1978 Datsun 280C Cedric

[Dez]

Mar 5, 2012 19:46:28 GMT Al Ramone said:

Mar 5, 2012 16:10:48 GMT Dez said:

arent those engines horrendous on fuel though? like about 25-30mpg?

i've got the same engine in my range rover, preminent 4wd, and i'm getting around 28mpg in that. and thats worked out in normal use, driving to and from work, which is mostly back roads and hills.
I hoping this should get me mid to high 30's.
we'll see.

thats better than i was expecting, or forklift must have been more of a dog than i thought, lol!
but i suppose the appeal is more it doesnt neccessarily have to run just on derv from the pump, no?

oh and congrats on getting it running, the more i look at it the more i like it, especially as its a bit rough around the edges, just needs a bang-tidy set of wheels a more lows and it would be perfik (to me anyways!)

[Al Ramone]

any chance the forklifts engine is about? i'm after as much ld28 spares as i can squeeze into my shed ;D

[Dez]

nah, it died last year and was ebayed i think. it hadnt had an oil change in at least 8 years and did a big end or two. kept going for at least 6 months like that though. you could hear it knocking when it was running from the other end of the site he'd only ever pay me to fix what blew up and stopped it working, never bother to waste money servicing it!

so to be fair, you probably wouldnt have wanted to go near it anyways, its cant have been too heathly.

[jrevillug]

Great to see this car about, and getting some love. ;D

Mar 5, 2012 16:10:48 GMT Dez said:

I approve of this, love the idea of anything diesel that shouldnt be at the mo.

+1. I can't stop thinking about an Iveco engine in an SD1. But I have too many cars already.

[Al Ramone]

ok.
got all the plumbing sorted. water hoses, fuel lines connected, had to make my own brackets to mount the power steering pump. but done.
new radiator fitted, all looks pretty tidy.

clutch is bleed and working, may need to change out the cylinder to alter the ratio. i'll see how i get on with it.

drove it off the driveway, so thats cool. but still got issues.

the second injector pump is leaking pretty bad. i'm looking up parts for it but thats proving difficult.
i'm gonna take the first pump apart to try and figure out whats going on.

no pics as i was a bit fed up.

[Deleted]

Nice! Needs wider wheels and a snail on that engine, otherwise great

[Al Ramone]

Mar 11, 2012 20:05:26 GMT @madmaxx said:

Nice! Needs wider wheels and a snail on that engine, otherwise great

yes it does. and that was always the plan ;D

[Al Ramone]

had a quick look over the first injection pump.

fuel looked to be leaking from around the throttle spindle so i removed that to see what was there.

theres a brass bush which the spindle sits in and it's a little worn. has a bit of play in it. i blew into the fuel inlet pipe and saw some fuel come out from around the spindle so if i can do that just by blowing into it it must be bad.

can't think of an easy fix so gonna look up places that would be able to rebuild it for me.
bum.

[Al Ramone]

well the injector pump is off hopefully being fixed.
while thats off i've been getting on with the other jobs.
namely replacing the worn out lower ball joint with a new one. (thanks datman)
and replacing the perished dust boots on the steering joints.
i used polyurethane for these, they went on nicely and are supposed to be much harder wearing then the normal rubber boots.
no pics of this, not very interesting.

once i'd done the proper work i could get on with playing
so i tackled the rear suspension.
i'd previously removed the lowering blocks that had been fitted as i wasn't happy with the lack of axle location, plus it was a little lower then i'd like as i plan on dailying it.
i figure i'll go for 50mm lowering for now and see how i get on.

so this is how it looks at the axle. already have longer u bolts so thats cool.

having the damper bolt to the lower bracket means i don't need shorter dampers

loosening the u bolts you can see the location peg and hole in the axle bracket.

this car has a rubber isolator and metal plate above and below the spring pack

remove them and you got

the locating pegs. i'm going to make a spacer to fit above the spring and under the top peg.

the spring leaves are bolted together and the pegs are held in place by the same bolt.
you need to clamp the leaves together before removing the bolt.
more updates once i've made the spacer

[slackerTHEpinstriper]

genius!

[Al Ramone]

time to make something

here's how we start

mark up and cut up a couple of bits of steel to turn into the lower half of my lowering blocks

have a large cup of tea while i mark em up for folding and sort out some steel for the block.

weld up the new lower section to the 50x50x3 box section and add the original plate above that.

i drilled a hole out in the bottom of the spacer the same size as the original plate to locate it on the spring.

painted up and put in place. looks ok.
you can see the u bolt is on the wonk in this pic. i need to check that, just needs seating proper.
i'm happy that the axle is nicely located now.

i've sorted out some alloys for this, just some cheapies for now. 7x15's with 205 55 tyres. also shows my how 15's look on the car.
with the ride hight i have i could deff go much bigger.
we'll see. might end up lowering it a bit more yet.....

