1968 1600 SPL311-20028 "Sally"

[sfyks870]

What do you mean by align them?

[rbhenderson]

What do you mean by align them?

Just the text that’s stamped on them. Nothing important but the text is visible enough that it would have been nice to have it all right side up.

[TriniGriffin]

Hello Ben, your Nov 13 post with the intake manifold and the petcock (which cleaned very nicely, btw) is actually the Summer/Winter control for coolant to the internal heater core/box. Others may pipe in this as well.

Kudos on the rapid pace, and your successes on Sally. Also, nice bottle of Scotch.
Cheers.

[rbhenderson]

Hello Ben, your Nov 13 post with the intake manifold and the petcock (which cleaned very nicely, btw) is actually the Summer/Winter control for coolant to the internal heater core/box. Others may pipe in this as well.

Kudos on the rapid pace, and your successes on Sally. Also, nice bottle of Scotch.
Cheers.

That makes sense, seemed odd to do it that way but I guess it’s the simplest possible way to isolate the hot water to the core… The holidays are going to slow me down some but I’m still aiming to have this back together in some form by January!

[rbhenderson]

Back from Thanksgiving shenanigans! Definitely took advantage of the Black Friday sales from Dean and Brian, can’t wait to get all the stuff in and installed!

I took the lazy way out and left all the seat rails in evaporust over the weekend, they were clean and mostly degreased when I got back! Did I get a picture? Nope! I got the driver seat back together tonight, passenger seat is going to need new studs on one of the rails so need to order parts for that.

Got the engine cooling passages filled up with vinegar, hoping that will eat away the last of the scale that I couldn’t get out with the hose. Once that’s done the head is going back on! I think. Need to go through my list of things and make sure I got it all.

Shifted gears over to the gas tank, wasn’t sure what condition it was in or how the PO had left it. Started off with a borescope down the filler neck, pleasantly surprised with how clean it looked! Mostly…

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Seeing that there was still gas in the tank and that it looked gross I decided to pull the level gauge and get a good look inside. Unfortunately the screws were stripped out and painted over…

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Gauge itself looks good, seems like whoever did the resto work on this at least put some good stuff back in it.

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So, there’s about 1/2” of gas in the bottom of the tank, 5 yea old gas… It’s gross, but seems like it’s just got crud in the bottom not rust, so hooray! Just need to spend some time cleaning lines and such and get the crud out of the bottom of the tank. Aaaand drill out and replace that dang screw!

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[ADR]

Thanks for the details and pictures Ben. We're all learning from each other and every good pic or bit of Intel makes the next project go more smoothly.

Mine is ramping up in the next few weeks and I look forward to sharing my journey as well.

[rbhenderson]

Thanks for the details and pictures Ben. We're all learning from each other and every good pic or bit of Intel makes the next project go more smoothly.

Mine is ramping up in the next few weeks and I look forward to sharing my journey as well.

I hope it’s useful to someone in the future like all the past threads have been to me! Can’t wait to see what you do!

[rbhenderson]

Got some pictures of my janky setup to fill the block with vinegar, it worked pretty well! Clamps are holding on the water pump manifold against some gorilla tape to seal off those passages.

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Got all the blower box and heater core bits cleaned up and refoamed. Soaked all the things in Evaporust (I know, you’re shocked!) which loosened a lot of the paint. I’m not planning on using this long term (air conditioning! Houston!) so taking some short cuts and not stripping and painting it… I’m planning on building a vapor blasting booth at some point so if I end up needing to do it in the future it’ll be easier than right now.

Before:

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I used some leftover 3/16” foam from a window AC unit, it’s very soft so it compresses really well. Would recommend using 1/4” and as soft as possible. Used some harder foam to support the evaporator core. Soft foam to help prevent rattles. Then I remembered I had the original felt that was in good condition so I wedged that in. Forgot to get pics but I’ll have to open it up again because I couldn’t find all the screws! I know I put them somewhere safe…

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Fan resistors looked okay so I’m not replacing them. Maybe I should have?

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Here’s some pics of the seat rails, they turned out pretty well!

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Aaaaaaand I’ve officially hit the point where I need to complete some things so I have room to work other things… Embarrassing to show, but sometimes it happens. I need to order hardware so I can install the dash and a bunch of other things. Gonna do that tomorrow.

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And I found the blower box screws! I knew they were safe! I haven’t used magnetic bowls much so I’m not used to them, must remember to look on workbench columns! Haha

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And on that note, my ultrasonic cleaner came with a tea strainer for small parts, highly recommended! Screws soaking in, well, I’ll let you guess…

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[rbhenderson]

After 2 days of soaking in vinegar I called it good enough… Note for anyone cleaning the water jacket this way, it bubbles as it reacts with the rust, plug the holes and add a breather tube to one of them, or oil the block or something to help combat the vinegar on the sealing surface. Or just wipe it down frequently… It all cleaned up pretty easily so not bad but could be better.

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This is what the vinegar looked like when I drained it out.

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I did a baking soda wash to neutralize the acid since I’m not gonna have it filled for another month or so probably. Forgot to get a picture of that, I then did progressive rinses with hot water before calling it good enough.

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It turned out pretty well, probably could have used another day or two but I can run some other cleaning product once it’s assembled to clean things up the rest of the way.

