My Datsun Spirit L28 Build.

[Zedyone_kenobi]

I would heavily advise you to pull them together. But at the same time, others have had no issues at all. If you can get the car up high enough, then I think it would have been easier, but you will need at LEAST 15" of clearance between the body and the ground to get that transmission out. Which still makes it hard to get back up there and install. Pull them both out.

[d240zx2]

My new Z has attractive carbs and manifold, so I'll pass on your kind offer. Thanks for thinking of me.

[Captain Obvious]

If you can get the car up high enough, then I think it would have been easier, but you will need at LEAST 15" of clearance between the body and the ground to get that transmission out.

So you're saying that if you're planning to pull the engine and tranny out as a unit, you should have the whole car at least 15" off the ground?

Is that so the tranny tail doesn't hit the ground when you tip the water pump end up?

[Zedyone_kenobi]

No I am sorry, I am saying if you are planning to drop the transmission with the engine still in the car, you will need 15" of room to get the bell housing out form under the body frame rails and fender.

I actually advice if you are going to pull the engine and transmission out as a unit, you should try to get the back of the car up higher than the front. THe front I would suggest the height of the floor jack under the engine crossmember. Keeping the front lower than the back means you will need FAR less angle tilt on the engine to get it in.

I also have an extra engine Tilter if anybody needs one. My 2 ton engine hoist came with one as a bonus I did not know about. So if anybody is planning to pull an engine / transmission, let me know and I can mail you my extra harbor freight one. No idea of the quality, but it is brand new and still in the box.

[Captain Obvious]

Gotcha. Thanks for the guidance.

My (buddies) pull is coming up sometime soon. Maybe within a week. I'm thinking that this thread and some others I've seen recently has saved us at least an hour of sweating and swearing. All the while with the engine and tranny dangling from the hoist!! :bulb:

[Zedyone_kenobi]

Doldrums. Sailors use to hate them. THe long wait between wind and the much desired forward movement that keeps a project rolling. Well my friends, I find myself in the automotive doldrums. Caught in between two projects, I just do not have the parts to go forward.

On the interior, I want to get my OEM shifter in for the type B tranny. I fit the MSA short shifter in and the quality is so poor I do not like it. It adds VAST amounts of forward and rearward slop to the action of a perfectly designed factory shifter. I notched out my console to make the much taller MSA shifter fit, and while I could bolt the console up, the shifter still hit it when I put it in 1st and 3rd. Now this is not so much the consoles fault as it is the shifter lever. The MSA short shift kit moves the shifter fulcrum up almost an inch over the OEM one. It is a very crude design and I should not have been tricked by the S shaped handle. But lesson learned. For Type A to Type B tranny swaps, the MSA short shifter is not a solution. So I wait in the doldrums to finish the interior

On the engine/transmission front. I wait. Duldrums. The entire passenger side of the engine is done, completely. I have not even started the drivers side. Two things are holding me up. First, I need to get my collector pipe back from the muffler shop that is welding my O2 Bung on. I cannot even try to fit the exhaust up without that piece, since it fits to both the header AND the exhaust pipe. Since I cannot fit the exhaust, I cannot fit the intake as you fine fellows know. I am not going to mount the water intake with the thermostat until the intake and the exhaust are on so they do not get in the way. So the passenger side is on hold....So I wait.

I took the liberty to refine the fit on the studs of the CANNON manifold the webers fit on. You see, the kit they provide for you comes with nice new studs, but they do not tell you to NOT screw them in all the way. IF you do that, when you go to mount the lower locking nuts OVER the springs you do not have enough thread sticking out to start the nut! It can be a cause for much foul language. So I started to back all the studs on the bottom out about 1/8". Easy enough. Then I come to a perplexing discovery. Upon trying to reattach the throttle bar where all the throttle arms attach to and actuate all the webers, I notice the CANNON manifold is not properly aligned. Let me explain. The CANNON manifold has three holes drilled and tapped where three rod ends screw into it. These rod ends hold the throttle linkage bar. When I screw in my rod ends into my manifold, I notice that one is distinctly not lined up with the others. This is cause for my slow throttle return at times. I noticed my pedal always had more effort than it should have, and at times the weaker return spring did not quite get it back to idle as it should when you let off the gas pedal. This misalignment was causing some mild binding. I need to find a way to fix this. More pics to come.

[d240zx2]

Have you considered longer studs?

[Zedyone_kenobi]

Sure have Frank, but just backing these out 3-4 turns still leaves 80% full thread depth engaged into the manifold. I think that will be fine considering the extremely low torque these see. I will still locktite them in for good measure though

[zKars]

I have a solution for your mis-aligned cannon mounting holes. Remove the rod ends. Mount a 1/2" thick by 3/4" wide aluminum bar to the the manifold using those holes with bolts. Drill and tap new holes in the bar to mount the rod ends. Plan the layout of the rods, linkage etc carefully.

Aside from solving the mis-alignment issue, it makes it possible to remove the linkage bar without having to pull the manifold, since normally the rod can only be inserted with the manifold above the engine bay. I've done this on my car and the latest one I'm working on, pictures attached. Makes servicing and playing different actuation games simple. (note my snazzy cable throttle).

You can always weld up the one mis-aligned manifold hole and re-drill and tap it in the right place too.

Relax, enjoy the break. Go see a good movie.

Edited July 16, 2012 by zKars

[Zedyone_kenobi]

You may be onto something there.

I will give that some serious thought

[Mike W]

Stephen,

I had the same problem with my Cannon manifold in terms of the rod end alignment. I totally agree with you that this contributed to the slow response time of the Weber throttle system especially when returning to idle. I solved the problem a different way than the way that zKars described above (which seems like a very elegant solution).

I simply removed the middle rod end and replaced the throttle rod with a very hard stainless rod that I purchased from McMaster. This way I still had the desired stiffness of the rod (so there is no flexing when you exercise the throttles) but had perfect alignment as there are now only 2 attach points on the manifold. I have run my car this way for more than 6 months with no issues what so ever and the throttle response (especially return to idle) is better than it has ever been.

This also has the benefit of freeing up some space in the middle of the intake which has made the installation of my throttle cable easier as there was much more room to deal with.

Hope that helps.

Mike.

[Zedyone_kenobi]

Mike it seems we think alike

I am currently doing the exact same thing all the way to the stainless throttle rod from mcmasterr