Odinie

Thanks for the help. There's really no hard deadlines, but I'd like to get the project done in the next 30 days so I can bring all of the core parts back to the pick and pull and get my core deposits back for things like the driveline, etc. My brother is also going to be helping me and he's only in town for another month and a half or so. Thanks for the offer on that L20B with head. It's good to have other options.

The trans mount is held together by a bolt that goes through the top of the mount. It's a little janky. I think I may weld everything up for a little added strength. The trans didn't appear to be riding THAT high, but then again, what do I know? It was close to touching the floor boards in the cab, but not quite. I can mod the mount so it sits lower. Running status is unknown on the engine, but I've never rebuilt one so I thought it would be a good project anyway. If nothing else, just take it apart, check specs, take my time, and do it right the first time through. I haven't completely decided on whether or not I'm going to keep the truck longer than a few years, but the process will be a learning experience. If that's the smog head, I'll pull the one from the PnP and smuggle it away till the sale starts on Fri.

No, I was talking about buying a good trans and taking it back with the bad internals from the trans I got shafted on from my craigslist deal. I get credit back and have the good internals on my existing trans. They would never know.

All right. Today I went to the pick and pull and only grabbed a couple of items. I caught wind of a sale on Friday, so I only bought that which I really needed and will pick up the rest on Friday for a better deal. Today I got the trans mount and the drive shaft because those are things that are custom which I don't want getting nabbed. The engine in the truck has an L20B, so we are going to test compression on it and see if it's worth pulling as well. I have a line on a complete engine for $75 off craiglist with a Weber carb which sounds pretty sweet. Got pictures of it which I'll post below. I still have to verify with the seller that it's an L20B. I'm leaning towards running a U67 head for lighter compression which is also on the truck at the yard, so I may be pulling the head during the sale depending on what the engine on craigslist has. First things first, here's a pic of the trans mount that was being used. I verified the length of the trans in the truck and it is indeed a long shaft. Trans mount before removal: Trans mount after removal Trans mount Another angle of the trans mount If anybody would like to see more pics of the trans mount, I can take them tomorrow. Here are the pics of the engine that the seller sent me in response to my wanted ad. Sorry for the low resolution. Only one image was hi res in the download. I think the inscription on the side of the motor says L20B, but he's going to call me and confirm.

What think ye?

Roger that.

Yeah, it IS for sure a five speed. I cycled it through the entire range multiple times just to make, like, 110% sure. I'll definitely pull this 5 speed as well as the other one in the other truck. If they're the same, I may piece meal something together between the two, and if nothing else look at the internals and make a judgement call on which is the better version. The one in the 620 that was there seemed a bit smoother and crisper, but if the one in the 521 has been modified or a slightly different model, I'll stick with that one as long as it's clean inside. Do you think I need to grab the entire rear axel, or is it more of a precaution? The pick and pull has a 30 day money back warranty (which I'll explicitly verify tomorrow when I'm there) so I'll grab everything I can and take back what I don't need. I even had the evil idea to swap the internals of the two trannies and take back the one I pulled with the broken gears inside it, but that's a dick move. Awesome. I made a list of everything you mentioned and I'll check for it when I go back tomorrow. It's hard to tell from the image, but there is no front windshield glass. It looks like the truck sat in the rain for a long time. Everything in the interior is pretty rusted out. I'm missing a buckle for my passenger seatbelt and they were comepletely rusted out and stuck in this truck. This truck is gross. Rat shit everywhere inside of it. The whole nine yards. Thanks for your help everybody!!!

Ok, so today seemed promising. I went to the local pick and pull and it appears they have two FS5W71B (as far as I can tell) longshaft 5 speeds that I can pull, which run $99 each. Now that I have a POS transmission to trade in at least I won't have to pay the core charge. The last time I went there looking for a 5 speed they didn't have any Datsuns at all. I should have waited till they had a tranny I wanted, but alas I but this other stupid one instead. Oh well. ANYWAY, what's cool is that one of the 5 speeds is in a 521. It appears that the guy got tired of blowing out the short shaft dog leg 5 speeds out and put in a long shaft for his work truck. This means that it's already mounted and has the shortened driveshaft with the sleeved output shaft. I'll measure this driveshaft to make sure, but I'm thinking it should be the right length which should be pretty nice. What I think it also means, is I can take the mounts (which are probably custom) from the longshaft 5 speed on the 521 and use them on mine as well. The 521 at the yard still has an L16 in it. Will that matter if I put an L20B in my truck and use the tranny mounts from the pick and pull trans? Or will the engine throw off the measurements? If I remember correctly the L20B is just taller, right? Here are the pics: Cool locking tool box on this bad boy. Somebody used it for work. Sleeved output from 5 speed. The best pic I could get of the trans and mounting. Too many nasty spider webs for me to get in any further. Gross... The interior with the relocated hole for the shifter. Confirmed all 5 gears.

