**Donut Media: Vinh Diagnoses a Fuel System Problem**

Vinh was diagnosing the fuel system on a 2004 Nissan 350Z. There was no fuel pressure in the fuel rail, so he started working his way back from the fuel rail. He logically checked the fuse and the fuel pump relay, which are usually easier to get to, replace, and cheaper to replace.

However, Vinh's knowledge of the logical steps that would break in the real world first hindered him. Instead of checking the expensive parts of the system, he started with the less complex ones. This led to a frustrating experience for Vinh as he had already messed up one part of the system.

The team decided to pull up an episode of HiLow, a show they had previously worked on, where they encountered similar issues. They scrubbed through the episode and found the problem. The 2004 Nissan 350Z was experiencing a crank position sensor code. Vinh checked the wiring to the aftermarket, but it was definitely good.

The team then searched for the location of the crank position sensor, which was not easy to find. They eventually located it in the trunk and found that they had an old crank position sensor there. Vinh assumed it was okay since it wasn't unplugged, but he didn't have a scan tool to verify.

With the new crank position sensor installed, the team checked if it was on and confirmed that it was. However, they still needed to figure out why the car wouldn't start. They had already removed all the crap from the intake, swapped the fuel pump, and installed a new clutch safety switch.

With only one thing left to do, Vinh started the car and... it roared to life! The team celebrated as Vinh expressed his excitement about fixing the car and feeling like he was on top of mountains and valleys again. His friends had come in clutch, just like in the HiLow episode, and had helped him fix the car.

**The Fix**

* Swapped the fuel pump

* Installed a new crank position sensor

* Replaced the clutch safety switch

**Thanks to Donut Media!**

Don't forget to hit that subscribe button and like this video. You can also support the team by buying their fresh drip and checking out their website at donutmedia.com.

WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: en- We just boughtthis 2004 Nissan 350Z.It's a beautiful car, butthere's just one problem.It doesn't run.This is Vinh, he's one ofour actual subscribers.Now he's never seen this car before,but if he can get it tostart 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 onin Vinh's head so that you can learnhow to think like a mechanicand have the skills to take ona 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.- No crank, seemslike battery's good.- 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 uponourselves to sabotage itin a handful of ways.But we are nice guys andeverything Vinh needsis in this garage.If he ask us for the rightpart, we'll give it to him.But if he asks for the wrong part,we're gonna take some time off that clock.- You got a flashlight?- Flashlight, on it.- Well that was quick.What were you fiddlingaround with down there?- I was checking the clutch safety switch.- When you park a manual car,you don't have a park likeyou do in an automatic.So you either leave it inneutral and set the E brakeor leave it in gear.The problem with that is thatwhen you go start the carif you don't have the clutch in,then you would lurch forwardif the car is in gear.So to avoid that there'sa neutral safety switchso that you have to havethe clutch pushed into be able to start the car.He sussed that out super quickbecause everything seemed to be working,but the car wouldn't crank.So he just reached up thereand pushed the button.The car cranks.- Went underneath and noticed thatit's missing some of thelinkage to push on the button.- Would you like thereplacement parts to fix that?- Sure yeah, let's do it.- Welcome to my parts trunk.- All right let's check it now.- First sabotage down,clutch safety switch.- So he figuredout the first thing,we gave him the replacement parts.It's been a whopping 11minutes and 28 seconds.- Okay so alreadyI'm a little nervousbecause one of our heatersabotages was the clutch switch.- Yeah the neutral safetyswitch, but there's more to this.- We did a lot of stuff to this.- What's yourthought process now Vinh?- Well, it takes threethings to start right?Air, fuel, and spark.- Air, fuel, and spark.Let's break that down real quick.Now engine needs to be fed all threeof these ingredients in order to work.Now, this is an oversimplification,but you need a mixture of air and fuelbecause gas can't burn without oxygen.And you need a sparkbecause it's the catalystthat sets off thecombustion process itself.Now, when you have anengine that won't run,diagnosing the problem is as simpleas tracing each of these componentsback to their source to make surethere's nothing stopping themfrom getting to the engine.- Sure we got air, but youknow I'll pop the filter boxjust to make sureit's not completelyclogged 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 abunch of crap in there.Like we pitched it in the meeting.We were like, oh, we'll shovea bunch of crap in there.- He's going way too fast.- We're 20 minutes in.Vinh's already found sabotagenumber two and fixed it.But that's not all we did.Yeah we did more stuff.It's still not starting.- So far we madesure we got air flowand now we're gonna moveon to the spark and fuel.- Every time youpick that flashlight up,I get nervous.I'm just like up, he's gonna find it.- I think I'm gonna go underneathand take a quick look at the crank sensor.If I was to assume thatboth of them are out,the common denominator betweenthe two is that crank sensor.If that crank sensor's out,the computer's not gonnasend out any spark or fuel.You got a jack?Looks good.- 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.- I'm startingto get a little nervousthat he might not fix the car at allbecause he diagnosed one of the thingsthat we did to it, checkedit, and thinks it looks good.- He had the right logic,but he got tricked bythe layout of the car.- Which happens when youdiagnose stuff though, right?You kind of check certainthings off the listeven though it shouldn'thave been checked.And that kind of puts you back.- Well, what's next?- Looking for a way toaccess spark and fuel.Real tight.I'm looking for a serviceport on your fuel rail.- Yeah sometimesthere's like a littleSchrader valve type thingwhere you can tap into a fuel railwithout having to take anything apart.- Can I pull my phone out?Can I do a Google search?- All right so Vinh just askedif he could use Googleand I'm feeling generous.So I'm gonna let you useGoogle for 10 minutes.- All right.- But you have to give up20 minutes off the clock.- You drive a hard bargain Jimmy P.- The plot thickens.- Can I use it later if I need?- Nope you can only use it right now.- Oh, wow.- I'll pass.- All right he passed.- What are you doing there Vinh?- I am disconnecting the fuel rail'cause I couldn't find a service port.- You know, you needfuel pressure to squirt fuelinto the engine to make it run.So he is gonna make sure that he has some.- I should have had a niceamount of fuel shoot upon that crank.- So it seems you don't have fuel?- That is correct.- Well now what?- I'm gonna check fuse and relaysfor the fuel pump and those are good thenI need to access the fuel pump.All right.- So I think Vinhis starting to feel a little discouraged.- Well he's still gotan hour, nine minutes leftso we'll see.Its been about a half hourof not a lot of progress.- I am still concernedabout the crank positionsensor 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 youand you might win a car.- I don't envy him rightnow. A lot of pressure.- You know coming fromlike the professional world,you don't see nobody.You got a whole bunch ofhomies to your left and right.And we don't like to work under pressure.So this whole atmospherehas just got me runningdown 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 thatVinh wants to negotiate.- Yes sir.- So I'm feeling generous.I will give you five minuteson Google for 10 minutes off the clockor 10 minutes on Google for20 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.- I don't know if Ishould 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.- So right now you're just lookingfor the location of-- Maybe another fuse box yeah.- Nolan, time?- Three minutes of Google remaining.- 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.Put it away.Put your phone away bro.- Time 48:07 remaining on the clock.- 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 possibilityI'm going home empty-handedand just with a bunch ofgood laughs, good memories,and you know meeting the crew.- Luckily it's time forthe carparts.com cluebrought to you by carparts.com.The smarter way way toshop for auto parts.Carparts.com connects youwith the right part at the right price.Hassle free.Unlike what Vinh'sgoing through right now.- Maybe look at James,what's James doing right now?- 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.- Why doesn't anyone else?- You know, I would loveto shotgun a fuel pump.- What doesshotgun a fuel pump mean?- That means I didn'tverify voltage or not.I just say, I think it's the fuel pump,but that could cost metime 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.- That's interesting.- So he's behindthe driver's seat right nowworking on replacing that pump.We're thinking he blasts through this.It's gonna take like20 minutes leaving himwith 20 minutes on the clock.And there's still morestuff wrong with it.- No, this is really tight.- It is a littlebit of a cramped space.- It sucks it's not fun.- I'm caught on something.And just don't wanna make a big mess.- So right now that 10 minutesthat he gave up to google,that could be make or break.(suspenseful music)- Oh, is it done?Now with a working fuelpump in a working car,when you turn the key on, you hear a pump.You hear it?I don't hear it.- I don't hear it either.Connect is connected.- Oh now I heard it.- Yeah, she'srunning, she's running.- She's pumping juice.- Okay so Vinh wasdiagnosing the fuel system.There was no fuelpressure in the fuel rail.So he was logically working hisway back from the fuel rail.And there's a handful of things in itthat need to be in order like the fuseand 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'snot what we messed with.So he was honestly kind of hinderedby his knowledge because he is goingthrough the logical thingsthat would actually breakin the real world probably first.And what you would want to check firstbefore you replace theexpensive 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 engineneed to be able to start?- Well so sitting here thinking,if we're not having any spark,we have to ask what controls the spark.- You know what,if you had watched thefirst 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 havingthis 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.- Yeah we hate this show.I don't have time to watchthe whole thing though.- Oh no, but yougotta watch the intro.It's really good.- Oh, an ad?Skip, skip, skip there.All right okay.- Oh, there's Felipe.- Still not started.- How many times haveyou guys watched this one?- Once.- I watched it like five times.- What's going on there?- So we've got acrank position sensor code.So I checked the wiringto the aftermarket,it's definitely good.- Are you just entertained or?- No I was seeing the locationbecause I obviously found the wrong thingand I'm not familiar with the car.So I went to see if you actually showwhere the location of the sensor is.- Is it worth the scrubbing?- It is.- As always, a Donut Media videomay 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 thatcrank position sensor.Believe me.I know exactly it is.We are down to the wire ladies and gents,the wire.- Did you find it?- Yeah.Would you happen to havea crank shaft positionsensor in that trunk?- I think I might.Went to the parts trunkand got a brand new crankshaft position sensor.New crank position sensor going in.Is this the last thing?Hopefully 'cause we gotabout 20 minutes leftto get this car on theground 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 cameout versus the new one.- Is the sensor on?- Yeah.- Attention, sensor officially on.Sensor officially on.19 minutes 37 seconds left.Thank you.Recap, we got all thecrap out of the intake.We swapped the fuel pump.We got a new crankposition 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 wayto 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.- That soundslike she starts baby.Vinh how do you feelabout your brand new 2004 Nissan 350Z?You've been on the top of mountainsand then the deepest valleys.You started out super strong.You got down in Mordor, but you know what?We're all friends now andyour friends came in clutch.You fixed this car.You got it started.You've got 17 minutes left.Hell yeah bro.- Hell yeah.- Thank you so muchfor watching this videoand everything else on Donut.Hit that subscribe button,not only so you don't miss any shows,but we really choosesubscribers to come workon cars and win them.So hit that subscriber button,hit the like button, donutmedia.com.Get some fresh drip.This is new.You can buy it now.I love you.