ukcats07 Posted October 4, 2010 Share Posted October 4, 2010 Well, tomorrow is the big day. Was gonna be today, but ran out of sunlight and didn't want to chance starting this car up in the dark. Any last-second advice? I've checked the: Drive shaft bolts transmission fluid engine oil--5qts adjusted the rocker arms a bunch of other small things as well Dropped the HEI dizzy in at TDC with the rotor pointing at #1. Put the cap on and lined a post up with the rotor mark--that was my number one in the firing order. Worked counter-clockwise in the firing order for the other spark plugs. That was the correct way to do that right? Engine has been primed, and I have good oil pressure. Water temperature sensor (mechanical) is hooked up and in the engine bay for easy access. (Oil pressure gauge is as well) I have a one-wire alternator (100A) and I wasn't for sure if I needed to hook the WR (white/red) wire from the Datsun harness to the output of the alternator. I don't believe this wire is to be hooked up. Any thoughts? I really don't want to fry anything in the harness if the alternator spikes. Anything outside the obvious I should focus on tomorrow before I turn the key? This is a carb'd 302 BTW. Thanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MONGO510 Posted October 4, 2010 Share Posted October 4, 2010 fire extinguisher , preferably halon. double check fluid levels, watch O/P. Massage your cheeks with skin cream or when it fires, you will break your face!! Very cool!! Good luck Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mario_82_ZXT Posted October 4, 2010 Share Posted October 4, 2010 Just one thing, your top radiator hose seems like an air bubble waiting to happen. You might want to add a radiator cap so you can fill/bleed it from there since it's the highest part of the cooling system. Other then that good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ukcats07 Posted October 4, 2010 Author Share Posted October 4, 2010 fire extinguisher , preferably halon. double check fluid levels, watch O/P. Massage your cheeks with skin cream or when it fires, you will break your face!! Very cool!! Good luck Roger that on the fire extinguisher. I bought one the other day in anticipation of starting yesterday. I had an RX7 catch fire on me when I was 16 and luckily I had one in the car. Minimal damage. However, two weeks later when the repairs were done, said fire extinguisher was nowhere to be found when it caught fire a second time!! I had to watch it burn while the fire department completely doused it. Total loss. Not a cool way to start my senior year. Both times it caught fire about an 1/8 mile from my high school parking lot and both times a good portion of the school got to watch my car roast. Just one thing, your top radiator hose seems like an air bubble waiting to happen. You might want to add a radiator cap so you can fill/bleed it from there since it's the highest part of the cooling system. Other then that good luck! I think the angle of the pictures make it seem like it's way above the radiator cap. It does sit higher, however I can push it down with minimal force and it goes below the radiator cap. If I can push it below the cap, the air should work it's way out right? Also, I'm assuming you're talking about something similar to a heater hose splice in contraption that has the garden hose attachment on it? I looked for one today at the parts store and the biggest they had was 3/4". Nothing on the order of 1.5" Also, glad I looked it back over as I had the water temperature gauge installed incorrectly. I'll post videos and pictures if/when it starts today. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ukcats07 Posted October 4, 2010 Author Share Posted October 4, 2010 Wow. I had a mental list of things that had the potential to go wrong. This one was nowhere near that list. Let's start with the first error that was kind of funny once I realized what was going on. Started filling the block through the heater hose bypass (with a flush-tee) and noticed I had a slow steady drip on the passenger side of the block down near the oil pan. My immediate thought it WTF is this and why is it leaking. Turns out the coolant drain plug for the block was not installed. Quick trip to Ace and I figure I'm on my way. Continue to fill the block and all of a sudden I get a pretty good leak at the thermostat housing. Take a look and realize I didn't RTV it and the bottom bolt looks like it's not pulled all the way. Pull it off, RTV it and start tightening. On the last turn of the bolt, wham it gets really loose, really quick. I proceed to cuss very loud and try my hardest to throw my 1/2" wrench through the earth and out the other side. Pull the housing off and of course the first few threads are trash. F'n brand new Weiand intake and I get to take it off and drill/tap for a bigger bolt. I'm definitely going to go get a new housing as well, as I think the one I have wasn't completely flat. At least that's my theory. So should I drill/tap or get a heli-coil set and go that route? Damn, this was not how I envisioned this day going. Oh well, could have been worse. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ukcats07 Posted October 8, 2010 Author Share Posted October 8, 2010 Geez. What a comedy of errors. So I took the manifold off and successfully put a helicoil in it...no problems there. Bought a new thermostat housing and it bolted up nice and flush. Put everything back together Monday night (after scraping gaskets for what seemed like days---scraping gaskets sucks) and roll it into the driveway tuesday afternoon for attempt #2 at starting this motor. Fill it with water and no leak at the thermostat housing..yay. However, I noticed a puddle of water in both valleys of the water pump to timing chain cover interface, right above the water inlet/outlet respectively. I thought it was water that was leaked from the hose etc. when filling it up. Grab a paper towel and dab it up so I can have a good baseline in case anything leaks during startup. Well, of course, as quickly as I'm dabbing it up it's filling the valley right back up through a threaded hole in the timing chain cover. Of course I can't start it with it leaking coolant this badly so I have my friend help me push back into the garage so I can go research WTF is going on. Turns out that most people have this problem when their water pump gasket is shot. Easy fix. Take the water pump off and find that I didn't install the water pump backing plate to timing chain cover gasket. Jesus. No wonder why it leaked so bad. I put a new gasket with some Permatex Right Stuff around the coolant passages as suggested on another forum. I'm going to push the car into the driveway again on Saturday morning and hopefully the third time will be a charm and I'll have a V8 Z that can move on its own. On a side note--I'm using an oil pan with the screw-in dipstick tube as my block was meant for a front sump pan. I am having a pretty good leak at the dipstick and I can see that it is leaking between the nut and the dipstick tube. It is most definitely not leaking between the pan and the threads of the nut as I can see oil leaking between the nut and tube when I tighten the nut down. I also notice that the dipstick tube is quite loose when it goes into the pan before I start screwing the nut down. Is it supposed to fit pretty snug before being tightened down with the nut? Also, am I supposed to be using an O-ring with this setup? If so, where is it supposed to be installed? I've tried searching for this issue with google and have had very little luck finding an answer. I suspect my dipstick tube not being tight in the pan is probably the culprit. The bottom portion of my dipstick tube looks similar to the one above, it just looks like a standard tube and not braided steel. Thanks for any help Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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