1973 Datsun 140j rebuild

[Lang Inder]

So this is my 1973 140j that i bought about 6 months ago, needs quite abit of work but it will get there and it will look good when its done, see below for the plans for it.

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So straight away i got into stripping it all out carefully and removing the engine untill it was just a bare shell. Then i sanded all the doors, boot and roof back to bare steel and got around the outsides of them all sandblasted then fully primed. Then the whole car was off to the sandblasters to clean it all up and see what rust we could find, then get the whole shell primed so it started to look abit better.

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So now we are spending the next five months fullly pannel beating the car up to a good standard before it gets repainted in the factory cream colour.
The car came with the factory L14 with matching numbers but later found it had burnt valves, and saw no point of rebuilding it yet. So the cars getting a tidy L18 with the V912 sss head on it with the bigger ports. It's getting a cam ground by kelfords, lightened flywheel, 9 inch clutch, new coby extractors and twin SU Carbs. Not to many other big plans for the car, some good suspention and some 17x7s. Overall just make it a really good, tidy, reliable car. Any imput on ideas for the car would be good.

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Dash all re-done by me, complete with recovered dash pad, re-sprayed dash top, 160j sss dash cluster with rev counter, re-built clock, new fm radio, new speaker and two preformance racing gauges.

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Front suspention done: HR30 skyline front struts re painted with re-done inserts, super-low cobra's, new strut boots, r31 skyline rotors and brakes. Rear suspention not to many plans, factory shocks were good condition so i'm just going to use them with some 2" cobra lowering blocks.

Will keep updated with progress.

[Dattochriswagon]

Nice work matey!!
You southland guys dont muck around.
IS the L14 for sale?
Id be pretty keen on the piston rods from it aye

[Bartman]

Very nice!
One thought though, While the V91 head has really big inlet ports, don't they have the open type combustion chambers? The A87 head was the one fitted to the 610SSS's, and has the cloesd type chamber which give better quench/squish for a performance application.

[Lang Inder]

nah the L14 isnt for sale sorry as it has matching numbers to the car and i might want to rebuild it one day. and not sure about the chambers, i thought the A87 head was a standard l18 head and the v912 head just had bigger ports? correct me if im wrong, what is the head number on a 610 sss engine?

[Mikewazowski]

Apparently A87 came in both open and closed combustion chamber versions. There was also V912 which also had closed chambers. Some W58 (or W53...can't remember just now) heads also had closed chambers.

On another note, you say you used cobra super lows in your front suspension. Are they superlows for a 140J? Or meant for 1600, 180B, etc?

[Lang Inder]

Yea not sure about the chambers at all sorry, the engine should go good though. the super low cobras are for HR30 skyline because the front struts are from hr30 and bolt straight in.

[Mikewazowski]

Oh I see, so with R30 struts you can keep the standard spring cups. I'll be interested to see the height when it is all in there.

[DylPhil7]

cool dude its good to see another 140j rebuild there just not enough i reckon.

[Lang Inder]

so haven't had an update for quite a while but have been working on the car, all the patches and new pannels are welded in and the car went away for a full sandblast again, and got the floor pan blasted to get all the shit underseal off. A wee few more holes turned up but were getting there. Then primed the whole car again.

Engine plans have changed again and the plan is to now build a l16 sss with new standard 83mm flat tops, ported head, balanced internals, kelford cam and twin 40mm sidedraughs. Have most of the parts and will post some pics when i start building it.

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and just a few pics of my 1982 s110 180sx which is my daily, running the re-build l18e from other build thread, it is getting painted back to metealic blue, but proberly not untill the 140j is done haha.

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[classicdat]

Did your dad rally one of these back in the day? A while 140/160J 4 door.