Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

Hey there fellow roadster junkies this is my first post. Well let me tell you about my little U20 problems....I pulled the head off of our 1968 2000 roadster expecting to find a severely warped or a failed head gasket. What I found was anything but. The car was bought in a package deal with 2 other roadsters and a BUNCH of parts (8 doors, 3 hard tops, 3 transmissions, 5 fuel tanks, 2 dashes, over 10 boxes of electrical components, gauges, old parts, NOS parts, brand new pistons, you name it we probably have it now.) Both the 1968 not numbers matching 2000 and the 1969 numbers matching 1600 ran and drove (but did not stop) and one was a rolling shell parts car for the 2000. Well, we are deep into restoration of the 1600 to keep for ourselves (we will be taking it to Solvang in April in the Diamond in the rough category) and I was hoping to get the 2000 dialed in and sell it to make back most, if not all of the money we spent on the package deal.
That brings me back to where I started, in the dipstick picture you can see the awesome chocolate milkshake I found on the dipstick (if I had been there when my old man purchased the cars I would have passed on this one.) I pulled the the head and cleaned, and checking it for warpage and found it to be straight within .001... thats when I started to get worried. Went over to the block and found what looked like the Grand Canyon underneath the head gasket that was still stuck to it. Before pulling the head I did a leak down test and had less than 8% leakage across the cylinders, pulled several connecting rod end caps and found a pretty healthy reusable crank. Now what do I do!?!?! The block is toast, who's to say the crank isn't tweaked. My old man and I really wanted to freshen up our U20 but now if we do I have to find a U20 block and who knows if the crank, jackshaft, connecting rods or pistons have been effected by this massive crack. (thats a .014 feeler gauge in the crack hahah!) My question is would you guys reuse the rotating assembly in another block or just junk the whole thing. Also looking to reach out to those of you that have or know people who have spare U20 blocks/shortblocks/engine parts.

Also what are the chances I can throw my rotating assembly into an H20 block(one is currently posted on the classifieds). I am fairly new to Roadster and I have been scouring the site for that answer and can't seem to find a definitive answer

Thank you all for your time

The pistons are not original U-20 They may be H20 with a dish in the top.

Where are you located?

I may have a block.

Stan
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I'm going to guess that block froze with water in it. Does the bottom end turn or is everything frozen? As Stan pointed out, at least two of those pistons aren't right because they are dished. They should be flat. That said, the rods, crank and jackshaft are potentially useable. An H20 block is useless since its a pushrod engine, you need either another U20 block, or to sell the parts from this one.

Will

I wonder if someone put H20 pistons and rods in a U20.
At this point, you know you have a junk block and H20 pistons and a flat head that appears to be ok.
It's likely you can sell the good parts for more profit than you would make if you spend the money to rebuild a good U20.

Dan

The crazy thing is that the motor ran and my dad even ripped it up and down the street a couple times before I got to look at the oil! I believe we will probably swap an SR20DE into it, sorry to all you purist out there. Probably gonna pull it and post what I can and call it a day.