gorgeous car men and superb workmanship you are doing in it congratulations and keep em comming bro i am hooked to this thread!

Thanks Kev... I'll let you fellas know if it is the gasket.

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Got the manifold back!



They didn't think it was a great idea to perfectly match the manifold to the inlet and the guy reckoned you want to leave the manifold slightly smaller to get a good seal.

Anyway, here it is.


The manifold faces weren't 100% flat, so they milled them down a tiny bit. This is the carb-side.


On the head-side, the ports have been opened up from 35mm to 38mm. The head is 40mm, so that is a 1mm lip all around.


The Redline manifold was also drilled and tapped to accept the beefier rod ends that support the japanese throttle linkage.

But the rod ends don't line up 100%, but I think all I have to do is give one of the ends a tiny little bend and I think it will be sweet.


I forgot to buy the hi-temp silicone, so tonight I'll just do a dryfit and see if everything fits properly and then I'll assemble it all properly on the weekend.

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Sounds like a good decision to check the manifold. it looks like it sucked additional air through the gap.

Do you buy standard gasket sets or do you hand craft them on your own ?

I found out that building them on my own is not only cheaper (hell, these gasket sets are already very cheap), but they can be made more accurate and with better material.

I am using Elring/Abil "paper" gasket sheets (http://www.elring.de/pdf/compound/ABIL_N_en_scr.pdf ) and cut them on my own and then using an ultra thin line of hylomar ( http://www.hylomar.us/universal_blue.shtml ).

I never had leaks again and an other positive thing is: If you remove the gaskets after some year, they are not shredded in douzends of pieces, they are still in one piece.

I am sure there are similar good products in Australia. Just a hint from me.

Cheers,

Daniel

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Current cars:
Daihatsu Hijet S85
Daihatsu Charade G11 + G102
Daihatsu Cuore/Mira L201 + L501 + L701

http://www.Hijet.de/

I used a stock gasket, but had it enlarged by a Nissan engine specialist. He has this tool which he uses to make the inlet holes bigger

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Ok, test fitted everything up and it looks like it's fine. I have to say the coated headers looks a zillion times better than its old rusty self.


There are two spots where the inlet manifold juuust touches the header flange tho. Might just file it down a hair before fitting up. It doesn't look like it prevents the inlet manifold from sitting quite flat on the head, but pushes the manifold to the side a bit.


Remember the bridge washers which were crooked, due to the header flange being slightly thicker?


The headers were too big to fit into the cylinder head milling machine, so rather than machine some material off the header flange, I made up a set of stepped washers.


You can see the step quite clearly in this pic, and the home made bridge washers look like they're sitting quite flat too.


Putting the new manifold next to the old one shows how much bigger the new one is.


This shows how undersized the old one was. The scribed line is the inlet port shape, which is actually bigger than the flange at one spot, which must have cause a huge air leak on the centre carb.


I now have to set up the old japanese carb linkages on the Redline manifold, which also entails swapping the throttle arm on the carbs from the firewall-side to the radiator-side, but that doesn't look like it'll be a problem....hmm, this is starting to look like a proper engine

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Very clean engine bay!

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Looking good Kev....I had a chance to take the manifold out last Sunday, looks like you guys are right the bolt on the #1 cylinder (top and bottom) one is only hand tight and the other is almost out of the hole So I went and installed a new gasket. At the same time I'm gonna built me a new exhaust since the pipes are almost rusted out and I have hole on the muffler.

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I would like to go on record as saying I hate all you Hakosuka owners. Ok, so maybe it's just jealousy...

Probably just jealousy. I feel the same.

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For gasket sealant, ive found that Hylomar works wonders - permatex is good stuff, but theres a spray-on hylomar that drys tacky and therefore allows it to be squashed/redistributed without mess when bolted between flanges.

Used it on everything from thermostat gaskets to headgaskets thus far with no dramas.

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[F3ARED] 76 Isuzu Gemini Coupe - forged G180z, EFI, 525hp Turbo, 6years and still building...

Daily 78 Isuzu Gemini Sedan, stock G161z, Rodeo EFI, 500hp roller, 157rwkw. Fun

Hylomar great for building rotaries and also good for other stuff as well. there's always one in my tool drawer but I could never find it when I needed it.

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been following this car since grandjdm. i love it, as any jdm car fan should.

thought you might like this web blog, http://kgc10kai.exblog.jp/

incase you hadnt seen it!

Ooh...no I haven't seen it...thanks


Well in fact that's what I was going to use...the spray-on Hylomar Aero-Grade, but the machine shop guy said no, go even more hardcore than that and use a high temp silicon.

