, fuel, and spark.
- [Zach] Air, fuel, and spark.
Let's break that down real quick.
Now engine needs to be fed all three
of these ingredients in order to work.
Now, this is an oversimplification,
but you need a mixture of air and fuel
because gas can't burn without oxygen.
And you need a spark because it's the catalyst
that sets off the combustion process itself.
Now, when you have an engine that won't run,
diagnosing the problem is as simple
as tracing each of these components
back to their source to make sure
there's nothing stopping them
from getting to the engine.
- Sure we got air, but you know I'll pop the filter box
just to make sure
it's not completely clogged up or something.
- All right.
Well, we've got an hour 49 minutes.
- Geez they taped that up.
- That's weird how'd that happen?
I gotta be very casual, I was like-
- Sure we have air, but I'll check just-
- I was like, did you bug the garage?
He literally described a bunch of crap in there.
Like we pitched it in the meeting.
We were like, oh, we'll shove a bunch of crap in there.
- He's going way too fast.
- [James] We're 20 minutes in.
Vinh's already found sabotage number two and fixed it.
But that's not all we did.
Yeah we did more stuff.
It's still not starting.
- [Vinh] So far we made sure we got air flow
and now we're gonna move on to the spark and fuel.
- [Jeremiah] Every time you pick that flashlight up,
I get nervous.
I'm just like up, he's gonna find it.
- [Vinh] I think I'm gonna go underneath
and take a quick look at the crank sensor.
If I was to assume that both of them are out,
the common denominator between the two is that crank sensor.
If that crank sensor's out,
the computer's not gonna send out any spark or fuel.
You got a jack?
Looks good. - [James] Did you find it?
- There was a sensor on the bell housing,
so I'm gonna assume that was it.
Nothing on the front side.
- [James] I'm starting to get a little nervous
that he might not fix the car at all
because he diagnosed one of the things
that we did to it, checked it, and thinks it looks good.
- [Zach] He had the right logic,
but he got tricked by the layout of the car.
- Which happens when you diagnose stuff though, right?
You kind of check certain things off the list
even though it shouldn't have been checked.
And that kind of puts you back.
- [James] Well, what's next?
- Looking for a way to access spark and fuel.
Real tight.
I'm looking for a service port on your fuel rail.
- [Zach] Yeah sometimes
there's like a little Schrader valve type thing
where you can tap into a fuel rail
without having to take anything apart.
- Can I pull my phone out?
Can I do a Google search?
- [Vinh] All right so Vinh just asked
if he could use Google and I'm feeling generous.
So I'm gonna let you use Google for 10 minutes.
- All right.
- But you have to give up 20 minutes off the clock.
- [Zach] You drive a hard bargain Jimmy P.
- [James] The plot thickens.
- Can I use it later if I need?
- Nope you can only use it right now.
- [Zach] Oh, wow.
- I'll pass.
- [James] All right he passed.
- [Zach] What are you doing there Vinh?
- I am disconnecting the fuel rail
'cause I couldn't find a service port.
- [Zach] You know, you need fuel pressure to squirt fuel
into the engine to make it run.
So he is gonna make sure that he has some.
- I should have had a nice amount of fuel shoot up
on that crank.
- [Zach] So it seems you don't have fuel?
- [Vinh] That is correct.
- [Zach] Well now what?
- [Vinh] I'm gonna check fuse and relays
for the fuel pump and those are good then
I need to access the fuel pump.
All right.
- [James] So I think Vinh
is starting to feel a little discouraged.
- [Nolan] Well he's still got an hour, nine minutes left
so we'll see.
Its been about a half hour of not a lot of progress.
- I am still concerned about the crank position
sensor thing though.
He's gotta get back to that.
- I don't know why I feel so stuck.
- You know, there's a lot of people,
a lot of eyes on you and you might win a car.
- I don't envy him right now. A lot of pressure.
- [Vinh] You know coming from like the professional world,
you don't see nobody.
You got a whole bunch of homies to your left and right.
And we don't like to work under pressure.
So this whole atmosphere has just got me running
down the wrong rabbit hole.
Like, okay, what am I doing?
I'm overthinking things.
It's simple right?
I know what I need to test,
but I don't know the location of it.
And that's why I want Google,
but do you want to take time away?
And it worries me.
Where's James, I'm gonna negotiate.
- I've been told that Vinh wants to negotiate.
- [Vinh] Yes sir.
- So I'm feeling generous.
I will give you five minutes
on Google for 10 minutes off the clock
or 10 minutes on Google for 20 minutes off the clock.
- Five minutes, five minutes.
- All right, all right let's do it.
Let's get this man a laptop. - In 3, 2, 1, Google.
- [James] I don't know if I should ask him what he's doing
'cause I don't wanna distract him.
But what are you googling?
- I'm gonna google up the fuel pump.
- [James] So right now you're just looking
for the location of-
- Maybe another fuse box yeah.
- [James] Nolan, time?
- Three minutes of Google remaining.
- [James] 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Put it away.
Put your phone away bro.
- Time 48:07 remaining on the clock.
- [Jeremiah] Was it worth it?
- No.
- So what's the game plan? What are we gonna do now?
- I'm a ponder.
I feel like I might be overthinking.
I came in, you know what I mean?
Knowing that there's a good possibility
I'm going home empty-handed
and just with a bunch of good laughs, good memories,
and you know meeting the crew.
- Luckily it's time for the carparts.com clue
brought to you by carparts.com.
The smarter way way to shop for auto parts.
