Nothing like the sound of a V8 on song. 😁👍

 

It does sound alright. That's a large portion of the reason I bought it lol.

 

Is that a 720 tub??? Kinda looks like that vintage.

 

Yeah I probably have a few too many Patrols at this point.

Not really sure what you mean by that .

What is this, "too many Patrols" of which you speak?

 

I did a bit of digging on the head and block casting numbers.
Block is a 68-69 327, 2 bolt large journal mains.
Heads are 68-69 regular car heads, 70cc combustion chambers, 1.72" intake and 1.5" exhaust valves.
Nothing special there, no surprise. But at least the 4" bore of the block and the large journals are shared with 350s and pretty much all later small blocks, so bottom end parts are easy to get, but i don't plan on pulling the engine that far down, at least for the foreseeable future.

Is that a 720 tub??? Kinda looks like that vintage.

That's a factory Patrol tub.
Nissan apparently didn't bother trying to match the body lines or shape. At all. They kept that theme going with GQ and GU tubs too for whatever reason.
A 720 tub probably would have matched the body lines a bit better lol.

Not really sure what you mean by that .

What is this, "too many Patrols" of which you speak?

At some point I'll have to admit that I'll never get around to fixing them all. And I've filled my shed, my parents shed and now I'm filling my back yard too.

But I'll probably backflip on that statement next time another one that I like pops up cheap, or if i get a bigger shed....

 

Well that tub is a thing of beauty, that is for sure!!!

 

Beauty might be relative in this case lol.
It is a bit better than the other tub I have on the blue ute, no rust holes in the floor or wheel tubs, but it's still a bit rough. Being a single skin tub (why??) There's plenty of dents from things sliding around in the tub.

But all in all, for the 3 people on the planet who care about MQ/MK tubs, its kinda cool, i think they were fairly rare to begin with, and rust and damage has killed most of them by now.

 

I am not entirely sure how this car was wired, or what any of the wires do.
But I've pulled about 50% of the non factory garbage out, and it still runs, so I guess they're just bonus wires? Although most of them went no where.

I also like the scotch lock on a scotch locked wire action. That seems good.

Anyway....

Its a good thing MQ/MK quarter vent windows fit GQ doors, because i think the quarter vent frame is the only thing holding the drivers door together

It is much worse than it looks.

The passenger door and both door sills are also a little worse for wear

But on the plus side, only 2 seat bolts were cross threaded, 2 had imperial bolts jammed in them, and 1 missing. That means up to three captive nuts are still good.

 

I found this old pastie wrapper shoved inside one the body braces of the car.

As best I can make out the expiry date is Feb '86, so the wrapper is likely from early-mid 80's.

My late grandpa designed Gillies logos in the 70s and 80s, so its likely his work.

It's probably a bit weird to hang a 40 year old pastie wrapper up in the shed, but whatever.

 

I finished pulling all of the bonus wires that led to no where out of the cab. A couple went to the engine bay, which will the next step in figuring out wtf what anything in the car actually does.
Then I'll have to figure out the wiring thats actually connected to things.
Eventually I'll also route the wires properly so they're not dangling over manifolds and water pumps to keep them away from things like heat and fans which traditionally do not make good friends with wires.

While I was in the interior, i pulled it all out. Had to to get to the mystery wiring, and I wanted to have a good look at the floors for rust.
Someone has been in there before. About a third of the nuts/bolts/screws were missing or incorrect.
Also the factory insulation had been replaced with open cell foam, which is an interesting choice considering it is much better at holding water than insulating from heat and noise.
The floors are better than expected given the state of the door sills. A few little holes but nothing too bad.

I've also ordered new brake shoes, pads and slotted rotors. I figured that would be worth doing since I need to get this POS engineered. The master cylinder has been replaced recently, so that should be okay, and I have a new set of wheel cylinders somewhere if I need those.

