[ Episode 2. ]
The weather up north has been shocking for the last few months and with work - I have had very little time to even go and look at the car. about 3 weeks ago we had a Saturday morning of sunshine, so I thought i'd go and push it out of the garage and have a proper look around it to see what odd sods and jobs need doing ( Which there are no doubt many )
Seeing the car in daylight for the first time made me very happy.. When it was delivered it was pitch black so assessing the bodywork was pretty impossible, and since then it had just sat in the garage waiting for me to pull it out.
Upon first inspections in the light, I was very happy. The body is straight, and the interior looked exactly as it did on the photos in Japan. Inside the car I could see that the manual choke pull was missing, the accelerator pedal is missing and the carpet has seen much much much better days. The indicator stalk was also faulty - it wasn't loose, but it wasn't clicking into place when I indicated either way. The handbrake was another issue.. god only knows why they did that "imitation wood" effect on some parts in the 70's. There was also a lot of play in the gear lever - Nothing that bothers me too much but it just made things feel a little cheap. The door rubbers were also missing from some previous restoration.
However, the most important thing was to start her up for the first time and hear that L20 Straight 6 for the first time.
I connected the jump leads...
primed the carbs...
and fired her up into a blistering rage on the first turn! ( or at least that is what I wish happened )
Unfortunately, she did not fire up as I had hoped.. She was stuttering greatly, big pops coming out of the carbs and exhaust, and on idle it was cutting the engine out after around 5-10 seconds.. Pressing the accelerator just bogged the engine down more under load, so I left it at that for the day - A little frustrated that I couldn't get out and drive it, but mainly the fact I couldn't get it up to my friends garage to tackle some of the jobs that needed doing.
I had my friend come round the following weekend and we got a strobe on the engine, the timing was way out - and for some reason the mixture screws were all set wrong so there was a wrong air/fuel mixture entering the engine causing popping and banging and a very high idle. The middle carburetor was also blocked on the jets and not squirting fuel, so we whipped the carburetors off and set about having them cleaned.
Further inspections were no good. Some numpty had over-tightened one of the mixture screws so much that it had stripped the thread and impacted into the carb causing the tiny pin-hole where the tip of the screw sits to be wider than it should of been.
Here is the mixture screw in question, along side what it " should " look like.
As you can see, somebody has put some serious force into screwing that little guy into the carburetor and took away the head!
So we set about trying to find a replacement set of mixture screws.. easy.. right? Just ebay them.. well - we did just that.. searching for " 40mm addhe mikuni solex mixture screws " - and found them instantly.. easy peasy!
until they arrived and we discovered they was not correct like the description had stated.
Why does this always seem to happen with classic car parts? plenty times I have ordered " correctly described " parts only for them to turn up and be completely different? Either way - they were sent back and the search for the mixture screws continued..
Nowhere, and I mean nowhere had the correct screws, I emailed every carb restoration company on the planet ( 1st page of google ) and nobody could supply me with what I needed. Apparently these ADDHE solex are a very early pair and finding parts can be nigh on impossible.
Fantastic.
My last glint of hope was a guy on my facebook who lives in Japan and also has a Kenmeri Skyline. - He came through! and he also had the door rubbers! Nice and shiny!
For anybody looking for parts for anything Japanese, I do recommend using " Secret Factory " - They came through in a big way here and had the parts with me within 3 days from them buying them. I'll be using them again for sure.
The carbs were put back onto the car with fresh gaskets and on the first turn of the key, she really did fire up into a blistering rage. I didn't want to risk driving it as it has sat for so long with the time it was in japan, and the 4 months journey to the UK, the month and a half Torque GT had it, and the 2 months I've had it - So I let her purr on the driveway and gave her a few revs to get her up to temperature and look / listen for anything a miss. - Thankfully, everything sounded and looked to be right, the engine got up to temperature.. Didn't run too hot and with that, I was a happy man for the day.
sendvid.com/qhq6axep?secret=1b406d2f-3365-443d-aa09-f9dfd573d06cThe engine is running fine now, just like it was in Japan ( which is all a bit pointless really as I have a completely different engine going in at the end of the month - and L28 That a friend is meticulously rebuilding - But at least when this L20 comes out, I know its all good should I need it for anything.
So, last weekend I drove the car for the first time,up to my friends garage to have some of the jobs carried out that need doing on it.. First impressions - I am a very very happy man. The noise! oh the noise! I snapped a lot of necks on my 10 minute drive up there and got a lot of thumbs up! The handling feels nice, the brakes were a little scary - I was using the foot brake and handbrake all the way there, so they have now been bled and the servo will be checked tomorrow.
The gear lever that was flappy was also missing the bushes :
ยฃ48 later.. ( yes - forty eight british pounds ) - for 3 bits of plastic :
But they did the job nicel and as my friend said " Gear changes are now tighter than a submarine hatch " - Happy Days!
As for the indicator mechanism - Removing the plastic trim to get a closer look proved true what we thought to be the issue - The little " tab " that clicks into place when you indicate up or down has snapped off at some point in the past - and although the indicators work fine, its still something that bugs me as it feels very un-natural not to have it click into place - You can see here on the left side of the column, the sheered plastic area :
Here is how its meant to look ( Courtest of Yahoo Japan, I was actually bidding on this indicator mechanism until it sold for the pricely sum of ยฃ200 ) :
So my search for either : A - A solution , or B - A fresh indicator mechanism continues. - If anybody has any ideas - Please do let me know!
Next, carpets were ripped out, along with the seats and center console to get better access to some of the other things, and to have a good look at the floorpan..
I do love the shape of this window :
That god awful "imitation wood" handbrake went from this :
To this replacement black leather one I picked up a few months ago :
A much better fit, as there was no other "wooden" parts in the car so the handbrake stood out like a sore thumb.
With the drivers seat removed, we came across this :
It had us a little stumped at first, but a friend who knows his Nissans very well told us it is an early ECU for the L20 - and quite rate too. The car had previously been fuel injected at some point and we was wondering what a bundle of modern injection connections were doing disconnected under the bonnet.. so they can be removed now, and the ECU i'll keep where it is as its causing no trouble.
I do love getting these small jobs done, its amazing how much it can transform a car from feeling a bit ragged to feeling nice and tight. I'll continue to keep up-rating and upgrading parts that need replacing as I go along. Most people would of been happy to drive it as it is now, and its perfectly fine to do so, but in my opinion its the finer details that count and all these jobs will only go into making that driving experience much much better!
And so ; With that, I will leave this episode here. Next update will have some pretty big jobs on it, so stay tuned for that! I'll leave you with a few photos of her as she sits today :
P.S - If anybody knows who can trim/fit car carpets in the north west. Please do get in touch with me. I want a full new carpet in this car.
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