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Once that was done I gave the sealing surfaces a good scrub and clean and then bolted on the head, installed the rockers and set the lash to about 0.013”, which I thing was the approximate cold set point I found somewhere on here… I don’t remember how much I wrote about this before but the head has been decked a bit too far, unfortunately I didn’t realize this before ordering head gaskets so I needed more thickness and had already spent money (learning lesson for next engine build, inspect everything BEFORE ordering head gasket and such!) I went with the janky option of doubling up on gaskets since it way the cheapest way out of that corner. I don’t recommend this for long term use, buy the thicker head gaskets that are available! For me just remember this doesn’t have to run very long, just enough to get it titled and then I'll do an engine swap…

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I put some anti-seize on the head bolts so I only torqued them to 40ft-lb. Torqued the rocker supports to 25ft-lb.

I then did some cleanup on the valve cover and got the seal “glued” on to the cover with some oil compatible sealant. Forgot to get a picture but it’s all tightened on the head so the sealant will set right and stick the gasket to the cover for easy removal. The sealing surface was pretty munched so I sanded it some to smooth some of the big gouges out.


Gross rock hard seal

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Big gouges

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Ready for installation

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Other things today - spent $200 on new hardware from McMaster so I can install driver seat, dash, replace body bolts, etc. Just remembered I forgot the replacement bolts/studs for the passenger seat . Also booked the appointment for law enforcement VIN check to kick off the bonded title process, first available was 2/5/24, so I have a date, and it’s further away than I anticipated. Also found out the car doesn’t have to be running, just assembled. So I didn’t need to do engine things, but I want to drive it before the engine swap so it’s alright!

[rbhenderson]

Making progress! Soon I’ll have room to dig into the fuel system!

Got some pics of the heater core/blower box while I was finishing it up. Not pretty but should work for now!

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Swapped out some carburetor bits thanks to Sin City Datsun. One of my floats had some cracks starting to picked up a replacement, as well as new float valves. The PPO had set the the float levers way off, measured like 16mm or more instead of the 11-12mm recommended. Hopefully there wasn’t a reason for that that I’m going to find later… Old float on the right, new on the left

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Got more bits put back on the engine. I may regret having everything on it when I try to install it in the car but those manifold and carb bolts are no fun!

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[Florida Roadster]

Got some pics of the heater core/blower box while I was finishing it up. Not pretty but should work for now!

While you have it out, pressure check the heater core. Mine looked good but when I tested it there was a small leak on one of the side tanks. Better to discover it now than later. Jeff

[rbhenderson]

Got some pics of the heater core/blower box while I was finishing it up. Not pretty but should work for now!

While you have it out, pressure check the heater core. Mine looked good but when I tested it there was a small leak on one of the side tanks. Better to discover it now than later. Jeff

Oh yeah definitely, thats actually why I took it apart! (well that and the foam was disintegrating) It held great with no leaks at about 20 psig. I did find a small weeping leak in the radiator fitting that runs to the overflow tank (at least I think that where it goes, the small tube on top) that I haven't decided how to fix yet. It's so small that I'm thinking about ignoring it (well, monitoring it) since it was such a small leak at a higher pressure than the system runs at, with air not water, etc... Engine swap will need a new radiator so I figure limping this one a long for a little while should be fine.

[rbhenderson]

Installed the water pump tonight. Got the vacuum line installed from rear carb to distributor and took a look at the weights installed to figure out the curve it’s on. Unfortunately it hasn’t been recurved so still on the smog version.

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My box of McMaster hardware showed up today! Now I can start mounting things in the car!

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Started in on the dash area by attempting to install the heater box. I think I got it right but haven’t found a picture or diagram to prove it yet.

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Cleaned up the steering wheel a bit and noticed that the horn contact ring plastic was cracked pretty heavily so got some epoxy on it, we’ll see how it works.

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Drained the gas tank, it was mostly empty, maybe a half gallon of fuel in it that I could see, it came out really clean. Unless the baffles inside trap fuel in a certain orientation? Also blew out the fuel lines, they are flowing so I think I’ll just get a bunch of filters and let it clean itself for now…

[sfyks870]

Got more bits put back on the engine. I may regret having everything on it when I try to install it in the car but those manifold and carb bolts are no fun!

Trust me bud, put it on now and fight it in ON the engine! Lol. I just took mine off in the car and it was the ultimate nightmare. I am almost convinced it's impossible to get back on properly without some modification. That's the whole reason I'll be pulling my engine when I get back home.

You are blazing away on the progress! I wish I didn't work away from home for long periods, so I could spend more time in my shop.

[rbhenderson]

Got more bits put back on the engine. I may regret having everything on it when I try to install it in the car but those manifold and carb bolts are no fun!

Trust me bud, put it on now and fight it in ON the engine! Lol. I just took mine off in the car and it was the ultimate nightmare. I am almost convinced it's impossible to get back on properly without some modification. That's the whole reason I'll be pulling my engine when I get back home.

You are blazing away on the progress! I wish I didn't work away from home for long periods, so I could spend more time in my shop.

Your experience and my attempt to get the manifold off the spare car are what’s driving me this direction . It will be as complete as I can make it before it goes back in!

I’m trying to make progress while I can! I’ll be traveling for 2 weeks this month so I’ll be itching to get stuff done. Can’t imagine a longer stretch! I’m about to work on installing the dash, not super excited about it, they are just a pain to deal with haha (especially with the windshield installed)