Just a L-16, and its two big brothers.

[DanielC]

Sorry, some pictures are big.  Camera settings have been changed.
The 720 I got this engine out of had air conditioning, I believe it was factory air. I also got the alternator from a second 1980 720 in the yard that did not have air conditioning.

I took the AC alternator off the L-20-B engine and cleaned it up.  

 

This is the second, non AC alternator.  I put it on the engine to test it.  It worked too.

 

This is the A C engine fan, after cleaning it up. 

 

This is the carb I am using to test the engine.  i actually found this carb a few years ago, on a 620 in the Portland south Pick-n-Pull yard.   This carb had a jammed accelerator pump, but in my spare carb parts, I found a accelerator pump plunger that worked.  How did I know it was a 521 carb?  Manual choke linkage on this carb.

 

I need a picture of how the PCV valve hose is ran on a 1980 L-20-B engine, and also if anyone had the vacuum advance fitting and pipe that screw into a stock Hitachi carb, PM me, please.

[thisismatt]

Daniel, have you used Superclean? It would make effortless work cleaning oil pans and such...

[DanielC]

I have used Superclean, and it is pretty good, but not effortless, in my opinion.

 

I used to work at a factory in southeast Portland.  They had a vapor tank for cleaning parts for a long time, but had to remove it.  I did take a VW crankcase in to work one day to clean it. 

You lowered the parts into the tank, it had condensing coils about ground level.  Once the parts got below that level the vapor would condense on the cold parts, and the hot vapor would almost instantly dissolve any grease, oils, or other crud on the part, you could watch the dirty condensed vapor run off the parts.  After a minute, or two, you raised the parts out of the vapor, and let them cool.  The only thing left on the parts was a light dust where the solvent pooled, as the parts were coming out of the hot tank.  That dust you could blow off with a air hose.

 

I have heard of using Superclean, Simple green, and oven cleaner for cleaning engines.   I usually use mineral spirits (paint thinner), and elbow grease.

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

Purple Power is much cheaper than Super Clean, and near as I can tell, identical. I use about 3 or 4 gallons of the stuff on every job I take in. Spray it on, sometimes scrub it with a brush, and then pressure wash it off. It does a number on grease and oil, but crud (like the long term mix of oil and road grime) takes a scraper or needle scaler to get off.

 

I also use it in a bucket to soak parts like nuts and bolts, saving me from having to open up the solvent tank.

 

Nice work Daniel.

[DanielC]

Just ordered spark plugs, plug wires, the purple power cleaner, and a timing chain wedge.

I need the hose between the PCV valve, and the crankcase pipe, and a stock Hitachi carb distributor vacuum pipe and fitting.

[datzenmike]

 

 

I used to work at a factory in southeast Portland.  They had a vapor tank for cleaning parts for a long time, but had to remove it.  I did take a VW crankcase in to work one day to clean it. 

You lowered the parts into the tank, it had condensing coils about ground level.  Once the parts got below that level the vapor would condense on the cold parts, and the hot vapor would almost instantly dissolve any grease, oils, or other crud on the part, you could watch the dirty condensed vapor run off the parts.  After a minute, or two, you raised the parts out of the vapor, and let them cool.  The only thing left on the parts was a light dust where the solvent pooled, as the parts were coming out of the hot tank.  That dust you could blow off with a air hose.

 

 

 

Yes! I've worked with that system also back in the early 70s.  If I remember they called the liquid 'freon' but I don't know how accurate that was. It boiled in the bottom of the tank but I don't think it was very hot, and you could reach down into the vapors and it was only warm. It would condense on your hand below the cooling coils and wash them clean. It was used to de-grease solder resin off of circuit boards. It would also dissolve certain plastics which some people found out too late.

[thisismatt]

I should have mentioned you need to let it soak, so it takes time but not much effort. Even with heavy crud if you just let it sit a couple days the junk will just spray off later with a garden hose, a lot of time taking the paint off too.

 

For big items I use thick plastic sheet or bag to fully submerge the item without having to use so much cleaner.

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

Yes, letting it soak does help.

 

I have even started pressure washing on the lift in the shop. Luckily I built my shop with drains in the floor, but it can still be quite a mess. The purple power does a great job on the underside of a body.

 

 

 

This is me, scared shitless of the mess I'm about to make inside the shop.

 

[Lockleaf]

I once left an aluminum ka valve cover in a 5 gallon bucket for 4 days. It came out VERY furry. Ridiculous corrosion from that. So, don't leave aluminum in that stuff for days....

