New World Datsuns...

Nice! Like it never happened. All over but the check cashin'.

I didn't like how the bumper looked, it was my best 521 bumper, so I did this.







I did that to break up the straight lines on the bumper that were wavy, I used 2 not so great 320 bumper over riders and ground them to fit the 521 bumper, none of my extra 521 bumpers are nice anymore, so I suppose when I see one for sale I will buy it if it is not too expensive.

The clutch pedal started vibrating a while back at times, so I put a new collar/throw out bearing in today before it started to rain, all I did was slide the transmission back just far enough to get it out and back in, I also put one of my new clutch arm seals in it, looked good in there, it only took a few hours, it kinda funny but I figure out new ways to do this removing the transmission job as I get older, the only thing I have to do under the hood is remove the battery cable and take the top starter bolt out, the rest is done under the truck.
So far it has not vibrated since, but that would be only a 6 block drive, I think I also need to replace the rear seal now, I believe I can do that while the transmission is in the truck.
I hauled 2 yards of dirt Friday and it was vibrating about 50 percent of the time I pushed on the pedal that day, I pulled a juniper type bush out with the truck last Thursday, then Friday morning I re-did my cement block wall around the pine tree in the front yard to include where I pulled the juniper bush out.
I only had to buy 4 more blocks to create what I did, it held 2 yards of dirt.
I will take a couple photos tomorrow and post them.

I guess I forgot to post photos of what I did, or maybe I posted them in the around the house thread, but here they are, that wall used to be a circle around the tree, everything with darker dirt was added onto the circle.













You can see the circle in the background of this photo and the Juniper that used to be there.

OK, this is what I did today, not much but it took a while because I had to add to the bottom of the rack upright so it would be the same height as the front rack, I originally planned on putting the pocket for this on the inside of the 2X6 rear board, but that was not possible so I made a pocket on the outside, it doesn't stick out that far so I am not worried and the pocket has no bottom so any dirt will just fall all the way thru on to the ground.
This rear rack is for the hauling of my ladder around because I do a lot of gutter cleaning now, I don't pressure that much anymore and I get terrible mileage hauling the trailer around, I have been resting the ladder on the front rack and the rear piece of wood on the rear of the bed, but the front of the ladder stuck up really high that way and driving it that way was very noisy wind wise(whistling), this rack is removable but I am hoping it will just dump right past the rack upright when I dump a load of debris, I made it so it is really tight in the pocket so I don't have to listen to it rattling around.

I figure I might as well put this here as the heater fan in the work truck is starting to make noise, I cleaned up and painted a heater box, it was pretty ugly when I started and I forgot to take a photo.
I was sorting thru my rattle can paints tossing weird colors I will never use when I ran across a can of black, not flat but not gloss either, it's somewhere in the middle, the front also has the best sticker I have ever seen.

This box is made for 2 different type motors, the small pattern right around the hole, and the outer legs sticking up that are the mounts for the pancake motor and the large regular type motor.










This is a really nice sticker, maybe it was a replacement sticker.


This is a heater box with the small motor mounted on the rear of the heater box instead of inside with a 720 fan cage mounted in the box, this combo has been the best result I have had so far, I can turn it on and adjust it for the defrosters and stand up with it on the ground and I can feel the air in my face, normally one cannot even feel the air coming out of the defroster.

I blew a head gasket today, and I don't have anything to make one out of right now, so I think I am going to install that fresh LZ23 I already have built in the back room and then order a 89mm L type head gasket for this engine, it made it 9 years of beating the crap out of it.
#4 cylinder blew coolant when I pulled the spark plugs out, everything else looked fine, I did not expect the issue to be that cylinder, and the ARP stud nuts were all tight when I checked them.
I barely made it home as it was blowing the coolant out of the radiator thru the coolant reservoir, I think it has been going out for a while but I thought it was boiling the SU carb bowls instead of a head gasket.
That fresh engine has been sitting for a while now, I likely should squirt a little oil in each cylinder before starting and pour oil on the rockers/cam before putting the valve cover on.
This is what I am going to use tomorrow, I am just going to spray a roof with wet and forget.

