3/14/11 - Valves...

I have a love/hate relationship with this cylinder head.  I like the fact that it's aluminum, so I can almost throw the thing across the shop if I really wanted to.  But, I don't like the fact that the rocker arms are made differently than most modern OHC engines.  On a D16Z6 Honda head, the valves are all made on a central shaft, so when they're removed, you can leave them all on the shaft and not worry about them getting out of order.  On this engine, they have a tempered clip-like thing that holds the rocker arm on a ball-joint, so they each have to be removed, one by one.  Luckily, they can be rotated, so I rotated them out of the way since the head doesn't need to be machined.

Thanks to the Saline County Career Center's Automotive Technology program (offered through Pulaski Tech), I've learned a way to save some money on some basic machine work I can do at home:  Grinding valves.

I had to pop the keepers off using an impact socket...Which worked fine for a while.

Until one decided to fly through the air and hit me in the cheek, like a projectile.  So, I found a roll of duct tape and came up with this:

Ghetto?  Maybe.  I prefer the term "Intuitive and resourceful backyard engineering."  It did what it was supposed; it kept the valve keepers from bouncing out and getting lost.

All it took was some tapping with a 1.5 lb dead-blow hammer, and this impact socket.  And come to find out, the valves were double-sprung!  It was a shocker for us, because we were expecting it to be a damper-style setup, like a 351 Windsor V8 out of a Ford.  I keep finding myself having more and more respect for these L28E engines while I work more on them.

There's what the valve springs look like when put together.  There's a smaller spring inside the middle; the purpose of double springing is similar to Eibach's "Progressive" lowering spring setups.  Google is your friend if you want to know more.

There's the crank, timing chain, valve springs, and camshaft outside of the engine.  It was really nice and clean for having sat for so long.  The head was another matter...it had lots of dust inside.  It needs to be cleaned out.  Once I finish the last two valves I have to grind as of today, I'll go through and clean it out really well.

For anyone curious what the valve should look like once it's ground:

There should be a nice, shiny gray ring around the edge of the valve.  If it's shiny, then it's good and smooth and will make a good seal against the port.

The port should also match.  This one wasn't quite finished when this photo was taken; you can see the bits of black build up on the edge.  This is what the grinding process eliminates.  So far, I'm down with two left.  They're all good and clean and shiny.

Once the valves are done, I'll probably use some lacquer thinner and clean rags and really make the metal surfaces shine.  The head is a little dirty in some places.

We ordered a gasket set today too, so all of those will be replaced and won't have to worry with anything failing later.

3/12/11 - And the Engine Maintenance begins...

Ah, Saturday.  A nice pleasant breeze, on a clear day, with the sun shining brightly in the sky.  Pleasant temperature...what a nice day to be working in the shop all day.

Pretty fruitful day.  Dad and I managed to tear down the whole engine.  We took off the timing chain from the head, and took off the head with the cam and rocker arms and valves still inside of it.  I looked at the valves that were open, and they needed to be reground.  They weren't terrible, but while it's off the engine, it wouldn't be a bad idea.  The cylinders are for the most part, clean.  Dad noticed that it seemed like it could have been bored, but it was only a matter of 0.010".  When we had to bore the D16Z6 Honda engine I had, the oversized pistons started at 0.020", so the previous owner probably didn't bore it because the Nissan pistons are the same way.  While turning the crank, everything seemed okay.

Here's the block:

As far as machine work goes, it seems pretty solid and not in need of any.  The bearings were all new, and so were the pistons and rings.

The pistons were stamped, so we decided to put them all in one box.  They were just cast pistons.

That's about the size of the pistons and rods.  They were dished-top pistons, so they are truly out of a late 70's 280Z, and not a 280ZX.  The ZX model had flat-top pistons to up the compression from about 8.3:1, to 8.8:1 for the extra turbo.

It's not much of a dish, so we'll probably leave those alone.  They were dirty, but the rings and pistons looked new.

There's the crankshaft.  It was surprisingly pretty light, for being an inline 6 cylinder!

That's the valve-side of the head.  The design is pretty standard for the time; large intake valves and smaller exhaust valves, with only two valves per cylinder.  The head is aluminum though, so it was pretty easy to pick up and move around.  We spotted a few problems, like broken off studs and missing studs.  No cracks, though.

After being so used to Hondas, I saw the camshaft side of the head and immediately kept wondering what was wrong with it.  Something didn't seem right...then I remembered they didn't have Variable Valve Timing, Lift, and Duration back in the 70's in production vehicles, so it only has one set of lobes.  Oops.  It is overhead cam though, which really is nice.  Makes maintenance easier in the long run, in my opinion.