[DanielC]

Some parts I ordered Sunday from Amazon arrived Tuesday.  But on Monday, I had to go north east Portland, to get some new glasses I ordered, from my eye doctor.  On the way home, I stopped by Knects auto parts on 82nd Ave, got six quarts of Valvoline VR-1 30 weight oil.  Then I went to Dick Hanna Nissan, in Gladstone, hoping to get a hose to connect the PCV pipe from the crankcase, to the PCV valve.  Part is no longer available.  I also did some shopping, at a local Walmart neighborhood store, got a gallon of antifreeze, and a gallon of distilled water.   That evening, looked on Pick-n-Pull website, to see if any Datsuns with L-20-B were in the yard.  They had a 1978 510 wagon.
Tuesday, another trip to Pick-n-Pull.    I got a PCV hose,

the intake Manifold,

and the exhaust manifold.


While at Pick-n-Pull, these parts from Amazon arrived.
Spark plug wires,

Timing chain wedge,

and in a separate box that was 8 inches square (cube?), spark plugs.

 

Later on Tuesday, I removed the manifolds, and some other stuff off the L-20-B engine I got last month. 

 

Wednesday, I tried to order a manifold gasket, Part number A4035-W5301 from the local Nissan dealer.  That part too is NLA.   My next retail go to for old Datsun parts is Clackamas Auto Parts in Oregon city.  They ordered two L-20-B manifold gaskets for me, they will be in late Thursday.  Then I cleaned some of the parts for the engine I do have. 

[datzenmike]

Daniel that's a '74 or older (I suspect older L16) intake. Notice no EGR. Nice score.

[DanielC]

No EGR, that is why I got it!   I still need to figure out how to reconnect the PCV system, it would be easy, but for some reason, Nissan likes using different diameters on the ends of hoses, both cooling and emission control.

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

Try using a website like Summit Racing that lets you search hoses by the diameter on each end.

 

I run into the problem all the time, and sometimes it can be a real bitch to find hoses that will work. In a pinch, you could always splice two hoses together, but that never looks right. In the case of the EGR hose, which doesn't hold pressure, you could splice two hoses together and then heat shrink the entire hose so you can't see that it is made out of two. I do this on brake booster hoses when I have to splice them.

[DanielC]

Stoff, that is a great idea!

[banzai510(hainz)]

Felpro still makes manifold gaskets and they 1.5 inch. There OK not goos as the SSS Nissan one but copper spray them and they work

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

I never did like the Nissan Motorsports gasket. They get hard and crack over a couple years. A metal core gasket is always better.

 

If you need one with large intake ports, you can buy one for a 240Z and then chop it up to make an L4 gasket. I've done this a few times.

[wayno]

I use them Felpro ones myself, and I keep reusing them, the first time they go on bare, but after that it depends on how good they look, normally I put a little blue shit around the coolant holes after the first use.

[DanielC]

This is one of the ways I clean engine parts.

Both of the the intake manifolds I got off the L-20-B engines were left to soak in the bottom of the tank overnight, and then brushed off, rinsed. and then blown dry.

 
 
When I brought the L-20-B engine I am working on home, and was unloading it, I broke the PCV hose fitting on top of the cam cover.

On Monday's trip to Pick-n-Pull, I got a good cover vent off another L-20-B engine.

 
I used a small to make a notch on the top of the broken cover vent, and after the notch was made, I carefully drove the broken vent counter clockwise, to remove it.

 
The broken vent out.  I only had to turn it about two turns, by using the chisel, then I could just turn it with my fingers.

 
Then I just screwed the good vent in the cam cover. This vent is glued at the proper orientation, by Nissan.  I do not yet know what air cleaner housing, and hose I am going to use on this engine.  When I make that decision, I can then glue the vent in the proper orientation.

 
The exhaust manifold on a four cylinder L engine is held on by three studs, and eight bolts into the head.   When I took the manifolds off this engine, the front exhaust stud screwed out, the back one broke, and I damaged the center one using a die grinder to remove a rounded off nut.  I chased the threads on the two studs left in the head, then used a two nuts, jammed together to remove the damaged studs.
Then I carefully removed the old gasket material, and used a large flat file to finish cleaning the surface.  Before removing the gasket material, I stuffed wadded up paper towels into the ports.  In this picture, I am measuring the port diameter on the head.

 
Then I put tape over the ports, to keep some dirt out of the engine.

 
This is the port on the L-20-B engine intake manifold.

 

 
This is the intake port on the L-18? manifold I picked up earlier this week.

 

 
This is the intake port on a L-16 manifold.

 



When I was cleaning the L-20-B intake manifold, I cleaned out the EGR ports on the manifold. I first used a carbide burr on a die grinder, but I should of just used a drill.  In this picture, that is what I am doing.

 

After the carbide burr, and die grinder, I used drills, starting with about a 5/16 drill, and than worked up in drill diameter.

 

This is some of the crud that I go out of the EGR ports on the intake manifold.

