Done "Right" NOT Required to run Great!!

Ajouté : 2026-05-18

[00:00:00]Going on my little excursion to Florida has made me miss Dottie, the OD520.

[00:00:06]And I'm thinking we need to repower this unit with an L20B and a five-speed. This is the very first Datsun I have ever owned. It is just the coolest old junky truck and I love it. This is the truck we're going to use the engine out of this truck. That doesn't mean it's over with for this truck. I still may fix the body on it and then we can put an engine transmission in it later. The engine does need a lot of work, but it is should be usable.

[00:00:38]That is an L20B if I didn't mention it before and it does have a five-speed.

[00:00:45]Look at that, see? Don't be fooled by the knob. Let's get started and we will yoink the engine and transmission out of this sucker. Just so everybody knows, I post shorts frequently and that's more of a real-time thing of what's going on with these Datsuns. And the longer form videos is more detail. So, hopefully you're watching both. How do you like my microphone setup? I don't like wearing a hat very much anymore. I used to. Known worldwide, of course, but for those of you that don't know, I am the one and only infamous Kentucky Yankee without a doubt at your service.

[00:01:28]Off to a great start.

[00:01:30]Get it? Starter. Off to a great start.

[00:01:49]Easy enough, no damage done, slid right out. And I was afraid this bucket wasn't going to raise it high enough. The only way I got it out was with the curl. It was already raised all the way up. That didn't work. My plan was to take the blocks out of the front of the truck, of course.

[00:02:05]Well, let me show you something.

[00:02:07]I do not have any love for critters.

[00:02:11]Can you see that mess in there?

[00:02:14]Nasty. And they just ruin everything.

[00:02:17]We're going to leave the transmission in there for now because I don't need it and why should I put it in my way in the shop?

[00:02:26]I hope this engine works out. It really does look good, but if you'll remember, I had the cover off of it and it wasn't in good shape.

[00:02:56]Just like that head on my other truck, did you notice a dowel pin jumped out?

[00:03:01]Here's one, two, and the other one's with the pressure plate, so I need to get that.

[00:03:05]They possibly stopped driving it because the clutch was wore out. This thing is in pretty poor shape.

[00:03:12]Especially this side. Flywheel looks good. We'll clean that up a little bit.

[00:03:16]Should be fine.

[00:03:40]I save old hoses and everything so I can compare them to the new ones when I have to buy them.

[00:03:52]I don't want anybody worry. Every bit of these emission pieces will be disposed of properly.

[00:04:02]Black, but no water in it, so that's a good sign.

[00:04:08]Was running rich, for sure.

[00:04:13]Certainly not a pretty sight. I think the gears come with the chain, so that'll be gone.

[00:04:20]The cam looks unusable. There's a few springs and things on this side unusable, but I could maybe get off the other head I got out there.

[00:05:08]Well, that's a shame right there. The rest of the cylinders look good. That water intrusion got the valves, too.

[00:05:15]Three out of four, that's not bad, but it's not good, either, in this case.

[00:05:23]Again, don't panic. This stuff is going in the garbage.

[00:05:33]I'm so mad at myself for selling my parts washer, that big nice one I had.

[00:06:17]>> I'm not flipping it upside down to take the oil pan off cuz I think all the oil's on the bottom right now, so why make a mess? If I flip it over, it'd be dripping on the floor forever.

[00:06:30]Little sludgy, not too bad.

[00:06:33]Now, let's whoop it over and see what we got here.

[00:06:38]It's not in bad shape, really.

[00:06:43]Man, that's a nice rubber gasket, not cork.

[00:06:48]Let's see if I can get that number four piston out.

[00:06:58]This is a brass wire wheel, not that it matters. I think the bore IS REALLY DAMAGED.

[00:07:11]AS BAD AS THIS IS, I AM NOT going to lie.

[00:07:15]I might end up throwing a set of rings in it just running.

[00:07:19]A little piston slap and oil burning doesn't bother me.

[00:07:23]Man, that's not bad at all. She'll pop right out.

[00:07:32]Ooh.

[00:07:34]Bang looks very good. This one does, anyways.

[00:07:38]It's got somewhere, but it's not bad at all.

[00:07:40]The oil ring's hanging up just a little bit. The compressor rings are out.

[00:07:49]The rod is well, froze up. That's why it's not cranking over there.

[00:07:54]All the way. I bet it'll rotate now.

[00:07:58]Ah.

[00:07:59]Still sticking.