Pretty much after we got the crankshaft out of the block and put it away, we decided to stop there for the night and come back at it tomorrow.  It doesn't look like it will take much to get this engine back into shape.

Keep coming back for more updates!

Sincerely,

Chris

3/11/11 - Minor Progress

Tested the starter in a shop.  It worked, but it probably wouldn't hurt to take it apart and clean the brushes and moving parts like the commutator and the bendix.

We moved the body off the trailer after we had it checked out by the State Police so we can begin the application process for a bonded title (Fun![/sarcasm]).

Not much else for progress though.  Still haven't began to tear the engine down, or work on the interior.  I've found probably the best site for interior items, as far as restoration and price go, is The Z Store.  They have lots of stock options avalible, and sell items such as all new lock sets with ignition switch and glove box lock that work off one key for a decent price compared to other Z-dedicated part sites such as Z Car Source.

Keep checking back for more updates!

3/7/11 - Day 3 - Taking it One Step at a Time...

Today, I had school and didn't get much accomplished.  Luckily, in my Auto-Tech class, we're going over starters, so hopefully I can take the starter that came of the engine into the shop and test it and rebuild it if I need to.  It's almost an exact clone of a GM solenoid-actuated starter.

It's pretty mucked up and seems to have seen quite a bit of use...or just kept in dirty storage.  The copper part of the solenoid worries me; it seems like they wrapped it in duct tape.  Why, I'll never know.  I was always told duct tape was for duct work, electrical tape was for electrical work.  I can thank Pulaski Technical College's Saline County Career Center for making that distinction stick in my mind.  Here's a close up of the duct tape:

Beautiful.  Just beautiful.

I had a friend named Trye (Pronounced: Tray) drop by earlier today to come check out the car.  He saw my blog on Facebook and subscribed to it.  He told me how excited he was that we've got it going and he can't wait to see it finished!  It's compliments like that that really make me proud to have this project.  ...That, and the idea of having such a classic car.  I've decided on a plan...I'm going to try and build this car to SCCA Solo: Street Prepared category, due to several issues on running in the "stock" category...

Stock category requires all original emissions equipment if the car was equipped with it, and factory muffler hangars.  In addition, requires original interior, wiring, and emblems and no body add-ons whatsoever or sway bars except for OE applications.  So far, there are NO catalytic converters on the car, and I'm pretty sure most of the emissions equipment is going to come up missing.  In Street Prepared, I'm not required to have that; some modifications can be made.  Plus, I can change the ignition system as long as it remains the stock-type (In this case, any distributor system that keeps the same number of spark plugs is okay!)  I plan to hopefully convert this car from a points-type distributor (still can't figure out why in 1977, the imports would still run points set ups when domestic vehicles were going with HEI.) to a Pertronix HEI system.  It would last longer, and it would be much better at higher RPM's.

Back to the restoration process, though...

In addition to digging out the starter, I took off the water neck from the cylinder head to bring it in and clean it.  It hasn't had the cap on it in a while, so dirt had found it's way inside.  Once again, it seems awfully close to a General Motors design, like on a 250ci L6 engine.

There it is, all disassembled.  I noticed it had some electronic connections on the end, most likely for the water temperature gauge inside the car.  Noticing how much scum and grit and grime had built on these over time, I figured I'd just drop the waterneck into a solution of baking soda and warm water, to get the dirt off or at least loose to be touched up later with some lacquer thinner and a toothbrush (can't use Lye soaps or caustic, harsh chemicals on aluminum parts.)  Since the parts have seen a mixture of water and antifreeze, and antifreeze is toxic to the human body, I used a Ziploc plastic container that I could re-use to store parts later that wouldn't be needed for food or anything.

Some of the dirt came loose and made that nasty film as soon as I dropped the parts into the mixture.  I put the lid on, and shook it around a bit and am going to let the parts soak over night and clean them up tomorrow.

In the mean time...I'm chilling and spending the last of my Monday night like this:

Enjoying a nice game of Forza Motorsport 3 for Xbox 360!