So I got a tube of this, which will be going on both the exhaust and the inlet.
http://permatex.carshopinc.com/product_ ... 2301/81878

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Okay, it turns out that swapping the throttle arm on the carbs from one side to the other will require new arms, since the little tab for the idle speed screw will be facing the wrong way


I've got the day off on Monday, I'll pay Redline a visit and pick up a set.

So tonight I thought I'd just finish up a few cleanup projects I've been working on. A couple of the disappointing things about the engine bay visuals (apart from the headers when they were rusty) were the fact that the dodgy japanese painters painted over everything, including the bonnet catches and the windscreen washer tubes (how hard would it have been to spend 30 seconds unplugging the washer tubes?).


That, and the corroded headlamp bowls (which you can't miss when the bonnet is up).




So I figured that it would be interesting to get them replated. Down the road from where I had the manifold done is Artarmon Electroplaters, and I was pleasantly surprised when they quoted me $30 for a big pile of bits I wanted cad-plated. Cad plating is that yellow/goldish finish that is on door strikers, etc, and I wanted that finish for that factory look.

The end result is...not bad, but not as shiny and glassy as new factory items I guess since the base metal is a little corroded. The process starts with an acid bath to remove the old plating and corrosion but of course it can't make the metal smooth again if the surface is slightly matted by surface corrosion I guess. Oh, I also replaced the washer tubes with new ones, and the brake booster hoses too. For some funny reason, the Redline manifold takes the vac feed for the booster from #1 cylinder, which is the furthest away from the actual booster, so I had to get a much longer tube anyway.


I sanded the paint off the bonnet catch cable with 600 paper, then smoothed it with 1200 paper, then hit it with Meguiars plastic polish and it came out pretty good. Too bad I can't do anything about the rubber boot where it goes into the firewall.

The headlamp housings are actually several pieces. The lights fit into bowls, which have their own chassis which then bolts to the body. The problem is, the chassis have these nylon inserts for the headlamp screws, and I was 100% sure that they would break if I tried to remove them, and I couldn't find anything remotely similar at Rare Spares. So no plating for those pieces, and I decided to paint them instead.






So start off 2 coats of etch primer, after sanding down the old surface as much as I could, and wiping it with wax and grease remover.


Then hit it with 4 coats of metallic silver.


The final result is not too bad, although the cad plated pieces look more factory, the finish is a bit more cloudy than new factory pieces, so I think painting the whole lot in silver would have been a nicer looking result....well, it's not too late to paint the headlight bowls I guess.


I'll put the manifolds on the engine over the weekend I think, and then next week I can fit the Webers when I have the new throttle arms.

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Those might not be as rare as you think, try looking at Z cars and other nissans of that era and try mid to late 70's Subaru's too

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YES! Finished something tonight that I was really dreading.

Now, the studs for the manifolds were always a little chewed up, and some of them were bent a little, which made it difficult to fit up the manifolds: it was hard to get the nuts "started" on the threads and then they were very tight to turn. Also, I've got new nuts to install, and having the daggy old studs poking out (at different lengths I might add) was bugging me something fierce.


They are just screwed into the head, but the trouble with removing them is that on the L-series they are quite small diameter at 8mm...mix that with some decades old corrosion to lock them in place and they can snap quite easily when you try to back them out. And then you're quite screwed (boom tish).

I bought a set of studs, nuts and bridge washers ages ago from http://www.thezstore.com and you know what I've done with the bridge washers, but was hoping I wouldn't have to do the studs too. But tonight I was test fitting the manifolds again and the inlet manifold wouldn't go on without some persuasion, so I decided to bite the bullet and replace the studs.

So first you douse everything a few hrs beforehand in this magic stuff (basically it's WD40 on crack):


Then you lock two nuts together on the stud, and very carefully, and very slowly, try to wiggle it in and out a little to break it free from the threads, and then wind them off. (you can see in this pic some of the studs aren't even screwed in all the way...JDM workmanship ftw)


About 2hrs later....ta-da! I can't believe none of them snapped, there were a few of them where I was leaning on them so hard I thought they'd go ping just as they started to rotate out.


You can see quite a few of them are banana-bent, and the threads on most are chewed up.


Before installing the new ones, I chased a M8x1.25 tap into the threads to clean them out.


Taps have these grooves to trap the crud, so it's much better than just running a new bolt in there to do the same, where the crud would just grind into the threads and the whole thing gets stuck.


Instead of anti-seize paste, I was advised to just dip the ends of the studs in some engine oil and the new studs just screwed in by hand.


Phew...I was really dreading having to do this but it turned out great!