The 521 kingcab didn't like towing the trailer, it doesn't have the torque to pull that trailer from a stop like my work truck has, but it is what it is, a hobby truck I built that turned out alright.
So I decided to not pull the engine, I decided to see what happened first, so I pulled the head to see what happened.
Can you figure out which cylinder was the issue???


Here is what happened.








Could pinging/knocking cause something like this, I re-curved the distributor a while back and was very happy I did as it was timed at 0 degrees before top dead center, now since the mod I have it timed around 7 degrees before TDC, but when it gets warm outside it starts knocking again, not like before, but I think it is slightly knocking, I believe this has been coming on for a while, I have felt the loss of power before but it didn't continue to miss it just went back to normal until this last time, it has always happened on the freeway, I feel a slight loss of power, but it always went away when I took my foot out of the pedal, this time it did not go away.
I just got the call that my Z24 napZ head gasket is in, I did this this afternoon in case there was something really wrong with the engine, I know this truck will tow the trailer as I have towed it in the past, the injection pump has been turned up on this engine.

Seems like a pretty decent run considering what you ask of it.

I would guess the knock had something to do with it. It looks to me like there was a hot spot there that eventually burned its way through the fire ring of the head gasket. Does the metal part of the head gasket come close to the edge of the cylinder?

It is just a stock Z24 head gasket, and I am using stock(STD) Z24 pistons in my LZ23, so how close it is to the edge of the cylinder would likely be the same as a stock Z24 engine, all the other cylinders are perfect.
Also that particular hole is a stock hole in them gaskets, the holes I made in the head gasket to be able to mount a L head on the block are on other side, so it is not my modification to the gasket that caused this.
I have beat the shit out of this engine for 8 or 9 years and it still don't burn much oil.

By the way, none of the intake/exhaust mount bolts were tight, I used my Milwaukie M12 fuel tool and it easily removed them nuts/bolts, and it appears it was not leaking, that is another possible cause to this issue, as I mentioned before I have felt this loss of power on the freeway before but it always went away when I let off, maybe it has been squirting coolant into the #4 runner, I just looked at all 4 intake valves thru the intake holes and they all look the same on the top, so it likely was not leaking, but maybe it has something to do with my erratic idle I have had for a while.

I normally hate making LZ23 head gaskets as it is hard to make the holes without doing some kind of damage to the head gasket, but I did it different this time, I used my Dremel and a pointed grinding tip and kinda just bored threw the gasket, and then kinda circled the hole to make it larger, it actually worked pretty good, I made 9 holes and all turned out fine.
So I put it together, put some throw away oil to clean out the old contaminated oil as I was wrong when I said no coolant got in it, plenty of coolant got in it, tomorrow I will likely change the oil again after I warm it up again.
When I first started it I could not get it to idle smoothly, it ran fine revved up, when I would pull wires 3 and 4 there was hardly any difference, I even did a compression test with a hand held test gauge and they all were 175psi+ across all 4 cylinders, I could not keep the gauge from leaking, I held it in as hard as I could but it was going off like a small gun, I had checked the valve lash earlier and it was fine, so I started looking at the carbs, while I was looking I figured out the issue, I forgot to connect the vacuum line to the power brake booster, it had a massive vacuum leak, it ran great after I connected it and it idles way better than it has for a long time, I suspect this head gasket issue was just getting worse and worse as time went by and it finally gave up the other day.
I have yet to actually drive it, it also is still smoking a lot, I am hoping it is coolant in the exhaust system and it will go away when it is all blown or turns to steam from the heat of the exhaust, if it don't go away i am not going to be happy.

