seattlejester

With the background out of the way I want to focus on the specifics of the 2jz-ge NA-T swap. Acquiring the engine: As it sounds to do this swap we start off with an NA 2jz-ge engine. As mentioned earlier the desired engine will be from an SC300 or an NA MK4 supra. Personally the SC300 engine seems to be much easier to source and on my quick search yielded 4 engines below $1000. For reference the four engines I found were as follows: $900 - out of an sc300 86k miles from a japanese engine recycler, 30 day warranty $650 - out of an sc300, 123k miles purchased from a wreckers, had new belts and accessories, but was converted to front sump, engine was running on AEM $600 - out of an sc300, 173k miles, engine was running prior to pull $200 - out of an sc300, unknown miles, missing crank pulley, unknown condition I reached out to the second on the list, which is when I found out that it was a front sump, he said he could do $500 and deliver if I was interested since he misplaced the rear sump setup. He even referred me to the third engine on the list. Third engine was high mileage and the seller stated that they go over 400k miles regularly. While that may be true, using that to try and sell the engine didn't do it for me so I stayed with the second one. The last engine on the list turned up after I had setup the deal. I contacted the seller with thoughts that I could buy the engine, swap pans and sell the other engine to those who wanted a front sump (cressida, miata, bmw I think). The seller said that he had no info on the engine that it was left in his shop and that he was looking for a front sump and so wanted to sell it. I asked if he would be interested in trading for a front sump and thus my deal was set. Acquire engine number two and swap the pan for engine number four. Rear oil pan: The 2jz came with 3 different oil pan locations. These are the front, mid, and rear sump. The front sump is pretty obvious, the mid sump is going to have a full pan somewhere in the middle, the rear sump is going to look similar except the lower pan is going to be notched favoring the rear. Be careful given that many 2jz-gte motors are sold with front sumps and people desire the rear sump for chassis with steerings racks up front some people will try to pedal the wrong pan or mislabel pans. The 2jz also came with an upper and lower oil pan, with the upper pan being made out of aluminum and acting almost like a brace. For a complete swap the parts desired are, the upper oil pan, the lower oil pan, the baffle, the pickup tube, the oil dip stick, and potentially the oil level sender if desired. All these can be acquired new still, but at a price of $750 or more it would be preferable to buy an engine with the rear sump. At the time of purchase two used sets were available online at ebay at about $300. Luckily I managed to work out a trade for most of the parts. There are several 10mm bolts holding the lower steel pan on after removing tapping in a screw driver with a rubber mallet lifted the surface easily. With that removed you can remove the oil level sender with 4x10mm bolts, then the baffle with 2 or 3 10mm bolts. The oil pickup can also be removed with two 10mm nuts. Be careful you don't loose the gasket. With the pickup and baffle removed you have access to the 12 or 14mm bolts holding the upper oil pan to the block. After all the bolts are removed look for the special pry slots on the side near the rear of the block, sticking a flathead hear and twisting the block easily comes apart. When applying the new pan you want to apply an adequate amount of silicone, but not too much. I've encountered it before, but here once again I encountered an overuse of silicone with large gobs protruding in towards the rotating assembly. Too much and you can clog up your pickup, if you are not sure how much is enough use a roller with adequate pressure! If you want to be precise the manual recommends a 2-3mm bead. Trust me even at that amount you will have plenty squeeze out so try not to go overboard. The exact route to take around the bolts are also located in the manual. Turbo oil drain: While the upper oil pan is physically off the block is an excellent time to drill out the location for the turbo oil drain. Thankfully all oil pans seem to come with the turbo drain flange cast into the aluminum. It is a simple matter of drilling the hole in the flange and introducing the drain fitting. A simple hole can be carefully drilled with the pan on the block and the engine flushed if inconvenient, but it is quite easy to take the pan off while the engine is on a stand and highly recommended for a clean install. Correction, with the upper oil pan off the engine is the ONLY time to drill out the location. Drilling out the aluminum sent an entire handful of aluminum everywhere. You might be able to do the old oil pan on the car trick with a thin steel oil pan, but with this aluminum oil pan you really want