Careless

Radiator Fan Acid Dipped:

Intake Plenum Acid Dipped:

Clear Zinc Plated Hardware:

Vapor Blasted Valve Cover

Vapor Blasted Timing Cover: Last photo is of the inside of the cover, as cast. Very close to vapor blasting!

Vapor Blasted Alternator Housings:

FYI: You can also use a Mazda MPV van hatch seal. It's super long, and is pretty much the same as the kia one, and grips the hatch pinch-weld very tightly. I like to press the seal flat with the palms of my hands before installing to the car, and it is pretty damn good at staying one. Just don't try to get "extra grip" by squeezing the steel channel in a vice or something. It will deform the steel grip channel and cause it to be bumpy in some areas.

Acid dipped items arrived back today. A little rustier than I expected under the intake paint. I'll have to attempt to sand down the bumps and whatnot on the exterior where the intake was scratched and then blend them gently with a wire wheel before sending them for powder coat. will post pics this weekend. Just gettin' a little busy here with all these parts everywhere!

Picked up the valve cover, alternator housings, lower water/thermo housing, and the timing cover today. Looks great! I think with a little cotton cloth rubbing and some sharkhide, it's going to be amazing! will post pics soon.

For that reason, I dropped the coil bracket off today, and asked for it to be clear/bright zinc, instead of what's pictured there. Some things can slip up, but the clamps were clear/bright zinc on the other photo you posted in someone elses engine resto thread as well, so for the clamps I did not go yellow zinc, nor will the coil bracket be on this particular resto. I looked under the unpainted portion and it was definitely silver- no hint of yellow of any kind.

I have a feeling it's your injectors. Whatever is in the return line probably went through them first. The solenoids/coils can occassionally stick open or closed, causing similar symptoms. You can bench clean them with a PWM driver, a 12v battery, and a spare fuel pump with some injector cleaner or gasoline-diluting solvent with a spare fuel pump and one single fuel injection hose to pressurize the injector and run the solvent through it (check voltage of the injectors before using 12v). This is a much better method than running injector cleaner in the tank, because the solvents that actually work are not good for combustion in your motor, so bench cleaning in a bucket is much more worthwhile. Alternatively, you can have them serviced at many diesel shops at about 15-20 bucks a pop, or you could buy some replacements. But the bench cleaning method costs like 20 bucks and can prevent you from spending money on the injectors before figuring out whether they're the culprit by simply looking at the spray pattern.

He has posted the images before in another engine restoration thread. Hopefully he'll see this thread and pop them in here. They're not my own personal photos so I'll wait for him to give the green light or post them. But there are a number of photos with pretty clear shots of some tarnished "clear zinc" coated clamps next to some tarnished "light yellow zinc" coated throttle linkage parts. So the difference is quite visible, I'd say.

Maybe I should move that post to a new topic?