 

Finally, I took the air injection bungs off the exhaust manifold I got earlier this week, and using a punch, drove the remaining parts of the pipe out of the manifold.  Well, on three of the four ports at least.  Then, time to go to work. 

 

I am going to see if I can get some plugs for these holes in the exhaust manifold, after removing the fourth piece of pipe.

[DanielC]

I worked on this yesterday,

Close view

Usable pipe nut, and broken one.

I cut and ground the broken pipe, and nut close to the exhaust manifold,

And then I tried welding a bolt into the remnants of the broken pipe nut,to screw the broken nut out.

 

That did not work.  So, I went a little "off script" and since I did not know how it was going to turn out, did not take pictures.  I ground the remnants of the broken bolt off, drilled it out again, and then used a larger drill to cut most of the inside of the pipe nut out.  Then I did a second weld, short time at first, to build up a weld bead inside the remnants of the pipe nut, without penetrating through the wall of the nut and into the manifold.  As material got built up, I then used a longer time weld to completely fill the hole.  After it cooled, with an air hose blowing on it, I then pilot drilled the center of the plug, with a 1/8 drill bit, and then a 1/4 drill bit. 

An "Easy Out" tap was then used in the 1/4 hole, and the remnants of the pipe nut finally came out.

 

Then I made a trip to Clackamas Auto Parts, to pick up manifold gaskets I ordered earlier this week.  I also got some new studs for manifold mounting to the head, and one new stud for the bottom of the exhaust manifold.

Exhaust manifold bottom stud.

[DanielC]

I managed to salvage four of the air injection pipe nuts, from two different L-20-B exhaust manifolds.  If I cannot get or find plugs that will screw into the exhaust manifold, I may be able to use these pipe nuts to hold something in the hole to plug the port on the exhaust manifold.



 
Why is it so difficult to find round exhaust port manifold gaskets for a four cylinder L engine.  This is a square exhaust port gasket on the L-20-B engine.  Note gasket overhang into the exhaust port.  Will the port sleeves help keep hot exhaust away from the gasket edges that hang into the port?

Front number one exhaust port.

Back number four exhaust port.


When I went to Clackamas Auto Parts to pick up the manifold gaskets I ordered on Wednesday, this is the gasket they had.  I can see where I could cut the front of this gasket in between number 2 intake, and exhaust, splice in number 3 and 4 Exhaust from the center of this gasket, and cut the aft end of this gasket in between number 5 intake and exhaust.   That would put my gasket cuts in between the exhaust and intake manifolds.  Is that the way to go?

 

I would like to note one of the part persons at Clackamas auto spent about 20 minutes cross referencing gasket part numbers from different sources, including the stock Nissan no longer available part number, and they all came back to this six cylinder gasket. 

[datzenmike]

I had no idea the exhaust over hung this bad on the W58 head. Years ago I converted a W58 to square by scribing around an old gasket and grinding. Maybe there are larger gaskets?

[Doctor510]

Exhaust/Intake gasket from '80 620 has round exhaust ports, as Mike said, W58 head

[DanielC]

The L-20-B engine I have came out of a 1980 720 truck. I tried to get part number A4035-W5301 manifold gasket for the engine, it is No Longer Available from Nissan.

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

 

When I went to Clackamas Auto Parts to pick up the manifold gaskets I ordered on Wednesday, this is the gasket they had.  I can see where I could cut the front of this gasket in between number 2 intake, and exhaust, splice in number 3 and 4 Exhaust from the center of this gasket, and cut the aft end of this gasket in between number 5 intake and exhaust.   That would put my gasket cuts in between the exhaust and intake manifolds.  Is that the way to go?

 

I would like to note one of the part persons at Clackamas auto spent about 20 minutes cross referencing gasket part numbers from different sources, including the stock Nissan no longer available part number, and they all came back to this six cylinder gasket. 

Yeah, I mentioned the use of an L6 gasket a few posts ago.

 

Are you going to use the air injection? If not, just weld the holes inside the tube nuts and reinstall those as plugs. You may need to keep the tube portion inside the nut to make sure the threads don't bottom out before it makes a seal.

[DanielC]

I did two cuts on the six cylinder L gasket, and used it.

The original gasket.

This is how I cut the gasket, I used some aviation snips to cut it.

I cut the front three ports off the six cylinder gasket, number 1 exhaust and intake, number 2 intake.

I then cut the back three ports off the six cylinder gasket. number 3 intake, and number 4 intake and exhaust.

And then I trimmed the middle section of the gasket to fit number 2 and 3 exhaust ports.

For clarity this is the head manifold surface with the middle section on on yet.

 

Welding up the holes in the tube nuts seems like a good way to go.  I saved all the parts from when I removed the nuts, I think I have tube portions that I can use.