so I just spent the last hour and a half reading this, I have to say it's been a pleasure and also made me feel a bit ashamed of myself..

I thought myself as a car enthusiast (especially of classic cars like my 72 galaxie wagon) but you've shown me I have a long way to go

thank you for sharing your project with us, it's shown me a lot about what I can do to fix the small problems in my old car (even if it's not japanese)

and has given me hope to being a better owner to my cars..

Cheers!

After a loooong session in the panelbeater, Project Hako is safely tucked in the garage again As for what transpired at the panelbeaters...well that's a long story.

Where we left things last was that we were rejected for blue slip inspection on various grounds, the most serious of which was the discovery of some rust pinholes in the floor....which, when the sound deadener was removed and the panels wire brushed, turned out to be rather more than just pinholes

At first, I thought the worst side was the passenger side, but Col at Gordon Smash Repairs actually thought that it was the driver's side which would turn out to need more work, and right he was.

First to be cut out was the passenger side, and new floor sections were made up and welded in without drama.


But when the driver's side was cut out..


...more rust was found. There's a box section under the front of the floorpan, and when that was cut out, there were holes in the inner and the outer rail as you can see. Sadly the hole was big enough to see that there would also need to be some work done on the outer sill, the part which is hidden by the lower fender.


The GOOD news is that the hole was also big enough to allow one to see inside the outer rail and see that the outer sill had been cut out and replaced (from the front edge of the door all the way back to the rear wheelarch) and appeared to be a sound job. Why they didn't keep going and repair the front of the outer rail (the new patch is visible here) is a mystery. Thankfully when we cut out the passenger side it checked out okay.


On both sides, it was determined that the section of floor metal that was closest to the outer rail was thinned by rust, so for strength, all of it would have to be removed and the floorpan was cut out all the way to where it butts up to the rail.


Large holes!


A new section welded in, with a flange at the outer edge, and plug welded to the outer rail, factory style


The outer rail patched and the inside of the rail rustproofed as far as the brush would reach!)


The trick part was when they made a new box section by hand....


...which was then trimmed and welded in place


The welds sealed




Then the whole lot stoneguarded and painted






The outer sill had to be resprayed because it some of it had to be ground back for welding and in the end I am very happy with the job. I think that it isn't an invisible repair by any means (and certainly not to BIGJOHN standards! ) but it's a thorough and solid job and I'm happy with their attention to detail and reckon it'll be a long lasting (and strong!) repair. I'd definitely recommend these guys and would be using them again for any more work that the Hako might need. I really liked these guys and it was nice (and a pleasant surprise) that they fixed up a few extra things without being asked.

The other job I got them to do was to fix the front spoiler which was cracked during the Hako's shipping from Japan to here.



The cracked area was reinforced with extra fibreglass inside...and then resprayed


The final result is pretty good!


The best part was that the final price was somewhat less than the figure I was mentally steeling myself to pay! But phew, I'm relieved that the Hako is fixed and I think it's probably stronger than when it was new....

Anyway, when I had to drive it back home, I was again reminded of how badly the engine runs. After 6wks of being started and moved around Col's bodyshop, I think the plugs were more junked up than usual and driving home, it would cough and spit and really struggle up hills.

But first things first....the engine bay was covered in dust (panelbeaters are dusty places!) and so I started to detail the engine bay as a first port of call..

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While the Hako's been at Col's bodyshop, I've been thinking about what might be causing the poor running, so I fitted a fuel pressure gauge. If there was crud in the tank or lines, or if the fuel pump (admittedly an old looking Mitsuba) was not flowing enough fuel, then that could cause the poor running I've been experiencing.


So I teed in an inexpensive pressure gauge and...yup, the fuel pressure is on the money, 2.5psi.


Of course that's just at idle, when fuel demand is low. At full revs and full throttle the fuel pressure may drop if the pump isn't up to it. The Mitsuba is rated at 1.5L/min flow at 4psi pressure, so testing the pump's flow wouldn't be that hard, since I could dial up 4psi on the adjustable fuel pressure reg that I installed just before I sent the car in for panelwork.