to consider taking it off the car. Some stats, the holes for the bolts to secure a flange are 4.3mm wide and 15mm deep. That is native for a M5 tap, but highly recommended to just widen it out. I wanted to stay towards the metric spectrum although it will be AN fittings, so I decided to step up a little bit to a M6x1 bolt that way if I end up stripping it I can size up. I used my brain and thought to get a 25mm bolt as the flange was 10mm. Think about it, a tap will have a tip and won't make threads all the way to the bottom. I think I drilled the hole an additional 10-15mm just to get a couple threads in the top. You can drill all the way through into the pan, but then you have to consider teflon or sealing the bolt holes so I decided not to do that. With a couple washers I was able to tap the holes sufficiently to attach the AZ performance flange which has an integrated o-ring for sealing and a milled AN-10 Male fitting. Alternatively: You can purchase a block off plate with a 10AN fitting on it for the oil level sender from drift motion. Turbo oil feed: This is most easily taken from the driver side of the block via an IS300 pressure sending bolt. This bolt secures the oil filter adapter, but the IS300 has a hole and threads to intercept an oil pressure signal. You can either run a fitting straight off of the bolt or T the bolt for oil pressure and feed functions. The threading is for a 1/8 BSPT. While similar to a 1/8 NPT it is off by one thread per inch count. That means you will get maybe two threads in before the thread mismatch really binds up hard. Some people just crank a 1/8 NPT fitting in, I recommend buying an adapter so it can be removed without risking blowing out the threads or having to buy a new adapter bolt. Headgasket: Now would also be an excellent time to do an inspection of the head and swap the head gasket. There are a couple options here, but basically you want to avoid the 0.2mm stock head gasket. You can use the 2jzgte head gasket which is 1.3mm which will bring compression to around 9.2:1. Alternatively you can use a 2.4 or 2.5mm gasket from cometic or the supra store or other locations to bring it down to a very boost friendly 8.5:1. This will of course depend on if you went with a VVTI or non VVTI system as their compression values differ slightly. Also keep in mind lowering the compression via the head gasket will reduce the quench area as the head gasket spaces the combustion chamber apart. The stock head gasket leaves a lot of residue and what I assume to be compressed/burnt rubber. To make the surface adequate for sealing I chose to use a 120 grit bristle Roloc wheel from 3m. At $10 a wheel and $5 for the adapter to fit a die grinder it is far easier to scrape then using a razor blade scraper. There are heated arguments regarding copper spray. Cometic uses a rubber coating to assist with sealing on their gaskets, using copper spray which has acetone will lift the coating off allowing it to shift. Many have reportedly used the copper spray anyways to no ill effect. Personally after conversation with cometic, I have decided not to use the copper spray. I will update if it comes to bite me and I have to spray the surface down. Rebuild: Now the question comes, with the head off and the block stripped what is stopping you from a refresh? It all comes down to what you are comfortable with and what you desire. It is true, these engines can handle a fair amount of abuse and have fairly long life expectancies. A rebuild from my local shop costs around $1000 (400 for head rebuild, 250 for short block assembly, 100 for deglaze, 100 for wash, 150 or so for fitting new rings, 100 for preliminary clean freeze plug removal and freeze plug installation) if you bring it to them and assemble it yourself. On the flip side engines with good compression may last for quite a while, so it depends on if you are the type of person who is a "while I am at it" or if you are the type of person who is "don't fix it if it ain't broke" of course there is merit to do while it is out and in pieces, but to each their own. After pulling the head, my 123k motor had factory cross hatching that was still intact, no visible cracks on the mating surface, pistons that cleaned up very easily which said this motor still had a lot of life left in it. I found a lot of hard rust like buildup on the exhaust valves, given I was going with a legitimate turbo I did not want to shoot these hard bits at the exhaust wheel so I opted for a head rebuild. Head rebuild by a familiar shop in my area cost about $700. It is usually about $500, but they wanted to use better quality valve stem seals then the ones I supplied and had to buy 24 new shims at ~$5 a piece after machining the valves and changing the angle of the valve seats to hold more boost. If you are very cheap you can probably have a shop just do a valve regrind and clean for around $400. I opted for the extra services for my absolute end game.