Test fitted the manifolds and they slide on like butter, and of course the nuts spin on and off with no trouble too. Tomorrow the manifolds get installed

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Dude...sweeeeeet! Thank you for the update, Kev. Studs aren't glamorous, but they sure are important.

Good job on the headlamp bowl assemblies too - your Hakosuka is lookin' good. Can't wait to see some video of it on the road!

Alrighty..didn't work on the car today, but did get a couple of things I need to button it all up.

I needed to swap the carb linkages from one side to the other, so here are the genuine Weber parts: they are a lot shorter than the arms that the carbs came with, so I think the old throttle arms must have been part of a Japanese kit, possibly came with the manifold. Also since the Weber arms have a ball, I can't use the old linkage arms which bolt on to a hole in the arms. So I bought these new "ball rods" which have a plastic cup design which can pop on to the Weber arms.


But geez, Weber parts are expensive! Would you reckon that the throttle arms are $30ea and the ball rods are $20ea? Well they are.

Also dropped off some bits for chroming today. Since the strut brace plates are now powdercoated, the manky fittings were going to stand out. Dropped them off at the same joint that did the cad-plating, and we'll see how it all goes. All this lot is going to be $30.


It'll be interesting to see how they turn out. The guy says that the acid bath won't get the old chrome plating off, but it will remove the corrosion, and he'll have a quick go at removing the old flaking chrome beforehand with a wire wheel.

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Ok, had a pretty productive day today, but as you'll see there's still a bit of mucking around to do before we can fire her up.

Here's the new manifold gasket vs the old one (underneath). The new one is actually an off the shelf one, but Stewart Wilkins enlarged the inlet holes for me to match the ports on the head.


Second job was the swap the throttle arms from one side to the other to suit the Redline manifold


...and the idle speed screw is moved to the other side as well...so far so good, it was pretty straightforward


Ok, now the moment of truth. The machine shop that did the manifold recommended that I use the gasket with a very thin smear of hi temp silicone (Copper RTV)...this is the side facing the head.


The manifolds get some silicone too.


On we go...everything fits much better with the new studs.


Next are the Redline softmounts...I'm not reusing the bakelite spacers that came with the JDM manifold, and also the Redline manifold is about an inch longer, so I've got space issues anyway. Interestingly, when you use softmounts, you don't just bolt the carbs to the manifold, instead you use these squashy rubber washers.


The instructions say to tighten the nut until it touches the rubber washer, then give it another 1.5 turns. This isn't very much at all, the carb is held quite firmly but you can still wiggle it a tiny bit, which is the whole idea I suppose.


Looking good!....but at this point I've actually made a HUGE error, as you'll see in a moment


But anyway...the Redline manifold is so much longer that one of the K&N airfilters wants to occupy the same real estate as the washer bottle. Also the other two filters are so close to the bodywork that I can't get a screwdriver in there to fasten the top of the filter....looks like I'll be driving around JDM-stylez without filters until Plan B makes itself known.


Well anyway here's the stuff-up...I should have installed the linkages before I put the manifold on.


The Redline manifold has got different positions for the jackshaft mounts...the old FET had the mounts in different spots and you could still somehow get the jackshaft in and out...but with the Redline manifold, the only way I can get the jackshaft in now, is to remove the radiator ...or remove the centre mount for the jackshaft, which you can see in the pic above.

I want to take the radiator out after rego anyway, and also replace the fixed fan with a clutch one, and check the waterpump...but for the time being I think this bodge will be ok. The jackshaft is 10mm steel, so I can't see it flexing or getting bent or anything like that, especially since the bellcrank for the throttle cable is mounted right next to one of the mounts.

An immediate problem is that the longer Redline manifold means that the original throttle cable mount is now too far away to get full throttle travel. I'll have to make up a longer bracket to put the tip of the cable closer to the jackshaft...and re-route the brake booster hose too!


As you can see, with the softmounts, there is quite a big gap between the carbs and the manifold. It should be good to prevent heat from being conducted to the carbs from the manifold (but the main source of heat in an L-series installation will be radiated heat from the headers below anyway)


The other issue is this...moving the throttle arm to the other side means that the linkage for carb #1 is awfully close to the distributor and ignition cables.


I can re-route the plug wires to get some clearance, but it isn't ideal and it makes sense that the Japanese manifold put the linkages on the other side. I can make juuust enough room by making the plug wires go around the front of the engine, but now will have to get new wires of a different length, because now most of them are too short. Just as well these are just $6ea cables from Auto One.


Ahh well...still some more fiddling to go, but nothing insurmountable. At least it all looks nice...

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