mtngoat

Todays progress was entertaining, we created and installed the control panel, with both new and the stock Datsun steam gauges. Now the wiring and plumbing headaches begin. Ordered a pipe expander to make adaptors for the exhaust. We also found a NOS hose to replace the funky one! We'll see if that is any better, but it doesn't have any soft spots on it like the other one does.

We got the transmission support installed, and with that the hard part is over. Now that the engine transmission combo is mounted up, much of the rest went pretty fast. Radiator and expansion tank is installed. We found the old hoses to the radiator, the bendy one for radiator out to water pump is a little crunchy, but maybe OK. It's not like we won't see it leaking if it does. Test fitting of the muffler is done, I ordered one larger than necessary by accident. So we have an pipe expander on the way to make some adaptors. Exhaust hanger not yet installed. Today we want to have some cool fun and will be building the instrument panel. We checked the oil in the transmission and it looks and smells fine. Didn't check the drain plug for metal debris yet, didn't want the mess. We'll change it out when we do the oil change on the engine. Any preferences for gear oil, or should I just go with whatever 90W gear oil is on sale?

good catch. yes, we'll go around it and replace stuff like the filter. right now concentrating on the stand itself. then we'll change the oil, filter, etc and maybe clean it up some too. rewiring the alternator/regulator setup is also on the to-do list, old very crispy corroded copper in there, one wire simply snapped when handled. Two others are clipped for some reason, and the remaining one is removed from the plug housing. I'll also have to dig through my small parts drawer of brass fittings and see what I can come up with to pick up the stock oil pressure line and route it to the gauge panel. If not, perhaps a Z sender unit will fit the port on the block, and I can run that gauge. Not looking forwards to plumbing the radiator. Back in the day before JIT stocking at auto stores, you could simply go browse the wall 'o hoses. Now it will be more of a pain. I didn't see any of the stock hoses while sorting parts mountain, and I'm not sure i'd trust them anyway. On the other hand, it will be on the stand and seeing a leak will be pretty immediate. Once we get it running, may as well install the pertronics electronic ignition I picked up years ago. Goatlet thinks the points are cool, analog baby! This car is EMP ready if we're ever pulsed by China or whoever. Replace the points back into the system, good to go. On old rigs like this, the only transistors in the entire vehicle...are in the radio!

Me too! Should be OK, there's no dyno so torquing will be minimized. Once we get the transmission on and the mounting for it, it will look better, and hopefully be better. What you're seeing there is a temporary arrangement merely to get the flywheel on without it sitting on the floor or swinging from a hoist. I'll also be adding a cross brace to the engine risers to tie them together. I'm roughly copying one I saw on the 'tube, and he was running a chev 350 on a stand built from 4x4s. Looked solid when running. Hopefully. We're pretty jazzed about the lack of wear and the 34k miles that was on the odometer. Could it be true? Once we get it spinning, we'll check compression and see.

We've finally advanced to getting the engine off it's build stand and onto the run stand. The rear is supported by blocks up to the flanges on either side of the oil pan. We designed them to be out of the way of the flywheel and backing plate, so the flywheel can be installed while the engine is on the run stand. Next up, the framing to support the transmission. Then on to exhaust and radiator mountings.

We took a look at the odometer for the car this engine came from. 34k it says. Which means the motor has 34k, 134k, etc. Given that the throttle shafts are super tight and taking into account the borescopes of the cylinders, I'm not seeing 100k+ of wear in there. Also, the engine number does match the one on the info plate on the car. So either it has been rebuilt, or we did in fact incredibly luck out on a low miles motor which is 60 years old, give or take. Muffler showed up, we cleaned the stock gauges and will try to use them on the instrument panel for the run stand. It's a '68, so it has the crazy combo gauge for oil, fuel, temp and ammeter. Looking at the guts it's a wonder of old school analog stuff, all shoehorned in there. And of course the cable driven tach, hilarious! I'd been wondering how to cap the drive port on the distributor, then it hit me...we have the cable, why not simply use it? Looking at the insulators on the ammeter ports, I'm wondering if I should attempt a refresh or leave them alone. Poked at them a bit, they don't seem crispy or anything.

