scored a sweet 78 B210 2 door sedan!!!

[the nice machine]

Alrighty i'll try to keep the dialogue to a minimum and get to the oics, heres the story:

i was looking around for a cheap car to drive while i tear down and rebuild my 620kc. i went to my landlord's house to pay rent and he had just pulled an awesome little B210 out of his shop (he's a mechanic and he has a soft spot for datsuns). i ask what's up with it and he says "got it at an auction, got it running and threw a weber in it and now it's for sale". he let me take it for a drive, by the time i got into 3rd gear it was SOLD. the body is straight (just a few bumps and scratches) the interior is clean... i'm stoked!

i'm gonna keep this car forever.

i took these pictures today right after i scrubbed it with a toothbrush for 5 hours... it was still wet.

 

[the nice machine]

 

 

soooo.... the funny part of the story is that since this is a datsun, the electrical gremlins showed up as soon as i got home... i'll get to that later. but here's some pics... i will post more of the interior tomorrow.

[ggzilla]

wow, nice B210

 

Datsuns are not known for Electrical gremlins. But now that they are 30-40 years old they are happening more often.

[the nice machine]

wow, nice B210

 

Datsuns are not known for Electrical gremlins. But now that they are 30-40 years old they are happening more often.

 

well yeah i'm sure they were great electrical systems back then... i guess the only old cars i've owned were datsuns, and they all spent 20 years or so sitting unused in pastures, so nowadays when i get one home, i expect some stuff to go wrong.

[MicroMachinery]

Looks like the electrical gremlins hid your alternator behind your driver's seat. Sneaky bastards..

 

Clean B! I'd like to stumble across one someday like you did.

[Dguy210]

Wow clean B210. Good find!

[az_rat210]

Love it. Nice Condition.

[the nice machine]

okay, the first day i got it home the turn signals and guages stopped working, in turn the regulator decided to stop telling the alternator to charge.... checked all of my fuses and that wasn't it. i went through all of the light sockets and bulbs and connections and then finally realized that i wasn't getting a solid connection in the fuse box, so i wire brushed the terminals out (with a dremel) and the problem was fixed.

 

soooo i go for a nice long drive and it starts overheating. so i fill up the coolant, and it still ran kinda hot, so i put a new thermostat in it, that helped it maintain the temperature for a few miles, but i kept losing all of the water from the radiator. i would fill it up, drive a few miles, and the water would disappear. it ran fine, so i didn't think it was a blown head gasket at first. i talked to a couple of people, did some research on good old ratsun, and i figured out that i definately have a blown head gasket. i keep losing water when there are no visible leaks, there is steam coming from the exhaust, and there are tiny air bubbles in the coolant when i fill it and start the engine for a few minutes.

luckily i found a head kit at a shop in town for 45$. i've been doing a lot of research and studying my work manual. i'm about to go try to get the head off of this A14, take it in to get it machined flat, and try to put it all back together. i am a beginner so wish me luck. i think i can do it-there are a couple of threads here on ratsun that i will be looking at a lot. i'm off to the garage i'll keep you guys posted on how it works out.

 

i also painted the grill and polished the turn lights and emblem. i love this car can't wait to take a road trip in it!

[the nice machine]

holy crap! you think theres some water in that oil?

haha the oil was clean when i changed it the 2nd day i had the car... i drove it about 30 miles after that and it kept overheating and swallowing water so i parked it. sheee-it man the crazy thing is that otherwise it ran like a champ... no smoke or anything. back to work.

[ggzilla]

payen is a quality brand. Tip, always retorque the head gasket right after you buy a Datsun. You never know how long it's been or even if it was done correctly.

 

Is she back on the road yet?

[the nice machine]

payen is a quality brand. Tip, always retorque the head gasket right after you buy a Datsun. You never know how long it's been or even if it was done correctly.

 

Is she back on the road yet?

 

 

not yet. i'm taking it slow... i read on another thread that if i was just going to change the gasket that i could leave the exhaust attached to the head and lean the whole thing over, but i am trying to get the head out so that i can take it to a shop and get it planed flat. right now i am at the point where i can't get to the bolts on the underside of the bottom of the carb, so i can't get to the bolts for the exhaust manifold. am i doing this in the right order? i am trying to get the head out clean, should i be taking out the push rods first? i'm not getting much info from the book so i am trying to go slow and not fuck anything up.

i'm trying to get to the bolts underneath that rusty pipe

[ggzilla]

I would take the manifold off and take the head off. It is very difficult to properly prep the head by lifting it up.

