New World Datsuns...

I thing here is I have no use for this engine, I do not plan on converting any of my 320s over to an A block anymore, yes I have valve seals, do I want to take the head off, absolutely not, do I want to remove the pistons, absolutely not, but maybe I might do just the valve seals to see if I can do them using rope in the cylinders method.
I have another A14 and I plan on selling that one also, I have way too many engines around here, I have 9 of them that are not in vehicles, 3 SD series diesels, 2 L blocks(LZ23/LZ20), two A series, one J15/4spd and a VG30.
I am keeping the L blocks for now, 2 of the SD series engines, and the J15, the rest need to go.
I will think about the valve seals, is that how one tells they are bad, when it puffs smoke when you step on it?
I always thought that when one let off the pedal for a while like when going down hill and then hit the pedal, if it had a puff of smoke it was the valve seals.

I wouldn't waste any time or effort on it. It runs good and has solid oil pressure. As long as the seller is aware you can sleep with a clear conscience. Like I said before, it's 40 years old. A reasonable buyer should expect something like that.

have to agree with Jess on the seals. Unless you got some free time on your hands to replace them.

so i read you got A series 5 speeds ? Any for sale and what are they, the 60 or 63 trans ? If you do, send me a pm and let me know what trans and how much. If the price is right, I'll come and get them.

I have a lot of time on my hands these days, I expect most would say I am semi retired, just 10 minutes ago I told a long time customer I could not pressure wash their tile roof anymore, I have bone on bone issues in my right foot and angled surfaces/roofs just rub them together, 20 minutes and I am in pain, 2 hours I am thinking about nothing but wanting to get off the roof, so now I will not do them anymore.

I have several sets of valve seals, I have never done them before, but I have read how others have done them, seems simple enough, I would just have to make something to press down on the springs to release them while the head is on the engine.

My A series 5 speeds are not for sale right now.

I'm still not recommending that you do anything to this one, but if you ever do any others, this tool is inexpensive and works good for most springs that aren't recessed in a pocket.

I did the valve seals just to see if I could do them, I used the rope method, my rope wasn't really soft enough so it took time to get it into each cylinder but in the end it worked fine.
I took the rocker assembly off after I figured out them bolts were not actually head bolts and then made a flat plate out of some scrap metal, I found a wrist pin from something and bolted the flat plate to the head using the bolts that hold the rocker assembly on.



I then used a tie rod removal fork to compress the spring and I used a pair of needle nose pliers to fish out the keepers.



It was kinda a bitch to get the keepers back in, but by the time I got to the last cylinder I got the hang of it, I didn't lose any keepers down the push rod holes which I was kinda worried about, proper tools likely would have made this job easier.

When I got the first spring off I could see why it was blowing smoke as there really wasn't much seal left.



This is all there was left of the seals.



I started it and it sure blew a lot of oil out the exhaust right at first, I think oil seeped thru the valve guides into the exhaust as there was lots of fresh oil on the top of the head from running it yesterday, once it blew all the oil out it still smoked, what I think happened is it blew oil onto the muffler and it was smoking worse than ever even after it warmed up, this had me shaking my head for a while, then I removed the pipe/muffler and ran it straight and it didn't smoke much anymore, it definitely doesn't blow that cloud when I rev it anymore after warmed up, I will have to start it again tomorrow when it is cold without the muffler to see how bad it smokes then.

I am happy I did this, I learned what to do, it's likely a way easier job to do with the engine out of the vehicle where it is easy to get at everything.

I will know more tomorrow, was it worth the effort, likely not if I have to scrap it if no one wants to buy it from me, I only had to use a new valve cover gasket so far on this engine, but I can remove it and clean it if it comes to that as I used nothing on it, no sealer of any kind.

Do a valve adjust too?

No I didn't, probably should of, it's not noisy or anything like that.

The engine is on craigslist, I already have a scammer texting me even though I specifically asked not to be texted.
The reason I know they are a scammer is I searched the number, this guy says he is going to pay ahead of time with a check, he is even willing to give me a $100.00 extra for holding the engine for him, well I read about this phone number and he would even send more money than agreed upon and then ask for the extra to be sent western union somewhere.
Since I asked in the listed ad not to be text, I am just ignoring the guy, the number is 424-322-9138, I would mess with him but have better things to do with my time, like wasting time fixing up engines i will never use.

Man, that scam has been around as long as CL. Surprised people are still even trying it.

just in case some one is looking for a A engine > https://portland.craigslist.org/clk/pts ... 04086.html

as for scammers, I never answer a call / text when it doesn't show up who it is on the caller ID. I also check that number to be 100% sure it's safe. Craig's list recommends you don't show a number. Have the party that's interest to send number to seller. That's how it's been working safe for me.

I wouldn't bother to much on clearing out what oil residue has passed the seals. The oil is keeping the metal from rusting further, sort of like pickling an engine that's going to sit for some time. I've got several Pontiac engines that I did that to, also loosened up the valves to keep the pressure off the lifers to keep them from collapsing.

That is my engine on Craigslist in the link above.

I searched the number after I received the unwanted text, there were several comments about them being a scammer.

Wayno, ad doesn't say whether or not the automatic is included.

It's going with the engine unless they don't want it, I really didn't give it much thought, I believe it works, when I first started it fluid was puking out the lines and the yoke was turning, I put a bucket under it and put it in park, then I put a piece of hose connecting both lines to each other, I suspect if I added enough trans fluid the yoke would start turning again, but I just don't care.
I have never heard of anyone looking for one of them automatics, so i guess that is the reason I never gave it much thought.

