1966 datsun 520 kingcab project, act 2

[831Sunny]

time to PnP the head!

[Charlie69]

Wayno I was just reading your post in another 520 thread and you mentioned you 520 NL is on an 1986 chassis.

 

I beleive the 1980 to 83 chassis' are narrower by a couple inches. I am not positive of this.  Do you still have a 1980 chassis you can measure?  I believe the early 720 chassis are the same as the 620 in width.

[Bob3]

Kick Ass ! ! ! :thumbup:

[Dime Dave]

I've popped a rocker off on an ITC 510 racecar. Did it by over reving the engine.

 

Odd part of it was my buddy did the same thing with his ITC 510 in the same qualifying session. I guess we were both pushing it a little too hard.

 

I faired much better though. He had to pull the oil pan to find one of his lash pads. Mine stayed up in the head.

[EricJB]

I'm going with farmer Joe. Looks like the valves are sticking. Is the gasoline old? I have seen old varnishy gas cause that. Check the spring pressure too.

[wayno]

Wayno I was just reading your post in another 520 thread and you mentioned you 520 NL is on an 1986 chassis.

 

I beleive the 1980 to 83 chassis' are narrower by a couple inches. I am not positive of this.  Do you still have a 1980 chassis you can measure?  I believe the early 720 chassis are the same as the 620 in width.

 

This statement is true, the 86 rearend is wider than the 82 rearend, I am not sure if the frame is different, I didn't think it was, I am going to have to put an 80-82 rearend in this truck, as when I notch the frame for the rear axle and lower the rear more, the tires are going to likely hit, but I will fix that when I have to.

I have already narrowed the front 3 inches because of this very issue.

[wayno]

I'm going with farmer Joe. Looks like the valves are sticking. Is the gasoline old? I have seen old varnishy gas cause that. Check the spring pressure too.

 

The fuel might be getting old, it's been in there a while, and it is less than a quarter tank, but this has happened about 3 times now.

It is also a lightly used head, I had it rebuilt with new seats ect. for the work truck about a year ago, then made the LZ23 which is a way better choice for the work truck, so I threw this setup in the 520, it's really strange, it does it when I am cranking the engine over to start it.

[dat77sun]

hey if your looking for a 82 rear end there is one in the picknpull

[wayno]

hey if your looking for a 82 rear end there is one in the picknpull

 

Thankyou for the heads up, but I have several rearends out back including one 79 620 mobile home axle, a couple early 720 axles, and I still have the 520/521 axle also, I think I am set or a while.

I was actually thinking about trading the 1980 720 axle under the dually straight across with the one in the 520, as I think it would work out great, as that one is to narrow, and the 520s is to wide.

[wayno]

I did some more work on the Ute today, I removed the piece of metal behind the driverside seat on the side, and put all the channels in for a roll up and down window, now both sides are done.

 

I am picking away at it, one day it will likely be done.  :lol:

[Farmer Joe]

The fuel might be getting old, it's been in there a while, and it is less than a quarter tank, but this has happened about 3 times now.

It is also a lightly used head, I had it rebuilt with new seats ect. for the work truck about a year ago, then made the LZ23 which is a way better choice for the work truck, so I threw this setup in the 520, it's really strange, it does it when I am cranking the engine over to start it.

yeah, im going to have to say, the valves are sticking on the slow rpm start..

 

you might pull the rocker cover when its cold and the first start of the day. make sure the followers are on, and maybe use a remote starter thing to watch what it does if you crank it over with no spark.

 

im curious to see if its stickin valves when you turn it over when its cold... worth a shot. 

 

other then that, id say the head is damaged somehow...

[Charlie69]

Waymo, Gene Knight was having the lash pad problem also.  Doc 510 found the milling of the head to be enogh that the cam towers should have been shimmed.  The valve stems had also been resurfaced to the point they were to short.  Whenever Gene would rev it up it would spit the lash pads.

 

any chance of pictures of how you are doing the windowtracks & cranks?

 

It is looking good.  How does it handle?

[TrashBagPosse]

Look's good   did you figure out what was making rockers jump off?

[wayno]

I talked to the machinist the other day, and he also said old fuel can have this valve sticking effect, and the fuel is old, but it is basically empty now, so I am going to dump about 7 gallons of ethanol free fuel into it tomorrow.

It has not had the followers come off lately, so we will see if this happens again after the fresh fuel hits the carb.

 

Charlie, I am planning on having them windows go up and down electrically, and if it works and I like it, I will retro the 521 kingcab also, as all it needs is the front track installed on both sides.

This window thing will get me started on a road I am not sure I actually want to go down, I have been just fine without electrical things till now, in reality, I can just make the windows and adjust them manually, there are a few things to figure out yet.

