datzenmike Posted April 10, 2016 Report Share Posted April 10, 2016 What about putting spacers on the isolators on both sides? This would move the brackets both towards the engine and upward. Just drill newer holes lower down on the bracket to lower the engine. 1 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted April 10, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 10, 2016 Worth trying. 1 Quote Link to comment
datzenmike Posted April 10, 2016 Report Share Posted April 10, 2016 What's happening on the right side? Engine seems too far to right like you said. 1 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted April 11, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 11, 2016 Here's the current status of the engine in bay. Passenger side. Bracket, from factory, only has a hole for the engine mount. No adjustability. Mount has a lean back to it, possibly incurred by centering the transmission on its mount? Drivers side. With my spacer. Bracket is slotted, engine mount falls close to the center of the adjustment. Bracket appears to be angled from front to rear slightly in addition to sitting at a slightly different angle from the rubber mount on the verticle plane. I'm currently planning to pull the engine out again. I will try what Mike suggested and build spacers under the isolaters, and lower engine on its brackets. Perhaps there are better isolaters to use? Between me and brodster, we've attempted to use most of the Z series brackets I think. Suggestions would be appreciated. 1 Quote Link to comment
S30Jay Posted April 12, 2016 Report Share Posted April 12, 2016 I could be totally misunderstanding the fitment issue here....but if you took your spacer and installed it sideways on the passenger side would that center up your engine and allow the mounts to reach? I have never done a swap on a 510 or with a Z motor, but when I do a swap with an engine that was never offered in the chassis I'm swapping it into, my method has always been to hang the engine and trans in place (fixtured or blocked in place) then build or modify mounts to suit. I'd never be lucky enough to find a factory mount that'd bolt up. That shit doesn't happen for me. If you know someone with a milling machine you can slot the unslotted holes (or further slot the slotted ones) to add adjustability, and you can section the mount to shorten it or to add height with more material....Sky's the limit. Also you probably could make an adapter plate to go from your mounts to the engine once it's located where you want it....if that's needed. 1 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted April 12, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2016 My purpose was to find an essentially bolt in method, with minimal alterations. I intend to continue on that route for now. I could easily cut these apart and weld them however I want. I want to avoid that if possible. Just because. 1 Quote Link to comment
S30Jay Posted April 12, 2016 Report Share Posted April 12, 2016 Gotcha. They seem close from what I can see. Would that spacer help on the passenger side? Bolt in is the ideal situation, I just don't have much luck that way. Hopefully yours is better. Just trying to help. 1 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted April 12, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 12, 2016 I think whatever I do, I will need to space both sides equally to see if that will take that twist out of the passenger side. 1 Quote Link to comment
datzenmike Posted April 12, 2016 Report Share Posted April 12, 2016 Put a spacer or another spacer on the passenger side between block and mount. Oval or drill another hole on bottom of mount for the rubber isolator to take the lean out of it. Remove spacer on right side. Oval hole in bottom of mount for the isolator. 1 Quote Link to comment
Charlie69 Posted April 12, 2016 Report Share Posted April 12, 2016 When the carb mount area of the intake manifold is level side to side, you have the engine at the proper angle. It should be level front to back also. This is what makes carbed engine swaps easy. 1 Quote Link to comment
haubstr Posted April 17, 2016 Report Share Posted April 17, 2016 Here are a couple of crappy pics I just took... I have a Z20S in my '70 510... It looks like stock L series mounts maybe... This engine setup I believe is out of a 79-80 510... In one pic you can see where the hood prop was removed and a notch was put in the brace for the air cleaner. Message me if you want more pics... Quote Link to comment
