Project Theseus

[Noll]

Thanks, Noll . That must be some good thread sealant for that money.

No problem! Here's hoping, I was specifically looking for some stuff that said gas exposure was fine, and it's not like you use a lot per fitting so it should last a long time.

Read some horror stories about regular teflon tape being partially dissolved by gas and then clogging important stuff. The loctite is probably overkill, but worth it for peace of mind.

[Noll]

Six_Shooter Someone on another forum is expressing concern about the fitting possibly getting ripped off by road debris etc. I know you've ran this setup (90deg 3/8 npt fitting off the drain hole) for quite a while, any such risk of issue in your case? Tank isn't in the car yet and I figured you're the person to ask about this.

[Dr.Diesel]

Those thread sealants are the only way to go. I have used them for years. They are far superior to teflon tape.

[Danielz]

Hey NolI ... I was thinking about your plan to have the gas line out of the bottom of the tank. I thought about it getting ripped off too but my bigger concern would be condensation. If you get any condensation in the tank it will settle to the bottom. If your fuel line is out of the bottom of the tank this condensation - water - will get into your fuel system. This is not good, as we all now. I'm pretty sure that is why the OEM pickup tube does not go all the way to the bottom of the tank...... just saying....

[vvise]

Really cool to see you start to assemble this thing back together. Awesome work so far.

[Noll]

Those thread sealants are the only way to go. I have used them for years. They are far superior to teflon tape.

Good to hear! I figured fuel safety was a good place to spend a bit more money, and that tube should last a long time.

Hey NolI ... I was thinking about your plan to have the gas line out of the bottom of the tank. I thought about it getting ripped off too but my bigger concern would be condensation. If you get any condensation in the tank it will settle to the bottom. If your fuel line is out of the bottom of the tank this condensation - water - will get into your fuel system. This is not good, as we all now. I'm pretty sure that is why the OEM pickup tube does not go all the way to the bottom of the tank...... just saying....

That's a good consideration, I don't know that it will be too different than the stock location - if you look at post #594 I have a pic of the stock feed line when it was still in the tank, and it was touching the bottom (I had to bend it slightly up with a stick to even get it in frame there, not an easy pic to take). The length of thread on the fitting I'm using should mean the it protrudes a couple mm upwards inside of the tank, so in theory if there is water in the tank unless it's a LOT it would be below the level of the threads. If it's more than that, well, it would be an issue with a stock pickup too, with pretty much any tank I'd assume.

Really cool to see you start to assemble this thing back together. Awesome work so far.

Many thanks! Yeah, even if progress is slower than I'd like it is nice to be putting parts on instead of removing them finally.

------------------------------

So, can't do more on the tank until the sender o-ring shows up so I can seal the tank to pressure-test it, so did some other stuff today.

I'm not planning on running any of the upper vinyl trim, so everything up there was painted black. I applied some rubber edging around the spot-weld seam on the roof to clean it all up a bit, pretty happy with the result. Obviously the current headliner is far from perfect, but I plan on keeping it in homage to how this thing started out - I found it under a layer of crappy black vinyl glued on over top of it when I first stripped the car, and the 80's velour diamond pattern is fun. Going to try to remove some more of the cement residue now that I know that mineral spirits do a good job at that.




Also started on gluing the vinyl diamondplate into the cabin. It looks a lot worse in pics than in person, ah well lol. Not a perfect job but I'm happy for my first ever attempt. I have yet to do the top of the wheelarches or the strut top covers, need to modify them to fit the rear strut tower bar first.






I also started tearing down the engine in preparation for cleaning/sealing/paint/reassembly.

Took all this off, plus the fuel rail although I didn't take a pic of it for some reason. There was a bunch of surface rust under the old heatshielding, but should just need cleaning and paint.




Engine doesn't look too bad. I narrowed down the front gunk buildup to the front crank seal behind the pulley, apparently it's a pretty easy one to replace and no need to pull the timing cover.




What's not as good though, was finding this lash pad lying in the bottom of the head, and the valve associated with it being stuck slightly open. As far as I can tell there's no damage to anything else, so I think it probably popped out due to the valve staying open at some point over the last few years when it was cranked over by hand.



I've doused the valve (topside and through the port in the head) in penetrating fluid and 3-in-1-oil, but if anyone has any other suggestions for un-sticking it I'm all ears. The engine will not rotate after the cam lobe hits it, and I obviously don't want to force it even though I guess that could break it free.

The lashpad with the broken 'ear' I'll probably just steal from the L28 I have that needs a rebuild, after making sure the thickness is the same of course.