 

I would not plane the head. They almost NEVER need that. Lay a straightedge across the head face, and if you can't get a 2 thousands feeler underneath it it GOOD. Nissan doesn't plane them until they get to 4 thousands warped! They don't blow the gasket because of warping, they blow it because of overheating or because of incorrect torque. It needs to be retorqued every 2 years.

 

Do it right, and you'll never have a bad head gasket again. That means carefully scraping off all gasket remains, cleaning/chasing the headbolt holes, wiping both block and head surface free of grease. Don't skimp on the prep or you might be doing the gasket again in a year or two.

 

Yes, loosen each rocker and pull the pushrods out. Mark them so you can put them back in the same holes. Doing this lessens the chance of bending them. It's a small chance. You'll have to do it eventually anyways to properly install the head and torque it correctly.

 

Exhaust manifold has four studs on the bottom edge. Use 12mm socket with extensions, but two of them you might need to use an open end wrench, reaching up from behind the manifold.

[the nice machine]

cool, thanks man. i'll see how it looks when i get it off... not having to take it into town to get machined would save me a boatload of trouble. i am spending the morning getting my 620 running so i can go get groceries. i'll get back on the b210 in a little bit here.

[the nice machine]

this is bad... i'm pretty sure somebody put the wrong sized bolt in the head where the "12T" bolt is supposed to go. they are all labelled as "13" bolts. it is jammed crazy tight and it feels stripped. either way, the head has to come off somehow because of the gasket... but if that bolt stripped out the threads in the head- or the bottom of the engine... i'm in trouble. can this be fixed?

they all say 13

[ggzilla]

It can be fixed. Even if the threads in the block are stripped, you can heli-coil it,

 

Yes, the center bolt (spark plug side) should be a different bolt than all the others.

 

I think they will all have 13T on the head, which indicates the newer Cromoly V high-strength bolts.

[the nice machine]

hey thanks for the help, ggzilla, i was kind of starting to stress out. i guess i'll go out there and crank it out of there and see how bad it is.

[ggzilla]

Just went out to the garage and confirmed. All bolts are marked '13' including the one longer bolt.

[the nice machine]

Just went out to the garage and confirmed. All bolts are marked '13' including the one longer bolt.

 

you are good person thank you.

[ggzilla]

Check out the Changing Head Gasket article for Datsun A-series engines. More photos have been added.

[the nice machine]

okay, i got the head gasket changed, everything is up and running. i just took a 50 mile drive and everything is working right. i ended up starting another thread about it here: http://community.rat...__fromsearch__1

long story short, it got a little bit tricky but once again i got the help i needed from the ratsun folks.

i love this car. i'm not going to be doing much to it anytime soon, for the next three months it will be serving as my daily driver while i rebuild my 620. if i have to work on it i'll post here. as soon as i get my truck back on the road and all shiny new i'm gonna do the same for this little beast. it doesn't need much, there are only a few tiny dents, i will mostly be just stripping it down and scrubbing everything, painting it and putting it back together. i'm pretty excited about how nice this car could look. i'll probably keep it mostly stock, i might make new bumpers for it, definately keeping the rims.

anyhoo here are some oics from the head gasket adventure, they are all on the other thread i started but i've never heard anyone on ratsun complain about too many pictures.

how i kept everything organisized

super awesome bolt hole gunk remover tool. thanks again to ggzilla.

and maybe this will come in handy for someone out there: when i was putting the exhaust manifold back on, those four screws cominig out on the underside were a pain in the ass to get the washers back onto. i could get the nut on with an extension on my socket, but not the washers...

so i hung them from a copper wire with a little hook, dangled them in front of the screws and pushed them on with a stick while holding a flashlight in my mouth. okay over and out. goodnight.

[ggzilla]

ingenious!

[the nice machine]

had to do some work on the car... so much it needed its own thread:

http://community.ratsun.net/topic/44028-a14-rocker-arm-stuck-wha-happened/

i've got a spare engine or two for it now, i'm going to do a proper rebuild on one of them and get it in by the end of the summer.