So I've been thinking about this for a while with some of the recent excellent threads on doing this on a budget and my untimely demise of my 7mgte. I figured I would post my thoughts and findings so it may help with others. Why swap the 2jz: similar to the reasoning behind why I went with the 7mgte, it has the intake on the driver side and exhaust on the passenger (cross flow), twin cam, 4 valves per cylinder, lots of aftermarket support, available in the US, smooth inline 6, higher displacement etc etc etc. I've had this argument with some, but bottom line is it is easier to do the exhaust on the toyota motors, it is easier to get parts (walk into the auto parts store, or get next day from toyota dealer to toyota dealer). Why is the 2jz so reliable: The 2jz was, as I have been told, part of the Z series of engines, starting with the 1uz-fe. This was when toyota stepped up in-house machining and thus tolerances and such were much better controlled. Mistakes from the earlier 7m were rectified and an extensive racing program helped shine some insight into problem areas. Why is the 2jz so popular: The reason for its popularity was in part due to the old hot rod process. Start tearing the car down on Friday and by Sunday morning you could hit the drag strip with lots of added power. Given the reliable bottom end, bolting on a bigger turbo with injectors along with supporting mods meant you could up the power with minimal changes. Given the reliability of these motors that means that cores are not usually sought out as readily and given the high usage of this motor in applications other then the venerable supra (aristo, sc300, is300, gs300, etc etc) means that blocks are plentiful and cheap. While the Supra got the movie boost from the Fast and the Furious movies, a lot of other pedestrian cars escaped without the high markup that the Supras face while still being potent. What different kinds of 2jzs are there: The 2jz blocks you will encounter will be mainly 4 kinds, the 2jz-ge, the 2jz-ge VVTI, the 2jz-gte, and the 2jz-gte VVTI. The VVTI is the variable valve train system and can be noted by a bulge on the intake side of the cam gear cover. The gte motors can be differentiated from the ge motors via their one piece spark plug cover, the lack of cross over intake and obviously the turbos. The oil pans that we want are going to be rear sump pans found in the SC300 and the NA and turbo Supras. There are some other differences between later versions and earlier versions as well as exported vs domestic models, strangely one of the seemingly few times it seems like the american market got a better model with exported 2jz-gte engines featuring higher output injectors and steel compressor wheels. 2jz-gte VVTI and 2jz-ge VVTI 2jzgte Non-VVTI VVTI vs non-VVTI: It will be up to you what you want to run, the VVTI system can help with spooling up the turbo a bit faster, but will require an ECU that is capable of managing the system. The plain old non VVTI is easier in the aspect that it does not have the system to deal with. The VVTI also runs at higher compression by raising the compression while maintaining the stroke. That means the pistons physically come closer to the valves to the point that the VVTI motors ARE interference motors. Non-VVTI motors ARE NOT interference motors. Additionally in NA spec, the non-VVTI rods are thicker and wider while the VVTI rods are thinner and skinnier non-VVTI rods on the left, VVTI rods on the right 2jz-ge vs the 2jz-gte: If you plan on running a stock ECU, then you will run into limitations with the GE motors. They are dizzy driven and with the relatively high compression values of 10:1 you will run into issues with modest amounts of boost. This can of course be rectified with a programmable dizzy or electronically controlled ignition along with lowering the compression via a much thicker head gasket, but it will be up to the user to determine what they desire. Benefits of the 2jz-gte include a Forward Facing Intake Manifold, 440-550cc injectors, turbo manifolds, twin turbos, oil squirters, turbo feed and drain fittings, a fairly forgiving ECU, and personally a more aesthetically pleasing valve cover. The downfall is that they have movie status, and that depending on your location finding one at an affordable price may prove difficult, with many commanding prices of 3-4k right from the engine importer. Alternatively you can purchase the lowly 2jz-ge block usually with a warranty from an importer for under 1k or from a junkyard for below $500. Still editing and will correct and add more info as needed!