I also have never went to the wrecking yards and looked at small windows and how they are operated on other cars, maybe there is a compact setup I can fabricate in that will work also, I will look at all the options.

[Charlie69]

I understand about the electrical things But as I get older I am tending to lean towards more of the "creature comfort".  I am seriously considering a remote start.  In Battle Mountain NV I would have to go out & start my truck about 15 minutes before I was ready to leave in the winter.  In AZ I will have to start the truck about 15 minutes before I am ready to leave to cool the truck down with the AC.

 

 

Electric locks & windows are great to have also

[wayno]

Well I started on this today.

 

You can see the ground through the hole.

 

 

Then I filled the door knob/key hole in the side.

Then I started on this, this did not go as well as I was hoping, as it turned out, the door lines I took the donor piece from don't have the same contours as the tailgate, so I am going to have to massage this into the gate.  :crying:

 

 

I will continue working on it tomorrow, if I can get it working properly, I will delete the gate latches.

I also believe that I had the welder to hot, I was blowing holes, but that tailgate metal is really thin.

[DeviousPsycho620]

Motivation!!!!

[Spoona_Jay21]

OK. i am not a 520 fan, but i LOVE this truck! i want too see it done soooooo bad!!!!!!

[wayno]

I got some done today before the rain started.

I installed the handle to see what I had to work with.

I tried it flat, but the lever did not work well that way, so I mounted it at an angle which worked great, unfortunately this angle is going to cause clearance issues when I want to enclose the tailgate.

 

 

 

 

I installed the rods, I wasn't sure if I wanted to use just a short rod on the last gate rib, or if I should use a longer rod that would likely bind less in the long run.

 

 

[wayno]

I went with the long rod, I can always change it if needed.

 

 

 

You can see the rod poking into the middle rib, I only drilled one side of that rib, that gave me a way of limiting how far it could move inwards.

This is what I came up with for activating the levers and rods, I bought 4 collars at the hardware store and some 1/8 inch rod that could be bent, I had collars for the 1/8 inch rods in my R/C supplies.

 

I cut little pieces of metal and drilled one hole the size of the main shaft, and the other 1/8 inch for the activator rods then slid them on the shaft, then the collar, then the compression spring.

I also put a collar on the other end to not let it go to far into the hole and to keep tension on the compression spring.

 

[wayno]

You can see the collars on the underside of my home made mechanism.

 

It works great, the only thing I cannot do is close it without pulling on the lever, lifes a bitch, isn't it.  :lol:

 

In the end I will likely have to put washers on some of the rod holes to keep it from getting loose from the rattling of normal driving, but for now it works just great.

I will remove the stock handle loops when I figure out all the rest I need to do to complete this tailgate modification.

It is going to take a lot of bondo to make this gate look proper, as the metal is so thin, that even tacking it into position warped the shit out of it.

[mklotz70]

Pretty dang cool Wayne :)

[DanielC]

Wayno,

   That looks really good! 

   You might be able to gain some clearance for covering the handle mechanism by not having the cross (or bellcrank) flat.   Have it stick out away from the tailgate skin only where the door handle striker need to hit it.  Another idea, put the 1/8 rod links into the two center ribs, with the two arms of the cross that pull them in the same plain.  I am sure you know this from your R/C experiance, but making the lever longer the door handle striker longer, you get more leverage, but reduce travel. 

 

Another idea, get a small roller bearing where the door handle contacts the arm of the cross.  This reduces the friction the door handle has to overcome to move across the arm of the cross. 

[wayno]

Wayno,

   That looks really good! 

   You might be able to gain some clearance for covering the handle mechanism by not having the cross (or bellcrank) flat.   Have it stick out away from the tailgate skin only where the door handle striker need to hit it.  Another idea, put the 1/8 rod links into the two center ribs, with the two arms of the cross that pull them in the same plain.  I am sure you know this from your R/C experiance, but making the lever longer the door handle striker longer, you get more leverage, but reduce travel. 

 

Another idea, get a small roller bearing where the door handle contacts the arm of the cross.  This reduces the friction the door handle has to overcome to move across the arm of the cross. 

 

I tried different ways of activating the bellcrank, flat(level with the tailgate down) would not work for a couple of reasons, if it would have been only one reason, I would have worked through it, but the lever hitting the bellcrank at an angle broke the camels back, so I angled the lever to hit the bellcrank at 90 degrees.

Maybe I will think of a better way in the near future, but this is what I came up with for now.

I have a bunch more photos of what I did today, I will work on getting them up this evening.

[wayno]

I spent the day cleaning up the rear of the truck, deleting the former way of closing the tailgate, making it stiffer, and re-welding the top of the gate so it was level from side to side.

I also made my own mount brackets to mount the bumperettes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I cut the extra metal off of the bellcrank.