CARELESS MEDIA TUMBLING GUIDE (skip this post if you're not interested in reading my process!) You can tumble copper, steel, iron, brass, aluminum, magnesium, and even opaque or clear plastics. The tumbling process does a great job of bringing fogged plastic back to life too. It does a good job of cleaning aluminum to a "clear anodized" look, and it does a great job of bringing brass to an almost "as manufactured" look. parts that should not get media inside, like oil pressure senders or short brake lines should be capped off, unless they can be blown out with brake clean and air pressure- or with a suitable solvent. - 11lbs of media - start with 5 - 6 lbs of m6 to m12 nuts, bolts, washers. - green pyramid media - 3 cups of water - 3 or 4 squirts of dish detergent or - 1tsp of Potassium Hydroxide flakes (speed clean active ingredient, can be bought at soap making supply or online. very inexpensive) occassionally you will get a large soapy/sudsy foam filling the entire bowl. That can be whisked off the top and put into a bucket. To combat this, I might try the new Tide HE Turbo laundry detergent as an additive. It has a high cleaning power but low suds. If you use just the Potash flakes, it is a very slick solution with very little soapiness to it. It will also coat the parts for upto 10 days to prevent flash rusting. I prefer having some sort of mild grease cutting fluid in there, like dish detergent. It keeps the media somewhat clean as well. I keep a large bath towel handy to keep wiping my hands. I found a lint-type (not lint-free) towel is best for cleaning hands periodically and also wiping the parts down. The wet media water dries on the towel quickly, and you can just bat the towel outside to get it to dust off if it gets a little crusty. painted items or small items with crevices or places for the media to get stuck will not have action in those zones. recessed drive screws will not have the screw drive cleaned extremely well, and might have paint left over (phillips, slot, allen, torx, etc.) You will have to pick at these items with a small pick-tool to get the media out after tumbling, or grease out before tumbling. Sometimes the media water-slurry that is generated from tumbling will get in there and clean it out for you, but it also needs to be picked out as well. Twisting the screw head into a stiff bristle brush can do quick work of this if you don't let the media harden up (i.e- clean while still soapy/wet). Any items that have small casting imperfections, small pits with rust, or small tool-path marks or machine grooves (like the alternator pulley from the grapefruit style early series 1 alternators), will need to be either wire wheeled or sprayed with some sort of paint/rust remover like Eazy-Off Oven cleaner, and brushed and washed briefly before being tossed into the tumbler bowl. The good thing about buying an extra bowl is that you get a second tightening knob for the lid. With this second knob, you can screw it down on the all-thread and have one knob/washer/rubber washer combo that threads all the way into the tumbler and holds the bowl down. Then you can put the lid on and thread the second knob as you would normally. This prevents the bowl from warping due to parts being off balance or the solution going cement-like over the course of a couple of hours. This warped one of my bowls and now I have to get creative on how to fasten it down. It widened the all-thread hold on the bowl to where it moves around too much, so i put a plastic bushing there to take up the slack. I found that holding down the bowl with the knob inside before the lid goes on gets maximum centrifugal action on the small parts that float around the perimeter of the inside of the bowl, and knocks them into the center. To fish items out, I first experimented with a magnetic wand with an LED at the end, but the magnet was not strong. A regular magnetic wand with no LED works a lot better... But then I found an old magnetic bolt tray that the magnet separated from, and it worked amazing. An old mechanical platter hard drive magnet would be even better. For the extra small items like the 2-wire clamp washers and screw plates, I just ran the tumbler with the magnet in there for 2 or 3 minutes and took it all out, covered in metal-water and small parts. Did that a couple of times. The trick here is to have two buckets. One with soapy water that you immediately dunk the items into and swish them around to get any metal dust off them (do this without the magnet attached to them). Then another clean water bucket to dump them in, temporarily while you do