[the nice machine]

alright i almost have this car ready for some road trips... i'm really trying to make it up to the blue lake meet.

if you didn't read the other thread, i put a replacement block in the B. i used the transmission, oil pump, water pump, distributor and a few other things from the original engine because i knew they worked. i got kind of lazy and left the head on the replacement engine (i retorqued the head bolts, i figured i could test for leaks later).

i checked the points gap on the dizzy, learned how to set the timing and got everything running good.

i also pressure washed the engine+bay. it still looks like a mess but it runs great!

i also put in an oil pressure gauge, i used a "T" so i could still run the dummy light.

so the gauge stays at about 55 psi during normal driving and about 25-30 when it idles. i think my idle is a bit high though, i haven't had the money to get a tach yet. that's the next thing on my list. and the head gasket is good. no problems.

i also did a compression test on the cylinders: 120 psi on #1, 120 psi on #2, 120 psi on #3, and 125 psi on #4. sounds kinda low but the fact that they are all pretty close to each other is a good sign, right?

there was a little bit of oil on the spark plugs on #'s 2 and 3. a little bit of white smoke comes out of the exhaust when i start it cold. when it is warm, no smoke. i also did the "smoke test" (looking for vapors from the vent on the rocker cover: no smoke).

so i'm thinking this sounds like i have some mildly worn piston rings or worn piston bores.

i will probably go ahead and change the head gasket just to feel safe.

i think it will run just fine for the next few months until i get done with my truck. i ran the 620 for 7000 miles with a tired old engine and oil gunked spark plugs and it never left me stranded.

i also started doing a light cut+buff on the paint. the paint code is worn off so i can't read it, but i'm pretty sure the paint is called "eggnog". i have been practicing with compounds on some old cars trying to get good at restoring paint. i thought i was doing terribly but i realized that i was just working on some paint jobs that were beyond repair.

this is the hood on my 620. the paint was really really oxidized, by the tim i got down to the fresh paint i was burning through to the primer on the edges...

the paint on the B is in a lot better condition, so all i had to do is use some light compound on a wet sponge by hand. a couple of passes and the original color was back. then i sealed it with some turtle wax.

the door is done, the panel behind it isn't.

anyways this is kind of a scattered post. it was too hot today.

i'm going to run this car the way it is for the rest of the summer, i am putting my truck back together right now, when i get done with that i will be taking the b210 apart, painting everything, cleaning up and tucking all of the wiring, the works. i have a couple of a14's now, and another 5 speed. i am going to rebuild the 5 speed and one of the engines and put them in when i get done painting. this car is already sweet, it is going to be a lot sweeter one of these days.

while we're here: I WANT A HATCHBACK!!!

i'm putting the feelers out there for a project hatchback. if you've got one around or know of one around let me know. the main thing i'm looking for is something with minimal body damage (and preferably within 100 or so miles of medford, oregon). i don't care about the interior or the engine or electrical, basically all i need is a shell and the chassis. i have some a14 parts i can trade, some 720 body parts, all parts for a 720 air condtioner) a lot of random control knobs from 620's, a 620 chassis... a few antiques, etc.

if you have one that is clean and running i might consider trading this car, but i love this one i'd rather keep it and find a hatchback that needs to be rescued.

rock on ratsun people!

[Nicholas7620]

Outstanding and very informative thread :thumbup: , my friend Eric helped me remove each head bolt on my B210, clean and retorque my head bolts before taking the Cali Smog Test. Best test scores I've ever gotten. Best score was ZERO hydrocarbons measured at 2800 RPM's. I also removed and resealed my Carb and replaced all vacuum hoses, adjusted valves and new tune up.

 

The Wiki on Head Removal was excellent, and so is your B210 TIME MACHINE. Great OIC's and I like your washer trick. :thumbup:

[the nice machine]

Outstanding and very informative thread :thumbup: , my friend Eric helped me remove each head bolt on my B210, clean and retorque my head bolts before taking the Cali Smog Test. Best test scores I've ever gotten. Best score was ZERO hydrocarbons measured at 2800 RPM's. I also removed and resealed my Carb and replaced all vacuum hoses, adjusted valves and new tune up.

 

The Wiki on Head Removal was excellent, and so is your B210 TIME MACHINE. Great OIC's and I like your washer trick. :thumbup:

 

Hey thanks! I love this car, I put 1000 miles on it in the last few weeks and it is running strong. I'm about to do a head change on an L20B, i'm glad i got some practice on something more basic.