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For 160 km I tended to the fire.... Yup. My good buddy Ross bought 'Tootsie" a 1979 Datsun camper truck with L20. We drove 180km to Springhill, Nova Scotia in my brother's Civic who was going to be the sag wagon on the return leg. Ross is the kind of guy who just does things spontaneously so he bought the camper a few days ago when passing through Springhill on business after only a short test drive and today was the day to drive it back. He asked me to help and said it stumbled a bit as the owner mentioned and that the manifold had a leak so I did a quick check and we were on our way. It was immediately apparent that the double barrel Hitachi carb had problems with the primary. It bucked like crazy until we got the secondary to open so I suggested that he keep the RPM's up. It backfired a bit on deceleration so when we stopped for gas 15 min into the trip home, I looked at the plugs and they were perfect. I also looked at the timing. I did not have a light but I noticed the distributor was clocked fully CW so I rolled it back to the centre location. It ran like crap so I put it back to full advance....interesting. After about 15 more min on the highway we smelled wood burning. Hmmmm no electrical smell nor oil smell and the motor was working fine, must be someone burning wood...... so we continue..... then the smoke came into the cab.... where the hell was it coming from? A quick look back into the camper part and it was coming from the floor. I pulled myself back into the camper section much like a Lancaster pilot going back to man the guns.... flames were coming out from under a bench next to the propane heater!!!! I flipped off the top and also in there was the battery and DC to AC converter under the bench. I looked for an extinguisher and shutoffs for power and gas but there were none. Ross was unable to see the flames and said that he wanted to try to make it up the big hill that we were on as he was worried about stopping. I dumbly said to try it as I looked for a way to put out the fire then came to my senses and convinced him so stop. As we stopped, I jumped out the back door and headed to the snow bank to get snow to put on the fire. My brother, driving behind us just saw me jump out the door along with a cloud of smoke. The snow managed to put out the flames so we had a good look under the bench seat and under the camper. There was nothing electrical nor a pilot light in the stove. We disconnected the gas to be safe. I noticed no exhaust was coming out of the tail pipe so I looked for holes and could see none. The muffler was a good 6 inches from the floor and was close to where the flames were but we could see no indication of heat . I even touched the front of the muffler and the pipe running into it and they were just warm. We figured a squirrel probably sealed it up and the crack in the manifold was where the true exhaust flow was. We disconnect the battery and piled some snow in the area under the bench seat (which had another boxed off section inside) then continued on. After another 5 min at high rpm, the smoke would return. I pushed some snow around to cool the wood then the smoke would stop..... sort of like tending to a wood stove X -1. After 30min of doing this, I decided to punch a hole in the interior boxed section so try and push snow into that cavity... bad idea. the hole allowed more air in and the smoke got worse.... so we stopped again and checked for a cause. Again the muffler was just warm and so far away from the floor that we figured it must be something else. Ross pulled off some foam under the camper and could see that it was black from heat. I still thought it may be the muffler so I punched some holes in it with the claw of a hammer so as to let exhaust flow out the front ahead of the suspected squirrel condo. We then piled lots of snow into the smoky area and it stopped and we were on our way. 5 min later more smoke. by this time we had a huge pile of snow in the seat/bench compartment so I just tended to the fire, by stogging the snow into the cavities until we were close to the city (destination)... HOWEVER Ross yells back to me that the clutch is gone.... so I suggested double clutching and that sort of worked. By this time the snow had melted so I climbed into the passenger seat (bomber style) as we were worried police may see me not fastened in as we were coming into city streets. The the clutch went again.... so we had to shift without the clutch for the upcoming 6 lights with the truck bucking like crazy in first gear on the primary carb barrel..... then the brakes went. So we did what any bomber pilot limping back to England after being shot up would do.... we continued on. I worked the stick as Ross worked the hand brake and we tried to hobble through the lights by timing the colours and bucking as people on the side walk pointed at us and laughed. We just had one light to go in first gear at 5000 rpm running on the secondary when there was a huge backfire and the engine stopped. So we coasted to the side of the road and figured that was it,,, just 2 km from home. So my brother stopped and we had a good look around. Not much to see. Time to throw in the towel.... so being an "right EEEgiot" I pulled the breather off the carb and noticed a puddle of fuel at the bottom of the primary... mystery partially solved. I then noticed the plug to the coil had come off. The huge backfire (like a direct flak hit) out of the corresponding huge crack in the manifold apparently was powerful enough to blow the adjacent plug wire off the coil. I put the wire back on and asked Ross to crank. Amazingly it started.... and the clutch worked,,,, and the brakes work (I credit this to prayer to my guardian angel). So we made it all the way back at high rpms with people still pointing and laughing... but we made it.... and that is all that matters. I looked again at the muffler and it was a bit discoloured near the rear section. It looked a bit oranger. So I threw snow on it and it sizzled,,,, but not on the front. It was in fact glowing orange!!! Mystery solved. So here is the guess: - Timing too retarded - Primary leaking fuel into the exhaust stroke that collects in the back of the muffler and burns slowly heating the metal floor directly above it...which heated the wood. I then took my brother to dinner where he laughed at my wood stove smell and said that it was funny seeing me open the door and jump out with the plumes of smoke. Any trip with my buddy Ross is an adventure!

Sounds like a real mess. A stock wheel does sit in the "best" position for sure. Most aftermarket wheel adapters tend to move it toward the driver, although many such wheels have less dish to compensate. I wouldn't call stock 240 steering wheels in North America rare by any stretch, I just got one from a 73 yesterday from a friend and I have others. I'm in the middle of refinishing this one, but I can stop here and let you complete it your way. The rim is sanded and the spokes are sandblasted and primed. I can put the red stain I always use on it or not, your choice. Let me know what you're willing to spend on one (don't aim high) and I'll happily ship it out to you. I have the horn pad and everything, its in great shape. At least you have another option if you can't find one locally.

Thanks for sharing that great Datsun story. It looks like Blue & the Captain (& probably most of us) have many more. Please guys, Don't leave us in suspense.

I'd just use a new one. That's pretty bad.

LMAO! Great story. No duct tape "racing stripes" down the side hiding externally run fuel lines? Didn't have to resort to that? . . . This time?

Mounted my new f/g door panels with new vinyl.