I'll need to figure out new speedo and handbrake cables. The previous owner was supposed to supply a handbrake cable that he claimed was being made nearly 2 months ago, but has since refused to answer any messages ffs.
And the speedo cable deleted itself on the way home. The outer sheath is still there, but there's no cable inside it.

While I'm on it, I should probably order new insulation so I don't go deaf driving it, new suspension bushes because most of those don't exist anymore, a gasket kit for the engine to hopefully keep enough oil inside it to pass roady and engineering, and the list goes on....
Good thing I don't have too many projects already lol.

 

Once the interior was out and I started cleaning there was a significant amount of paint peel on the non rusted bits. More than I've seen on my other MQ/MKs anyway.

It was worse on the LH side.

I cleaned it up with a wire wheel, bogged up the previously mentioned small holes in the floors and hosed the whole lot down with white paint.

It looks terrible.

But it'll stop water ingress and slow the rust or hopefully stop it.
And it'll be covered by carpet, so who cares.

There were additional coats after these photos.

The factory vinyl flooring has been replaced with carpet, which I do not plan on replacing, so I instead spent 2 hours pressure washing all the dirt, mud and grease out of them.
They still need a vacuum, but they look much better.

I didn't take any photos, but I also bent the transfer case lever into a more neutral position as it was hitting the floor and pulling the shifter boot up in 2H.
There were marks from where the transfer lever had previously hit the rear of the shifter hole and the shifter plate been a bent and warped. It took a bit of figuring out, but I suspect it's because the transmission has been replaced with an L28 SWB transmission. Possibly done when the V8 conversion was, I'll have to measure up and see where the engine and transmission mounts land.

 

The ute was extremely loud when I drove it home.

Might have something to do with the previously mentioned open cell foam that more closely resembled a dish sponge than insulation lol.

I bought a roll each of Car Builders waterproof insulation and felt underlay, both 1800x950mm.
The waterproof stuff had a sticky back, and without the protective sheet peeled off the back it didn't want to stay in a shape that conformed to the floor pans. That made installation a bit of a process of cut-peel- stick, which took a bit of time.

I started cutting and test fitting the felt overlay as well, it does not have a sticky back but conformed to the floors much easier.

I used off cuts from both sheets of insulation to maximise surface coverage.

I could have gone much further, 2 rolls of each insulation plus a couple of boxes of that butyl/vinyl stuff would have helped as the roof, doors and rear cab wall are still uninsulated.
But that would have cost nearly $500. And the $140 I spent should make a noticeable difference.
I'll look at doing more later if necessary, but at this stage im not sure about the cost vs benefit.
I barely fit in the ute anyway, I can't imagine I'll be using it for long distance travel, so a bit noise doesn't bother me, just as long as it's slightly quieter than a 747 taking off.

 

Just do what I do, and keep a pair of earmuffs in the cabin.

 

I think that'll still be an option.
I doubt my minimal effort insulating will give me Rolls Royce noise levels lol.

 

I finished cutting the necessary holes in the top layer of insulation, and test fit the carpet.

Old mate who initially cut and fit the carpet did not do a good job. A lot of the holes and edges are out of whack.
I don't care enough to replace the carpets, so I'll live with it.
Can't go too much further with the back half of the interior until I sort out a new handbrake cable too.

On the plus side, the carpets and new insulation feel fantastic under foot, which will be a big help when i drive bare foot.
Which will be most of the time. Every millimetre helps in a cabin that I barely fit in.

The wiring loom that runs through the cab had a couple of wires that were damaged.

Sorted that out in the interest of not blowing fuses every 0.265 seconds and tucked the loom back to where it is supposed to run, not under the accelerator pedal. I also put heatshrink on the wires that were previously tapped with scotch locks for the trailer wiring.
I'll rewire the trailer plug properly later on.

Along with the rest of the interior and under the bonnet....

Next step will be dropping the coolant and flushing the cooling system. I'll need to do that to reinstall the heater core into the HVAC box. And I have a new thermostat and rad cap which I'm going to pretend will fix the severe overheating issues.