I went with BC as my post stated for my own reasons as stated. Talk to TTT. Gabe will have his recommendations, which you can find echoed in the forum, he will also make adjustments based on what you are running or plan to run. Talk to the shop you plan on using. These are suspension pieces so you want to make sure that they have either done it before or have the capability to do so. This does require some decent work if you want everything to line up, so unless you are confident be careful. Also keep in mind the down time involved. If you plan on pulling the suspension yourself having a completely assembled set to put back in right away will save you time over having to wait for a shop. Also some advice would be to get the replacement pieces for the wear parts while you are down there, ball joints, tie rod ends, tension arm bushing (G-machine or stock rubber, do not do poly here).

^What risks? As long as the timing is in check and the fuel is adequate and the build is done appropriately there is no added risk. This also has a chain so there is more safety then a belt driven motor. If you don't use this combo and start going for a custom piston with a lower pin height for compression and have to machine in valve reliefs then you are looking at some risk. If CR is a concern you can get custom pistons, if you want to make power without changing the compression a turbo would be much cheaper.

Just so you know slammed z's don't really handle with the control arms angled up your camber changes fairly drastically. And once you go that low you are probably going to have to start considering adjustable arms and such. Mentioning track performance for a car that gets driven on the street is probably misleading. Does your budget include what a shop costs to do the task? Someone's recent quote for having them removed, welded, reinstalled, and setup was $1200 or so, that is on the high side, but not unreasonable, have you asked around? BC has minimal camber adjustment, even with the 4 bolts if you go anywhere near low you aren't going to be able to hit neutral camber even maxed out. Stance and T3 have a fairly large range thanks to the larger adjustment window. I like the T3 personally, it is more tried and true, and Gabe has been a pleasure to deal with he helped me generate a quote and gave his recommendations which were inline with a lot of things I had read on the forum. You can buy the kit pre built and just ship your struts back to him for credit towards adjustable arms. I ended up going with BC's personally as I already had strut bars I didn't want to modify and I personally wanted a set with anti-droop characteristics. Fernando was a pleasure to deal with, the lead time wasn't bad either, Fernando recommended a little bit higher then I had seen recommended elsewhere, but both his cars look like they ride low so I imagine the extra spring rate keeps the wheels off the arches. In the end they came to a custom specification spring wise as I wanted a little more spring up front to deal with heavier engine and transmission while still staying below what I personally considered on the harsh side of things. Read up and see what appeals to you. CX racing I know very little about, I imagine similar to the BC setup. If so, the BC and the CX racing setups are a real pain to adjust camber wise, you have to drop the strut to do so unless you get a reinforced modified strut top that someone had designs of, at which point there would be minimal point to running the stock bolt pattern if you are welding anyway. You will have to modify the center hole if you add camber as the knob will get in the way. Stance kit is adjusted from the bottom as it is an inverted shock so keep that in mind, it would be harder to dial in some more or less dampening easily. Benefit is the inverted shock is going to take lateral loads quite a bit better and their camber plates are nice because you drill a couple holes and you are done. TTT is going to have the most adjustment, height, helper springs, spring rate, damper brand. If you don't plan on revisiting the setup to refine then this is a bit wasted though.

