1600dave

Yep, buffing = polishing, sanding = flattening. No sanding will just mean slightly shinier bumps in the paint

Anybody with recommendations for / experience with suppliers of custom pistons ? Looking to get a set of high comp pistons made to use in an L-series race engine with FJ20 rods.

Wet and dry, 1200 or finer grade and a sanding block. Bucket of water with a touch of soap. Sand carefully till you're happy with the level of orange peel. Buff with cutting compound, wool pad, on a slow speed till your happy with the shine. Be careful on corners / sharp edges. How many coats did you put on ?

Octane rating in the US is different to Australia - their 92/93 is pretty close to our 98

For stuck / gummed up carb parts, carb cleaner is made for the job. Acetone or wax & grease remover seem to work just as well and are much cheaper. Fill a suitable sized container, let the gummed up bits sit in it for a while, then attack them. Vice grips on studs - > Grab two nuts of the appropriate size, screw them on, get two spanners and tighten the nuts against each other. Then move spanner to the "inboard" nut and use it to wind the stud out

That's standard practice for adjusting float height on HS-series SU's that are fitted with non-adjustable floats.There's no other way to adjust float height. See latter half of this vid https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6Le_HkrkKQ

Float level specs are : HS carbs with the later all nylon float and delrin type needle. The gap between the float and the lid face should be between 0.062" and 0.187" with the float resting on the needle but not depressing it. This type is non adjustable. The float itself is non-adjustable in that with the earlier floats you could adjust them directly by bending a tab on the float. On yours, no tab so you can't adjust that way. To adjust float level in your carbs, you remove the whole needle valve (#5 in your exploded diagram) and add or remove aluminium shims / washers between it and the float chamber lid to alter float level. Personally, I don't like messing around with this, if you don't have a stock of the correct washers, rather than buying washers, put that money to buying adjustable floats I put a link to above somewhere. However !! Check your float level first. If its in spec, that's not your problem. Don't set the float height so the car will start, fix whatever the real issue is. Having said that, could you clarify the bit about the choke ? You say it "needs to be full on to run" - is this they need to be full on to get it to start and run for the first few minutes while its cold, or choke needs to be on all the time ? If the former, that's how they work - pulling the choke on pulls the jets down (so adding more fuel for when its cold) and also engages a little "cam" in the throttle linkage that gets it to idle at a higher RPM. If its the latter, something is wrong. Not sure what you mean by "choke is already on too far and jet is too low" ? The choke can't really be on "too far", it can only go to the limit that the carb allows. Have the carbs been tuned on your engine ? What needle are you running ? The taper on the main needle is what determines mixture, if not correct, get the right needle and a good tune ! Needles are easy to find and only a few bucks, good tuners with SU knowledge aren't as easy to find or as cheap........

HS6 plastic floats are adjusted by adding or removing aluminium shims / washers under the needle valve, you take the valve out of the float chamber lid, adjust the number of washers between valve and lid the re-assemble. Not sure about HS8, can't imagine they would be any different though. Or get yourself a set of adjustable floats to make life easier. http://www.sumidel.com/shop/item/su-carb-hs-hs2-hs4-hs6-hs8-stayup-float I assume your choke is hooked up and working properly ? When you pull the choke on, it should pull the jets down, you shouldn't need to pull the jets down yourself to get it to start ?

"Wink" mirror. I got mine from the US, they're not very expensive. Best thing ever, especially for the, umm, "velocity challenged" amongst us. https://www.facebook.com/velodavid/videos/10214351756045434/

You're assuming that he would prefer that over simply keeping it so he could look at it every now and then and reminisce. I still have my very first car, sitting in the corner of the shed 37 years later. Its full of rust, and has had bits robbed off it over the years to keep the rest of the fleet of Datsuns alive. I may or may not ever restore it. But its still in my shed and I get some sort of perverse enjoyment seeing it sitting there under the pile of Datsun detritus that's built up around it.

And Jeff, was watching some of your other vids last night and realised I'd seen some a few years back (in your pre-datsun era) when researching tube benders !

Did the cover on my race engine in 2010, its still looking as good as the day I did it (well, except for a liberal coating of oil since Bathurst last November...) Also did the rocker cover on my MX5 in wrinkle red 2-3 years ago and its still looking great. Don't forget Possum. We had to forego BBQ's for a few months last spring because these guys (there's a mother and baby) took up residence in the BBQ and the wife / daughter didn't want to evict them from their home

I thought I'd get the old guides out easier by heating the head in the oven while the wife was out. Head wasn't as clean as I thought. Engine oil in an oven makes a bad smell in the kitchen. Bad smell hangs around a long time, long enough for wife to get home. Bad smell in the Kitchen makes wife unhappy, Unhappy wife makes Dave unhappy. My experience is the opposite. First one I did I air dried and wasn;t happy with the appearance so tried again by baking it and wrinkles were much tighter.

