1971 PL521

[Laecaon]

Do the cam lobes look like 10am and 2pm, basicly the same angle, but opposite each other, but even?

 

I always imagine it like a table top, must be level.

[wayno]

I always imagine it like a table top, must be level.

 

I never thought of saying it like that before, that is a perfect description. :thumbup:

[The Birdman]

Yeah, the cam gear stayed put, v notch still lined up right, top chain link on #1 dot, crank gear link too.

[The Birdman]

Been severely sidetracked the past week and haven't been able to do a damned thing to the engine or the truck! But I did pick up a powder coating gun brand new and real cheap at a yard sale the other day! Never used one before but Saturday I plan to play with it to see how well it works. It's a Craftsman gun with its own air supply from inside the gun, but for $20 who am I to complain!

I also went to the local Goodwill store and bought a large sized toaster oven that was 1/2 off costing $8 bucks!

The wife is picking up an oven thermometer tonight so I'll see if this oven will get up to temp. I checked it for size and it will take a piece as big as the front cover, but I'm not sure I'll do that part or not. I tried to get a reading of the inside temp using a non-contact pointer thermometer, but opening the oven let heat out just checking. Anyway, that's where I'm at for now.

[wayno]

Nice scores :thumbup:

[The Birdman]

Again, been busy as a bee! Christmas is one of those times of year! The $8 oven I got at goodwill wouldn't get up to temp, so I returned it and went on the scout for another. I found one at another thrift store for $20, but it's about an inch smaller and gets up to temp very nicely!

 

 

I also got a few leads on powder coat powders for better than retail prices, and started off getting about 5lbs of chrome silver for $20.00!! Scored! I did pick up some colors from Eastwood online that I wanted including some clearcoat and a few others. The blue container is full to the gills with the chrome powder.

 

I did a few test runs with a white base coat on a few parts and they came out very well. Then I used the chrome silver on the Weber carb air cleaner top and it came out much nicer than the scuffed up factory chrome it had.

 

So after getting a few things done, I went after the front timing cover with the chrome silver. That barely fit into the oven, but I think it came out very nice!

Here it's got the cleaned up water pump set on it. I'd like to do the pump, but don't think the rubber inside would make the trip thru 450 degrees, so just cleaned and lightly polished is all the water pump gets.

 

I wanted to see if any of the powder coating would cause any issues so I dry fitted the timing cover on the front of the engine and found a gap on the pass side, turned out to be the chain guide on that side is too far outwards and is in the way of the cover going on tight to the block. Tomorrow I'll try to tighten it up or trim something to make the fit. This pic has the bolt out of the hole.

 

That's it for now, more tomorrow.

[jrock4224]

nice job coating lemme know if u have any question its what i do for a living

[The Birdman]

nice job coating lemme know if u have any question its what i do for a living

 

Thanks, it's an interesting thing to learn, and has come in handy for this project so far. My only issue has been the size of the parts my lil toaster oven has me limited to. Today I hooked up with a guy selling 55 gallon drums and I'm thinking of getting one he's selling that's galvanized to make a larger oven for larger parts. A drum that size could hang a header or manifold fairly easily, but figuring out the heat source might be the trick. Any suggestions?

[jrock4224]

did u pm me a while back ...... .about ovens .......my inbox got swiped and i thought i replied to the message.....theres easier diy ovens that can hold larger stuff then a drum.....conventional oven elements work great,   i have a friend that built a home mader back east from 4 elements from house ovens ... its as tall as a closet so he does bumpers and rear ends .....kinda nice i gave him a trolly idea to hang parts on and slide in and out of his home brew oven.....works good takes a little long to get up to heat but once it's at temp it does a good job of staying at that,  but he had to spend some real time insulating his oven to keep the heat in....but once he did that it works great .....i will see if he will send me pics his is basically a metal closet with ellements on top of each other on both sides and the part trollys into the oven, then a single door to close over it....he uses his at home for side work and makes a good amount of money out of it.... but we spent some time making some racks too for different parts that he can do muliples of....im jealous at times but he has to step up his prepping ability to really pump out some nice work