datzenmike Posted April 17, 2016 Report Share Posted April 17, 2016 In the US the Z20S was only used in the '80-'81 A10. Christ, get those bare wires fixed. Looks like the two Black wires to the alternator are supporting the engine harness. If not sure, always use heavier gauge wire. Nut and bolt = no good. Use proper size crimp on connectors, then solder them, tape them then use split harness covering. It's cheap or wrecking yards are full of it. Looks great and prevents chafing. This ground lug I bolted to the engine mount. Can't get more grounded than that. Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted April 17, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 17, 2016 Hmmmm. I hadn't thought of trying to swap sides with the L series engine mounts. Put passenger mount on driver side and vice versa. I'm guessing that is what's going on on yours haubstr. Thanks for those pics. I will test that idea in addition to the ideas Mike had mentioned and see what gets me where. THESE ARE THE PICS FROM HAUBSTRS POST ABOVE, SHOWING HIS Z20 SWAPPED 510 1 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted April 22, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 22, 2016 Ignoring the motor fitment issues for now. Finishing up seat mount crossmember install and putting rear bolt points as well. I had to extend the pass side crossmember to get the bolt points centered. Fabbed up this extension. Installed I welded some cross bars to the seat rails before I took them off the seat bottom. Then bolted the fronts in and marked where my rear bolt points needed to go. I also finally got around to chipping up the rest of the old sound deadener. Didn't want to go get dry ice, so i used regular ice. Worked well enough. Found some rust but nothing catastrophic. Welded nuts in to these ridiculously thick washers to fab up my rear bolt points. Even the washers are datsun parts. They are from the rear control arm bushings of a 720 :). And welded them to the floor pan. The one by the trans tunnel sits at a slight angle, but the bolt goes in fine through the bracket. Passenger side seat install finished! Can anyone tell me what purpose all the 1/2 diameter holes in my floor pan serve? I swear there are 15 of them just on one side of the car. 1 Quote Link to comment
S30Jay Posted April 22, 2016 Report Share Posted April 22, 2016 Seat mount looks like it'll work well, nice job! I like how you kept it all Datsun. No idea on the holes. If it was mine I'd tell everyone it was a factory racer and the holes were to keep it lightweight! Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted April 25, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 25, 2016 My car has a bunch of odd bumper stickers all over the hatch. Two of them are in German. Translated them today on Google. Anybody speak German, have a better translation? Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted April 30, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2016 Seat install is finally freaking done! Seats will come out a few more times during the build, but now it's just like removing seats from anything. No more fab. I think I have near 20 hours invested in getting these in. Lame. Here's the last few updates on that job though. Because I had to move the mounting over, the seat rail now kind of hung off the curved down edge of the seat mount cross member. I didn't like that. So I went all project binky CAD on it. And ended up with this. Easily the most complex 3d shape I've built. Which fits here. And now my seat bracket has full support. I thought I was done. Installed the seat and there is a major catching point in the slide rail trying to slide the seat back and forth. Almost couldn't get passed it. Ugh. So I removed the offending rail and took it apart. And found the problem. Pretty sure that rail is supposed to straight. So I beat it flat, did a little filing and smoothing. Bottom of center is where that bend was. Cleaned, lubed, and reassembled the rail, and reinstalled it. you can still feel a little damage over that point, but it works quite well, so i call that a win. Yeah yeah, so they are ugly as hell. Oh, and I messed up on the passenger rear bolt points. I had to cut them up and move them both 3/4" toward the trans tunnel to get the seat pointed straight and keep it from running in to the B pillar when I slid it back. Word of advice, always mount seat rails with seat attached. You need the reference point :). Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted April 30, 2016 Author Report Share Posted April 30, 2016 That was a couple days ago. Today I decided to continue ignoring the engine mounts. It's been raining a lot here so I don't want to deal with an engine pull right now. Instead I pulled stuff from my parts 720 that will go in to this and did a bunch of small interior jobs that have needed done. I have this flasher switch that came with the car. I believe it's a 68 or 69 510 unit, where my car is a 71. But since I don't have the steering column cover, it doesn't really matter. I decided to mount the switch on the center radio pod. I had an unused opening opposite the cigarette lighter. But all I had to mount it was one thin hex nut. And that would be visible and ugly behind the handle on the dash. So here's the solution I found. I stacked washers until only enough thread stuck out on to thread the nut on securely. Then I found a random little cup that made a perfect cover for the nut behind the handle. Here's how it would sit installed. Then I painted the little bugger satin black. I also installed the cigarette lighter that came with the wiring harness. The connectors were correct for the harness and it has a little light inside, so I figured why not? Both sides finished. I