 

Original plan under the bonnet was to separate engine/factory, accessory and gas specific wiring.
Won't happen exactly that way now, the spot light wiring has been wrapped into the factory loom, i don't love the relay position or the inline fuse holder, but the rest of the wiring is good enough. The only other accessory wiring will be the thermo fans.
Separating the gas specific stuff wasn't too bad once I figured out where each wire went, makes it easier to remove too which I plan to do. LPG isn't particularly convenient anymore with far fewer servos near me carrying it.

The wiring still doesn't look great, but as mentioned the LPG stuff will be coming out, so I didn't put too much effort into making it look nice for now.

Also shown in the pic above is the 36 metre long bellhousing adapter, which conveniently places the engine far enough forward that I can't fit the AU thermos and shroud that I have.
Excellent.

A "short" water pump will get me another 35mm or so clearance, but it also means the crank pulley and all the accessory drive brackets will have to change.

For now I might just go back to the existing thermos with no shroud.
I have a feeling the overheating situation may now be improved slightly now that I've switched the fan blades of the larger 14" thermo to spin in the correct direction.
I know thermos don't usually do much at higher speeds but having a "pull" fan trying to push air back through the rad still doesn't seem like it would be conducive to efficient cooling lol.

 

Original plan under the bonnet was to separate engine/factory, accessory and gas specific wiring.
Won't happen exactly that way now, the spot light wiring has been wrapped into the factory loom, i don't love the relay position or the inline fuse holder, but the rest of the wiring is good enough. The only other accessory wiring will be the thermo fans.
Separating the gas specific stuff wasn't too bad once I figured out where each wire went, makes it easier to remove too which I plan to do. LPG isn't particularly convenient anymore with far fewer servos near me carrying it.

View attachment 560052

The wiring still doesn't look great, but as mentioned the LPG stuff will be coming out, so I didn't put too much effort into making it look nice for now.

Also shown in the pic above is the 36 metre long bellhousing adapter, which conveniently places the engine far enough forward that I can't fit the AU thermos and shroud that I have.
Excellent.
View attachment 560053

A "short" water pump will get me another 35mm or so clearance, but it also means the crank pulley and all the accessory drive brackets will have to change.

For now I might just go back to the existing thermos with no shroud.
I have a feeling the overheating situation may now be improved slightly now that I've switched the fan blades of the larger 14" thermo to spin in the correct direction.
I know thermos don't usually do much at higher speeds but having a "pull" fan trying to push air back through the rad still doesn't seem like it would be conducive to efficient cooling lol.

WTF? 😲

Foo

 

I decided I didn't like the thermo fan situation. Again.
I'd much prefer to run 2 puller fans with a shroud, rather than a push fan, a pull fan and no shroud.
So now I'm here...

Ignore the left over wires and old fan wires going everywhere.

It looks like there's heaps of room between the engine and the rad support, mainly because there is, but that very quickly disappears with the rad, water pump and engine accessories.

I've purchased a 'short' water pump to suit the engine, which in theory gives me just enough room for the AU thermos and shroud, and test fitting so far seems to agree. But of course I now need to change all the accessory brackets and pulleys.
The alternator, power steering pump, crank pulley and water pump pulley are nothing like typical small block chevy stuff, which makes buying parts that will work a bit harder. And since both the power steering pump and alternator are longer than standard chevy/GM stuff, I'll need to figure out how to mount those where they won't clash with anything and be kept a safe distance away from the exhaust manifolds.

 

I've been struggling to find a crank pulley to suit the butchery i have/am planning.
The closest I have found so far is 2.8" long, I require 3-1/16". I haven't yet found a 1/4" spacer to suit that will index on the balancer like the pulley should. I'll either keep looking or just buy the closest pulley i can, send it, and hope it doesn't throw belts off every 36 seconds.

