Mighty Mouse Engine Rebuild & Upgrades

[zed1]

Steve,

Very nice "get"!

Keith

[difrangia]

Didn't have to separate anyones spirit from their physical being but the threat of a drone strike can jar near anything loose. 

 

Seriously, I happened on these in one of those 'right time at the right place' thingies. The guy said he had the whole set minus the left rear strip. It took several days of back & forth texts to determine that they were probably the proper trims that I needed badly. My parts book has no NL specific part listings. Once I had them in hand and verified the proper configuration, I was gonna offer to help him place the rest of them with a deserving recipient (most likely on here). When I got them and did verify they were correct, I contacted him and he had already disposed of the other three. I almost had to give the left cahone for these two and would have grabbed all five trims, but I don't have enough left cahones. He has no other 320 stuff except literature. 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

Disposed of, as in thrown away?

[difrangia]

He'd already sold them. He knew that he could get $120-$150 each for the trim strips.

[difrangia]

Have a Happy, Prosperous, & Save Thanksgiving Day, Everyone !!!

 

Push away from the dinner table in time to prevent gastric misery; save some space for desert & spirits.

 

Couple pics in front of a city mural taken when a couple seniors (me & the pickup) made a glass/plastic recycle run last Sunday.

 

 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

Perfect!

[Farmer]

I just got down reading the whole thread. Awesome!!

[Charlie69]

Just curious where is the hood?

[difrangia]

Just curious where is the hood?

 

Very observant, Charlie. Thought nobody'd ever ask. 

 

I still have a couple of issues that I want to tend to in the engine room that are much easier with the hood off. Seems I can't get off into the engine room on the 320 or 620 without bangin' my head on the hood. Must be a design flaw; not necssairally in the Datsun design, maybe mine. 

 

Still gotta get the heater gone through and reinstalled and some resolution on the wiper system. Original is inoperable. Haven't had a chance to investigate the original wiper unit's condition and might want to update. Some Positive/Negative ground issues might be involve here. 

 

One other item engine-room item is the valve seals on the newly rebuilt E1 engine. I wasn't pleased with the seals that were in the original full-gasket set but went ahead and installed them on the rebuild. I now get a little smoke out the exhaust pipe on acceleration, especially after drawing speed down using the engine for deceleration. I've acquired a set of seals from www.motorpowerinc.com that have the spring-wire compression rings that the originals had. I'll be putting those on with the engine assembled by pressuring the cylinders up with compressed air. 

 

I have the original hood which has the overall texture of a 'sack-of-rocks'. Also someone tried to close it with the prop-rod locked up. I have another nice hood that I need to get stripped, primed, and some minor dent-fixes done on this winter. I dont get the mouse out when there is any percipitation out anyway. I'll have a hood on by spring and some other items brought up to date too. I'll keep progress posted here. I've been tied up short on a greenhouse project the last couple months but it's getting along pretty well now. 

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

You could always do the coiled-up-rope trick for the valve stem seals.

[datzenmike]

Rope you can do on the side of the road, and it's impossible for the valve to fall in, impossible.    

[mklotz70]

I agree with the guys on using the rope.  If you tap the valve and the air seal breaks, the valve will drop.  At least make sure that you have the corresponding piston at TDC so the valve can't drop all the way in. :)

[difrangia]

Thanks, got it covered, guys.

 

BTW, what's the coiled up rope trick ??

 

New one for me.

 

Steve

[mklotz70]

Basically......get the corresponding piston close to TDC, then feed some rope....clothesline or similar(1/4") into the spark plug hole....then raise the piston up a bit more and the rope will push on the valve face, holding it up for you.

 

Your wiper motor will work whether you run pos or neg ground.  It does not use permanent magnets, so it does not reverse directions when you change the polarity.  

[difrangia]

Thanks, Mike. The rope trick makes sense. I believe the compressed air & TDC will handle it. 

 

Seems like I juiced-up the original wiper motor on the bench and got nothing or sparks at most. If I remember correctly, one of the pigtail wires looks darkened as if from electrical heat. I haven't had a chance to check out the wiper motor in detail. When I acquired the pickup the original motor was off and a new later motor was in the extra parts that I got with the pickup. The pickup had been changed to neg ground by a PO and they may have done some damage to the motor in the change-over.