Take it easy, readers, while you still can.  Seems that lately there's less time to relax and more time I need to take responsibility...Oh no, a life lesson!  :)

3/6/11 - Day 2

Okay, so...I'm sure some of the people who would be reading this will have seen some real shadetree mechanic stuff, but I'm not sure if this has been done before...  Upon looking to take the computer out of the car, I found the driver's side door wouldn't open...and the passenger side wouldn't close.  So, we took the driver's side door panel off and played with it (After I crawled through the back hatch...the passenger door doesn't swing out far enough to open because we're leaving the body on the trailer for now.), and found the inside and outside door handles had to be pulled at the same time to open the driver's side door.  And as for the passenger side door...

...We decided this would be A-Okay...for now.

Today, we managed to lift the engine off of the trailer and move it into our shop, and took the valve-cover off to inspect the head.  The inside of the head was clean, no rust or big cracks either.  The cam didn't have any assembly lube for being previously rebuilt though, which seems kind of suspicious.

That thing was a bear to get inside!  It wouldn't mount to our engine stand...the bottom part of the block was too wide and the upper part was too narrow to bolt in place.  So we just left it on the lift and set most of the weight down on a homemade dolly.

Also, this morning I decided to try and look through some parts and clean small things while we wait to get the car titled so we can do big things.  I found out what this thing is:

It's basically a big MAF sensor.  Only, it's not called a MAF sensor, Nissan called it an "Air Flow Meter."  Here was the problem when I looked down the hole:

Yes, that is a dirt dauber nest.  I hate the little annoyances now.  Took a while to use a knife to pull all that dirt out, and it's still not quite clean.

There's no huge clumps of dirt anymore, but still could use a good cleaning.  The way this works, is that there's a trap door in the middle of the tube that's spring-loaded with a big coil spring in the housing.  When the throttle body opens to take in air, it makes a vacuum and pulls the trap door open, and the air flowing in from the air cleaner assembly holds it open for the sensor to read the temperature and flow rate and adjust the fuel injection output accordingly.  Pretty neat idea, for 1977.  The fuel injection still has two screws for tuning: One for A/F mixture, and the other for the idle speed adjustment.  Just like a carburetor set up!

So...I suppose it's a rather productive day.  Probably the only day I'll get the full day to work.  After getting the engine into our shop, it seemed like a good day to stop since it was almost 3:30 in the afternoon and it's a school night.

3/5/11 - Day 1

To start things off, allow me to introduce myself.  I am Chris, or Ish, whatever you wish to call me.  I'm an 18 year old male living in Central Arkansas.  I am used to old-school American muscle cars, such as Ford Mustangs and 50's model Chevy's and 60's-era Mopars with Hemis.  When I turned 16, my first car was a 1993 Honda Del Sol Si.  Having owned that car, I was big into the import scene at the time.  There was just something about small-displacement, high output four cylinders that really excited me.  It was a great little car to have!  But unfortunately, after dropping 2k into a half-a-year engine rebuild and having some major suspension concerns, it was time to sell the car.  So my parents graciously bought me a 2010 Honda Fit...and with that, came the world of warranties and lack of aftermarket support and not much in the way of customization.  Something was missing; I didn't have a car I could play with and work on and turn wrenches on and up the performance on.

So...it was time for a new project.  I looked, and I looked.  I bounced from a 90's model Civic hatch, to a late 80's CRX Si, to a Ford Thunderbird or a Foxbody Mustang.  Then, out of nowhere, I spied a Datsun 280z out of curiosity.  I fell in love.  The silhouette and semi-aggressive profile of the car just looked amazing.  I never was a fan of the later model Z's, I found the body style to be quite...ostentatious.  But the earlier models were quite appealing.

After some CraigsList searching, I found one.  It was a 1977 5-speed equipped 280z.  The engine had been "rebuilt" (about 4 years ago...), and had been out of the car for quite some time.  The owner was giving it away with a 200 dollar "drift kit" from Hyper Suspension that replaced all bushings and end links with Polyurethane replacements.  The kicker was that the owner had lost the title.

So, here I am.  700 dollars poorer, and with a new project car to play with and build from the ground up.  I can't wait to begin.

Already, I've spotted some issues with the brake lines being rusted through, some small spots where the rust goes through on the body, and much-needed new clutch.  Also, the interior is for the most part gutted.  I've also spied a dirt dauber nest that was made in the ECU while it sat in storage.  In addition, there is no exhaust system whatsoever.  Just the manifold.  No distributor cap either.

I managed today to get the car home, and move all the loose parts into our shop, and covered up the engine while it waits on the trailer, because dark caught up with us.  Tomorrow is another day!  I hope to chart the progress of this project as it comes together.

N-series L28 block and head!  Round ports!

No carpeting... and the steering wheel is rather melted and nasty.  However, the dash is mostly intact.