the rest. At the end, I use a 1lb dollar store scooper and drop 1lbs of media into a stainless strainer and run water over it to clean it. When I go to dump it into a small clear container, I keep a magnet at the end of the scooper to catch and left-over items. In total, I may have left about 20 items in the bowl throughout the multiple (maybe 15-20) washes. That's not a bad percentage for my method, consider the vast amount of items, especially miniscule ones. Once the media is clean and the parts are all collected, I take them out of the clean water bucket, and put them in the strainer. Wash them really quick (they're wet already, anyways), and then wipe them with a thick towel by dropping a handful on there, and folding it over and rubbing briefly. I then put them in the strainer and spray WD40 on them, and put them in a clear bin for sorting later. I later learned that some of the plastic media residue from my experimenting with various compounds like paint polishing paste, simple green, powdered/bleach type dish cleaner CAN leave a fine plastic residue on the threads of certain items. I used a stiff brush and held each and every bolt or item in my hand and just rubbed them across the brush 5 - 10 times. Each item takes about 2 seconds to do. For nuts, I did not bother to wire brush the inside, as I did not have a small bristle brass pipe cleaner to fit in most of them. The only issue is that under the plastic is some moisture, so it will flash rust under the threads or not get plated. But I use Marine Grade Synthetic anti-seize on virtually everything I put together, so it's not a big issue. It works better than plating does to begin with, IMHO. As far as time goes, on a per-batch basis... - setup (5-10 minutes) - magnetic fishing (10-15 minutes) - cleaning media (30-40 minutes) - cleaning items (30-40 minutes) - WD40 spray wipe and spray (5 minutes) Keep in mind that you don't need to wash the media or fish out every item every time. You'll know when the media gets grimy. Some people have said to keep running it, it doesn't matter. But there were times when I needed to know that the only things in there were alternator parts, or an assembly of something or other, so I was forced to clean out the media. If you're not cleaning the media you can just take out what you can with a magnet, and put the next batch in. You don't need to take everything out. I found that the green plastic media is very forgiving in that it BARELY takes off much metal. It's so fine that it turns into a dust at the bottom of the bowl. It would probably not register on most vernier calipers- it's so fine. The largest item I've put in the bowl is the entire e-brake linkage assembly, except for the long rod that fastens to the cables. The entire pivoting lever assembly that is two welded washers to a tube with a long arm with the clevis pin at the end fit in there, and with the exception of a couple of areas not being scrubbed because they get no media passing across- it came out reasonably well. I'm going to bead blast those areas and run it back in the tumbler for 2 hours and it should be ready to go. With all that said, it usually takes about 2.5 to 3 hours when doing a full media swap. I bought the extra media so I can cross-mix from separate batches to prolong the use of the media. But I will not be doing that from now on. I will keep the media separate so that I have some finer medias and some 'slightly used' medias. They still work just as good as they get smaller, sometimes even better. So I will use that for getting into smaller parts. I might experiment with a ferrous media that is not as aggressive as metal shot at some point. I would like to try something smaller with sharper edges that retain their edge for a longer time to get into smaller threads, but so far plastic media is good! I know it's not exactly healthy, but I quite enjoy the "not burnt, but kinda warm" plastic media smell too wheeeeeeee! For last batch of stuff, I tried to etch the little pieces of rust off by leaving them overnight in Apple Cider Vinegar, brushing them briefly, and then putting them in water + baking soda to neutralize the rusting action before dousing them with WD40 as well to prevent rusting. I would say it made the items appear a good bit lighter, and did in fact take some rust from small machine marks and threads that were too far gone to some degree... However, I'm sure if I left the items in the vinegar for say... 3 or 4 days, the results would have been way better. It does have a slight "etch" to them, and they are slightly lighter than before they were tumbled.