[The Birdman]

did u pm me a while back ...... .about ovens .......my inbox got swiped and i thought i replied to the message.....theres easier diy ovens that can hold larger stuff then a drum.....conventional oven elements work great,   i have a friend that built a home mader back east from 4 elements from house ovens ... its as tall as a closet so he does bumpers and rear ends .....kinda nice i gave him a trolly idea to hang parts on and slide in and out of his home brew oven.....works good takes a little long to get up to heat but once it's at temp it does a good job of staying at that,  but he had to spend some real time insulating his oven to keep the heat in....but once he did that it works great .....i will see if he will send me pics his is basically a metal closet with ellements on top of each other on both sides and the part trollys into the oven, then a single door to close over it....he uses his at home for side work and makes a good amount of money out of it.... but we spent some time making some racks too for different parts that he can do muliples of....im jealous at times but he has to step up his prepping ability to really pump out some nice work

 

 

No, I didn't PM you, I just recently made the call to pick up the gun because it was new and cheap at a yard sale. At the time I got the gun, I hadn't even thought about an oven! If it wasn't for some how to vids i saw on youtube I wouldn't have thought of a toaster oven, I might have used the kitchen oven as a test! Good thing I did a little homework first! I'd love to see the pics of your friends homemade, I saw a few ideas online but would still like to see the layout of a good working oven. Thanks bro! 

[The Birdman]

Hey all, I'm back! Been out in the working world and now i can get back to my project again! And of course, I have a question. I just put the water neck on the side of the block above the alternator, and there is another port that I don't know what it feeds. It pipes out water from the water pump to the radiator, and the second port feeds the heater core, but the third one is a bit of a mystery to me, here's the pic.

 

 

Anyone got the answer?

[wayno]

Hey all, I'm back! Been out in the working world and now i can get back to my project again! And of course, I have a question. I just put the water neck on the side of the block above the alternator, and there is another port that I don't know what it feeds. It pipes out water from the water pump to the radiator, and the second port feeds the heater core, but the third one is a bit of a mystery to me, here's the pic.

 

 

Anyone got the answer?

 

That one goes across the front of the engine to the intake manifold, it also splits and goes to the thermostat housing unless you are running a L16 cast 210 head.

Here is the hose coming off the outlet and going forward under the fuel pump.

Here it is coming out from under the fuel pump and making the turn across the front of the head.

After it goes across the front of the head it has a TEE, the outlet of the TEE pointing up goes to the thermostat housing as a bypass for the thermostat to allow hot water to actually get to the thermostat, the other outlet goes to the intake manifold.

Here is a photo of where that line connects on the thermostat housing, see the fitting with the hose connected.

It's hard to see, but this is the connection to my dual SU intake manifold, the hose below the brass fitting is the intake manifold hose.

The L16 block/210 head does not have the hose that goes to the thermostat housing, so there is no TEE, that hose just goes straight to the intake manifold, but you have to make sure you have the L16 specific thermostat, otherwise you will have overheating issues because the thermostat will not open before the back of the engine has already overheated, the L16 thermostat has a hole in it to allow water to get by so that the warmer water in the head can get to the thermostat to open it.

[The Birdman]

Wayno, you're the MAN! I knew I could count on you! I didn't think about the intake line because it's not mounted yet, but didn't know there was a bypass for the thermostat! You rock! Thanks a bunch! I've been out of the project for a few months, but I'm back and really glad you're here to bail me out!  :thumbup:

[wayno]

Wayno, you're the MAN! I knew I could count on you! I didn't think about the intake line because it's not mounted yet, but didn't know there was a bypass for the thermostat! You rock! Thanks a bunch! I've been out of the project for a few months, but I'm back and really glad you're here to bail me out!  :thumbup:

 

Remember, if you do not have the hose going to the thermostat housing to allow the water to bypass the thermostat itself, then your thermostat has to have a hole in it.

I tried cleaning up my engine bay by deleting that hose, it seemed to work for a while, but then it started acting funny, it would get real hot, and then all of a sudden get cool while driving down the freeway, but when I started driving in stop and go traffic, it just over heated one day for no reason, it was fine the rest of the day, but it was a fresh built engine(LZ23), so I figured it out fast, I put it back with the bypass hose and have never had any issues since, the needle goes up half way and stays there the rest of the day, the only time I have seen it any higher is when I get off the freeway when it is over 90 degrees, the needle then gets about an eighth of an inch higher, and I start having fuel bowl boiling issues until I get moving again to cool the engine compartment.

[The Birdman]

 

This is the thermostat housing, I suppose the hose fitting is the rusty one, it feeds under the thermostat. There are two spots for sensors and both are on the bottom half of the thermostat. Is there any reason for the two other than a water temp gauge or light?