I test fired the other A14 engine I have today, it starts and runs for a few seconds, it has no water pump/alternator/exhaust or transmission connected to it, it's mounted on an engine stand and being backed up with the chain/hoist, I can only run it briefly(maybe 5 seconds so far) without coolant, but I have only poured gas down the carb so far.








I have to work tomorrow so I will play with it more tomorrow afternoon/evening.

I have been noticing a lot of stuff is loose on this engine, even the valve cover is loose, I do not remember taking that off so it has been just sitting on there for years, I even ran it that way briefly when it was in the car and never noticed the valve cover, the people that had it before me tried to get it to run, but they had the matchbox wired backwards, it was never going to run that way, it took me a while(hour) to figure that out.
I need to look it over real close before going any farther.

Another thing I noticed is that the oil looks new, I do not believe I change the oil in that engine, the A15 was the same, it looked new, but when I removed the oil pan it had an inch of crud on the bottom, so my question here is if an engine sits in one spot long enough, does all the good clean oil float to the top and all the crud settle on the bottom?

Well I could not get any oil pressure so off the oil pan came, only 5/6 bolts were holding it on, the gaskets also had a shitload of blue gasket sealer, even the oil pick up tube gasket had so much blue shit it filled the tube hole, the middle was cracked open so oil could have got thru, it had a lot of sludge in the bottom and the oil looked terrible, the oil looked good on the dip stick.
The first thing I noticed was somehow the pick up tube screen had been sucked flat like something had covered it and it just kept trying to suck oil up the tube, I pulled it out all around, found another gasket as it was wasted, probably why there was so much blue sealer crap on it.
I have not been buying new gaskets for these engines, I have been careful about removing the oil pan, I clean them and reuse them, but this one seemed to be too big so I had to section it, oh yea, a few oil pan bolts were broke off(3 or 4), I didn't fix that, but I used all the rest of the holes available, and I used high tack sealer when I put it back together on the oil pan side, that area didn't appear to leak when I started the engine.
The valve cover gasket was also too big(the length), but I put it on the head, then I dropped the valve cover on it and got all 6 bolts started, then I used a big flat edge screwdriver to push the gasket under the lip of the valve cover, it took a while but I succeeded and it doesn't appear to leak either, this one went on dry, no gasket sealer was used.
I turned the engine over till oil came out of the removed oil light sender hole, then I put that back in the hole.
The float works properly as I can see the fuel level in the bowl, right now I am using an electric fuel pump, I could not get fuel past the stock fuel pump, at first it ran terrible, then I looked at hoses, the brake booster hose was open, so I plugged all the open hoses, it runs better now but it will not idle, when it gets down below a fast idle it just dies, I will look at it more tomorrow after work if it is not raining.
I can only run it a minute as it has no radiator/coolant or even a water pump on it right now.
I cannot hear much as them exhaust tubes going into the air filter housing are wide open and they make a lot of noise.
I kinda like doing this sort of thing, it's a challenge to get them running again, I just don't want to spend money doing it, but I am out over 2 gallons of oil, one oil filter, a gasket I made out of another gasket I would never use for the oil pick up tube, and some gas so far, oh and some high tack sealer, but if I do not use that stuff up it gets hard or the cap will not come off.
I look at the matchbox distributors and see something I can sell, so I want something for these engines, I figure they are worth more if they run.

So I mounted the water pump this afternoon, but still no radiator, it's kinda hard to mount one when the engine is on an engine stand.
After I did another job and got home I started it again, it runs like crap and when it goes below 2000rpms it dies, so I took the complete intake off of it and mounted the A series dual SU race setup I bought several years ago from a guy in California, it will except 2 or 4 bolt SUs, it has 1965ish Roadster 1500cc carbs on it from a G block as I recall, I bolted them on, piped the fuel, installed an electric fuel pump and started it, it started right away but would not idle properly as I was only holding one choke open, so I grabbed the last dual SU choke cable I had here and installed that, then started it and it ran fine but does rev well, but I didn't do anything to the carbs, they likely need power steering or automatic transmission fluid in them to make them operate properly, I will check that tomorrow, I still cannot run it more than a minute, but it ran pretty good for that minute.

So I made a radiator setup for this, it is 2 wood legs with the radiator screwed to them, the hoses hold it from moving away or towards the engine, the top hose is stock, but I had to make the bottom one.



I put an electric fan on it also.



I put the water pump on it yesterday, well it leaks, I have no gasket for it so I used sticky gasket maker, it didn't work, neither did using the old exhaust/intake manifold gasket, lucky for me I bought this A series gasket kit so I didn't have to use my expensive intake/exhaust gasket, but it didn't have a water pump gasket in it.
I also could not find the stock water pump pulley, so I made one out of some bolt on crank pulley I had out in the shed.



I had to remove the emissions crap on the exhaust manifold, I was lucky it all came out, that is a nickel I put in there on both ends.



So with all this put together I started it up and balanced the carbs, it runs real good, all the photos below are taken while it was running.









I will never sell this engine with these carbs on it unless I am offered a small fortune, this is a competition intake manifold, it excepts 2 or 4 bolt SU carbs, last one I seen a photo of was on ebay Australia and they wanted nearly $2000.00 Australian money for it, just the manifold.

I should have turned this engine into a bed mounted pressure washer engine, it would have been so much cheaper than buying these Vanguard 16hp engines I have, I have almost $5000.00 worth of them engines and I hardly use them anymore, but the pressure washing season is just starting.

I will go buy a water pump gasket now.

That would make an awesome industrial engine. Even without the SUs.

They said they were going to have to special order a water pump gasket at Baxters, and it would be over 2 weeks, this I do not understand.