But it was at that exact moment that I noticed it. You know...I must have stared at that bank of carbs a zillion times and I can't believe that I've not noticed it until right NOW.

See that nut right inside? The one that would be holding on the headers?


The L series has a weird arrangement where some parts of the inlet and exhaust manifold are secured by a common nut and a "bridge washer". So instead of the header and inlet manifold having a hole which has a stud and nut holding it down, the stud goes between the manifolds and the edges of the bridge washer hold them down.


...and for the first time, I noticed that the bridge washer is CROOKED!

Holding a straight edge against the header flange proved it....the header flange is a little thicker than the inlet manifold flange and so the bridge washer is cocked at an angle and isn't really doing much to hold down the inlet manifold properly...causing an air leak. You can clearly see a shadow between the straight edge and the inlet manifold flange...


Bloody hell...the problem was this all along and it's massively obvious now! So now the carbs, inlet manifold and headers will have to come off. I think the best way to do it would be to machine the flange of the header thinner to match the thickness of the inlet manifold flange. Then the bridge washers will sit flat and the inlet manifold will seal properly.

..and while the headers are off I might as well get them ceramic coated....woohoo! Project Hakosuka is back

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Man, Kev, she sure is coming along nicely. I love how sometimes the most hard to find problems are so obvious once you see it. I'm sure I would have never noticed that washer in a million years!

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Hi Kev, G'Day Mate,


Folks at Bangkok Classic Car and I are glad that you and Hako are now back in the groove.

Keep up the good and rewarding work. We are behind you all the way.

The floor resurrection and the discovery of the misaligned nuts & flanges for the headers & intake are hopefully be the final hurdle........


Go Kev Go......Go Hako Go.....!


George Manont



Kev, could you show me how to attach pictures to this thread ? I've tried the photobucket...didn't work. Thanks


.

Ok, tonight's job was to get the headers off the car, so that I could get the header flange machined down to match the thickness of the inlet manifold. Now there are quick fixes that don't involve taking everything apart, like say making up a bridge washer of stepped thickness, but since the engine doesn't run very well, I think it's time well spent taking it apart as much as I can to learn about what it is that I got.

First, the carbs came off.


Then the manifold...


Then the headers...now so far it didn't take very long to get to this stage, because the engine does seem to be pretty new, so all the nuts and bolts came off pretty easily, and as you can see, the gasket isn't even stuck on, it pretty much popped off by itself.


Mucking around with the feeler gauge told us what we already knew, the inlet manifold flange was 15mm thickness, but the headers were just a tick over 16mm. Ok, so the header flange needs to be milled down a bit over 1mm in a few spots.


So now I started to look at the cylinder head. Now, L-series heads normally have a 3 digit code cast into the head at this spot between #1 and #2 plugs (which is mysteriously blank on mine)


There's a lot of variations between the heads over the years and mine is definitely a late head, at late 70s because it has notches for injectors in the round inlet ports.


And the ports look to be a decent size, too, 40mm, so this is probably a 2.8L head


The problem is...the inlet manifold runners are nowhere near that big..they're only 30mm.


Here's the magnitude of the problem...the gasket is 5mm too small for the head


..and the gasket is also 5mm too big for the inlet manifold.


The exhaust side seems ok though, the gasket, headers and head ports are all the same size.


And looking down into the head, it does look like the ports have been worked too in Japan. That looks a bit too smooth to be factory?




Hmmm...but now I've got a big questionmark over the FET inlet manifold. The good news is that I've got the right head (and it's worked too) but the inlet manifold looks like it's going to be a huge restriction. 40mm vs 30mm seems like a lot of difference to me...

I reckon I now have to think about what I'm going to do with that inlet manifold before I start modifying the headers...but at this point it now does make sense why the engine doesn't seem to make any top end power.