[The Birdman]

Ok, so now I'm at a different issue. I have 2 dizzy's, one is the single points D411 that came with the truck (which I hope not to use) and a remote dizzy D4F6-05, but when I put it in it place I found the pick-up unit in the dizzy was broken. I've been looking around for an EL matchbox for sale and found I could order a reman from O'Rielly's or several other online sites, but I'm concerned that they don't come with a pedestal and from all I've read you should use the same one that came from the donor. I don't know if the pedestals from the 2 dizzy's I have will work with a store bought reman. Anyone have a rule of thumb for this scenario?

[The Birdman]

Well, it took awhile to find one but I got it! Finally found the matchbox dizzy I've been looking for!! :thumbup: I had several roads I could have gone, but I went with the least cost route from a craigslist posting and I'm just glad the search is over!! I'll drop it in hopefully this week and snap some pics. Getting close to putting it in the truck, just a few things left to do.

[wayno]

Well, it took awhile to find one but I got it! Finally found the matchbox dizzy I've been looking for!! :thumbup: I had several roads I could have gone, but I went with the least cost route from a craigslist posting and I'm just glad the search is over!! I'll drop it in hopefully this week and snap some pics. Getting close to putting it in the truck, just a few things left to do.

 

Don't forget you need a EI coil also, sometimes they sell the coil with the matchbox, but if not, you need to buy one.

[The Birdman]

Don't forget you need a EI coil also, sometimes they sell the coil with the matchbox, but if not, you need to buy one.

I've got an MS2 Blaster to use, thanks bro. Here's the dizzy in place.

 

I'm doing a bit more powder coating, the alternator is next. just got the pulley off, they're next.

[The Birdman]

Had to strip the black paint off, lots of clean-up, but got them done and back in place.

just a few more things to do some powder coating on, but here's where it's at for the moment.

 

I'll be looking for a 6-blade steel fan to replace the plastic fan, but down the road I'll be going with electric, but no hurry on that for now. Work has picked way up but will be pulling the tranny out hopefully next week to open it up and check for what it needs. Anyone have a link to "How to's" on the manual tranny or what to look for?

[wayno]

This is something I wrote up to help others make a heavy duty shortshaft 5 speed for the 521 as an alternative to the wimpy dogleg 5 speed , but the basics on how to pull the front case off are there.

Personally I would empty the gear oil out of the tranny, if it is a golden color without any chunks of metal connected to the drain plug magnet, I would likely leave it alone, but that is me.

 

The 4 blade fan is stock, and I would never use a electric fan over a stock one, I use stock unless there is no other choice, and I will do anything to use stock short of cutting the firewall up, no firewall cutting for me, stock fans last forever, they outlast the engines unless abused, such as hitting them on/with something.

[The Birdman]

Has anyone posted a way to identify the various Datsun transmissions here? I'm pulling mine out this weekend and will post pics, but I searched a bunch of postings and couldn't find anything on ID'ing them.

[wayno]

Has anyone posted a way to identify the various Datsun transmissions here? I'm pulling mine out this weekend and will post pics, but I searched a bunch of postings and couldn't find anything on ID'ing them.

 

If you go back in time on this thread, I think you will find we discussed this very thing, I am not totally sure, but I think we determined that it was a pre 1980 5 speed, maybe out of a 620, but I cannot recall for sure anymore, and I don't feel like going threw the thread again to find out.

Take photos of it and post them, datzenmike can tell you what it likely is, he is the tranny guru.

[The Birdman]

If you go back in time on this thread, I think you will find we discussed this very thing, I am not totally sure, but I think we determined that it was a pre 1980 5 speed, maybe out of a 620, but I cannot recall for sure anymore, and I don't feel like going threw the thread again to find out.

Take photos of it and post them, datzenmike can tell you what it likely is, he is the tranny guru.

 

I just went through the whole post and made some notes. I will try to drop the tranny out this afternoon and take pics. I have to get it out today (Sunday) because I've got work on a new Pilot this whole next week, and have to be up at 3 AM Monday morn. Hopefully long 16 hour days to finance more work on the truck!  :D

[The Birdman]

I got the tranny out today, couldn't get the short driveshaft out of the tail section, don't know why yet so I pulled it out with it. I'm going to put it over a tub and clean it off. I looked all over it but didn't see any cast numbers anywhere. Maybe some will appear after cleaning it off. here are the pics if anyone knows what it is.

It felt like I was able to run through 5 gears with the detent spring on the right side of the shift pattern.