New to the Datsun world with a '71 521 and a KA swap

[hellrbbt]

 

 

 

 

 

Odyssey pc680.

Works great!

 

Dang! I didn't even think of that! I was looking at those for my GTI years ago. Thanks! 

 

Have you had a lot of experience with it in winter? Just curious what those 170 CCA's are like lol.

 

 

Why size of tires did you end up going with?

 

You've got tons of room to lower this thing with!!

 

205/50's. TONS of room! Although my daily only has about an inch of ground clearance so this might be a nice change of pace...

[flatcat19]

Should have got bigger tires then.

 

You'll have to be really low to cover that much wheel gap.

[uberkevin]

No winter yet... it's coming fast though.

[hellrbbt]

Not too worried about wheel gap at the moment. For the price (~$40/tire) I can't complain. These are also close enough to the original tire size to keep the speedometer somewhat accurate (speedometer will read a bit high as they are smaller, but that's not a bad thing lol).

 

Driveshaft came in and got it installed. Only hiccup is the flange is a bit thicker than the old driveshaft so I need to get some longer bolts to attach to the rear diff.

 

 

[gene knight]

Where did you get driveshaft

[hellrbbt]

I got it from shaftmasters. Great people to work with, quick turn around, and great pricing too.

 

Been taking care of random wiring and getting the new fuel lines in as I find time. Went with 5/16" Copper Nickle lines and 5/16" Fuel Injection hose. Need to source a vent line and an overflow line to finish mounting up the gas tank.

 

Next up, building the exhaust and finishing up tweaking the ebay 240sx header to fit.

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

5/16 fuel line, not 3/8? How are you going to connect to the -6 AN nipple?

 

Looks good. Keep up the pace and this thing will be running in no time.

[hellrbbt]

I gave up on the AN line idea. For a stock motor or even lightly modified the 5/16 line will more than suffice it's needs and what what the pump will put out. For the added cost there wasn't a lot of benefit for right now. I'm just using barbed fittings at the pump and using a bubble flare tool to put nipples/barbs one the lines and pushing the hose end over with EFI clamps like a lot of stock systems.

 

Hopefully it will be running soon, looking forward to using it for yard work the fall.

[hellrbbt]

I replaced all the fuel tank fill and vent lines and got that bolted up, only to figure out that the driveshaft and rear wheels still spin when the trans is in gear...

 

Right now the leading culprit is I ordered the z1motorsports upgraded cast shift fork as I saw one single post on zilvia about a guy using it in his s13, but after more research I've found many, MANY, more posts about how they aren't interchangeable... In my situation when the clutch should be "engaged", the fork hits the front of the opening slot and is never able to fully engage and relieve pressure off the pressure plate. I could hear the clutch rubbing a bit as the wheels were spun, so I'm pretty sure this is my issue. So out came the motor, and I ordered the replacement OEM spec shift fork. Fork came in yesterday, so I should be putting the motor back in this weekend and finishing up a lot of loose ends. The forks are definitely different, I chalked this up to lack of research and too much guesswork.

 

I ordered a knock-off of the Odyssey PC680 ($60 shipped!), so soon my electrical system should be pretty much done. Interestingly enough, the Odyssey PC680 is rated at 170 CCA's, however the one I ordered is rated at 270 CCA's. Figured the added cranking amps might be beneficial. Here's what I ordered if anyone wants to take a gander: http://bigtimebattery.com/store/replacement_odyssey_pc680_drycell_battery.html

 

Last major hurdle is exhaust... Figured for this I'll just get the cheap crush bends at O'Reillys and a cheap muffler and glasspack for a resonator. I don't need anything special right now and just need something cheap and quick to get this thing on the road.

 

Also, anyone know what an L20b is worth? Appears to have an early 210 head from what is cast into it. I haven't opened it up but I would definitely recommend a rebuild as it appears to have sat for a while. It came with this truck and was sitting in the bed. I spent about 3 seconds with a ratchet on the crank pulley to find it doesn't want to spin. I need some garage space back and was going to sell that with the 4 speed trans that came with it, but have no idea what they are worth (if anything).