On a side note, I have learned many metric to inch decimal, metric to inch fractional and inch decimal to inch fractional conversions.

Anyway...
The AU thermos, or 2001 FD Falcon as they are labeled lol, are a great fit in both height and width once the mouting tabs are cut off.
But that would be too easy, the ute has kept up its habit of fighting me at every step, and the radiator outlet will not work with the thermos. I can't trim away the shroud as planned because the outlet and hose will punch into one of the fans.

I could get the outlet modified to suit, but the rad core is pretty rough and an ebay radiator is about $200. I don't particularly trust a $200 radiator, but I also don't really trust this one, so nothing to lose lol.

Since the front accessory drive and cooling system was out I degreased and pressure washed the engine bay and engine bay, I'll need to blow the engine apart to fix oil leaks and I'd prefer it to be clean for that.
Turns out the small block is much less waterproof than the Nissan engines I'm used to.

 

Ended up pulling the exhaust manifolds off too to track down a couple of exhaust leaks. They're different side to side for whatever reason. The RH manifold is a 72-74 Chevelle/Camaro manifold, and the LH is a 75-77 Chevelle/Camaro/Monte Carlo manifold.
The RH had very burned silicone around the outlet flange and the LH was cracked about 3/4 of the way around. That'd probably explain the leaks.

These manifolds are garbage, they're mismatched, and they won't be there long term. I don't care about them but they do a great job of choking the engine and mating up to the existing exhaust.

So of course I did the wrong thing, the wrong way, and used the MIG to weld the cracked manifold.
But I know it was the wrong thing, which makes it okay.
I did the "right" thing drilling out the ends of the visible crack, grinding the crack out, pre heating and slowly cooling the manifolds, but I just used mild steel wire because I honestly wasn't going to spend more time or more than $0.03 of MIG wire on them.

I ground away most of my sins and crappy welds.
If they last until i have number plates, that's good enough.

 

I guess this isn’t a problem for you. 😉🤣

 

Maybe should have drained the oil before blowing the rest of the car apart.

I don't really have a whole lot of experience with small block Chevys, or any American engines, so I'm not in a great position to comment on how much glitter in the oil is normal.
But I'm used to seeing none, which I would suspect is normal, and I would usually attribute metal in the oil with an engine that is eating itself alive lol.

I have to drop the sump anyway to fix oil leaks. So I guess I'm checking bottom end bearings while im in there. I suspect its bottom end or cam bearings from the colour.

Fcuk.

 

I don't really have a whole lot of experience with small block Chevys, or any American engines, so I'm not in a great position to comment on how much glitter in the oil is normal.
But I'm used to seeing none, which I would suspect is normal, and I would usually attribute metal in the oil with an engine that is eating itself.

Absobloodylutely, I've had a bit of experience chev and ford V8's, big and small. Run a magnet through the oil when you drain it.

 

If you’ve recently done an oil change on an engine that hasn’t had one for a long time or has sat for a long time, the new oil will pick up old sludge with the shiny bits of old wear. May not necessarily be eating itself, might just be cleaning itself. But, on the downside, sometimes that sludge is protecting worn bits. Back in the day when detergent oils came out, quite a few engines expired due to this cleaning experience.

 

The shiny stuff could be main/big end bearing surface material ie lead indium, it won't be magnetic.

Yeah I'm suspecting bearing material at the moment, just based on the colour.
There isn't any noticeable top or bottom end knock or ticking, so it's possible the bearings are just starting to fail perhaps.
Magnet will help test that, if the particles are magnetic i probably have some big issues.

If you’ve recently done an oil change on an engine that hasn’t had one for a long time or has sat for a long time, the new oil will pick up old sludge with the shiny bits of old wear. May not necessarily be eating itself, might just be cleaning itself. But, on the downside, sometimes that sludge is protecting worn bits. Back in the day when detergent oils came out, quite a few engines expired due to this cleaning experience.

