Well well well, its been a while since I've posted on the ol 120Y and things have changed again....

with a list of engines including an A12, A14, L20B, Z22, SR20DET & RB30 I'm a bit spoilt for choice and its doing my head in trying to decide what to do.

So I will do nothing.... to the 120Y at least.

The 200B SSS will get the SR20DET initially then a RB30/25or26 once I'm bored with the SR ;)

I reckon the 120Y has to stay A series, after all where's the fun "embarrasing" people with one of the most common aftermarket engine swaps out there, oh its an SR, mmmm how original!!!

The 120Y is in for another rego check on Thursday after a month of procrastination, clutch changes, and general maintenance on the ol girl, the only thing I haven't fixed is the loud exhaust,

When I was in there last time the water pump had just about let go and was rattling and s h i t, now its fixed, i also upgraded all the electrics (battery cables, spark plug leads, spark plugs) so I reckon she'll run a bit quieter anyway so here's hoping the Datto will be back.

Later, Jon

Ah ha ha ha ha ha

The Datto is on the road,

Passed rego this morn, very very happy

Well that was short lived,

The head gasket has let go between 3 & 4 probably about a month ago (broken water pump) but I just thought it was hard to start cos it was cold and I got no choke, besides it only became noticeable in the last week.

New one should be in Wednesday, so the ancient engine I got at the wreckers will get a bit of love shortly.

Any advice for first time head removal and replacement?

Decapitated the Datsun on Sunday, really easy stuff dunno what I was worried about.

Gotta love A series engines!!!!

Found one really rusted head gasket around the rear water galleries, it had just about disintegrated between the two large ones at the rear, but no hole between 3 & 4,

not even any holes around the cylinders so I guess it was just a valve issue causing the miss in 3 & 4( the valves have bluish tinge around seats so they were leakin like seives)

The head is pretty badly corroded, I dunno if it can be saved but I'll get a reco done if the head guy reckons it'll be worth it.

Reco quote around $240, sounds pretty good to me, what have others paid??

man I wish I had the equipment so I could do that 5h!t myself I'm such a tight arse even squeezin out a couple o hundred hurts like last nights Indian

I'm so pissed I forgot to take before shots of my head cos it was really bad.

the rear water galleries had corroded out within like a few mm of cylinder 4 and the ones along the length of the head were not pretty either.

Here's what it looks like now







Here's the rear galleries nice and filled up w new metal




And a couple of the others, man the corrosion was bad!!




So now to clean the block and get the datto back on the road

Heh heh what a stuff around.

So putting the reconditioned head back on just emphasised the crappy rings, now she blows a heap of smoke under hard acceleration and I still have NFI what was causing the initial problem of spluttering on acceleration. It only seems to happen the day I get new fuel, so maybe crap from tank is now floating around in the carb, I dunno.

So replaced 1 head gasket and spent over $200 to find that out. Hmmmm... now I have to replace the block, time for head gasket number 2

Plan:
Order new gasket (done)
Rip out A14
Remove head
Put A14 head on A12 Block
Put back in 120Y
Do skids.
MEANWHILE:
Rebuild A14 to take A12 ported, gas flowed, and port matched to GX induction manifold head.
GX Cam (Or bigger)
BProjects GX Valve springs/seats/retainers
BProjects GX In/Ex gasket
Do bigger skids.

Damm it was hot this weekend. But I got the A14 out took its head off and put it on the A12 which is now sitting happily back in its original home.

All with only mild cases of sunstroke on both Sat and Sun. Prob had something to do with all that amber liquid I was consuming.

The torque difference between A12 and 14 is amazing. It feels like the A12 has about half the pulling power. It still motors along with its A14 head and DCD weber but I am gonna be trying to get the A14 rebuilt pretty quickly.

No more breaking traction with ease around corners will make me very bored.

On the plus side I figured out why the engine was spluttering. There are 2 vac hoses that connects to the fuel system I guess. Anyway I had both plumbed into the inlet manifold.

After filling up on fuel the car started spluttering, just like it was with the old motor. I was f%@% pissed off cos the good ol A12 had kicked into life on the third try and idled sweetly after not being used for about a year.

So I had another look at old photos and saw that one of the vac hoses should go onto the block. So I did that and presto the spluttering stopped.

Lesson there, take lots of photos if you are as much of a noob as I!!!!

Now I just gotta sort out a problem with the temp gauge reading wacky and I'll be very happy with my work on the 120Y so far.

So the updated plan:
Order new gasket (done)
Rip out A14 (done)
Remove head (done)
Put A14 head on A12 Block (done)
Put back in 120Y (done)
Do skids (not untill I got this temp gauge thing worked out)

MEANWHILE:
Rebuild A14 to take A12 ported, gas flowed, and port matched to GX induction manifold head.
GX Cam (Or bigger)
BProjects GX Valve springs/seats/retainers
BProjects GX In/Ex gasket
Do bigger skids.

Good idea on the pictures thing, that saved me from a few 'pickles'.

Good to see you're venturing further into the mechanical side of things, are you going to rebuild the A14 yourself? If you get the machining done and the tricky things like cam bearings it can be really quite fun.

I enjoy the engine building more than the driving.

one thing i love is that the engine parts seem to be in the kitchen. now thats looking after them :P

Well the engine ran fine today on the way to and from work.

I even tentatively tried to make it heat up and nothing happened

I'll get an O2 sensor up its arse soon to make sure the mix is ok after the A14 - A12 switch.

The timing is way out. I think its the dizzy. When I first got it going it was idling at 10deg adv w no vac line on and the dizzy was fully retarded on the top markings. It felt sluggish. I gave it a bit of advance till it picked up. This brought the idle advance way past the 20deg mark.

The dizzy must be out a tooth or something cos it was not pinging under load this arvo.

I'm gonna be rebuilding it myself, save for the machining of the block, I haven't been into the cam bearing area yet so dont know if I will have the equipment to do whats needed.

I do have access to a block honing setup tho. It's all a learning curve really.

This rebuild will be my first I don't know if I'll replace everything, I'll see what cash allows.

Oh yeah, I always work on my car in the kitchen...

Cos you don't have to go so far for a beer ;)