coupe72001

I've got fingers in pies all over the shop. My day job pretty is boring.

Hold the phone - the dripping has stopped!!! Call me optimistic but maybe I was just seeing the dregs of the last failed experiment leaking from the car. The radiator has stayed full all weekend and first thing I am going to see how she holds up under steam. You never know... D

So I pulled a timing cover off a wreck, cleaned scrubbed and sprayed that sucker with a rust-proof paint (and held it up in the light just in case). Then I bolted it onto the car using the wardie technique - all good. In fact I was feeling so confident that I had reassembled 99% of the car before I filled it with water and filled up the sump. Again. Err... WTF? I had to swear for like 20 minutes. The old timing cover clearly had a hole. Does this mean that the new cover also has a hole, but somewhere that I couldn't see it? Has the cancer spread in the MONTH that the car has been on blocks? Perhaps I have offended the god of Skyline and he wants me to buy a Commodore.

Seen it... an I agree that its pretty wild... but too much and not original unfortunately. More looking for grandma's old C210 growing cobwebs under a tree somewhere.

Please let me know if you ever spot any of the above dumped/for sale on the side of the road. Im prepared to hit the council auctions to get a hold of it etc.

Im looking specifically to buy these cars. Prefer complete original cars but will consider almost anything including parts and engines etc. Give me a call on 0410 842 016 or [email protected] Australia-wide fine but VIC, NSW and QLD are easiest for me. Thanks Drew

You were spot on Wardie. Pulled the timing cover held it up into the sun and... er... saw the light as the saying goes. Pin hole behind the water pump. Your keep-the-head-on strategy worked a treat too. Ill dig up another cover tomorrow morn and should be on the road again for the weekend. Thanks again to everyone who helped me out with this one.

But I only just got the timing cover and bits back on! Arrrrgh!!!! (sobs into keyboard) Oh well... guess dont have a choice. Thanks Wardie for the tip on the sneaky way to remove the cover - at least that will save me many bloody-knuckled hours. I think I already know the answer, but are the timing covers identical for all the L6's? There are dozens to choose from at the local wreckers.

Ok... so I reassembled my engine, refilled it with oil and coolant, got her started, and the sump filled up with coolant again. Having assumed that I had damaged the head gasket getting the head on, I removed the head, cleaned and polished everything really well, and then replaced the head gasket very, very carefully. The head bolts got tightened in three stages, in the correct order. I fired her up again and the sump filled up with coolant. Again. In fact with the engine off you can pour water into the radiator, and watch it drip back out of the oil sump drain hole almost as quickly. I decided that maybe the intake manifold had a hole in it, so I blocked it off at both ends and filled the radiator again... no go. When I had the water pump out there was no obvious damage or holes underneath on the block, and with the head off there appeared to be coolant down in the water jackets, so I dont think that the block has cracked. Can anyone think of what I may have missed? Better still, does anyone have a spare L28 block? Ill pay money for it. No joke; swapping the engine is going to be faster, cheaper and easier than trying to sort this mess. I think my L26 has been hexed. Possibly voodoo. Im not sure. Drew

Been playing with trade me a bit and sadly the NZ dollar's worth a lot more than 50c these days. Actually its not far off equal!

Just in case you miss it in the classified I have some after-market badges and fender mirrors. You can get you 70's skyline/240k looking like the Japanese model! GL... It should read GT! What were they thinking? http://www.skylinesaustralia.com/forums/in...howtopic=178070 Cheers, Drew

I have after-market badges to suit Skylines and 240ks. I have the rear quarter "Skyline" and "GT" badges, a "240K GT" badge for the rear and a couple of "S" badges for the grill. I also have a set of new black fender mirrors for the above cars. The mirrors are after-market non-electric Japanese items, not available in Australia, specifically for the models mentioned above. Get me on [email protected] or 0410 842 016. Mirrors are $150 and badges are $20 a set. Postage is free! We can work out a price if you want a complete set of badges etc. Cheers, Drew

Cheers Wardie, I finally got there in the end and got it running. I was very confused because the timing gauge attached to the block was missing! Unfortunately the sump promptly filled up with coolant again. I mashed the head gasket a tiny bit getting the head back on (it's really not a one man job I have decided), so that is probably the cause of my woes. The block is holding coolant, so I dont think there is a crack in the block anywhere. Ill try a new head gasket tomorrow, this time with a mate to help lower the head onto the block gently! Fingers crossed that it works this time. D

Actually, apparently the head being aluminium makes it a little vunerable to heat and abuse. You've certainly had a good run with yours though. Can anyone help me out. I have never set the timing of the car while static before. Before I turn the key can someone tell me if Im on the right track? - number one piston should be at TDC on the compression stroke. - the rotor button should be pointing at number one on the distributor cap - the crank pulley timing mark should be vertical (or lined up with something on the block maybe?) - the timing-chain sprocket slips onto a dowl on the camshaft. That dowl should be at 12 o'clock. - something else I dont know about..? At this stage I feel like it'll be nothing short of a miracle if I get the car running again without if hemoraging from somewhere. Interesting lesson to pull so much of my car apart though. D

Thanks for the tip wardie. I have followed your suggestion and your pony is in the post. Im yet to fill it up with oil and fire it up yet, but Ill let you know how it goes. I actually made a bit of a mess of the gasket initially when I tried to get the sump all the way off before it clicked that it was fouling the oil pick up.