anyone know the OE finish on the regular lug nuts? this kind here: They were some sort of black-ish phosphate coating. not sure if I should re-coat to that finish or if they're supposed to be something else.

I suggest buying the harbour freight 18lb one, and then buying an extra bowl from eastwood. it's the same one, but harbourfreight doesn't sell the bowl separately. then you'll have two different coloured bowls for each type of media you decide to use.

Haha... over the top?! nahhhhhh. I think leaving the tumbler to do the dirty work while I go meet with acid stripping or powder coating facilities is much better than sitting here with the E-Fast software trying to make a list of 10000000 fasteners that need to be ordered from Datsun... of which 90% are probably not available or do not have the original look to them. It really hurt my eyes to see the old bolts being painted silver or just being tossed in a box and replaced with home depot metric stuff. It's just not right. The tumbler will change anyone's mind on the subject once you see how valuable it is! there's plenty more to come! I can't wait for the stuff to come back from the acid stripper that I dropped off today, and the vapor blaster as well for the aluminum engine parts. The conversation with the Acid Stripping rep went something like this today: Me: "I thought you said you didn't strip bolts" (as I was looking at a basket full of thousands) Him: "I don't want your bolts" Me: "Why not? What's wrong with my bolts?" Him: "Do YOU want your bolts?" Me: "Well yeah, but I prefer them cleaned" Him: "Well if you give me your bolts, you probably won't get them all back" So the tumbler was a good choice! Thanks Chris. I didn't really know what that was either, but I took whatever I could fit into the tumbler to test it out, and that was the first thing. haha. I had thought it was bright zinc because it was so grey from oxidizing over the years... but I moved one of the wires over a bit and exposed some shiny yellow plating- so that's what it will be plated as. If only I could fit the jack in there :-P Sadly, I don't think it can be taken apart very easily- as it's got mixed plated parts on it. The media I used came with the eastwood tumbler. It is Green Pyramid (Medium Cut) media- which is measured as 1/4" media. There is a rough cut brown pyramid media, but I read that it's not as nice to use on fine pitch threaded items. This green stuff will work just as well, and is a lot more gentle- it just takes a bit more time and experimenting with solutions. Then there is the corn-cob media for a higher polish/bright shine, but that is unnecessary, and it actually looks weird for factory bolts. This green stuff is pretty much "pre-plate" finish. Think of it as a "dull polish". It's got a slightly brighter/deeper luster than media blasting, and is just as smooth as polishing- but not nearly as shiny. Looks just about perfect! Only the plating will tell! The tumbler comes with 7lbs, but plan on buying another 20 lbs if you do this many items. I had to find local media because Eastwood is not anywhere near bulk pricing. They want something like 30 bucks for 2lbs + shipping and duty fees.. that's almost 50 bucks for 2lbs of the media. I found a local abrasive place that sells 50lb bags of similar media for close to 8 dollars a lb, but minimum order is 50lbs. So I bought the bag and have experimented with different solutions from car polish to dish detergeant, to the eastwood speed clean. The media is 8mm triangles or wedges. There are plenty of different types of media shapes to buy. But as far as finishes, this green stuff is pretty good for me. It also took 2 layers of paint off the smog pump pulley. It had Ford Blue, and the original Datsun Blue underneath it. It was fun to see the progress of it peeling away the old paint. When there are tiny little casting lines or something or other that the media cannot etch into, I sprayed it with Easy-Off Oven Cleaner (great paint remover), and let it sit for a couple of minutes, then scrubbed the area and washed it before putting it back into the tumbler. It really only takes an extra 2 or 3 minutes and I think I only did it to maybe 3 or 4 parts. You can also media blast any items to get the paint off, and then toss it in the tumbler and forget about it for a couple of hours and it will look great as well. Running the tumbler dry is OK, but not great. running it with even just water has a bunch of advantages. - it runs WAY quieter. If it's wet, I can't hear it with the garage door closed. if it's dry, i can hear it through the garage door, all the way up to the sidewalk, which is about 20 feet from the garage door... and I have the tumbler at the back of the garage. - it cuts and cleans 50% faster (or more) - it prevents the media from polishing itself, reducing its effectiveness. I found that after all your speed clean is consumed (2 bottles is not enough for all these fasteners if it's your first time experimenting), dish detergent is the "cleanest" and best working replacement solution. Car polish gets too thick and leaves a thick residue. Simple green works ok as well. I want to experiment with other medias in the future to get into even finer threaded items. perhaps I will take some of the media I kept aside after I ran it dry (once it's wet, it will never be completely dry again) and see if I can find a way to crush it down to the size of the corn cob media. I wonder if running the tumbler with apple cider vinegar will make it twice as effective as a light acid remover for hard to reach rust, and then a quick tumble in another bowl with baking soda and water as an additive to neutralize the acid... That's what I'll try next! 26th-Z sent me some empirical evidence of the 2-wire clamps being bright silver zinc on an early 70's car, with low mileage at least in the engine bay. the 71 parts car I snagged the fuel vapor tank from had yellow cad clamps holding the hoses on the vapor tank, but I can't recall what the color of the engine bay ones were. I think I remember seeing some yellow cad on there.

I got the powder coat match for the intake filter plenum and cover, as well as the cream-coloured metal radiator fan. If anyone is interested, I can see about ordering a larger volume of powder and selling it to anyone who has a local powder coater. The match I have for the orange is an exact match, the radiator fan color is extremely close if not perfect as well. I can post photos once I get this one done.

6 - Suspension Bolts 7 - Misc Parts, All alternator hardware in the back + Diode packs 8 - More Misc Parts, Mostly Engine 9 - Hardware for Oil Pan, Exhaust Manifold, 2 Wire Clamps, And some socket cap bolts for something??? 10 - Hardware for misc body/engine/mechanical stuff + Brake/Fuel line brackets. 11 - More misc hardware 12 - Tumbling has revealed plenty of surprises like these. I've had to toss about 8 or 9 lock washers now. Intake and other misc parts are going to the acid stripping facility today. Going to box up and send the carbs out to Ztherapy for a complete overhaul. Nissan has some parts for me today as well. Also going to visit a Vapour Blaster a little ways out from my house with the valve cover, grapefruit alternator housing, and the timing cover. At some point I will disassemble the smog pump to inspect, the distributor to clean, and whatever else I can find that is aluminum that needs that as-cast fresh look. Anyone have any ideas? I think most of the stuff here is to be Yellow/Gold Cad plated (with the exception of the 2-wire clamps being Silver/Bright Zinc plated, as well as the Lug Nuts being black-oxide or phosphate type, and the Smog Pump pulley being engine colour (blue). There are some items I am not sure if. If you see anything that is supposed to be Silver/Bright Zinc plated instead of Yellow/Gold Cad, please let me know (you can use the numbers before the photo descriptions to refer to them).