I have drove this for a few days, it appears to be just fine now.
I have noticed one thing, for the last several years now I have had this issue, I am starting to think it might be because of this head gasket issue, when I am on the freeway after going 60+mph for a few miles I hit this slight upgrade and I have to put my foot into it to keep my speed up, in the past this slight upgrade is when the engine knocked/pinged the most, when this happened the engine would build up coolant heat/temps, I would exit this freeway and end up at a stop at this signal 90 percent of the time because of so many vehicles and the engine would not cool off, there is just no way to get thru the light without stopping, anyway once I started moving again the engine would start bucking/cutting out on hot days, it has done this for a long time now on hot days, the last few months it got worse, even on a regular day(not hot outside), I used to think it was the dual SU bowls boiling, as once I could get moving and start hitting the signals green it would clear up as air was flowing thru the engine compartment cooling off the SU bowls, well it started getting worse and last longer the last few months, well that issue has went away so far, now I understand it is not hot out, but I have not seen my engine go over the halfway mark and I am towing the trailer, it seems to be running cooler than normal all around and it is not knocking/pinging at all now, it has knocked/pinged slightly for several years, I even re-curved the distributor a few years ago and it was a little better until the last few months, I kept thinking I could hear it knocking, now I am thinking I did something to this head gasket quite a while back and the ragged edges of the fire ring were causing knocking/pinging and when I went up that hill that was the straw that broke the camels back.
The edges of the fire ring are very sharp where it failed, the metal looks like it has been like that for a long time, it doesn't look like a new failure, but I am no expert, maybe this is a new failure and that is what it looks like, but I am thinking that the fire ring has been this way for a while and it was igniting the fuel when the engine was hot starting out from that signal, it didn't buck at an idle, only when I would get the rpms up a little like when making a left turn onto a city road with a 40mph or less speed limit, first, second and third would do it the worst, once I got into 4th gear my RPMs were low and the engine was cooling off, all I know is if this bucking/cutting out issue has gone away it is/was the head gasket issue in my mind, I just cannot think of anything that happened in the past 9 years except for when it was knocking a lot.

Little back story, when I built this engine back in 2011 I timed the cam wrong, and I drove it that way for several years without knocking/pinging issues, then someone posted a photo of a properly timed cam and I checked my fresh rebuilt engine next to the computer(3 feet away), it was wrong, then I checked the 520 with the L20b, it was wrong, then I checked the work truck, it was wrong, I fixed all of them, the fresh engine has never been started but it is timed right now, the 520 had more power afterwards(I run non-ethanol premium), but the work truck runs regular and it knocked something awful, I kept retarding the timing until I was at 0 degrees and it still knocked/pinged slightly on that uphill grade when it was hot outside, then I re-curved the distributor and then I was able to set the timing at around 7 degrees, it has been that way over the last few years except for recently I think I have been hearing it knock/ping again.

I am hoping for the best now, I think I will re-visit the timing again, the L20b is supposed to be at 12BTDC, I suspect I am supposed to be around there also, since I run regular I may not be able to get there but I am going to try.

It appears my compression ratio is fine and when I drove it across town it quit blowing white smoke, i blew out or cooked off all the coolant in the exhaust system, all is good with Wayno's work truck again.

OK, so I had not driven my work truck for a couple weeks as I didn't have any work, I had work Tuesday and the truck would not start, it was not even trying, I figured out if I let it sit it would hit once, after a while I figured it was likely flooded now so I removed the spark plugs one at a time, they were wet, so I got my fireplace lighter and I burned off the plugs till they were dry, and then I would light off each cylinder thru the spark plug hole so they would be dry when I put the spark plugs in, everything went fine till cylinder #4, the plug was soaked like all the rest, I burned the plug clean and then lit off the cylinder, it was amazing the amount of noise the explosion made, it sounded like a bomb went off, smoke came out from under the flatbed, I put the plug back in and it almost started, it took a couple more tries and it was running, but it was very noisy, I lifted the flatbed and this is what I found.



It blew the muffler to smithereens, it is actually a newer muffler I had installed a few years ago, I used the 521 kingcab to get the work done that day, the 521 kingcab don't like towing the trailer, especially on the freeway, my EGTs were very high.
So this morning I unbolted the muffler and cut the tail pipe off as i could not get it out and I used a few hose clamps to make the muffler round again, I pounded it back into a shape that all the metal was touching the sections it was supposed to be touching and I welded it back together.