Honestly, anytime someone recommends another car or engine I just cant justify it financially. I have already sunk a small fortune into this one, and cant help but fantasizing that its at least getting close to sorted. I mean, what's next, throwing a rod through the block? At the moment I am running an open-single spinner diff. My new subaru LSD centre just arrived in the post, and Ill so some mixing and matching with the busted LSD to make it accept my driveshafts. Brake pads are also in the post. Anyway... got my cleaned and machined head and a gasket kit late last week and decided to fit it myself. Things went really well till I needed to refit the timing chain sprocket. I let the chain go slack and the spring-loaded timing-chain tensioner popped out. To pop it back in I needed to remove the engine front cover. Ill spare you the details, but 10 hours later, knee deep in car parts, I removed the engine front cover and put the tensioner back in it's home. Here's the punchline - as I removed the engine front cover I tore the sump gasket... and as far as I can tell, there is no replacing it without lifting the engine out. If anyone can help me out of this jam Ill buy them a pony. On the positive side I made an awesome crank-pulley-puller out of a piece of 2 by 4 with one large and 2 small holes drilled in it and a couple of 4 inch by 1/4 inch bolts. It looks like this: [oOo] you put the 1/4 inch bolts through the small holes and screw them into the pulley. You remove the pulley bolt with a socket that you insert through the really big hole. This will stop the pulley turning as you undo the bolt. Banzai!

Sigh... when the car was a completely original car with a clunky 3spd auto nothing went wrong. It was just really slow. Then I got a hole in the exhausted and made my first mistake - attaching twin carbies, extractors/exhaust and a 240k 5spd - they all blew up good... (on a trip from NSW to Vic I lost 2nd, 3rd and 5th gear!) Then theives damaged the locks and stereo and a kid went up the back of it writing the car off (financially - it was only a dent!) I got the mushy mushy suspension sorted at pedders, and that has held up really well. I bought the rally car with the idea to poach the tricked 5 spd box and sell the rest, but then I just went silly and swapped EVERYTHING into my car - (the squeaky/leaky) big brakes, the (since blown up) L26, the great gearbox, suspension bits, wheels, (the since blown up) diff, round taillights... The only thing I didn't do was the rollcage! (I like my interior too much to cut it up.) Now the car FLIES, then it breaks down, then it FLIES, then it breaks down... No exageration, it really does hammer along when it isn't being repaired - which is about 50% of the time.

and a cracked hotdog... how could I forget - that one nearly landed me a defect notice!

The Machine shop says that there are small cracks between the valves, but they are not leaking under pressure - so the head should be right to go back on once its decked and tidied up... The nasty business was caused by the head gasket, that had started to seperate in places (rather than breaking between cylinders). They recommended a standard gasket set, as the copper ones do not provide much benefit to low-compression engines, and the block/head requires more machining for them to seat just right anyway. All going well Ill be back on the road sometime soon for a reasonable outlay. I forgot to add my deceased Toiko 15/16 brake master cylinder to the list of busted parts.

Mate $200 is just for the copper gasket! There are standard kits available very cheap from the states though. Anyway, I pulled the head off today and my head-gasket was undamaged! There was no obvious damage to the head either. Ill get it crack-tested in the morning anyway. Possibly the previous owner failed to retension the head bolts before selling it to me. Has anyone else had copious amount water leak into the engine from anything other than blown/cracked head? D

That's really good to know, cheers. The previous owner of my car clearly had kids who liked chewing gum and boiled sweets. Impossible to remove from the carpet (the gum as opposed to the kids).

Thanks mate, Ill let you know once I hear how nasty the damage is... D

Hi mate, really good to hear from you, It turns out that I swapped my stock L24 for a modified L26 (with a ton of receipts) that came out of a smashed up rally car that I purchased. The current head is an E88, and the block an L26 for sure, with all the head-work commissioned by the previous owner. My original L24 has long since been sold (for next to nothing!) My car is running twin SU's and a bumpy cam. I don't actually know if it runs flat-top pistons... if there is an easy way to find out I'd be happy to hear about it. It's naturally aspirated at any rate. I'm not planning any further mod's to the engine, Im just looking for reliability... if an expensive copper head-gasket will make any difference then I'd be prepared to pay for one! Which would you recommend if it comes down to re-welding my E88 or purchasing a second-hand but undamaged head? I'm yet to deliver the head to the local machine shop. For the record I have a factory manual and "How to rebuild your Nissan and Datsun OHC engine" by Tom Monroe... a combination that I highly recommend to fellow novices. Cheers, D

Thanks for the support fellas. I have decided to replace the head all by myself. First time, so this should be hilarious. If anyone has some tips for me I'd love to hear them. Importantly I'd like to know; will a standard aftermarket head gasket suffice, or should I be shelling out for a pricier copper gasket, or something else altogether? Its an L26 by the way. Also, if the head is really cracked/warped nastily, I may be in the market for another head. I know its been touched on before, but can anyone remind me of the finest of all the naturally aspirated heads that will suit? (Mines a ported E88 from memory) Thanks.

Oh yeah, I forgot... Im going to shoot the next person that snaps off my aerial. It's not funny anymore.