[DAT240]

A stuck valve is not a good sign. While the engine is out it is fairly easy to open it up and inspect the innards - at the very least pop the head off. A full gasket set is cheap (<$100) and if you find nothing it's still cheap peace of mind. Probably not what you want to hear but I've been surprised at what I've found in the past. Most recently a supposedly good 351 Cleveland that had been sleeved and therefore wouldn't live through the horsepower we had planned - we had to get a new block. I'm parsimonious to the extreme but sometimes ya just gotta bite the bullet.

[Ont240]

Back off the adjusting nut and remove the rocker arm. Position the cam to provide as much clearance as possible to the spring cap. Using a socket that saddles the cap, wack it with a hammer firmly. Its possible you have a bent valve stem.

[Noll]

A stuck valve is not a good sign. While the engine is out it is fairly easy to open it up and inspect the innards - at the very least pop the head off. A full gasket set is cheap (<$100) and if you find nothing it's still cheap peace of mind. Probably not what you want to hear but I've been surprised at what I've found in the past. Most recently a supposedly good 351 Cleveland that had been sleeved and therefore wouldn't live through the horsepower we had planned - we had to get a new block. I'm parsimonious to the extreme but sometimes ya just gotta bite the bullet.

Back off the adjusting nut and remove the rocker arm. Position the cam to provide as much clearance as possible to the spring cap. Using a socket that saddles the cap, wack it with a hammer firmly. Its possible you have a bent valve stem.

Thanks peeps! I had a go at the socket/hammer technique, but no joy. Was able to get the valve to go down, but will not go back up. the intake valve on #5 is also similarly stuck on further inspection, so pulling the head off seems the only way to go. Not the end of the world, just more money to spend (headgasket, valve spring compressor, 10mm, 1/2 drive hex bit, etc).

With the valve pushed down you can see some corrosion on the valve stem, with any luck this is the only culprit and not bent valves. From what I've read though, the late E88 head that I have has the same larger valves as the L28 heads, so if I do have a bent valve I can steal one off the p79 head from the needs-rebuild L28 in theory (with the appropriate lapping etc). If not, valve are cheap, just more time waiting on shipping.




Had a go at pulling the crank pulley off to see if I would have to buy a puller or not, happily no need for one so a bit more money saved for now.






There is a bit of wear on the seal surface, but not terrible. Apparently I can get around this by pushing the new seal in to a slightly different depth.




Ok, on to engine stuff cleanup. Started with the fuel rail, removed the evap line and cleaned/painted it all:






Cleaned off the intake a bit too, it was super grimy:




All done, and cleaned/painted a bunch of other engine ancillaries and the rear stowage doors too.





need to have a more-in depth look at the carbs soon, make sure nothing is seized up etc. Hoping to be able to use them as-is, but will do a rebuild if needed.

Before I pull the head off I should try to de-grease everything, not sure when that'll be. Will paint the crank pulley after that too, no sense doing that first and then getting it greasy while cleaning the engine.

Oh, also going to get the header blasted and ceramic-coated, should turn out pretty nice.

[Noll]

The stuff I need for the fuel feed showed up today, going to leak-test the tank before introducing another hole that needs to be blocked up though.

I'm pretty happy with the low-profile nature of the fitting, if I can get the threads flush with the tank exterior once the rubber line is on it'll all basically be touching the tank - that + no bits hanging down below the fitting means that it ought to be pretty difficult for it to get ripped off, even in a worst-case scenario.






The rest of the day was a bunch of misc. stuff. Attached the stowage doors - they're very obviously not the same shade as the interior paint, but it'll be hidden under the carpet an do I opted for function over form. No sense spending time and money to get a paint that was as similar as I could, in this situation anyway.




Spun the rear pillowball mounts 180deg so I would have more positive camber adjustment - the shortened struts meant that even with them maxed out the other way there was still a lot of neg camber. I'll be 3d-printing a cover for this area that bolts to the unused middle set of threads at some point.




And hooked up the handbrake cables, although I might have some tweaking to do.




The pics Silvermine happens to have on the install seems to have a lot more open length in the spring area, and the cable seems to be seated farther into the bracket than mine. That last point could just be because the cable ends seem a little different (early 240z ones in their pic possibly), although I'm wondering of I should grind off the first "ring" on the end of mine to allow it to seat farther into the bracket. This would also mean that there was more room for the pivot piece to move, as I had to pull it pretty far to get the cable end to seat on it, and so there isn't much more movement left before it runs out of travel.

Edit: I'm also obviously going to mess with the actual handbrake adjustment first before going to more drastic measures.



The Zhome how-to page includes a pic about a spacer bracket that would move the handbrake arm on the caliper a lot farther back in its travel, not sure if this is needed in my case as it may be a different setup than mine in some ways.

[Six_Shooter]

Six_Shooter Someone on another forum is expressing concern about the fitting possibly getting ripped off by road debris etc. I know you've ran this setup (90deg 3/8 npt fitting off the drain hole) for quite a while, any such risk of issue in your case? Tank isn't in the car yet and I figured you're the person to ask about this.