It drove fine today, I have came to the conclusion that the gas in the dual SU carb bowls had spoiled and it would not run on that crap, and it just went out the exhaust and gathered in the muffler, obviously the exhaust valve was open when I lit off #4 cylinder, once it got some good gas it started trying to start but it was flooded, the pump gas they sell these days is crap, this is the only vehicle I burn pump gas in, all the rest of my gas engine trucks have non-ethanol fuel in them and they all start fine after sitting for months, so now I either have to start this truck every few days or change over to non-ethanol fuel in it also, normally I drive this truck everyday except over the 3 day weekends I have so I have had no issue with the fuel going bad.

This is freaking weird, today I lost the alternator on this truck, last week it was the 521 kingcab, I checked both my other trucks that had the battery connected but they work fine, I only have two alternators left for gas trucks and one is an 86 720 with a different plug.
I will change it out and hope the last one with the proper plug works properly.

All is good again, it appears to be charging 14 volts or close to that, it was not as hard to change it out as I thought, I was able to squeeze it past the oil filter, lower coolant hose, battery tray, and spark plugs/wires, there was a way thru there as it was not coming out the bottom, and the lower mount bolts were easy to deal with this time.

I am waiting to see if that was the RPM related noise I have had for a long time, it would be nice if it was but everyone knows how that goes, it is never that easy.

Well the RPM related noise is still there, so it was not the alternator.

Now I have another issue, I was bucking a head wind yesterday trying to keep the truck moving down the freeway heading to my job for the day, it was taking a lot of pedal to keep it above 55mph, I checked and it was basically floored, nothing good ever happens when I am pushing the engine that hard, I did the job and was heading back home with the wind this time and it was not any better, fact is it was missing a lot, I got home and popped the hood and antifreeze was everywhere but it did not over heat, I added coolant and decided to see what happened tomorrow.

Well things were not better, as long as I did not floor it then it was fine on the freeway, but it was missing quite a bit getting to the freeway, once I took the exit it was not too bad the rest of the way to the job, but when I rolled in to the job it was missing again, the coolant level was down again so i lifted the coolant reservoir and let everything in it drain into the radiator, when I started it it was missing again but smoothed out, I played a hunch and drove it without letting the engine run under compression, whenever I coasted or decelerated I took it out of gear and coasted, no more missing and it drove like normal, well in my mind this means head gasket.

I am letting the engine cool off before I pull the plugs to see which ones are steam cleaned as it likely is sucking coolant into at least one cylinder under compression, it was missing on only one cylinder(#4 last time), if it is 2 cylinders I will first check the intake manifold nuts to make sure they are not loose and sucking coolant into the intake like when floored, if only one cylinder then I suspect when I was almost floored it must have been knocking/pinging and I can not hear it like what happened last time on #4 cylinder, nothing good ever happens when it is floored for long periods of time.

I pulled all the plugs and I am at a loss on what the issue may be, all 4 plugs are white, now that is not the color that one wants them to be but they did not appear to have been wet either unless coolant turns them white, it appears it is running lean and after tomorrows job I will adjust the carbs to a richer position, but that does not account for the missing coolant, the engine bay was covered with it, I revved the engine with no radiator cap and it did not blow out coolant so that could possibly rule out a blown head gasket, I just don't know, I will look into it more tomorrow after my job and I will then have the whole weekend to work on the truck, I have never had white plugs before and the truck did not overheat at any point.

Soooo, I pulled the plugs again and looked at them again, they were not really white, more of a light tan, but none looked wet or steam cleaned, everything about the way this engine acted screamed blown head gasket.



So while they were out I did a compression check as this would likely show me which cylinders were involved, #1 was 180psi, #2 was 185psi, #3 was 185psi, and #4 was 190psi, this does not scream blown head gasket, I looked at the plugs and thought the gap was pretty large, #1 was 60, #2 and #3 were 54. and #4 was 50, pretty big gap on all of them, so I cleaned them up lightly, set the gap at 35, I backed off the timing a couple degrees and started it and it never missed a beat, lately it would miss when I started it.