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been reading some of this and very interesting how this project is going, and yep looks like time to pull out the die grinder and start matching ports that way it breaths a bit more healthy if there is room in the walls of the manifold to be able to do it

It should still be the same as on the Bangkok Classic Car forum, just put [img]before%20the%20address%20of%20the%20picture,%20and[/img] after it.

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Kev, Thanks much.

Here is my trial......





For global friends....Kev's Hakosuka is now in Thai.


http://www.bangkokclassiccar.com/forum/ ... ic=10893.0


Keep is up, Kev.


Best,


George Manont


.

Not sure if there is room in the manifold for it to be opened up *that* much...if you look at this, you can see the pattern left by the gasket.


In the middle 2 cylinders, there is hardly enough meat to allow the intake to be matched to the gasket, and the gasket is yat again too small for the head.

I've spoken to a few ppl today and it seems that the std port size for the 2.8L head is 36mm, so mine has been opened up quite a lot...the only option I think open to me at this point is to buy a new 36mm intake and then open it up that extra little bit to 40mm. I spoke to the tech guy at www.redlineauto.com.au today and he said that there should be enough meat in the casting of their std 36mm manifold to be opened up another 4mm, or at least very close to it...

So the next question is (apart from how thick the manifold flange is!) whether the Redline manifold is compatible with the old FET throttle linkages...I guess I won't know until I buy one.

George, I'm not sure why that image link isn't working...it should.

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Be sure to uncheck "Disable BBCode in this post"

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Thanks , Ben.....


Will do that in the future.....







.

I can't believe what a Pandora's Box this car is continuing to be.

It's going to be one of the most perfect Hakos on the planet when it's done, but getting there might kill you!!!

<--waits for next installment. Great stuff.

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PM me if you need your classic detailed in RI/Southern MA

Skyline nationals next month Kev.
(timely warning)
I can tell you're actually really enjoying tinkering with this thing aren't you. And think of the skillz you're getting!
Wait till you start pulling apart switches to replace the tiny lightbulbs in them.
Actually, you prolly don't got them.
Looking at the ports and the cam, this beast is going to be fairly top endy and lump, lump, lump down low.
enjoy.

Hooks.
P.S. read the first line.

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Yes I know that Sky-nats are on next mth

At the moment, how ready we are (or aren't) for the Sky-nats is not up to me, it's up to the damn car

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Damn car Pffft
You love it!
I can't wait to actually see this thing in the flesh
Actually, Redline are just around the corner from work.
We do some plastic bits for them, plug lead clamps and mounts(blue black, red and yellow)
Actually, the blue ones would be perfect for your car. We colour matched the leads.
I'll organise a set.

Hooks

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Go around to Redline, tell em to make Kev an L6 manifold with 40mm runners and then sell it to me for trade

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Still weighing up my options with the inlet manifold, so only did fun stuff tonight.

The underside of the bonnet is something that tends to be on display quite a lot for obvious reasons So its lack of finishing was bugging me. It had these painted-over, squashed bungs etc.


So I put on the repro underbonnet stickers that I picked up in Japan.




And with the addition of pristine new bungs, it looks a lot better.


Also when I got the car it was missing some c-pillar trims...


New ones just clipped into place....big improvement.


Last thing was to swap in the new window winders to replace the busted looking old ones.


Replacing them is easy, you just wiggle a cloth behind the winder...


...to try to snag this clip out, which will allow the winder to just pop off.


New winders!


Ok...enough fun...back to the engine tomorrow

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w00t! The Hako headers are back from sandblasting and they look great! Mild steel will start to rust in short order though, so tonight they get coated with the POR15 header stuff.

Before:


After:


From looking at them before (ie flaky rust) the header looked quite corroded but in fact they're fine, the material is still nice and thick.

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Those little clips that hold the window winders on are called Jesus clips.
They're called that because usually when you try to get them out they go 'ping' and disappear. which prompts you to call their name in a loud voice.

I'm a font of information.

Hooks

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