3 of them are cut and weld kits, technically even the TTT kit is a cut and weld kit but they do it for you. Unless you are referring to the camber tops What are light track duties; 1 time a year, 1 time a month, 1 time every 10 years? If you need customized dampers after you go out, a ground control setup will be cheaper to get springs and swap dampers. Otherwise you are looking at swift springs and a Feal rebuild. What are you looking for in a the coilover? Are your struts rebuildable? Budget? Height desired? Can you cut and weld? Do you have someone who can do that for you reliably? These are all questions that you have to answer and should help illuminate your choice.

^Don't forget head gasket thickness. I was one of those who talked about it in the beginning of my build, but ended up just talking. I will have to look it up, but I think that combo can be run without the stroker crank for a slight displacement increase up to 3L. As stated it is just a bottom end spec, if the head doesn't flow or you don't supply it with enough fuel/air/exhaust out then it won't do much good. Looking at the numbers associated with good headwork a good triple carb setup and a good exhaust got me on my road to a swap.

I am coming to realize that the engine price is always just the start. You can buy a motor, put it in, hope for the best, sometimes it works out, sometimes it goes in the first 50 miles. Some even come with a warranty so you could get some money back or exchange for another one, but given that as of now space is my limitation I can't afford to put in a questionable motor nor can I try to make mounts for the motor safely. Plan is probably to just rebuild the 7mgte for now. I have a painted door and some interior parts and rearrangements I have been wanting to do and having the car immobile is problematic. As long as I save the receipts the motor will always have value as long as I maintain it, not many people take this much effort when rebuilding these motors, so if time comes that I have a surplus of money, space, or time I can consider changing things up.

~1/2 of the threads is usually a good starting point. Given our suspension compresses at about 1:1 you can guesstimate how much it will compress based on the spring rate and where it sits at droop given the anti-droop nature of that style of coilover. Pillow ball is basically a spherical bushing. Yes that is normal. Take the tie rod off the knuckle, much easier to install those to the strut then line up the tie rod afterwards.

That was what I figured, I bought a couple of them to see if I could wire them up with a breaker, but I fear the amperage would just get out of hand to have it do enough to be effective. They do have heated windshields, but shipping from the UK is pretty pricey.

Any ideas on what you are are planning on for a defogger? I had some ideas floating around, but nothing that seemed like it might work decently and wouldn't use a butt load of amps.

If they are out of sync or misadjusted then they could dip into a too rich or too lean condition. If they are sticking like tony says then you have a massive fire hazard on your hands. I don't know how you plan on rebuilding something without knowing how it works. The adjustments would also require you to become somewhat familiar with them. If you don't plan on learning how to do it yourself then send it off to be rebuilt, just fair warning it won't be cheap, but given that the carbs sit right on top of the exhaust it is better then catching your car on fire. Tune up should also check compression, valve clearance, spark strength, spark timing etc etc etc, just so you know if your car is out of time or you put the spark plugs in an incorrect order or the compression is piss poor due to valves being out of spec or bent because of the timing messing with the carbs won't do anything to help.

How the hell did that engine keep running?! Looking forward to you breathing some new life into the car, looks great

Agreed, the 2jz was in a lot of cars so they will be around for a while. The 2jzgte was in a couple so maybe harder to find, but getting a 2jzge to stock 2jzgte power levels is easy, the difference only will really show in the mid power level point which is really way too much power for our cars anyways. The BMW transmission is pretty interesting, the abc link is to a place in latvia and doesn't show a price, but collins adapter which we all know from the cd009 adapters make an adapter for the getrag gear boxes for a very affordable price. I am pretty sure a front sump engine will not work, even the mid sump engine will have troubles unless you lift the engine or do something with the cross member and steering rack. You really need the rear sump to be successful in the swap without the engine sitting for forward or further up.

