New World Datsuns...

Taterhead wrote: ↑Tue May 28, 2019 10:00 am like pissing a razor blade

It appears that this weekend my friend with an SD22 powered 720 diesel is going to come over to my place and we are going to turbocharge his engine, he has the turbo and a couple other things, I have most of the rest needed, I plan on documenting every step, we should get it done in one visit, but he will have to take it to the exhaust shop for the exhaust system, plan to temporarily use flex exhaust pipe to get him there, I have had flex pipe on mine since changing/lowering my turbo so I could use my stock hood, I am so happy I did that and everything else I did after that.

That would be a great job for it's own thread. Make it easier for googlers to find in the future. I'll be looking forward to it.

Yea I thought about that on the adapter plate also, should have had its own thread.
I was unable to find anyone to mill the turbo manifold flat, tried a couple places, so I bought a 4" wide X 36" long belt sander belt and cut it on the seam, put it on a flat piece of plywood and have been sanding away for a while, I took a break and sat down on front of the computer.



I have had this piece of plywood for years, used it to make my RC airplane wings as it is flat.

I didn't document this turbo install as I should have, too many issues, some just getting the stock stuff off, but it is on the road without an exhaust system, it's just pointed straight down between the torsion bar and the transmission.
It doesn't appear to have the power I was expecting, not even close, but it is a 2200cc engine, mine are 2500cc engines, he drove it home without issues, it likely has close to 50 or more miles on it with the turbo.
It showed over 15psi a few times, and I seen it get over 1200 degrees a couple times, we found a little more power making it run richer, so it is getting boost and fuel, it's just a smaller engine I think, and i have not drove an SD22 powered engine in years, so I do not remember what one feels like anymore, I kept asking him and he didn't know, so I told him to drive it for a while and then decide if it has more power, after he got home he messaged me saying it did have more power, we shall see what he says in a week.

The guy came to my house at 10am, I talked about him having regular pistons rather than turbo pistons before we started and how he was going to have to pick an exhaust gas temperature(EGT) number that he would not exceed, mine is 1400 degrees, I suggest 1200 degrees for him, then we started.
We had issues, while I was re-configuring the turbocharger to have everything at all the right angles he was taking the intake/exhaust off his engine, he could not get the rear nut off the stud, he had to remove the block breather to get at it from the bottom, he also could not get the down pipe nuts off the exhaust manifold, it took way longer than expected to get everything removed, and this is why I forgot about taking photos.
While everything was removed we installed the oil feed lines fittings and oil line, that went without issues although we had to use one of my old tees as the new one I bought for this wasn't tapered properly even though I got it to work in my old block in storage.
Next my home made manifold didn't slide onto his head studs like it did on my head in the work bench, we also had to use my intake manifold as his didn't fit the exhaust manifold I made, we finally got it all mounted, the turbo was already mounted on the exhaust manifold.
Next we got the exhaust down pipe lengthened/mounted, he didn't seem to be worried about this and I made him work with me on this, it worked out well although he didn't buy the flex pipe I wanted him to buy(6' piece), he bought a couple different sized 2' pieces which never got used, he drove out of here with the down pipe pointed at the ground coming out between the torsion bar and the transmission case.
Next we dealt with the oil drain line for the turbo, the tee he got(5/8ths like I told him) which looked way too big did work out, I would likely do what he suggested next time and buy a smaller tee for splicing into the vacuum pump oil return line, then using a reducer coming off the oil return fitting on the turbo, it's 5/8ths(huge), but it worked out although the rubber tubing we used is not likely made for oil, but there is no pressure in this line, it is a drain line, I suggested he could make another setup as today we were just trying to get this setup in and running, there were no leaks in this setup during the test drives.
Next was the turbo piping, there was issue, I should have noticed it right away but I didn't, my brake booster/master is on about a 3 inch pedestal, well his is on a 5 inch pedestal which has the turbo semi pointed at the brake master, this was an issue, I got the rubber fitting on the turbo exit mounted at an angle and we bent the brake lines out of the way once we removed his radiator over flow reservoir as it was also in the way, we got it all piped but he is going to need a different coolant reservoir and I suggested buying different turbo piping that would clear the brake master better/cleaner and I messaged him with examples, this brake master clearance issue was not expected, although I should have seen it coming as I mentioned the pedestal issue days before.
The coolant piping went off without any issues although he was not impressed with how I did it, compromises were made but what I did didn't leak during the test drives, neither did the oil drain line setup or any of the oil feed lines.
During one of the test drives the intake piping blew apart and it was very oily inside the piping, not sure why oil was in there as there is no vacuum in that piping the way it is, but oil is getting sucked thru the seal or the seal in the turbo is crap, we got it back to the house during that test drive and I found a better clamp to hold that piping together, he said the drive home went well.
He was here 11 hours and 15 minutes, if things went smoothly and all the parts needed were here and ready to use it would likely take 6 hours, maybe slightly longer with the proper exhaust piping, we did over an hour of test driving, and had to go to Home depot and buy intake fittings to get the turbo piped to the intake filter canister, I am fairly sure this cost over $400.00 in parts alone not counting the pyro and boost gauges, both were not what I expected but we were able to get them to work with what i made and had, it just took a little more time/parts to deal with, he drove it here and drove it home and that was the goal, whether the result was worth the effort is yet to be determined, I like doing stuff like this myself, just at a slower pace, 6 hours would have been great, but this was a different truck/engine.

