This page will be a running summary of details relating to my Roadster project. Please read the disclaimer at the bottom of the page.

Oh, by the way, the 311s messageboard is *the* place to go for information on Roadsters. The techwiki also has a lot of useful information.


June 2009:

Initially, a couple guys at work knew I was looking around for something like an original Austin Mini or MGB, and one of them spotted a Datsun Roadster along the road here in Pendleton. I took a chance and found the owner at home one evening and talked to him about the car. He asked a fair price and the deal was done. Looking at the car, I was under no delusions that it would be an easy project to get running.

With some help from my neighbor John, we loaded the car on to a flatbed trailer under threatening skies. Oh the excitement!

Once safely back in the shop, I proceeded to pull out the interior carpet that was soaked, cleaned out the engine bay, and dove into the SU carbs. The carburetors on this car were actually made by Hitachi in Japan under license from SU in England. It took the better part of a Saturday to completely clean the carbs. Other details that needed attending to were filling the coolant system (and hoping nothing leaked), check the oil level (should have gone all the way and drained it), and put the electrical system back together. Someone started to switch the car over to a negative ground setup and fortunately had disconnected the alternator and regulator. If they hadn't, those would have been destroyed when the engine ran with the battery hooked up.

After jury-rigging a fuel tank off a garden tractor as a temporary fuel supply, all signs were go!. The engine started immediately and appeared to have decent oil pressure. What I didn't notice was the pool of oil on the ground, growing, just under the transmission bellhousing. I'm beginning to think the engine is toast.

John also pointed out the crack repair on the side of the block behind the exhaust manifold. It's common for the blocks to crack there just under the freeze plugs when water is used with no antifreeze. Bad news. So...I pulled the engine out and tore into it. The oil was essentially sludge, the crank bearings were worn to the copper backing, the rod bearings were heavily scored, the crank was scored, one of the rocker arm shaft stand bolts had stripped out and someone replaced it with a large piece of all-thread. Yep...time for a new engine.


July 2009:

I talked to Mike Young at Datsun Sports and he said he had a good clean R-16 (1600cc OHV pushrod Nissan) engine that he'd sell me at a decent price. He's in Clearlake CA, about 650 miles away. We headed down July 4th, spent the night at Williams just off of I-5, and headed west to Clearlake Sunday morning. After taking a wrong turn and ending up in an eastern spiritual retreat center, we found Mike's place. He hooked me up with the R-16, clutch assembly, 5-speed transmission (better for highway driving), good used leaf springs, and various other parts. Mike knows his Roadsters. He's probably forgotten more about Roadsters than most of us will ever know.

We were eager to hit the road and make it to Bend Oregon before night fall. I would have liked to stay longer. A nice CHP officer signaled us to slow down without pulling us over. Seems in California the speed limit is 55mph when pulling *any* trailer, no matter how small. At least we didn't get a ticket.

After making it back home (we spent the night in Bend with some friends), I unloaded the engine and various other parts. At this point, the engine pretty much just sat on the engine stand as I busied myself with finishing up the brakes.

I had decided to have all the brake and clutch cylinders resleeved instead of replaced. I figure a stainless steel sleeve is going to last a long longer than the OEM anodized aluminum bore in the stock parts. There are a number of discussions out there about whether stainless steel or brass sleeving is better and I haven't heard proof one way or the other. I decided to go with SS sleeves from KARP'S Power Brake out of California. They had a decent turnaround time on the parts, reasonable price (I thought), and their workmanship was excellent. I also decided to help the drum brake performance as much as possible. This car has a single master cylinder and drum brakes all around. One of the few upgrades is to install braided stainless steel flexible lines in place of the OEM rubber ones. Summit Racing was able to hook me up with Earl's Performance Plumbing lines and hardware, and the cost was actually less than going with the stock rubber lines. The parts I used:

Earl's SpeedFlex brake lines, prices from Summit Racing online

Part Number: Description: Quantity:
581531ERL Short AN -3 to -3 inverted flare (2 packages of 2)
963203ERL -3 to -3 flare bulkhead fitting 4
502403ERL -3 bulkhead nut (2 packages of 2)
63010111ERL 11" -3 male to -3 male brake line 1 (clutch)
63010118ERL 18" -3 male to -3 male brake line 3 (brakes)

I sourced all the OEM soft brake parts (piston seals, dust seals, etc) from a vendor on ebay for $150. On the 1500 Roadster, each front brake has two matched brake cylinders. L1 & L2, R1 & R2. I also decided to use SpeedBleeders, part number SB3824SS, in stainless steel, to make brake maintenance a lot easier. You just crack one of the fittings open with a tube over the end, and pump away. They have a small checkvalve inside so you don't suck air back into the system. Excellent. I sourced rear brake shoes from an early '70's 510 at the local auto parts store (Beck/Arnley part #081-0192) and they were an exact match. The front shoes had to be specifically for the Roadster though.

