Project wife's birthday present: Sketchy's Z32 TT

Every time I take a bonnet off, I put a large piece of tape on the washer hose and write windscreen washer on the tape. It is so easy to connect it up to the balance tube

 

Not that I ever intend to have the motor out of this thing again (heard that before) I think I'm actually going to replace the washer tube with blue silicone so there's no way it can be confused again.

It makes me feel better to know there's others who have suffered the same misfortune, sort of.

 

So the piston I thought I was going to be able to save with a replacement rod and slap it back together turned out to be junk.



The rod had bent enough that the crank counter weight had collected the underside of the piston, gouged it and cracked it through the gudgeon pin retainer relegating it to trophy status.



Found this out after a mate donated a set of NA rods and pistons to scavenge a spare rod as according to the internet they are the same.



You can see here the difference in the crown height for extra compression and smaller gudgeon pin ID compared to the beefy TT items. Not much good to me though, need another TT piston.



Enter a new contender. Free TT short motor that had been laying around for a few weeks outside courtesy of Ironhorse (thanks mate!). Fingers crossed it's ok inside.




It's not. ****. Stripped it apart anyway to see what can be salvaged. Number 6 at least came out nicely and the bore looked good.



Number 1, not so much. Into the trophy pile.



Lined up all of the number 6 rods (bent TT, donor NA, donor TT) to find out the internet is a ****ing liar. Different numbers on all of them.




Different bearings also but both TT rods were the same which is a good start. All std Nissan items still too.



Weights were all close too however the donor TT rod/piston/bearing/rings combo all came in a solid 3-4 grams lighter (1296gm avg) than the original TT equivalent (1300gms each bang on).

Was hoping we could even that out with new rings and bearings until we hit another snag.



Looking at the pistons between the two TT sets revealed more numbers to analyse.



See the big 1 and 2 stamped up the top of the pistons? This signifies one of four factory piston sizes Nissan used. How do you tell the difference? ****s me, keep pulling apart blocks until you find what you need. The block will have the same number stamped next to the bore but you can't see any of this until the heads are off and the block scraped clean.



Oh, and just to **** with you they often use multiple sizes in the same block as evidenced with the donor TT motor.

Thankfully the original motor is solid 2's across each bore so I'll journey on to Niall's when I have some time and see what he has spare. Small win with bearings and rings though, bearings $35 for the set and rings $110 or $9 each genuine Nissan for both. Stock ones looked pretty haggard so will redo the lot.

My wiring guru mate also dropped by and tidied up the wiring loom. We also deleted the last of the bullshit vacuum lines and solenoids cluttering the engine bay near the firewall. Turns out most of them are for the AIV emissions setup that pumps air into the exhaust. Get in the bin.

 

Dam shame that motor didn't work out, sorry mate
Thats quite a bend in the rod, wonder if it suffered the same fate as yours...

I need a set of rings and bearings, might have to talk to you about it

 

Could you spot any differences in the rods besides for part number?

 

The bent rod is my original one. All the rods appear fine in the motor you gave me, it was just a couple of the bores/pistons that were junk. Incedentially it was 1,3,5 side with the head on that were rooted because it had obviously retained water.

I can organise the rings and bearings no sweat but you'll need to do exactly what I'm doing now to check what size you need (std, .025 over, 05 over etc).

Not so far other than some weight but I'm trying to chase down a micrometer to accurately check all bearing surface diameters. I'm hoping the differing numbers on the rods were related to batch numbers and not any specific changes between them.

 

VG30 piston sizing differences for those playing at home.

 

Bore measurement

You will also need to accurately measure the bore to see if there is any wear how much piston clearance you have.

 

And FAST is the full workshop manual I assume?

 

Parts manual.

 

So after an extended hiatus of life, extreme flu aids and general lack of motivation work has begun again on this.

My micrometer set turned up so got everything measured up and checked, all good.



Rings and bearings ordered, slugs and rods mixed and matched to get a correct weighted set and then assembled.





Got them all chucked in the block, rotating assembly triple checked for any other bent gear, sump back on for the last time. Also swapped the sump as the previous one was bent on the bottom from a hit somewhere.

Cleaned and checked the block and head faces, wopped the new head gaskets on and jammed the heads back on, again hopefully for the last time. Had some fiddling to do with one of the cam bucket sets to stop some binding but all sorted now.




Just need to repaint the cam covers and inlet manifolds, throw the timing belt back on and then finish the basic assembly so it can go back in the car. Ran out of life force with this raging flu to take more pics but its on the stand mostly assembled and should be complete by the end of the weekend.

Massive thanks to Jase Broadhurst (Broadtune in Brisbane for anyone wanting an absolute gun tuner/wiring/diagnostics guy, check him out on Facebook) for chipping in and helping my flu addled brain make progress.

Not far off now!

 

Soon.

 

Keep it up mate. Looking good.

 

Just looking at the photos, did you hone the bores before assembly?

 

Update: Been working away on this over the last couple of weeks, starting from the queens birthday loong weekend.

It's time. This thing will be running by the end of the weekend if it kills me.

 

Up, down, shake it all about, do the hokey pokey and swear at shit, thats what it's all about.

In and box on. Some 3d jigsaw puzzle work to lift engine crossmember up onto body mounts, slot steering shaft in, line up engine mounts etc but all plug and play after that.

Shed skids by Monday [emoji4]