Today I decided to see why my fish pond water was not clearing up, it's been green since the sun came out a while back, I have these bio-filters that should have worked/cleared the water by now.
Well I suspect there was too much mud suspended in the water in the filters and the water was not passing across the ribbon inside the filters because the ribbon was covered with mud, the ribbon has biological bacteria on it that eats/removes algae and fish crap/piss so the water doesn't become toxic and kill the fish, that is how it works in nature, and that is how it works in my pond also.
Fact is I want to be able to see my pet fish, some of them are 20 years old.
I actually added another bio-filter to help, but it has no bacteria started on it so it will take a while to work, but my other 2 filters ribbon media was rinsed of mud with pond water in a bucket so it should work right away, if I used tap water the chlorine in the water would have killed all the bacteria and it would have taken a month or more to get new bacteria started, I am hoping for clear water in a week as I have done this before.

I thought I had the flatbed sold but the guy backed out, so I made a set of mini axles to be able to move the flatbed around, I wish it would fit in my back yard but it is too wide to get between the house and my fence.
They are cheap wheels I bought at Harbor Freight, they are rated for 300lbs each, but the hub of the wheel doesn't take a lot of sideways pressure before bending as I tried to lift and move one end sideways and it bent the wheel, but it was easy to bend back, I made a way to turn the flatbed but need another wheel, maybe I will buy a couple more tomorrow as one of my engine stands needs another wheel as the one it has only holds air for a minute if I am lucky.
These mini axles are not welded/bolted to the frame rails, I welded 90 degree pieces of angle iron(foot long) to the axle and the frame rails just sit in them, if I lift the flatbed up they will fall off the frame rails, but they were made to roll the flatbed around my driveway, not down the street.

I like it.

I need a pair of wheels like that so I can build a little trailer for my sprayer. Would they be sturdy enough to haul 100-150 pounds?

The tires are rated for 300lbs each, I do not know what the flatbed weighs but I am sure your sprayer is a lot less weight, 2 of them are good for 600lbs, but like I said the hubs/rims are not that strong with side pressure.
I paid $6.50 each and I made sure they were holding air before buying them, one cannot expect a lot out of them, I just want the tires to hold air.
I use these tires on my engine stands, them diesel engines weigh a lot, I towed one with my tractor, so unless your sprayer tank holds a 100 gallons I expect they would work for your sprayer.

The water in the pond is completely clear now.

Yes they will hold the sprayer, but I always have to air up the ones on my hand trucks.


Pond looks good Wayno.

That is why when I buy them wheels they have to be holding air on the shelf, even if they are half flat I will not buy them, I actually look for the ones that are fully inflated and almost rock hard.
I have enough of them tires that lose all their air overnight, with weight on them after they go flat they don't last long if they are flat for a long time, the sidewalls crack where the weight was resting on them.
My hand truck wheels also would not hold air anymore either, I bought a new set from HF also a while back, all is good with that now.