I worked on the brakes and other parts throughout July, August, and September. My shop isn't insulated so it gets very warm during the summer hot season (and alternately cold during the winter).


October 2009:

We're getting close to dropping the "new" engine into the car. I decided it would be prudent to pull the oil pan off and look over the bearings to see what I was dealing with. Fortunately everything looked very clean and showed little wear. None of the bearings were worn down to the backing material. The cam lobes did show some pitting but that tends to happen with a flat tappet cam. Mike said it should be fine for a while. When I overhaul the engine, the cam and lifters will all be replaced.

To prevent myself from falling into the "...well while I'm at it, I might as well do....." scenario that leads to a loooooooooooong project and little progress, I decided to NOT work on anything else that wasn't going to either cause a tremendous amount of work later, or damage something in the immediate future. I could have torn into the cylinder head and had the valves done, but with the condition of the bottom end, I decided to risk it and assume things are in good shape.

Minor details on the engine:
I had to braze up some cracks on the heat shield under the carbs, source another used water return pipe from Mike Young and braze up a couple cracks on it (he said it might have issues, but the price was right), replace the temperature sender (a serious hassle because the engine has an exhaust header which blocks easy access), source the correct alternator mount for the R-16 from Mike (the 1500 alternator mount doesn't fit the R-16 engine properly), sand blast and paint various parts, disassemble and clean the rocker arm shaft assembly as it was pretty gundgy looking, and did a serious flush job on the block. Using a pressure nozzle, I kept blasting water through the water pump mount and ran a long piece of wire in the water passages to break loose as much rust as I could. Eventually the water ran clean (after running the engine later, the antifreeze stayed clean too. Must have done a good job cleaning).

During October I also finished the brakes completely. Initially I couldn't get a firm pedal after repeatedly bleeding the system and then Mike clued me in as I hadn't adjusted the drum brakes. The brake pistons were pushing the shoes out, but the springs pulled them back. So what I thought was air in the system was really caused by too much travel taking up all the slack. Duh.

For dampeners, I decided to go with KYB Gas-A-Just units from Summit Racing. They were fairly inexpensive. I used KG4528 for the fronts, and KG5546 for the backs. The donuts on the front dampeners needed to be trimmed down to sit in the mounting holes (easy with a razor blade), whereas the back dampeners needed to have the origional bushings pressed out using a vise and Energy Suspension 9.8107G polyurethane bushings installed to fit the mounting studs.

I had a company in Hermiston sand blast the OEM steel rims and I painted them black. They'll do until I find a custom set of rims that look right. John gave me a set of stainless steel trim rings for the wheels which really made them work better. With new sneakers levered onto the rims, the car was sitting on it's own four feet again. Ahh...progress.

My neighbor John helped me drop the "new"engine into the car on October 23rd and it sure looked nice in its new home. A few gotcha's with installing an R-16/5-speed transmission in a 1500 Roadster:

1) The transmission is larger in diameter. This means it will hit the transmission tunnel if something isn't done. On Mike Young's recommendation, I dropped the transmission tailhousing mount down one set of bolt holes. It still has four bolts supporting it which should be plenty.

2) The gearshift isn't in exactly the same position. On the original 4-speed, the stick is offset to the left a bit. I had to open up the gearshift hole in the tunnel using a pneumatic bodysaw. I used a Hurst shifter boot (p/n 1147336) from Summit Racing to make things look nice again.

3) The original speedometer cable won't reach. Even if it could, it'd hit the transmission tunnel. Once again, Mike came to the rescue with a 90deg speedo drive adapter. Unfortunately I had to cut a hole in the side of the tunnel with the bodysaw to make it fit. During the bodywork stage of this project, I will be fabricating a nice cover piece to take care of that, but still give access to the adapter for maintenance. The speedo also won't be calibrated to the transmission. Pinion gears can be changed out on the transmission speedo drive to fix this. Each tooth difference raises or lowers the speed indication by 10%.

4) Be SURE that you use the thicker transmission plate that goes between the transmission and the engine. Source it from a 1600 or 2000 engine install. If you use the one from a 1500, the transmission input shaft will push directly on the crank and wear out the crank thrust bearing. Bad news.

5) I used the shorter 2000 starter to clear the header that came with this engine.