1969honda: I agree, not very expensive, but I did my last rebuild for under 1200 IIRC, so in comparison it is a bit more, that and the fact I'm throwing in improvements over the factory it isn't terrible, but still a big chunk of change. I'll have to give the forged pistons some more thought, I was chatting with a friend about power goals, and I don't think I'll be going all crazy, and my tune is modest so I don't think there is much danger, still an added measure of safety I suppose. That engine sounds ridiculous! Ryan: We don't have aristo's in the states so it would have to be a import, then on top of that I would need a rear oil pan which has been scarce in my searchings, and I would want to keep it manual which means a 1jz bell housing as well. If I was going forged, then that means a full tear down, which would mean I would be back to where I am now except more money down on a new motor and time on mounts. Zetsaz: those are unfortunately just for the metal pan, you need the whole aluminum brace structure, http://my.prostreetonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/how-to-convert-a-2jz-to-front-sump.jpg

I know right? Get a little bit for scrap, sell the expensive bits, then keep an eye out for a 2jz. Problem is I would need to find an oil pan from an SC300 which is seemingly getting rarer by the moment, knowing what I know now, would be amiss if I didn't take it apart and do a preventative rebuild so I don't have to deal with a catastrophic failure, and would have to find a way to turbo it that I feel would be reliable, meaning a quality manifold and turbo which wouldn't be cheap unless I planned on running it NA, which wouldn't be all that bad now that I think about it. The appeal of the 7m as in the motor in general or in comparison? In general: twin cam, more displacement, factory turbo, pretty good aftermarket support, my preferred orientation (intake driver, exhaust passenger), high hp tranny, and so on. In comparison: 1jz is not as easy to find parts for and also a step down in displacement, and despite the legendary hp numbers of the 2jz, apparently it is not without its own downfalls, they too can suck up money as much as you throw at it. Personally for me, it is convenient. It is in my possession, it will bolt back in with relative ease, I have a bigger turbo and fancy valve covers waiting to go on, I also have bespoke exhaust and mounts for the motor.

Had an unreal moment, felt like I had to share. I had been looking for a crank when I stumbled upon an add on CL, 7mgte rebuilt, with 550 injectors, 264 cams with chevy springs, missing the manifold accessories, sensors, etc for $1000 located less in my city. I talked to the guy and he said he didn't know much about it, but knew the previous owner, I contacted him and he was super helpful and told me he did a preventative rebuild with plans to push it to 500hp when he worked at a machine shop. Pretty much as perfect as it could be. We struck up a deal and we were waiting time when he could compression test it and I could pick it up. Then disaster. His engine blew on his car and he decided to swap this engine in. Back to square one. I called the machine shop, now I pretty much had made my bed, my 7m was going to have to be revived. I told them there were now zero leads for a crank other then online. I asked how he felt about it if I got one online. They asked for the name of the company and as I was saying it he said "oh no, not them" so now I was down to negative, he said he would call around and see what he could find. Got the call earlier this week, he managed to find a crank that should be build able. Was not cheap, but I am hoping with the oil modifications, running excess oil as recommended and a critical bend in the oil pickup with perhaps a bigger sump will prevent me from having to revisit it. They do want to do a pre-hone which I fear will add more to the cost, but at this point I think I will have to build this to last. Costs planned: Crank core - 250 Crank measure and polish - 60 Crank work (straightening and welding) - 0-150 Pre hone - 100? Hone with torque plate - 300 Rod resize, bushings, balance, shot peen - 300 Pistons - 300, unless I go forged then 600ish Oil upgrades - 700 Gaskets and bearings - 200 Head work - 420 Install core plugs - 50 6 cylinder short block - 255 Then some other critical things thermostat - 30 timing pulley - 30 timing belt - 70 dip stick -100 modified oil retention plate - 60 I think probably around 4k all said and done with the new clutch, flywheel surface, and injectors. If this thing goes on me I think crying myself to sleep is going to be an understatement.