[00:08:01]Huh.

[00:08:02]Well, I'm not going to do any damage to it. I might as well just take it apart.

[00:08:07]There is some rust showing up here on the bottom of the crank and I'm sure that maybe those other pistons are sticking.

[00:08:13]I'm not sure.

[00:08:15]The journal looks great and that bearing looked good. This cylinder is a little rough. You could get by with honing it and throwing a set of rings in it. I hope the rest of the journals look that good. I know I'm supposed to bore this engine and get the right size pistons put in and all that, but I'm also cheap and I know I can get by with throwing a set of rings in it after I hone it. But for those of you that need to know how to do it right, if you can hang your fingernail here on this ridge, it needs to be bored. That's probably about 20,000.

[00:08:47]We are going to have to abruptly change gears because the cylinder head is ready for this truck. Machine shop just called me, so I want to go pick it up and get this thing put back together. I'm going to take this camshaft with me to see if he can find me a new one or regrind this one. I'm not sure. I think he's might possibly be able to do that. The head, I still want to take it apart some more and check it out to see what we're going to do with that before I bring it to him. I also got to make a decision whether or not I'm going to bore this engine. Most likely not, but possibly.

[00:09:19]The head has been milled by a professional. I don't have to check it.

[00:09:22]Steve does perfect work. I am cheap, of course, and requested that he doesn't clean it so I could save some money. I'm going to hose it off, make sure there's no grit in it, and we'll slap her on there. Well, at this point it's becoming a little bit funny. This engine has another crack in it. If you've been watching my videos, you know the piston is jacked up and we have a crack in the head, a crack on the camshaft, and now I discovered this crack right here in between the water jackets on both sides of that bolt hole.

[00:09:54]Isn't that funny?

[00:09:55]Well, the reason why it's funny to me is because just like the other cracks, that one will make no difference. I'm just going to go on with it. It'll be interesting to see what slows this engine down or stops it because it's probably not going to be any of those cracks. I'm finally getting the spark plug hole fixed. That back one, remember how it was always jacked up.

[00:10:20]Head gasket surface is perfectly clean.

[00:10:23]Dowel pins, both of them, are installed.

[00:10:26]If you didn't see my last video, I went to Florida. Somebody had installed the head gasket without installing one of the dowel pins. I had head gasket issues because it was misaligned. To ensure a proper seal of the head gasket, you must thoroughly clean the head bolts and lubricate them with motor oil. The purpose of the oil is so that the threads will slip easy when you go to torque the head down and also you want it around the washers. Everything needs to slide easily to torque properly.

[00:10:57]This gasket was a little bit funky when I got it. Got a little bit of a bend in it, but it wasn't bad enough. I think it's safe to use.

[00:11:06]>> [snorts] >> These bolts are not torque to yield.

[00:11:13]Most things weren't this old.

[00:11:17]I have the rockers on now.

[00:11:21]For the camshaft, start from the center, work your way out.

[00:11:26]I'm going to torque it in three steps, 20, 40, and then 60.

[00:11:39]That's it, 60. Now I got to torque down these caps.

[00:11:43]Most people like me don't have dowel pins just laying around, especially a variety of different sizes. So this man, Savoy, told me years ago to just use a drill bit because they're hardened. So I will take this drill bit, cut it down, and we'll have a pin.

[00:12:02]Perfect.

[00:12:04]It fits nice and snug, too. I think it'll hold the gear in the right spot.

[00:12:08]That's all it's supposed to do. The nut holds the gear in place. This just indicates where it belongs. The timing chain is all installed, so now what I always do is crank the engine over slowly just to make sure everything works smoothly, and you know, like valves don't hit or something.

[00:12:27]You want to crank it over a time or two anyways when you do a timing chain.

[00:12:31]Well, here's where we're at. Got the alternator on, water pump on.

[00:12:36]I have to admit, I am frustrated with all the bolts in the wrong places, too long, too short, stripped out holes.

[00:12:45]It's getting to me. Check that out right there.

[00:12:49]That's like Bondo to seal that up. Now look at the shape of this manifold and keep it in your mind. It looks like these holes also, these ports, have Bondo in them.

[00:13:00]Here we are at the junkyard.

[00:13:02]Let me raise this hood up.

[00:13:08]Now look at the shape of that manifold.

[00:13:11]Every Datsun in the world.

[00:13:15]Oh gosh, man.

[00:13:17]What on earth?