[hellrbbt]

Well last weekend I got everything together and the truck was ready to start. Well, it never started.

 

I spent the week sorting through every wiring diagram I could find, every swap diagram, Icehouse's relay diagrams, the truck ignition switch wiring... Everything was correct. I had timing, I smell fuel, I have compression... What could be missing?

 

Well, today I found what is missing...

 

 

 

Looks like the camshafts are off 1 tooth on their timing marks. Debating taking the head off to see if there is any valve meets piston issues. I should do it anyways, and will, but I just don't want to at this point.

 

The wife and I have been talking about moving out of state, which would mean downsizing vehicles. This truck was the last in, so it will be the first to go...

[wayno]

I would get a new lower gear and install it except for the fact that so many teeth were taken off of that gear, it had to have made some kind of noise when it did that, and it seems like it would have to be off more than one tooth or it would have started but just not run the best it could.

Your likely right though, tear the head off and find out what hit what to cause that kind of damage, 5 teeth on each row, wow!!!

[hellrbbt]

Yea, I'm not sure what kind of noise it would have been, but when it was "cranking" there were a couple times it felt like it would just catch then fizzle out. I'm thinking it happen during one of those instances and I just attributed the sound to that...

 

Pretty bummed right now. I figure 11:30am is close enough to noon to have a beer and cool off for a bit... lol

[wayno]

Yea, I'm not sure what kind of noise it would have been, but when it was "cranking" there were a couple times it felt like it would just catch then fizzle out. I'm thinking it happen during one of those instances and I just attributed the sound to that...

 

Pretty bummed right now. I figure 11:30am is close enough to noon to have a beer and cool off for a bit... lol

 

It would have been either a knock or the engine would have stopped turning then restarted turning or restarted turning after you hit the starter again.

For it to strip the teeth like that something jammed, it may have been brief, but the starter didn't just strip them teeth off without even a hiccup/sound.

Have you ever seen this engine run?

I ask because I didn't read this whole thread, if not maybe this happened before you bought it.

[hellrbbt]

Have you ever seen this engine run?

 

Nope, never ran. Just finished rebuilding it myself...

[wayno]

Nope, never ran. Just finished rebuilding it myself...

 

My point was if you bought it in a wrecking yard or if the engine came with the truck it could have already been damaged.

I went to the first page of this thread after I posted my reply and seen you had rebuilt it, so that pretty well nullified my question, but I didn't feel like editing it.

This clearly sucks, as now you have to either tear it down again, or you could do a compression test, if all cylinders have good compression, then the valves are undamaged, but you will have to put a new gear on it first and re-time the cams.

The rest of those teeth are somewhere though.

[hellrbbt]

No worries. You are correct though. The head will be coming off for inspection, as will the oil pan for finding those missing teeth. Going to purchase a new timing set as well including all the gears. I'm normally very meticulous with stuff like this and this isn't the first engine I have rebuilt. Not saying I didn't do anything wrong, I could have missed something. My current bet is a poor casting on the gear (came with the new kit which was from RockAuto) and maybe the chain just wasn't seated right?

 

Either way, I'm bummed but I guess I won't be bored any time soon...

[flatcat19]

Spin the cams slowly. When they stop moving move the crank just a little bit.

 

 

I would think there was a crash and the crank ripped those teeth trying to move your valves out of the way.

 

 

 

I can't imagine one tooth, even two, would create enough interference.

 

 

Were those new parts? Were they cheap parts?

[Draker]

Why take the head off? Spin the motor to TDC on each cylinder and do a leakdown. If it holds air... it'll run. If it does't hold air and it leaks out of the intake or exhaust, it's a bent valve. Saves you the trouble of extra wrenching for nothing.

[hellrbbt]

They were new parts, and somewhat cheap (rockauto/DNJ timing kit). I did a bit of research and found people who used this kit before, but nothing like this... I'm thinking it was a combo of a poor casting and maybe I didn't have the chain seated just right?