I've called and texted the guy, but no response yet. I'll check the local salvage yards and see what they have around these parts. Thanks!

I got it off craigslist and the guy seemed nice enough. He wasn't trying to pressure me into a sale or anything. The only problem is he lives about three hours away so it'll be kind of a bitch to get it back to him. That is if he doesn't try to pull the whole "buyer beware" bit. What I'm guessing he'll do is try to settle instead for a partial refund and send the money back. Just out of curiosity, how much am I looking at if I have to fix it? I got the other half off the trans today and the bearing that seats on the case near the output shaft was seized. Some more fragments, and a pretty chipped up gear. Pics below: You can barely see the chipped gear here. It's the single gear on the short shaft. My guess is it's for reverse, but I'm not positive. This shows the bearing that's seized on the output shaft towards the end. Anyways, thanks for the advice guys. I'll let you know what the guy says.

Ok folks, I got in there today to assess the damage, and while I don't know much about trannys, it doesn't appear to be very bad. I checked all the teeth I could on the input shaft half on the trans and found that only one set of gears had any perceptible damage. Each of them have a score that runs along the entire radius of the gear. I found the part of the bearing that exploded leaving little bits everywhere. It's the ring the separates the balls in the bearing from each other. Next up on the list is to figure out how to get the back half of the trans separated from the gears so I can attempt how to gain access to the bearing and continue to check for damage and more metal fragments. It seems to be catching on something when I try to separate it. I'll try to find some more information relating to removing that section. Pics below of the progress. Input shaft plate removal: Input shaft plate removal: Here's an image showing where the bearing spacer (forgive my made up terminology) blew. The bearing is at the top of the image attached to the other half of the trans. You can see all the balls have fallen to the bottom of the bearing. Inside view: Pic for gears: Inside view: More metal shavings found: Here's an image of the damaged gears:

Yeah, it doesn't bode well. We'll find out tomorrow. This is the part of learning that costs extra money because you were too stupid or too impatient to figure out something the first time. I'm sure there will be more of it to come. To pull it apart, should I follow the same basic steps you took in your thread here? http://community.ratsun.net/topic/28473-how-to-put-together-a-shortshaft-5-speed-for-a-l20b/ I'll try to find some more information before I dig in so I don't accidentally screw something up when I pull it apart.

Yep...

The thing is, he didn't know exactly what the trans came out of. Here are some images attached, but I still haven't verified it's actually a 5 speed myself. He was emphatic that it was and that he confirmed this. There's no shifter arm for me to find out on my own so I had to take him at his word. Perhaps I'm a bit overwhelmed right now. Sometimes I buy things and have regrets later, but I'll do more research before I decide. The thing I don't want to have happen is to get in over my head with the project and then have a sitting, half-finished truck that never gets used. I found Jon521's thread which sheds light on a few issues like mounting the trans which is helpful. http://community.rat...-l20b-5-speeed/ Another thing of note is that when I pulled the drain plug I found the following bits of metal attached. I think I'll open it up tomorrow and see if I can't find out what's wrong. :/ Here are the pics:

Ahh, I see. I'm beginning to realize that getting a L20B with a 5 speed in my 521 is going to be more work than I bargained for. I'll either have to do a bunch of modification and fabbing (which are beyond my mechanical abilities), or search to the ends of the earth and pay out the ass for uncommon parts to do it with. The crappy thing is I wound up buying the 5 speed earlier today. I should have done more research, but the guy who sold it to me was planning on doing the same thing with this trans for his 521 and said it should be fine. Trans is a long shaft. I may have paid too much at $170 too. Hopefully I can recoup some of that on craigslist or something. I could just rebuild the L16 and stock 4 speed, which are both pretty tired, but not yet unreliable. Engine leaks oil like crazy though. I just wanted a bit more power and to be able to drive on the freeway.