Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

Nice to see the return, looking forward to progress reports!

Nice to see the progress. Looks good

Cheers
Matthew

I finally did stuff!

My axles came back and sat in my garage for a long time while I waited for the SR20 to get done. It ended up being at the guys shop for 3 months! anyways, I got a chance to dedicate about 5 days to the car, which is rare nowadays. I had planned on finishing up the watts link, but stuff happens...

The car sits so long outside, that everytime i work on it, it just gets rustier and rustier. so I decided to fix that. I sanded a lot of it down, and put it in a 2K epoxy primer to seal it, and keep it from rusting. The floors I did in Herculiner. Despite the mixed reviews on the stuff, I've used it before on floorboards, and love it (if its going to be covered up with carpet). Then it gets covered up in yet another car cover.

The engine assembly is underway! I ended up having to buy another set of pistons. The bores were out of tolerance for the 86mm that came with it, so I went 86.5mm. I found a can of the OEM engine paint from my first roadster, and it still sprayed nicely after 10 years. I just finished up assembling the shortblock, and hope to have the engine completed soon.

It appears that my previous photos on photobucket are no good anymore. I will try and figure out how to get my google photos to link correctly or find a new image hoster, but pics are on their way!

Test image below...

does anybody know how to link google photos to a forum? I'm stumped

Charlee, just checked out your build, I'm diggin' those wheels. Just rebuilt a set of three pieces as well. for a different project

I'll try attaching some files this time

YES!

Very nice

Looking good!!
Jealous of your progress,
But damn it looks good !!

Cheers
Matthew

Thanks guys! I appreciate the compliments. I'm really excited to be making progress on this thing again, after a very long time of focusing on work/other projects. So the past year, My lady and I have been building a house, which obviously has been taking focus away from the roadster. It is finally starting to come together, and should be completed before December. I promised my parents that I would have this thing off the side of their house by the end of the year. This should be doable if I dedicate a couple more weekends. I've still got to finish the watts link design, bolt the front suspension up, clean up and install the steering components, and bolt some wheels on. This should get me rolling and onto a trailer. I bought this car January 2012, and have only been able to put maybe 30 days towards it in almost 6 years. I cant wait for the rate of progress i will be making on it when it's just downstairs, and not 200 miles away!

Until then, I will be building the engine. I think I have everything I need for it. Anyways, I have been looking at pictures of both Datsun engines, and SR20s. The direction I want to go with it is something like an original U20 scheme. I guess I hinted at that with the OEM block paint What I'm really after is that original look: blue/green engine block, aluminum head, a dull hand polished valve cover, black rubber hoses, satin finished aluminum bits, and nice bright yellow zinc chromate hardware.

Some inspirational photos taken from bkippen's thread titled "SRL311-00427". This is what I'm shooting for with the SR! Here are some examples of what I want to avoid. The mirror polished chrome bits, the brightly colored silicone hoses, the assortment of anodizing colors, the stainless braided hoses and AN fittings on everything. These engine bays are beautifully clean, and they look great! however, it is not the look I want out of this car. I look forward to posting pics of this engine as it gets built!

Cheers,
Wade

More engine assembly progress! It's nice to start consolidating all of the engine parts taking up space in my garage. With the short block assembled, I dedicated yesterday to getting the timing components and head installed. The timing set is new OEM, and was put in place behind an oem timing cover/oil pump. After this, a 1.2mm Tomei MLS head gasket was laid on the block.

So this is engine is a combination of two separate engines that were abandoned builds by two separate kids. One kid bought all of the parts to build the bottom end, and never touched the head (s13 blacktop). The blacktop guy did a fantastic job of disassembly. everything was bagged and tagged. The other kid never touched the bottom end, and started building the head (s13 redtop). when I purchased the s13 redtop, the head had been resurfaced, valve job, and then fully assembled with 256 - 11.5 Tomei Poncams and tomei valve springs. What really gets me is the fully assembled part. Why assemble it when it's not on the block? The camshafts block the ability to put your head bolts in. Also, he installed the cams without installing the timing chain sprockets. At least he used assembly lube

