Ever heard of an engine siezing up like this?

[josh817]

Hey guys so my dad and his buddy came over to the shop on Saturday and they came to the conclusion that the tranny and the engine were being bolted too close together... as in the back plate is too thin so the input shaft would push the crank forward and put it in a tight bind. This pisses me off extraordinarily bad because when we purchased a back plate we knew there was a thin and a thick one for the U20. I asked Dad "which one did we get" he says thick, confidently. Now he tells me this and its like uh... I just asked you that and you said it wasn't the problem.

 

So I guess I should be happy that its solved. Dr. Dean, our parts guy said he didn't have anymore backplates and he redirected us to some other dude who sold us the one we have. I think it was the last one he had, so I'm not sure if we can get another. I'm tempted to send this backplate off to our machine shop and tell him to make one just like it but however thick (1/4" instead of two 1/8" plates) rather than doubling up 2 thin backplates (which was what the dude told us over the phone, if he didn't have a thick one to sell us).

 

If we can't buy one, I'm sure we can have one laser cut for us by our dude. If not that, then the consideration of using washers to space it out the extra 1/8" or whatever, is in mind.

 

Mongo, if you have a thick backplate for sale, give me a shout!

Edited April 19, 2010 by josh817

[thrustnut]

I don't think the tach or cable are the problem, so why change them? Is your Dad marking up prices on parts he's selling you? I hope not

Edited April 19, 2010 by thrustnut

[josh817]

I don't think the tach or cable are the problem, so why change them? Is your Dad marking up prices on parts he's selling you? I hope not

No they aren't causing the problem but they haven't been used in who knows how many years, maybe 10 or so. I'm working technically for my dad as an employee at his shop (the only employee). He uses me because he can't really trust anyone else to do the job, except some of his adult buddies but they ask for a higher pay than he even charges! He charges $45/hr + parts. He pays me $15/hr. For all the dudes who aren't looking for a picture perfect show car and are on a budget, he has me do the work. When its all done, he checks over it to make sure its how he would have done it, and its good to go. Generally, ground up restorations, he will do while I do the quick jobs. For instance when a customer came in with this junk Spitfire race car but it had good GT6 suspension. He bought another Spitfire with a good body and good motor but stock suspension. It was my job to swap the two out so he could sell the crappy car and use the good one. Only problem is that this guy is so cheap that he moans at my $15/hr and tried to talk me down to like $8/hr because I wasn't even 18 years old at the time. Dad had to remind him that its a mans work with a mans pay.

 

Anyway. Point is, since the car is being built under his wing, his shop, its just my project since I'm the Datsun dude in a British auto shop. Any parts we need he buys at either a discounted shop rate or a regular rate which he marks up like 5% or whatever it usually is. This is where it gets all complicated and nasty because he is hurting from dishing out $3000 in parts and not getting the car out fast enough (which explains why there is barely any food at home) and I'm pissed because he won't just tell the customer he needs another payment. We received an initial starting payment of $1000, and the rest is paid when the car leaves.

 

 

Edit:

Got off the phone with a Datsun dude and he had a list of things to check. Everything was sorted out, except for the clutch assembly. He's thinking our pressure plate is sticking out and hitting the bell housing because apparently we DO have the thick plate (4mm thick). Like I said, I don't care what it is, as long as we have a solution.

Edited April 19, 2010 by josh817

[woldson]

He's thinking our pressure plate is sticking out and hitting the bell housing

 

That would make more sense due to how "stuck" it was.

[AkumaNoZeta]

I think if that happened to me I would pull the engine again to see if it still turns outside the car and if it does I would than pull out the transmission too and mate them together outside the car to see if it turns because if it doesn't then it would be easier to find the bind with the parts out of the car. That's just me though.

[josh817]

I think if that happened to me I would pull the engine again to see if it still turns outside the car and if it does I would than pull out the transmission too and mate them together outside the car to see if it turns because if it doesn't then it would be easier to find the bind with the parts out of the car. That's just me though.

We have them out, tomorrow I mate them together again.

[josh817]

Mated the 2 together today. Everything spun.... We should be happy but we're kind of frustrated that we didn't find any problem. We put the motor and tranny assembly in, as one piece. Still spins. Its a tight motor but it spins freely so I guess I will hook the rest of the stuff up tomorrow after class while we wait for the new tranny mount (the old was torn in half...), install the mount, try to start her up.

 

The only other problem I can think of is something with the gas tank, since its been sitting for years. Hopefully all the lines are still good and the gas is use able....

[Xnke]

Drain the tank, put in fresh gas. If it's sat for years, the gas is no good. if it's sat for a year, the gas isn't any good, at least in my area.

[josh817]

Well today we got it started! Took a little bit of cranking, but we got it!

 

We had pulled the motor and tranny out. Mated them together, and it spun. I can't figure out what it was. The only thing I can guess is that it was really tight, you had to break it loose but after a quarter on a turn, it was spinning easily. We stabbed it back into the car, hooked everything up and then had a water leak at the manifold. A piss poor design I say because they have water coming out of the head, into the intake manifold. The intake/exhaust gasket seals the water port... So I take the intake and exhaust off again, put more sealant on it. That held, but when we pressurized the system, guess what? There is a little drip coming from the rear. The rear being IN THE BELL HOUSING. We never did what we typically do which is put JB Weld around the freeze plugs at the front and rear. This pissed us off unbelievably. Wasn't our fault because even without the JB Weld, it is suppose to seal... We decided not to yank the motor AGAIN, and we did what we fear most. We put those little radiator sealant cubes into the water, hoping it would seal up the drip.

 

So far it has worked. Great oil pressure, temperature stayed surprisingly low yet we weren't even rolling, so that was encouraging. Ran on the old fuel in the tank. There isn't much left according to the gauge, so we may burn it off rather than drain.

 

One thing we couldn't figure out is that if we blipped the throttle hard, we would hear what sounded like a loud valve tap. Dad is thinking maybe its pinging when we blip it like that because it goes away if we hold the RPM at a certain point. We figured, shitty gas, 10:1 compression, unknown timing (we haven't touched the distributor since we got it started), most likely pinging.

 

Oh yah! And to top thing off! I was looking for a bolt I had dropped under the seat. I shine a light under and what do I find. A picture of a black lady in red lingerie, really big, hairy, holding a gun. It was hilarious. She became our goodluck charm. Instead of putting back under the seat, we are thinking put it in the sun visor so when he sees it he will be like ">_> I hope they didn't see this!"

[Nizm0Zed]

you did scan the photo for our amusement before putting it back, right? RIGHT?

 

 

lol, well at least it runs. It'll be out of your hair soon and you can get back to better jobs.