240z electrical problems

[Kaiser]

Ok, i know this isn't as common a car around here as it's newer cousins, but I just bought a '71 240z and am having some electrical problems. Maybe one of you guys can help.

When we bought the car it had a dead battery and even when jumped would not go more than 10 feet without dying. We set it to charge for a good 30-45 minutes and it still only ran for about 5-10 before dying. Replaced the battery.

So now we've got some trouble with the lights. When you turn them on while the car is running, it appears that they are running off battery power. We replaced the alternator and the voltage regulator, and that didn't solve the problem either.

When the car is running at night and the lights are on, every now and then the lights will just turn off. They turn back on whenever you step on the gas. While the car is sitting still, the driver's-rear and passenger-front blinkers do not work, but the hazards do. While driving, the rear blinkers are somewhat intermittent. When the brake lights and blinkers are on, the brake light for whichever way you're turning will go off entirely instead of blinking.

Does anyone know what could be causing this issue and/or how to solve it?

[khaxnguyen]

wow i had a similiar headache like this with my car after the wreck. i had a thread on here describing the situation. you can look for it, but my solution was the bulb for the blinking part. I had the bulbs with the one dot on the bottom before the car was wrecked and it worked fine. after the wreck, and a while of rewiring, i just simply gave way and replaced the bulb with the two dot on the bottom(cant think of what they are technically called) and it worked perfectly fine. i'm saying you should go switch out bulbs. ...maybe bad ground for most of it? sorry if i didnt help.
http://www.importatlanta.com/forums/showthread.php?t=168492
someone help him out.

[Kaiser]

Ok, a little bit of an update: The Steering Column Combo Switch (Which contains the blinker, brights, lights and wipers switch) is apparently extremely dirty on the inside. After blowing out the blinker switch part with some electronics cleaner and moving the switch back and forth a good bit, she works much more reliably. Definitely need to replace all the bulbs so I agree with you there. We did some testing and found she's producing the right voltage under load and idle that she's supposed to be, so it may be that the dirt in the switches themselves is causing a short that's making everything go haywire. I'm gonna do an even more thorough cleaning of the combo switches and see if I can't tighten any loose ends for the switch and see what happens there.

Now I just have to make sure her timing's right and get the carbs fixed, lol. Gotta love old cars, but at least it's easy to figure out what the problem is.