[00:13:19]This is off of our truck, and it has those ports closed up for emissions crap, and this is off of an L16 is what I believe. And see, you can tell it's more of a header style um exhaust manifold. So, I'm thinking about going with this one. Square ports, round ports, but I don't think that makes any difference.

[00:13:42]And I believe this one will flow better.

[00:13:44]The only issue is it's rotted out down here, so I'm going to have to do some repairs before I can use it, but that's okay because I want a 2-in pipe coming off of there.

[00:13:56]Not going to happen today. I got gaskets for a L20B, and I think I want to get gaskets for the L16. Although I think that these would seal up.

[00:14:06]It seems like on the edges they're not as nice as I would like to see them.

[00:14:12]That's okay because this exhaust system needs to be completely redone anyways, and I'll do that at a later date. It's not bad from here back from the glass pack back, and it's 2-in pipe.

[00:14:24]In front of that, it looks like a inch and 3/4, and I'd rather have the whole thing 2-in, so we'll do that later.

[00:14:42]Just water for now because I want to get it rinsed out.

[00:14:46]I did take the radiator outside and rinse it all out.

[00:14:50]The head was rinsed out.

[00:14:52]The block was blown out with air.

[00:14:55]Oh, crap.

[00:14:59]Kidding. And I shouldn't joke like that.

[00:15:06]If you've been watching the whole time thinking this guy ain't doing this right.

[00:15:11]He's a jerk.

[00:15:13]Watch this.

[00:15:14]This is the motor oil that came out of this truck. I'm putting it back in. It's still got a thousand miles on it.

[00:15:20]Don't believe me?

[00:15:22]Look at it.

[00:15:24]And for those of you wondering why I'm doing this, the it's still got a thousand miles on it and it'll rinse out any debris in the engine and I can change it pretty quick again.

[00:15:36]It'll be NICE AND CLEAN.

[00:15:50]AH.

[00:15:52]QUITE A BIT OUT OF TIME.

[00:15:54]Let's see which way it needs to go.

[00:15:56]Radiator is full, by the way, and the cap's off because Payton thought that it would blow compression out of there.

[00:16:02]It's not going to.

[00:16:04]Well, we've got a fuel line leaking. I must not It has a hole or something all over the exhaust manifold, so need to address that.

[00:16:19]Getting closer. I will play with the timing a little bit and we'll go for a test run. Did you see any compression coming out of the radiator here, Payton?

[00:16:31]I told you I never use a timing light, but I'll show you why I'm using one this time.

[00:16:37]You will very rarely see me use a timing light. Normally, I'll just go up and down the road, go up a steep hill, put the truck under load, let it spark knock a little bit, and then back it off, back the distributor off till it stops doing that. In this case, the distributor, if you can see it down there, is adjusted to the max. But, I thought it's running right, so why take the oil pump off and the gear out and turn it if I don't have to. So, I checked the timing, it's at 15° right now. It's supposed to be 10 or 12. I like it a little bit advanced, so it should run good right there. As long as it doesn't spark knock. Let's take her down the road and see what it does.

[00:17:11]See how it sounds when it starts.

[00:17:15]Nice.

[00:17:17]The charging light is going to drive me insane. I don't know why it's doing this.

[00:17:22]New alternator, the old one did it. Now watch.

[00:17:27]Rev it up, it'll go out. When it gets down to real low RPMs, she'll come back on again.

[00:17:33]Running great, staying cool, sounds good. I think we got it. Some people say, "Well, Benny, why didn't you fix it right? What is right?"

[00:17:45]Here's what's right for me. It cost $100 to fix this truck, and I will play with it for many years. I am not concerned with those cracks one bit, none of them.

[00:17:55]Not the camshaft. I'm not concerned with the piston being all jacked up. And the reason why is because those cracks will not affect anything. They'll have to get much worse if they do.

[00:18:07]I could have fixed the engine right by fixing all those cracks, but then I could have thousands of dollars in an old truck that really just doesn't worth that much. I'll keep you guys posted. If something goes wrong, I'll let you know.

[00:18:20]So, let's do this. If you guys watch till the end and you don't like what I did, then leave in the comments below, "Benny, you suck." Or if you agree with me that you shouldn't put a whole ton of money in an old truck that's not worth much, then go in the comments below and say, "Benny, you did good." I want to thank everybody again for watching. There is a hype button below. You can hit it as many times you want. It doesn't cost you a penny. And a like button, and you can comment, you can share, and maybe my pathetic little channel can get moving.