6) Using the 1500 radiator, you will need a thermostat housing that points off to the left of the engine. Gates hoses that will fit in this case are: upper hose 20535, lower hose 20780, and the unrelated PCV hose 28468. The lower hose will be a bit of a stretch, but it's the only aftermarket hose that will fit reasonably well.

7) Choke control cables off a late model 1600 or 2000. The 1500 had a single cable whereas the later carb setup uses two cables, one for each carb.

8) The 5-speed transmission also has a flange bolted to the output shaft which seals the transmission whereas the early 4-speed has a splined shaft and oil will leak out if it's tilted without the driveshaft installed. The 5-speed driveshaft is the right length and bolts right up to the stock 1500 rear axle.


November 2009:

After setting the valve lash (remember I had taken all the rocker arms off earlier) to 0.021" cold, I buttoned up the valve cover using a Victor Reinz VS30017 gasket and contact cement to hold it to the valve cover. I'm using Castrol GTX 10/40w oil for the time being. There's a lot of discussion about zinc additives in modern oils and how it's necessary for long life on flat tappet cams. Supposedly Valvoline Racing oil still has a decent amount of zinc in it. There's also ZDDP additives, but I'm not a fan of doctoring oils. You never know how well things will mix.

I set the points, installed new NGK B-6ES plugs gapped to 0.031", installed a new NAPA Gold oil filter, and filled the oil pan with 5 quarts of Castrol GTX. The coolant system was filled, and immediately it was obvious there was a slight leak behind the water pump. I seriously didn't want to have to pull the radiator back out and pull the pump off so decided to leave it until the engine was running. I'll definitely keep an eye on it though.

I missed a crack on the coolant return pipe that runs under the carbs so had to drain some coolant, pull the pipe, and braze the crack up. Good as new.

A previous owner had installed a cheap oil pressure gauge just hanging off the copper tube leading to the oil galley in the side of the block. It didn't leak so I left it so I could make sure there was good oil pressure. After pulling the plugs, I spun the engine over using a remote starter with the ignition off. After the oil filter filled, it built pressure to 50psi at cranking RPM. Nice.

I put the plugs back in and connected a small plastic fuel tank to the fuel pump under the hood as a temporary measure. With the ignition off, I cranked the engine again until I had good oil pressure, stopped cranking, turned on the ignition, and then hit the starter again. The engine immediately burst forth with a glorious racket!!! At this point, there was no exhaust system installed beyond the exhaust header. It was deafening, but sounded wonderful. At idle, the oil gauge registered 60psi . I set the idle to 1500rpm to make sure the cam was getting plenty of splash lube. The engine was shut down and a leak check was done. The water pump was still leaking. There were no oil or fuel leaks anywhere. I fired the engine back up and let it warm up fully, keeping an eye on the oil pressure and coolant overflow bottle the whole time. The valves made a fair bit of noise, but that was to be expected as they need to be adjusted hot, not cold.

With the engine run successful, I busied myself with buttoning up other details. Brakes were tested (the pedal was still soft but the brake shoes hadn't been bed in yet), lug nuts tightened, and this Fairlady was finally ready for the road test! My wife Erika took video as I backed the car out and took it down the road. Nothing unexpected happened and the car ran great! It was almost anti-climactic.

The original fuel tank was pretty much shot. It had sludge in it and had been repaired once before but was leaking again. Michael Spreadbury at Spriso had a good used 1500 tank that will work nicely. Mike specializes in performance upgrades for Roadsters, in particular Nissan SR20 engine installs.

After flushing the tank out well, it was installed. I bent up new j-bolts out of regular bolts after parting the heads off with my metal lathe. I made sure to put an inline filter right at the exit of the tank as well to catch any errant dirt that might make it into the tank. The fuel gauge sender that was in the original tank appears to be a Stewart Warner generic unit and doesn't work properly in this car. The fuel gauge doesn't read right when connected to it. So...I made a plate and sealed off the sender hole in the tank until I can source the correct part.

After running the engine for a minute or so to make sure the carbs were completely full, I shut it down, disconnected the temporary fuel tank, and connected up the permanent fuel tank. After starting the engine, it took a long time for the clear fuel filter bowl to finally fill with fuel. Even though it only fills about half way, the engine runs perfectly. From what I'm told, that fuel bowl behavior is normal.

Again, time for another road test. What a thrill to finally have completed a milestone. Using a GPS unit, the speedometer reads about 33% fast. After driving it to work once (20 miles each way), and just about going deaf, I thought it purdent to have a muffler installed. Sure made driving more pleasurable.


Disclaimer:

I do not pretend to be an authority on Datsun Roadsters. I hate having to say it, but you use any information from this site at your own risk!