Tip for next time - BBQ your rocker cover ! Seriously though, the paint can recommends a temp for baking, my old faithful 6 burner BBQ with roasting hood down maintained the perfect temp with just one burner at one end on full. Set up a few bricks or similar at the opposite end of the BBQ, throw 3 coats of paint on, sit the cover on the bricks in the BBQ and bake for the recommended time and you'll get beautiful tight wrinkles. Personal preference and all that, but I prefer the baked finish to air drying alone. Also works in the kitchen oven, only did that once while the wife was away for the weekend, haven't been game to try it again. Especially after the great "valve guide installation" oven incident of 2010......

Mikuni's aren't made anymore, webers can be had for $500 each brand new or about the same for a pair 2nd hand (or considerably less for Chinese "replica" webers ), One reason the Mikuni's are exxy is simple supply and demand. You also need to consider availability and price of spares, plus jets and chokes for tuning purposes if the Mikuni's you buy aren't already tuned for your engine. Mikuni's do have a good reputation though, and webers aren't JDM, yo ! Personally I'd save the $2000 difference in price and put some of it towards a really good, thorough tune by someone who knows what they're doing, quality of tune will probably have more effect on which set of carbs performs best than the actual make of carbs themselves.

"CARB approved" guff is to do with Californian legislation, not relevant here.

Interdasting, quite plausible given the number of tranny's brought in from Japan back in the day. When I converted my brother's 260Z 2 seater from auto to manual in the late 80's the Jap importer I got the box from in Sydney had 5 speeds stacked 10 high, although I don't recall seeing flange ones. Although it was a while ago...... The one we used in my bro's was slide in shaft. May just have been what the importers ordered though, probably not much market for flange boxes in Australia given all our cars were slide-in (except early zeds and roadsters). Ahh well, another box to add to the collection in the shed :

Will check out Urvan bells. I've been led to believe SD diesel bells will also do the trick behind an R16, but not 100% sure. I'll do a proper check of teeth tonight. Reason I bought it was because the only boxes I've seen with flange output and that style of rear extension are Option boxes, thought it was worth a gamble. Definitely not a 1:1 5th gear Option box though, 5th definitely overdriven

Actually, one other question - anyone know the dimensions of the bolt pattern on a 71A output flange ?

My intention is to put it into a Fairlady, but not a Fairlady Z. It will most likely get a diesel bellhousing to go behind the R16 in one of my fairlady convertibles.

As well as some sizes having very slightly different thread pitch (although some sizes have same pitch, which is confusing...), another difference is thread "angle" - one has a steeper angle than the other so although it screws in OK, the thread on the plug is "narrower" than the thread in the hole it goes into, allowing oil to run back down the "gap" and leak. I can't remember exactly which is which, but that's the general idea. Don't have the purple Loctite anymore and can't remember what type it was (it ended up leaking through my toolbox and getting tossed out), but it was the recommended type for sealing tapered plugs when I did my engine

Loctite thread sealant did the trick for me, can't remember exactly what one I use, but its purple ! You haven't tapped for BSPT thread and used NPT plugs (or vice versa) ? Very similar threads but not quite the same.

So, picked up a box off another member, mainly because it looked interesting and on the off chance it was an "Option" box. 71B type box, has flange output like a 71A, has a rear extension housing that looks the housing on an Option box, appears to have steel synchro's and has a steel sandwich plate. So far, so good. However, it is a normal "H" pattern box with an overdriven 5th gear. Ratios seem to be around 3.3, just over 2, around 1.3, 1 and .85. Only other feature is "7613318" stamped into the rear extension housing, although this looks to me to not be an original marking. Anyone with any idea what it actually is ? Closest match I can find is an FS5C71B Wide ratio Option box, part number 32010-N3030. If it is indeed this box, why / where would it have been used ? What benefit does it offer over a 240K / Bluebird box with similar ratios ?

Seller feedback - great guy to deal with, would buy again ! Thanks for taking the time to arrange shipping, box arrived today.

Thickness tester arrived today, gives results within 0.1mm of micrometer measurements on some test pieces so good enough for me. Now to get down the shed with some KY gel and measure a few bores........