[Al Ramone]

cedric went for it's MOT today and very happy to say it passed this time around

now i can get on with the rest of the jobs.....

first thing i need to address is the noise, it's pretty rattley. doesn't help that i've got most of the carpet missing and the dash is bolted up proper.
i'm gonna get a load of under carpet sound deadening and use as much as i can on the bulkhead and front floors. and possibly change the carpet itself for something thicker and more plush. my 1979 240l has nicer carpet then the 280c, which doesn't make sence :?

i've also gotta set up the injector pump. it's been rebuilt and is now leak free (powerdrive in portsmouth fixed it. good guys) i've set it up on the stock timing marks but havn't set it up with a DTI gauge, like your surposed to. so it's not right. also might screw the smoke screw up a bit as there's no black smoke.

plenty of other little jobs to do, not least of which is the paint. but for now here's a pic of how it currently sits, with it's new budget wheels.

[Al Ramone]

been using this and it's going ok so far. few niggles.

it really needs taller gearing, a higher ratio diff would be nice. i'm unsure what is in there currently, from reading the nissan manual, it could be a 4.1 or there were options of 4.4 and 3.9.
from what i've heard a diff from a 300c estate is 3.7 so that would be better.

also could do with different ratios in the gearbox, the gap between 4th and 5th is quite close. a gearbox from a '81 onward 280zx would be good as these have a taller 5th.

the other problem i have was the rear tyres rubbing on the arches. thats now fixed.

i started out using my arch roller, which folded folded it up a fair bit. but i've never found these to be that great and don't give an even fold and nice shape, so i always end up getting out the hammer n dolly to do it nicely.


folded up flat, so as much clearance as i can get and means the wheel/tyre can come out as far as poss 8)

i use a sealent to stop water/dirt getting between the folded up lip, don't want it rusting.

and then i'll give it a good coat of chassis black. done.

sorry for the rubbish pics.

also fitted an exhaust gas temp gauge, these are used to help tune diesel engines. something i've not done before so looking forward to learning something. no pics, but i'll see if i can remember to take one.

[Al Ramone]

i've finaly got around to sorting out something the was really bugging me.

the rear bumper on this, even thou it's got great chrome and no real rust, it is rather bent. and looks unloved :oops:

it'll be very hard to find a good bumper and lots of money to have this one stripped and re chromed, plus the time to straighten it out.
far better to work with what i've got and not make it any worse.


so, popped it off after work to see if i could improve it.


pretty nasty dent, it's buckled, streached and torn at the top edge. but the chromes still good.

even thou the bumpers are made of pretty thin tin and rusts fairly quickly, the good thing about that is it's fairly easy to bash em about.
so, i gave it a few wacks with a few of my hammers. as i don't want to crack the chrome i used a big rubber mallet and also a smaller hammer which i put couple layers of masking tape on.
i end up with this

not perfect, but without risking damage to the chrome its as far as i want to go.

next step was to clean up the surface rust on the backside. if i can stop or at least slow down the rust there, it should last a bit longer.
quick wire brush and then a couple coats of chassis black


back together

looking a fair bit better.

[rob0r]

Very cool

[xbo11ox]

This is a winning vehicle!!! Looks absolutely GR9 man.

[Ratdat]

Just a though regarding the gearbox... C220 Vanette diesels use a varient of the FS5W71 gearbox behind an LD20-II, so you might be able to use the front part of the gearbox casing to adapt a FS5W71 box from Z31, S13/14 or similar to fit the LD28, giving you possibly more choice of ratios as well as a stronger, more modern gearbox.

Next week, I'm hopefully pulling the engine and box from my Vanette and I'm going to see if I can adapt that box to fit an SR by swapping the casing. So if that works then there's no reason why it wouldn't work the other way. And, I'll have a spare bellhousing for you to use if you fancy giving it a go.

I probably have manuals for most of the Nissans with FS5W71 gearboxes so I can have a look at the ratios if you want.

[squeezemetim]

did this cedric use to live in west tisted??? sure i have seen something remarkabley similar on my drives around the countryside!!

[Al Ramone]

Apr 18, 2012 10:59:04 GMT Ratdat said:

Just a though regarding the gearbox... C220 Vanette diesels use a varient of the FS5W71 gearbox behind an LD20-II, so you might be able to use the front part of the gearbox casing to adapt a FS5W71 box from Z31, S13/14 or similar to fit the LD28, giving you possibly more choice of ratios as well as a stronger, more modern gearbox.

Next week, I'm hopefully pulling the engine and box from my Vanette and I'm going to see if I can adapt that box to fit an SR by swapping the casing. So if that works then there's no reason why it wouldn't work the other way. And, I'll have a spare bellhousing for you to use if you fancy giving it a go.

I probably have manuals for most of the Nissans with FS5W71 gearboxes so I can have a look at the ratios if you want.

cheers. if you could let me know about the ratios and wether it would work, that would be cool.
i think the most important thing regarding gearing is the diff thou. it's a 4.1, no wonder it's so low geared.
axle is a h190, so i think a manual/estate 300c would give me the highest availible ratio. so on the look out for one of them's.

[Ratdat]

If you find a 300C estate axle you might be able to just fit the whole axle rather than swapping the diff which would make life easier. Finding one will be the hard bit though. I think the C220 has an H190 as well as C31 and early C32 and maybe even C23 Serena and some pickups but offhand I don't know what ratios.