Geez, that's not a crazy price. Must fit forklifts too or something! The stand is taking shape. Screwed it together, got the wheels on, added positions for engine and transmission mounts. Now we'll add the actual mounting point risers, then get the radiator in place. Also removed the oil pan from the block, which had pinholes all through it. Subbed in our spare from the torn apart U20. We'll see if cycling the pan gasket works. Should be OK for a run stand. It did crack on one side, we'll see how gasket maker holds up there on basically unclean surfaces. Got a look at the crankcase, everything looks very clean. No burned/baked on varnishy stuff anywhere that I can tell.

Frame is blocked out.

last but not least, this one is after some oil and a few turns. I can't tell where the dry one was. Had trouble fouling the camera with the after oil and rotation shots.

It got confusing with a lot of borescope pix, but here's what I think is right. Upshot...nothing looks horrible and what's good looks very good to me. This motor has been pulled for at least 25 years.

This seems like something else. I think zero pressure in the tensioner is not working out. The guides including the tensioner are damn near pristine

Plugs look great to me. I think this ran good.

We removed the valve cover and plugs, started inspections with bore scope. One exhaust valve was open, that cylinder filled with spider eggs. The others look very good to my eye, clean no scoring etc. A little carbon on piston tops. Plugs look great, no reason to expect I'd clean them or something before mothballing this engine. Valve train looks great, no shavings or baked on crud. We blew out the spiders from #2 from plug hole to exhaust (the open valve). Then some oil in each cylinder and turned it by hand. Very smooth, except the tensioner does *not* like no oil pressure, and a small kink or something builds up and 'ticks' past the edge of the tensioner about every 1/3 turn of the crank. We were very cautious about this and made sure it did NOT skip any teeth while ticking during our slow turns. Did a couple full cycles, left it parked at TDC. The cylinders now look very good on the inside. Combined with the very tight throttle shafts on these carbs, I'm starting to think we hit a bit of a jackpot..this looks to me like a low miles engine. Pix to follow. Distributor is a d407-51K

It might help, anything is good, thanks! Last night we rolled the engine into the warm back room of the shop, and started assessing things more closely. We also dragged out a box we'd found with 4 more carbs in it, all SU 44's. My sharp eyed kid noted that the rear of one pair had a broad rectangular port under the throat in the rear, and that it was actually a set of Z carbs for an L series. Ok, takes that off the table for now. We pulled the carbs off the U20 and started checking linkage motions and throttle shaft play compared with the 'spare' set now remaining. The throttle shaft slop was *way* worse on the carbs from the box, and pretty damn tight on the ones we took off the motor, so we decided to retain those bodies and scavenge parts from the sloppy shaft pair. Had to move a nozzle and choke actuator from the boxed set, something had hit the U20 in the 20 years it sat on the floor and bent the nozzle and actuator arm. One weird piece we couldn't figure on the carbs from the engine...they have an odd giant thumbscrew looking thing sticking out of the bottom of the main carb body, next to the nozzle bottoms. The thumbscrew looking thingy is a knob about 3/4" in diameter, and appears to have a locking nut at the bottom of it's shaft where it hits the carb bottom. I have no idea what this, and it's a weird location for any kind of adjustment because it intersects the carb body directly below the float bowl shaft piercing the carb body from side to side. In short, it seems like there's nowhere for the shaft from the knob to go anywhere interesting.

Deathmobile V1.0 1971 When last seen going away on the flatbed to the crusher, was more rust than steel. Served me well until the rust gained the upper hand, everywhere. Likely a former east coast car, given the coverage of the rust metastasis. Sorry for the crap quality, these are photos of poor prints Chumstick Mtns, WA, circa 1988 Sending it in the Tobacco Root mountains, MT, 1992