 

I may run a classified for an original wiper motor.

 

Steve

[wayno]

Steve, there is only one positive on a wiper motor, all the rest are grounds, so you connect the black wire to ground, and connect the blue with red line wire to positive, now you have a ready to go wiper motor, now all you need to do is ground the blue with white line wire to ground and it will run, when you remove that wire from ground it will park itself automatically.

[difrangia]

Thanks, Wayno. 

 

Won't get to it today, but I'll try to check it out this week.

[wayno]

Thanks, Wayno. 

 

Won't get to it today, but I'll try to check it out this week.

 

I did forget to mention that this is a bench test method with no regards to positive and negative ground polarity, it may very well be positive to the ground system, but that is not the way I tested mine, the most important thing is that there is only one hot wire in, the rest are grounds the way I test them.

I figured this out testing 521 wiper motors to make sure they were good.

And before I wrote the first reply(reply 291), I tested 2 of them to make sure I was describing how to test them correctly/the way I test them.

I actually used a 720 wiper motor in my RHD U320, but I had to drill one hole outside of the wiper motor plate where it can be seen if I were to find a proper motor.

[wayno]

Have you seen soft plugs like this before Steve?

 

 

This one also came out and I put it back in, now I regret doing that as I cannot get it out to take a photo of the inside, as it is not a soft plug hole I have ever seen before.

I will try to get it out when I can find the time and remember, it looks like one is supposed to put it in the hole, then dent the middle of it to flatten it, and that is what holds it in, my engine is a 1962.

[difrangia]

I've not seen them in a freeze plug application. It would seem to me that that type of domed disc plug would need to go into a counterbored hole. the plug would set on the counterbored ledge with the dome out. Then when the dome is flattened, the outside diameter expands to fit and seal in the counterbore.

 

 I've seen them in carbs and it's been three decades since I've messed with a small-block Chevy, but I think that is what is in the back of the camshaft bore at the rear of the block.

 

If you can get access to it, drill a hole near center (might have to use right-angle drill) and use a large screw with a bar across the plug and fulcrumed on the block. Tighten the screw and pull it out. If I didn't produce a clear visual, refer to how I pulled the oil galley plugs on the E1 on the first page of this thread. You can probably get by with a self-tapping screw in the flat stock freezrplug instead of tapping like I did on the solid oil plugs. 

 

Steve

[difrangia]

A webpage regarding common plugs used to re-seal casting holes in engine blocks/heads.

 

 

http://preview.tinyurl.com/z8xyydu

[difrangia]

A webpage regarding common plugs used to re-seal casting holes in engine blocks/heads.

 

 

http://preview.tinyurl.com/z8xyydu

 

Or:

 

http://www.autozone.com/repairinfo/common/repairInfoMain.jsp?targetPage=productsHowToInspect&leftNavPage=productsHowTo&pageId=%090996b43f80a013d3&subtitle=replace

[wayno]

Yes the holes are counter bored, I have never seen anything like it before.

I had just water in the block, it kept leaking out so I figured there wasn't enough water in the block to create an issue with freezing, but at least two of these dished type plugs were pushed out of their holes, so I was wrong, I had the one out in my hand and I tried popping it back in, it would not go all the way back in, and I could not get it out anymore either.

Well I just tried remove it again and failed, it actually went all the way back in the hole today, and now I suspect it will leak, the one I took a photo of is behind the generator/alternator and I found the plug on the frame rail, I suspect I am going to have to remove the engine now.

That first link is to a URL computer thing I believe, the second one is to Autozone, this makes me think I will be able to get them new, at least I hope I can.

[difrangia]

When you get one of the plugs out, post a photo of the bore. Measure the size of the counterbore with calipers. I'd bet the domed plugs are readily available. Clean the counterbores with a scraper and wire brush, seal the new plugs and expand into the counterbores and you should be good to go. Post the counterbore size and we can find some plugs online.

 

Unless you just want to pull the motore, I'd do the freeze plugs in the car. There is one in the back of the head, according to my photos.

 

Steve

[difrangia]

The two URL's will end up at the same AutoZone site. The Tinyurl link has a button that leads to the AZ page.

 

Steve