I disassembled the head with the exception of the valves/springs/retainers, and inspected the hydraulic lash adjusters. Just as I suspected... none of them properly bled, and one of them was completely SHOT. No rebound what so ever. I went ahead and installed the head on the block. After reading horror stories about ARP hardware on the SR, I decided to use a new set of OEM head bolts despite having two sets of ARP hardware. This was a nerve-racking process. Following the FSM, the headbolts get torqued in sequence to 29ftlbs, then torqued to 58ftlbs, then loosened. Then torqued to 33 ftlbs. after torque to 33 ftlbs, bust out the angle wrench and turn them 90degrees in sequence. The scary part is that the FSM called for another sequence of 90degrees! Using the floor jack handle as a cheater bar on the breaker bar, I managed to get them torqued!

Today, I'm going to try and get the HLAs out of the head and rebuilt, and the head properly assembled. After the long block is complete, its a matter of digging through the multiple tubs, finding what I need, and degreasing/cleaning/painting before it gets put onto the engine.
Cheers,
Wade

This is looking really great Wade-- keep up the great work!

Thanks Michael! I wouldn't be doing any of this without someone like you offering a solution to mount these engines in roadsters. Installing your mounting plates has by far been the easiest and most straight forward part of the build. Thank you for offering such a great product.

Today I had a pretty big fail with the head. I was attempting to remove the hydraulic lash adjusters, and they were 100% stuck in the head. 1 came out by putting a pair of vice grips on it (they are supposed to just pull out by hand, if not, then light force) I was able to get 2 others out by heating the surrounding area with a torch to expand the metal. 5 of them pulled the tops of the HLA off, leaving me with just the body of it suck in the head, and nothing to grab onto. This was even with about 6 hours of penetrating oil soaked down in there, hitting the head with a propane torch, and cooling the HLAs with an upside down can of air duster. Just for my own reference, i went over to my blacktop head to see if it had the same issue. They all pulled out by hand with no effort....

I have a couple ideas on how to get these out.
1) I ordered a set of large easy-out (broken bolt extractors) I feel that if I can get torque on these things and rotate them, it might loosen them up enough to pull out.

2) I also ordered a couple 9/16-18 taps and a slide hammer. My idea is to thread it, screw a bolt down there, and use a slide hammer to yank it out. the problem is, these HLA bodies are hardened steel, so tapping them may be quite the task. as long as they arent hardened past what a tap is hardened to.

ugggh today defeated me...

Quite the build you've been working on. I wish the earlier pics worked... stupid Photobucket

2mAn wrote:Quite the build you've been working on. I wish the earlier pics worked... stupid Photobucket

Ahh I know... I was pretty disappointed when I saw that photobucket issue When I get some time, I'll go back through my posts and attach images instead of hosting them.

I managed to get those broken hydraulic lash adjusters out of the head. I got a 1/2" drill bit attached to a ratchet. it was the perfect diameter to just barely not fit inside the broken HLA body. A slow gentle turn barely drove the bit into the hla, and then broke it free by rotating it. I could then hammer the rest of the HLA back into/onto the body, grab it with a vice grip, and pull it out. I then took the 8 HLAs out of the blacktop head, and bled them in some motor oil per the FSM. You submerge the lifter in clean motor oil, use a small allen key to release a valve inside, and you are able to pump it. Air comes out, oil goes in. when done correctly, you should not be able to compress these more than 1mm. none of mine budged a bit, so its time to drop them in the head. Now it's time for what is probably the biggest pain in the butt when it comes to building the SR20... Shimming the rocker arms. So the rocker arm sits on the top of the HLA, and forks over to the two valves. one of the valves gets a shim guide to keep the rocker arm aligned, and the other valve gets a regular shim that has to be matched to the shim guide. To do this, Nissan used to make a special tool which was basically dial gauge with a base that fit into where the HLA goes in. This part has been discontinued so I tried a different method that didn't quite work so well. I tried to put a straight edge on the cam journals, and use the depth gauge feature of my calipers. I really couldn't hod everything still, and get consistent measurements, so it was back to square one. I gave up on this for a while, and decided to just mock up the intake manifold and turbocharger for future planning. I'm breaking this up into two posts so I don't lose it if my computer crashes.

Cheers,
Wade