You could fit a 17x8+35, but I think it would need a 30mm spacer, (basically turns it into a 17x8+5), that is if I remember correctly. I think the max size I have seen was a watanabe at 8.5+4 on a stock fender leaves about a coins width before it hits the perch and you have to run some camber and be careful on tire width, it depends on the wheel manufacturer and the bulge of the tire to a certain extent so I would be hesitant to get that close. + is inboard - is outboard A + wheel will move the wheel inboard so the place the hub will sit further out with the rim actually moving closer to the center of the car. A - wheel will move the wheel outboard so the place the hub will sit is further in with the rim actually moving further out from the center of the car. If you get confused you can look down at the keyboard on the number line above the letter keys. Imagine the front left wheel of the car, - is on the left hand side and moves the wheel out, + is on the right hand side and moves the wheel in. If you plan on keeping stock suspension without flares, then stick with 7 wide with +0 as your standard size. Manipulate from there. You can go inboard a little bit, you can go outboard a little bit, but a lot of factors will come into play like camber, tire size, ride height, disc brake clearance, etc.

^They would need to mill out slots for adjustment on car, I've always been concerned that would also let in a bunch of debris.

Kind of depends on what you plan on doing with the car, it sounds like it is being built as a drag car. If you are against flaring and it is a dedicated drag car then you can build the tubs inboard and not run flares. The fronts won't clear a 17x8+35 with stock suspension, that is essentially a 17x11+0 (inboard wise) even with coilovers, I think the fronts can only fit a 17x9+0 (inboard wise), you could run a spacer, but I don't know if I would be happy with that if you are dropping the car onto the front with knockoff wheels bolted to a spacer. I would almost be tempted to suggest a smaller wheel, at least in the states there is more selection in the smaller sizes and having a big sidewall can help the initial grip at launch is what I have been told.

That picture isn't too illuminating. When I lowered my 240z on cut 280z springs about 2 inches I had about 1.5 inches or so travel left so if that is what you have then it seems "normal" for that kind of drop. If the spring rate is higher then stock and the shocks have good dampening characteristics, you shouldn't have to worry. My ride was firm, but comfortable. I've been in several cars that spent a lot of time smashing into hard bumpstops, crashy is what it feels like, if you feel like you are engaging them often, you can either trim them down to get a little more room, or you can do as JM says and get ones that are the foam type with a good spring rate. If it is much lower then you would like you can get spring cushions to help keep them from separated, although you loose active coils by doing so.

Overheating due to timing would be my initial guess, I'll have to take a look at the files when I get home.

Check for exhaust leaks? If it is aftermarket or been machined at any point, it may not be on the same plane as the intake causing parts of it to be loose. The one on the end keeps that side down, so if it has a bit of a curve not having it is going to allow the gasses to leak. There is a tonal vibration and shift, but it shouldn't be that loud in the actual engine bay.

Probably need to throw some heat at it as well. I don't think that works with the datsun 5 speed, if I recall there is a seal that will prevent that. I think if you are desperate you can access the innards via the reverse light switch, but it really is best to just get the fill plug out and replace it with something like the drain plug.

Hmm the cresent wrench is not a good example, Just hard to think of a system that people have seen open that takes advantage of this setup. Well in the cresent wrench example your steering effort would be more along the lines of a T or a wheel attached with the worm gear in line so to say. It wouldn't be the same force that is exerted on the jaws. If you follow that link the crank handle would be the motor and the steering wheel would actually be attached to the metal shaft. there would be some resistance if you tried to turn the worm drive via the gear, but you have to remember that if it isn't engaged it doesn't have much resistance. Depending on the reduction level it wouldn't even need to turn much at all. Given the size of the motor I would be surprised if it was a log of difference, probably a much closer ratio. Bad music but maybe more applicable. The wheel would be replaced with the steering wheel in this setup. On a separate note, I think a crescent wrench stays locked in place as you try to twist things it applies leverage on the traveling jaw which tilts it against the sliding plate no? At least on my cheaper ones when it gets stuck you just wiggle the jaw and it moves freely Bottom line is that the worm gear is not the worst design at least from a failure perspective. A system where a failure would result in no steering at all would be a much more dangerous system.