This is the first time I've dropped the oil, it was starting to darken but it didn't look too old.
I was told the car has not been registered for 20ish years, so its likely that its just been sitting.
The oil filter had a 2017 date code though, so it has been changed in the last few years at least.

The engine was apparently rebuilt 90,000km ago, but that could be 25-30 years ago at this point.
I guess if the engine was just fired up after sitting, without a chance to build oil pressure first, it could have been running dry for a little while.
I'll have my fingers crossed for the engine cleaning itself or just running dry until it built oil pressure. I can avoid a lot of work that way lol.

 

Alright, sump is off.
There's no massive chucks of engine parts rattling around, so that's kinda nice.
There's a bit of sludge in there, and it does look a little sparkly in sun light.

There's also a bit of moisture. But I'm not too worried about that. It doesn't look like enough to indicate head gasket/cracked head issues, just a little built up from running the engine for short periods, or from when i degreased and pressure washed it.

Big ends 1 and 2 are off.
Cyl 1 has some scoring, and the thrust side is worn down to the copper layer.

Cyl 2 looks much better, but does still have a couple of small marks.

The crank journal still seems okay. No visible damage, and no scores or ridges that catch a finger nail, which is good news.

The bearings have lost their tension though, they'll need to be replaced. No biggie as long as the other journals are okay, I'll just roll new bearings in it and call it good.

Better than expected so far. I'll see what the rest of the big ends look like.
I might check a main bearing to two as well.

 

Good work, and your pics showed.

 

The other 6 big ends aren't terrible. Not great, but could be worse.
The bearings have all lost tension, as per cyl 1 and 2, and most of the bearings stuck to the crank rather than coming off with the cap/rod.
Unfortunately I did end up finding a couple of small marks on the crank. Not ideal considering i can't pull the engine at the moment.

But at least i caught it before any major damage occurred. I'd imagine the engine would have spun a bearing before too long.

Cyl 3 and 4

Cyl 5 & 6

Cyl 7 & 8

I've not yet pulled main caps off, I'm a bit worried about torquing them back up and tweaking the crank a little bit, I won't be able to relieve the whole thing since the engine is still in the car and hooked up to the transmission.
But given that those bearings have also likely lost tension, I probably should pull the main caps off to replace the bearings. Plus whatever crap has been through the rod bearings has also been through the mains.

And as stated before, I can't pull the engine out, so I might try to knock the high spots on the crank down with sandpaper or emery cloth with the crank in place. And I guess that means I'll be rolling new beaings in on the driveway. Which will not be fun.
But it is what it is. At least the engine is salvageable so far.

 

Why are you worried about torquing the main caps?

 

Just worried that I'd tweak the crank out of position slightly when torquing.

Either way, curiosity got the better of me, and I pulled a cap off.
I'll loosen all the caps and torque the crank up properly now, which will be easier than I initially thought. The caps practically fall out of this thing compared to an SD, I'd have thought there would have been a much tighter interference fit where they index to the block.

Main bearing that I pulled still had tension, some wear, but not too bad. I'll probably just reuse them rather than replacing because rolling the top bearing shells in seems like it'll be a PITA.

 

put a set of mains and big ends in might be a pain but at least you know all the bearings are good

 

Yeah that's true.
I'll probably buy mains as well.
I'll see if I can roll them in, or worst case I'll wait until i can get the ute into the shed and do mains then.

 

I pulled spark plugs out to make the engine a bit easier to turn over while I was underneath.
They look nice and even, which is good news.

There was a little bit of oil on the threads, but I think they were lubed, because none of the plugs show signs of excessive oil ingress.
They're gapped pretty tight, but that might be an LPG thing?

Turning the engine over by hand it feels like it has good compression, and it doesn't have any jumping on the starter motor, so I'm pretty sure all the cylinders are healthy.

As much as the bearings and glitter are a bit concerning. I think I've avoided major engine damage, and have an otherwise healthy engine.
I feel much better about it today than i did yesterday.