The 620 that will eventually get us back east

[rjgilligan]

Here's a story. My gal and I had been looking at old Datsuns and eventually picked this truck up in Seattle for $1100.  It was a sparsely used forestry service truck with 70,000 miles on it.  

 

 

Okay, fluids looks good, tires are good, no smoke, has some silly tint on it but whatever, we'll take it. Driving it down to Olympia, it ran real hot. Parked it, looked in the rad... couldn't see the coolant.

 

So... it was showing all the signs of a blown head gasket.  White smoke, etc. On the 2nd drive around and I could see the coolant spurting out from under the hood when I hit the gas. It was overflowing from the reserve tank. Fair enough.. we ripped the thing apart in our driveway. 

 

Guy we bought it from had poured some nasty gunk in the coolant to try and stop the leak.. obviously knew something was wrong with the truck when he sold it, but failed to mention.  ...but live and learn.

 

I didn't have the tools to do a comp/leakdown test, nor did I want to risk driving it to the guy downtown. Also wasn't gonna pay someone more than the truck is worth to do the job for us. Eventually, we got to the gasket. Yea it was blown, alright.

 

 

 

 

Ooops, my stupid wooden pie block taken from the child who lives with us didn't hold up the chain. Should have read more Ratsun forums first!  

 

 

No matter, the timing was off so might as well crack the front open and replace the timing innards. Got all new Beck/Arnley parts after hunting the Internet for a while.

 

 

Ugh, check out this spark plug tip welded to the roof of the cylinder head!  

 

 

And the damage done to the cylinder ceiling and piston.

 

 

But the worst was when I rotated the 4th piston down and looked at the walls. Agh! Scratches I can feel with my fingernail.

 

Looks like a simple head gasket replacement (haha) has turned into a major project.  Wouldn't be so bad if I had better tools to work with.  I've been borrowing an assortment of sockets and wrenches from people, and rented a torque wrench down the street. So as of today, I'm taking off the oil pan, pulling the piston, and buying a honer and new rings for the back piston. I'm going to try and hone out this back cylinder with the block still in the vehicle. This forum has been a great wealth of information so far, as well as those Hainz videos kicking around, so thanks to all for that.  Feel free to lay on with comments and suggestions.  I've got a month before we hit the road.

 

 

 

[SandyMush620]

Welcome to the forum.  If only you were east headed west, I would give you one of my L20B's cheap to get you on the road.

[rjgilligan]

Welcome to the forum.  If only you were east headed west, I would give you one of my L20B's cheap to get you on the road.

 

Thanks!  Does anyone have a clue as to what the original problem was here?  Don't know what initially caused a spark plug tip to break off in the engine, but I'm thinking that caused the head gasket to blow due to detonation.

[rjgilligan]

Will having these scratches left in the 4th cylinder cause another head gasket to get blown, or will I just be stuck with less power and possibly some oil burning?