ended up really liking how the flasher handle balanced the cigarette lighter handle. My fan switch was super jacked. Here's how I got it. I cut some extra wiring and the connector off the fan switch in the parts 720, so it would plug right in to my harness. Then realized that the wire colors on my switch didn't match the diagram. And the wires from my 720 didn't match that diagram either... It took me a few extra minutes with an ohm meter and switch diagrams and such, but I'm pretty sure I got it figured out. Got that all reinstalled and moved on to the next project. My dash never came with the cover plate that sits behind the wiper/headlight switches. So I fabbed my own out of a piece of pretty scrap I had. And ended up with this. I'm pretty happy with the result. I'm planning to just apply it with some double sided moulding tape once im ready for it. Pulled both gas pedals (720 and 510) today to see what I'm looking at. I am switching to throttle cable. The 720 unit (on right, with pedal attached) is much longer, but I don't know where that actually places the pedal. The 510 pedal was so long, that this longer arm may place the shorter pedal exactly where it needs to be. Not sure yet if I will need to build an adapter to mount the 720 unit, or just cut it apart so I can use it to modify the 510 pedal. We shall see. 1 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted May 4, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 4, 2016 Hmmmm. That doesn't look right... I guess I won't be using the 720 pedal as is :) So I cut both pedals in half and proceeded to piss myself off. It took me about 3 hours to get the crap in a decent place. I tried like 3 different setups before I got one that worked well. Ended being the simplest design. Top half 720, bottom half 510, with 720 pedal pad on bottom. I just had to beat bends in to various places on the bars. I also built an adapter so it will bolt in to the factory 510 location. It is getting some paint before install. Moving on, I installed the dimmer switch from the 720. I installed it in the little hang down bracket on the left side of the steering column. The knob was messed up. The whole top of it had separated from the bottom half. It also had a bunch of gouges taken out of it all over. So I glued it back together with some JB weld and filled the gouges with it. Sanded everything smooth and gave it a lick of satin paint. Not perfect, but looks pretty damn good. What next? I think I've wandered back around to the engine bay. Guess I better get my engine hoist back out. 1 Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted May 4, 2016 Report Share Posted May 4, 2016 In the US the Z20S was only used in the '80-'81 A10. Also came in a handful of 720 trucks. Hmmmm. I hadn't thought of trying to swap sides with the L series engine mounts. Put passenger mount on driver side and vice versa. FWIW, on my Z22 car, this is what we did. Just used stock mounts swapped side to side. Also did the same on my KA24E swap. 1 Quote Link to comment
datzenmike Posted May 4, 2016 Report Share Posted May 4, 2016 Also came in a handful of 720 trucks. Uhhhh..... yyyes, correct, they did. But it had a different head with a 9 to one compression, a knock sensor and ignition retard. Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted May 4, 2016 Report Share Posted May 4, 2016 ignition retard. Easy with the name calling, bub... 3 Quote Link to comment
Lockleaf Posted May 4, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 4, 2016 FWIW, on my Z22 car, this is what we did. Just used stock mounts swapped side to side. Also did the same on my KA24E swap. Thanks. I came across a thread a while back from the realm where you, at least I assume it was you, it was datsunfreak, mentioned you had used Z series engines in 510s and didn't despise them as many do. I remember planning to PM you, but I had forgotten about that until reading your response just now. I dont currently have a set of 510 brackets, but I do have a set of 620. I will give those a whirl. If they fail, I will source a set of 510 brackets. Thanks DF! I appreciate the confirmation on which idea to go with. Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted May 5, 2016 Report Share Posted May 5, 2016 Thanks. I came across a thread a while back from the realm where you, at least I assume it was you, it was datsunfreak, mentioned you had used Z series engines in 510s and didn't despise them as many do. They are great engines. The Z22 is very fun in a 510 if you like a lot of torque. And for a LHD car it makes dual carb clearance so much easier, no heat shield issues, etc. And I'm fairly sure I'm the only "datsunfreak" on pretty much all the Datsun forums... :rofl: I dont currently have a set of 510 brackets, but I do have a set of 620. I will give those a whirl. If they fail, I will source a set of 510 brackets. Actually, looking back at my notes from the first KA24E swap, I did use 620 mounts. Same overall geometry as the 510 mounts, just made differently. I hope it works out for you. :thumbup: 1 Quote Link to comment
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