Carparts.com connects you
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Unlike what Vinh's going through right now.
- Maybe look at James,
what's James doing right now?
- [Zach] He's getting a nice pump on.
- Just getting a good pump you know?
If my pump's not working,
I can't even get started,
you know what I mean?
- I do know what you mean.
- [James] Why doesn't anyone else?
- You know, I would love to shotgun a fuel pump.
- [James] What does shotgun a fuel pump mean?
- That means I didn't verify voltage or not.
I just say, I think it's the fuel pump,
but that could cost me time that I don't have.
- If he asks us for the wrong part,
we're gonna take some time off that clock.
- Why not?
Let's shotgun a fuel pump, why not?
- Shotgun a fuel pump,
shoot some parts at him baby.
Do we have a fuel pump in the parts trunk?
You know what, we do.
Oh, it's for a 350.
- [Vinh] That's interesting.
- [James] So he's behind the driver's seat right now
working on replacing that pump.
We're thinking he blasts through this.
It's gonna take like 20 minutes leaving him
with 20 minutes on the clock.
And there's still more stuff wrong with it.
- [Vinh] No, this is really tight.
- [James] It is a little bit of a cramped space.
- [Nolan] It sucks it's not fun.
- [Vinh] I'm caught on something.
And just don't wanna make a big mess.
- [James] So right now that 10 minutes
that he gave up to google,
that could be make or break.
(suspenseful music)
- [Zach] Oh, is it done?
Now with a working fuel pump in a working car,
when you turn the key on, you hear a pump.
You hear it?
I don't hear it.
- [Vinh] I don't hear it either.
Connect is connected.
- [Vinh] Oh now I heard it.
- [Zach] Yeah, she's running, she's running.
- [Jeremiah] She's pumping juice.
- Okay so Vinh was diagnosing the fuel system.
There was no fuel pressure in the fuel rail.
So he was logically working his way back from the fuel rail.
And there's a handful of things in it
that need to be in order like the fuse
and the fuel pump relay.
And so normally when you're diagnosing,
you would check those things first
'cause they're usually easier to get to,
easier to replace, and cheaper to replace.
But the problem is that's not what we messed with.
So he was honestly kind of hindered
by his knowledge because he is going
through the logical things that would actually break
in the real world probably first.
And what you would want to check first
before you replace the expensive part of the system,
which is the fuel pump.
- Attention 30 minutes left, 30 minutes.
Thank you.
- You may have noticed, still didn't start.
What are we gonna do now?
You got air, you got gas.
What else does an engine need to be able to start?
- [Vinh] Well so sitting here thinking,
if we're not having any spark,
we have to ask what controls the spark.
- [James] You know what,
if you had watched the first season of HiLow,
you would know what the problem is
- The problem you're facing now we had.
- You know what, I'm feeling generous,
I want him to win this car.
I'm gonna pull up the episode of HiLow,
season one where we were having this issue on our road trip.
You get to scrub through it and find it.
All right here's your viewing area.
There's your YouTube.
Scrub on through.
We'll just be right here.
- [James] Yeah we hate this show.
I don't have time to watch the whole thing though.
- [James] Oh no, but you gotta watch the intro.
It's really good.
- [Nolan] Oh, an ad?
Skip, skip, skip there.
All right okay.
- [James] Oh, there's Felipe.
- [Felipe] Still not started.
- [Nolan] How many times have you guys watched this one?
- Once.
- I watched it like five times.
- What's going on there?
- [Felipe] So we've got a crank position sensor code.
So I checked the wiring to the aftermarket,
it's definitely good.
- Are you just entertained or?
- No I was seeing the location
because I obviously found the wrong thing
and I'm not familiar with the car.
So I went to see if you actually show
where the location of the sensor is.
- Is it worth the scrubbing?
- It is.
- As always, a Donut Media video
may have saved someone's life.
We got 24 minute, 23 minutes on the clock.
We're jacking the car up again.
He's searching for that crank position sensor.
Believe me.
I know exactly it is.
We are down to the wire ladies and gents,
the wire.
- [Zach] Did you find it?
- [Vinh] Yeah.
Would you happen to have a crank shaft position
sensor in that trunk?
- [James] I think I might.
Went to the parts trunk
and got a brand new crank shaft position sensor.
New crank position sensor going in.
Is this the last thing?
Hopefully 'cause we got about 20 minutes left
to get this car on the ground and started it up.
- It wasn't unplugged.
So I assumed that I was fine.
And without a scan tool for me to verify,
I just kind of assumed.
And here is what came out versus the new one.
- [James] Is the sensor on?
- [Vinh] Yeah.
- [James] Attention, sensor officially on.
Sensor officially on.
19 minutes 37 seconds left.
Thank you.
Recap, we got all the crap out of the intake.
We swapped the fuel pump.
We got a new crank position sensor in there.
You got the new clutch safety switch.
I don't know.
Is it gonna start? - Only one way to find out.
- There's only one way to find out that's right.
Let's see if this boy starts.
Only one thing left to do, man.
It's time to start maybe your car.
- Start maybe your car.
- [James] That sounds like she starts baby.
Vinh how do you feel
about your brand new 2004 Nissan 350Z?
You've been on the top of mountains
and then the deepest valleys.
You started out super strong.
You got down in Mordor, but you know what?
We're all friends now and your friends came in clutch.
You fixed this car.
You got it started.
You've got 17 minutes left.
Hell yeah bro.
- Hell yeah.
- [James] Thank you so much for watching this video
and everything else on Donut.
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