Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Engine Progress


Crisis hit the project last month when Aaron’s shop cat disappeared. After six days she returned, a little thinner, but otherwise okay. Speaking of thinner, this month I paid income taxes, and that’s made me a bit lighter.

Nevertheless, progress continues slowly. After 14 months, the engine is coming together. It’s not the original engine (it was absent when I bought the van), but a 1975 Nissan A-series engine – one of several million made by Nissan right up to the current day. Blasphemy you say? Not really. The Nissan A-series engine is based on the Austin A-series. In fact, Nissan was a licensee of the design until 1967 when they started making their own. They were able to goose the HP too by making it 1400cc.
If you look below (and above) you will see that the engine was completely overhauled. Bored cylinders, new piston rings, new water pump, new gaskets and the header was plained to a mirror finish.  Oh, general  cleaning and painting too – a lot of effort for an engine that had only 67,000KM on it to begin with. Couple bits need to be added yet – water pump most obviously. I even have a "MORRIS" badge for the valve cover.

1 comment:

... Grant ... said...

Good on ya I was going to use my 1500 nissan engine , painted the right shade of green and you hardly notice it's the "wrong" engine you also get a daily driver reliable machine!