When the water clears I know the biological system is working properly, when it is working properly the fish eat the food like it was their last meal, if they don't eat like that I start looking around to figure out why, some of them fish are 20 years old.

I made a stand for the TommyGate so I could show it working and use it if I wanted to, say to get something heavy high enough to get into the 521kc or 720kc, I would not trust it to lift something really heavy, but I am pretty sure it will lift a block.



I have not been doing a lot around here, healing from the transmission thing.

Kinda surprised you haven't sold that yet.

I guess I should have started a thread about the adapter plate I made here instead of this thread, but I originally just did it to see if I could do it, that is why it was put in this thread.
Andrew(Bananahamuck on Ratsun) posted a response in my thread about this plate I made over there, I guess JJ put one of the 2 plates I sold to Andrew in his 1967 Datsun 411 and Andrew appears to be very happy with the result as he is sending a transmission out to be rebuilt so he can put one in his 411.
This happened yesterday but I just noticed the response this morning, I asked a few questions and am waiting for a response, the 411 and 520/521 are different than the 320(transmission mount/exhaust) so I wanted some feedback.

The last few days I have been playing around with the turbo manifold I made, I changed it so I would have a box sort of like the 521 turbo manifold has.



Then after I made it I realized today that the alternator vacuum pump barb hit it, so I modified it.



After that above I pulled out the SD25 engine I overheated several years ago that never ran the same afterwards, I now regret tearing it apart, what I feared the most did not happen, there are no cracks between the valves, the head appears to be perfect, the piston tops also appear to be perfect, maybe it just needed a new injection pump, I have no idea why it smoked so bad, maybe the valve seals got wasted when it overheated, or maybe it just has something to do with the rings.





I do not have the equipment to measure the cylinders and pistons to see if they are in spec, if they are I would just re-ring it, have the head checked, and have the injection pump rebuilt if I can find someone reasonable to do the work, I have never done any measuring on engine blocks before, I may just ask my machine shop to do it, but I really don't need another rebuilt diesel engine around here, I have one SD22 out back with less than a 1000 miles, I have an SD25 crate engine(0 miles) in the back room beside my rebuilt LZ23(0 miles), I have a lot of running engines around here not in vehicles.

I am not working much right now and I get bored, so I tinker around with stuff, I also am trying to get things around here more organized and get rid of what I do not need.

I went to my machinist and talked with him about this block, I told him the head looks great and the pistons look almost new and I told him the bores were smooth, I cleaned out each cylinder once I got home and looked closer, all four photos are of the driver side of the cylinders.
#1 cylinder

#2 cylinder

#3 cylinder

#4 cylinder


Except for these lines which I cannot even feel or catch my finger nail on are what are there in each cylinder, the other side of each cylinder may have a few lines also but not as bad if having any lines at all, #4 has none at all on the other side.

The rest of each cylinder has cross hatching, it can be seen in the photos, I could not even see any of these lines until I wiped the cylinders down with a rag, now I said the pistons look almost new except for #2 which has a few dents and one raised spot.

Also I noticed something, #3 piston comes up short of the deck by 1mm, #1, #2, and #4 are flush with the deck, this seems weird to me, 1mm is a lot considering I have not loosened the rod ends or crank bolts.
#1 piston

#2 piston

#3 piston

#4 piston


I tapped on #3 rod end and nothing changed, but I tapped from the bottom up instead of turning the engine over.
The gap.


The more I look at this engine the less I like it now because I do not know what is except-able, but I don't want to throw anything away that I may need in the future either.

What is the bore size/stroke length? My guess would be that there is enough side load on the pistons due to Nissan probably just making the stroke bigger. So when the Crank is shoving the Piston up, its scuffing more on that side.

Piston 3 being lower is weird, I do not know enough to even guess.

I just finished taking everything off the engine except the front plate, I was thinking about turning it over and removing the pistons taking a real hard look at #3, there has to be a reason it is lower at the top of the stroke.

It appears to have a 100mm stroke and an 89mm bore.