Pulling from the bottom of the tank?

I've had mine set up that way since 2008 and never been an issue. I have a fairly steep entrance to my driveway, I am also lowered. The most probably to me would be to back up over a curb or sidewalk and hitting that way, but I don't back up that far.. so... *shrug*

[Noll]

Pulling from the bottom of the tank?

I've had mine set up that way since 2008 and never been an issue. I have a fairly steep entrance to my driveway, I am also lowered. The most probably to me would be to back up over a curb or sidewalk and hitting that way, but I don't back up that far.. so... *shrug*

Sweet, glad to hear! I thought I remembered you saying something similar on one of the datsun fb groups a while back, but good to confirm.

Glad to hear it's been trouble-free, gives me more confidence for my own setup.

[DAT240]

Re parking cable - I described my set up in the tech section - your components are different from mine, but I did have to fab that little link to allow the cable to work. The position of my calliper is at the top, front. The drum brake set up for the e-brake is at the back, bottom. The cables are too long. But if you cross them over - left to right, right to left - the length is just about perfect.

[Dr.Diesel]

Noll, I was looking at your thread regarding what people call the damper, crank dampener, harmonic dampener or a few other names. I just wanted to give you a heads up regarding that component. When you get the engine started and running, you might want to consider replacing the dampener in the future. The reason you might want to consider putting this on the list for replacement is because the rubber in that damper is nearly 50 years old. The rubber in there is no longer pliable. It really can't dampen the crankshaft harmonics at that age and can lead to further troubles including accelerated crankshaft wear and breakage. Sometimes you can have trouble timing the engine because the outer part of the dampener can slip on the rubber once the loads from the water pump, alternator and air conditioning are added to the crankshaft. This puts the timing marks out of whack. Sometimes the outer pulley will come completely off leaving the inner part of the dampener on the crankshaft. Usually this all comes to light with vibration when you start getting into the higher rpm ranges.

The other thing you mentioned is that you pulled the harmonic damper off without a puller. That can be a symptom of things to come. Thats not a good sign. You shouldn't be able to pull it off the crankshaft by hand. It should be Snug on the crankshaft. You likely already know this, but you might want to consider checking the woodruff key in the crankshaft for wear. It shouldn't be loose or have any wear on it.

Im not wanting to spend your money on you. We know you have done lots of that so far. Just get the engine running and keep the harmonic balancer in mind.

[Noll]

Re parking cable - I described my set up in the tech section - your components are different from mine, but I did have to fab that little link to allow the cable to work. The position of my calliper is at the top, front. The drum brake set up for the e-brake is at the back, bottom. The cables are too long. But if you cross them over - left to right, right to left - the length is just about perfect.

Oh yeah, I remember reading that thread. I've already crossed the cables so all good there, will mess around with the handbrake adjustment to see if I can get away without that spacer bracket but should be dead easy to make one if needed.

Noll, I was looking at your thread regarding what people call the damper, crank dampener, harmonic dampener or a few other names. I just wanted to give you a heads up regarding that component. When you get the engine started and running, you might want to consider replacing the dampener in the future. The reason you might want to consider putting this on the list for replacement is because the rubber in that damper is nearly 50 years old. The rubber in there is no longer pliable. It really can't dampen the crankshaft harmonics at that age and can lead to further troubles including accelerated crankshaft wear and breakage. Sometimes you can have trouble timing the engine because the outer part of the dampener can slip on the rubber once the loads from the water pump, alternator and air conditioning are added to the crankshaft. This puts the timing marks out of whack. Sometimes the outer pulley will come completely off leaving the inner part of the dampener on the crankshaft. Usually this all comes to light with vibration when you start getting into the higher rpm ranges.

The other thing you mentioned is that you pulled the harmonic damper off without a puller. That can be a symptom of things to come. Thats not a good sign. You shouldn't be able to pull it off the crankshaft by hand. It should be Snug on the crankshaft. You likely already know this, but you might want to consider checking the woodruff key in the crankshaft for wear. It shouldn't be loose or have any wear on it.

Im not wanting to spend your money on you. We know you have done lots of that so far. Just get the engine running and keep the harmonic balancer in mind.

I appreciate the info and warning! I'll rock it as is for now just because it's what I have and LOOKS alright, but especially if I run into vibration issues etc I'll replace it. Happily I don't have a/c or a smog pump, so it's just the water pump and alternator that it's driving.

I should clarify that it wasn't just a "unbolt and pull off by hand" kind of deal, I had to do a decent amount of careful persuasion with a wooden block and hammer to break it free (taking care not to split the rubber), so I'm not too worry about wear in that regard.