‘71 Skyline Hakosuka

At this point the Hako seemed drivable but not the strongest it could be. I drove it to my cousin AJ’s house which was under 10 miles away or so to check the timing. We adjusted it back to 11 degrees to top dead center which was advised by the previous owner Kevin. It seemed more responsive off the line but was still stumbling for a brief second on medium acceleration around 4k rpm. It was time to start balancing the carbs with a synchrometer. It required me to remove the trumpets to get a cleaner reading. I decided to leave the trumpets off to save time screwing it back on and off every time I went for a test drive. Big mistake! With the vibration of the car and one weak spring clip on the auxiliary venturi it had wiggled its way out of the carb body and tumbled onto the street. Luckily I was able to run back and pick it up but it was f*cked.

Thank goodness for the internet and international shipping. Parts are hard to find for the older Italian style Webers but luckily I found a replacement. Got to wait a few more weeks for it to arrive.

In the meantime the Hako was overdue for an oil change and a fresh set of spark plugs (NGK BP6ES). Lucas high zinc oil 20W-50 is a must for the car. I was told by Kevin that the Hako needs an oil change every 3k miles (4,800 km on the odometer) and a set of spark plugs every other oil change because of the high rate of ignition sparks.

The L28 engine needed close to 5 quarts of oil to get it above the max line to the end of the X marker. The reason why it has to be higher than the max line is because the Datsun 280Z needs more oil than the stock Skyline engine and it was using the smaller Hako oil pan. Now that she has fresh engine oil and new spark plugs it was time to check the brakes.

With a few miles of driving it around getting use to the harder brakes AJ pointed out that the front brake rotors have not made enough contact with the brake pads to clean off the debris. The rotors had deep grooves and were in much need of a resurface. They were also really old so I was contemplating on going with a brake upgrade already.

The rear drum brakes are a thing of the past and I really wanted to convert them to some disc brakes. They would also be easier to maintain and help with the braking. I tried to spin the rear right tire and it was extremely difficult to spin and the rear left was completely stuck. I couldn’t even get it to spin with kicking it with my leg. I guess that’s why it was so hard to push the car in neutral the other times that I have tried.

I’ve been spending way more time working on the Hako than driving it. I guess the car is turning more nto a project car. I was hoping I was going to have some time to use the original brakes and do more driving before upgrading them but after seeing that both the front and rear brakes needed some TLC I decided that now would be the best time to do it and save my energy in trying to fix an old system.

As I mentioned before the oil pan gasket was slowly oozing oil out the sides. I was surprised to find out the twenty or something bolts that was holding the oil pan weren’t tightly tightened. I tightened them up and cleaned the leak. We’ll see if the leak comes back.

After seeing the wet spots and changing the dirty engine oil, I started to wonder how the transmission and differential oil was looking and when it was last changed. The transmission bolt plugs were a b*tch to loosen. The transmission took 2 liters to refill and the differential took almost 1 liter. Time for a fresh start on the fluids. Clutch, brake, and coolant are the only fluids left to change.