So, this might be a good time to start posting photos of what I've been doing for the passed couple of months. Organizing, labelling, ordering, cleaning, etc. Work seems like it's been slow, but I was left with kind of a huge mess when I started this resto. Things were bagged accordingly for the most part, but left rusty, unfinished, or painted the wrong colour. Which for a resto is quite the opposite of what's desired. I am going to post more photos as it moves along, but here are some photos of everything I've tumbled so far. Will post photos of other items soon and other work soon. A lot of organizing, so it's kind of the un-fun stuff! I'll have to acquire permission to post the facility or the car in question before doing so- but I'm sure it won't be a problem with the owner. Here is the collection of items that have been tumbled so far, with the exception of the headlight buckets and the rear coolant tube, 1 - Full Monty 2 - Alternator Fan 3 - Waterpump Pulley 4 - Ball of 2-Wire Clamps... 5 - Headlight Buckets and Lots of Lug Nuts + Smog Pump pulley

yep, still to this day, tease my rotary headed friend about his engine being "almost made by GM". .

Just kidding! I was discussing this original Datsun ring binder I have with classiczcars.com member 26th-z. He's an avid collector of all things Datsun/Z, so I mentioned it to him, and he had never heard of its existence. SOOOOOO I thought I'd post some info here. It was produced in May of 1970. This seems to be the Canadian edition (if there were any others) as indicated by the line drawing of the Great White North on the front of the yellow plastic cover. It was given to me along with an old dilapidated early 1976 260Z owned by a dealer Service Manager. Sadly the car was too far gone to warrant a restoration, but I kept some hardware and literature from the donation. Here are some photos of some interesting pages, and what the book is about. I will set up my new scanner/copier to commit these to a PDF file for further inspection. Updated: My book has a table of contents that goes up to 193 pages, but I do not have anything passed 138. If it looks familiar to you, or you have access to the remainder of the pages, please let me know. I can scan them and send them back to you. Pictures Below: This book also contains information on various things like what is inside each item that is attached to the engine or provides auxiliary functions. Not many specifics on rebuilding or clearance checking and whatnot- but it does have things like metallurgy compositions, and processes involved in producing said items. It's foreward page has an exerpt about the book being used for insight and expanding one's knowledge and identifying/establishing proper nomenclature for various items according to Datsun regarding engines and whatnot. EXCITING edit: This is the full book. It's split up into 3 sections, each with a Table of Contents of its own. AWESOME!

floating pins, if the pistons have the proper groove to accept the locks. do not try to use the incorrect locks on a piston they were not designed for. rebushing the rods to 22mm shouldn't be a problem. parts dinosaur has the rod bushes made by ROCK that will work on the L rods (which may be listed under VG30). BUT you might be able to get away with the current rod bushings since you're shaving quite a bit of material off them. but as far as your question- resizing the rods is not a hard task by any competent engine builder. Also, consider going with ARP press in studs for the L/VG30 rods (same part number). They are a reasonably priced upgrade to Nissan/Datsun's shitty rod bolts, the bane of most high horsepower Nissan engines.

Does anyone have any photos of the original look of the engine once painted? Anything would help. Trying to cover up this Ford Blue that's on the engine now. Mainly concerned about which brackets get painted, Freeze plugs, covers, overspray, etc. I may or may not try to recreate the factory overspray look, but I'm more interested in the other details. What's cad, what's not. etc. I don't really need an entire rundown, but a pictoral of someone who's done a true-to-stock engine refinishing project would be helpful. I've discussed some parts with Al from California Datsun, but then there are some items I know are original paint on the 01/70... but he had told me they were to be bare aluminum (like the timing chain inspection plate on the front of the head... it's painted OE colour). As far as this engine is concerned, it is safe to assume that anything that is OE colour was never repainted or refinished- as everything that was touched was either sprayed silver or ford blue- both incorrect.

anyone?