 

From a quick glance I think the upper timing chain for the cams jumped just one tooth. Hopefully that's it and it didn't spin all the way around...

 

I'll do a leak down, I also bought a cheap USB borescope which should be here Monday to take a look inside the cylinders without taking the head off.

 

I have to take the front cover/oil pump and oil pan off anyways to find the missing teeth, that should show me what the crank sprocket looks like.

[hellrbbt]

Borescope came in, Pistons all look good and from what I could tell from the crappy mirror that came with it, the valves all look decent as well. I'll do a leakdown anyways for piece of mind as well.

 

Here are pics of cylinders 1 and 2. 3 and 4 looked pretty much the same:

 

 

[hellrbbt]

Well, it's been a while... Between the holidays and countless other issues, the damned thing finally started. Don't mind the mess and the intake, I had to make something work the time being.

 

Main issue was my FPR was junk (replaced with an Aeromotive adjustable one), and I have to work out some wiring gremlins.

 

Here's a vid, the intake is pretty loud and I blipped the throttle body a few times.

 

https://goo.gl/photos/NFVbCdFcLU6AoQ6a8

[datson4life]

What psi did u set the fpr to?

[hellrbbt]

I set it as close as I could to 43psi with no vacuum.

[datson4life]

Why no vacuum?

[hellrbbt]

Why no vacuum?

 

That's the reference value per the FSM.

 

 

Long time no post... Quite a bit has happened. As of last week I've been daily driving this thing and loving almost every second of it!

 

For those of you that want to run an aftermarket steering wheel know that finding a hub for these is near impossible. I ended up using a hub for I believe a 240z, and had to make a horn spring extension (I needed to make this anyways as the spring was missing). It's not the prettiest, but it works.

 

 

Obviously when I got to work the first day driving it, I had to take a picture parked next to my coworkers F150...

 

 

I think my JSW it a bit sad as this is my normal view when I leave in the mornings:

 

Next on this list for this truck in no particular order:

Door cards

Speakers/Radio (Just need door cards, PO cut the door up already for speakers, so I'm just going to put them in the same place)

Modify Seat (pulled from a 89(?) toyota pickup, seat back needs adjustment)

Find a working pair tailgate latches

Find a grill

Door locks (Probably go eBay/Solex on these)

Floor replacement

 

I've put about 100 miles on it, so going to do another oil change this weekend. I've done one already since I put the engine back together after the timing gear deal, so this will be the first oil change after it's been driven with some load on the engine instead of just idling. Break in is fun.

 

Some quirks I've noticed:

-Probably just my transmission, but 3rd gear is iffy to get into and sometimes it seems the syncrhos aren't too happy. I'm assuming that it is just from sitting so long without gear oil. It's getting better but not what it "should" be. I put mt90 in it, so likely after a couple more weeks I'm going to drain it and put in some syncromesh.

-I'm not sure what these trucks are with the original single circuit drum brakes all around, but it stops pretty well with the front discs and a dual circuit. I'm still dialing in the rear brake pressure.

-Parking brake doesn't work too well. I think I adjusted the rear drums too far out, sometime soon here I'm going to crawl under and readjust them.

-Rear bumper is ugly.

-Most people don't give it a second look, but there's been a couple times where the truck got a lot of attention, one guy seemed like he wanted to buy it.

-Having a truck is a lot handier than I ever imagined.

 

One thing I'm going to work on is my wiring diagram to post up. There's a couple different wiring systems working together on this truck, but hopefully it will help someone. To give a quick list:

-Original dash harness

-Speedway Motors Universal Chassis Harness

-OBD1 Altima ECU and Engine Harness

-Custom EFI Relay Harness/Panel based on Icehouse's EFI swap diagrams

-Hidden relayed fuel pump cutoff switch

-Plus a few custom stuff

 

Overall this project took a lot longer than I planned, more work than I planned, and the truck wasn't quite what I was led to believe in terms of condition and completeness, but I'm happy to be at this stage.

 

Now I really need to get to work on my MK1 GTI and a few other projects I've put off for the past year...