I also adjusted the carbs, they are not really serviceable anymore, the front carb is acting weird but it was running light tan so they are not like my last set that that ran black as night(rich), while it was idling in the driveway the damned thing was acting like the thermostat was sticking, but when I revved it without the radiator cap on it was not trying to blow the coolant out, what would happen is all of a sudden the fluid would over flow for no reason, like all of a sudden the thermostat would open and all the hot water would rush out like the cooler water entering the block turned to steam, it had nothing to do with the engine RPM.

I threw all my tools in the cab as I have a job out near the Amboy/Yacolt area, I have this urge to remove the hood so I can see what is happening on that drive, the thermostat gauge never got even half way up while I was working on the truck.

I am really baffled by this, I did a compression check on this engine Saturday and all appeared to be alright, it was after all 180psi or higher, this did not worry me, my compression ratio is 8.9 to 1 but maybe that is low???

So I took it to the job today, it drove fair, it was not missing a lot but it was kinda gutless, but I was babying it also, when I got to the job site I lifted the hood and checked the coolant reservoir and it was full to the top, I emptied it back into the radiator, so after I finished the job when I started it it missed a little while, it was all down hill getting out of that area on dirt roads, I made it to the gate, got thru and pulled over and pulled the valve cover and no valves were tight, I pulled the thermostat also and it barely started, I made it maybe a mile and a half and on a slight upgrade the truck came to a stop, I was floored and barely able to hold what I had gotten, I was floored trying to get to the down hill part less than a quarter mile, every once it a while it would pick up RPMs briefly and I would get another 10 feet, this thing feels like it is running on two cylinders at best and I cannot keep it moving anymore, after fighting it for a while using the emergency brake to keep myself from coasting backwards it started hitting on more cylinders and I made it to the down hill part, I made it maybe a mile and it was running pretty good all of a sudden, I pulled over at a country store, popped the hood and seen the coolant flowing and added more water, I got out on the road again, now keep in mind that I am at least 30 miles from home with a trailer with all my equipment in it, this engine is going to have to blow up to stop me, once on the road it started missing pretty bad again, and I had a hill coming, I barely made it to the top of that hill going 10 to 20 MPH, after a while it started running better again and I came to the conclusion that when I add water it runs bad, the last time I added the water I left the radiator cap loose, I started watching my temp gauge, I figured out that it was not overheating so keep going as the coolant was flowing with no thermostat.
It was running pretty good by the time I made it home and the temp gauge never went over a 1/4 of the way up(no thermostat), I put it in the driveway and I pulled that thing apart, all the intake bolts were tight so coolant was not being sucked in thru the intake, I finally got the head off and that gasket looked fine except for one little spot but all the rings were in tacked, I could find only one spot that looked weird.

Here is the gasket, you can see one spot on the ring that is black, that hole it is close to does have a coolant port in the block but the head does not have a port there, it's a dead end, but you can see that black spot, the other side of the gasket looks bad there also, but the ring is good.




Here is the spot(both sides).




And here is the head in that spot and the head also, should I drill 2 holes in the head so it is not a dead end?




And here is the block, there are clean places near the intake valves, #1 is the cleanest.




And here is the coolant hole in the block, nothing looks wrong.


I checked the block for cracks and found nothing that was not there before, I checked the head with a straight edge and it is flat, I just don't see anything that would make it run so bad, and there is no coolant in the oil, the timing chain is where it is supposed to be, it did not skip any teeth which was what I was thinking at one point, I just do not see a reason for it to be floored and only be able to get 2000rpms out of gear with the clutch pushed in, and I checked everything at that gate, I even checked for fuel as it has an electric fuel pump.

Do any of you here see a reason for it to barely run, it was pushing the coolant out when I revved it when the radiator was full, but if the coolant was low enough with the cap loose it did not over heat on the whole trip home, I have no idea how hot that head got, but I started pulling it apart right after I got home and the times I did add coolant it did not spit it back out at me as the engine was not over heated, when the coolant was low it ran way better.