After 5 months, I finally put the finishing touches on my U20
rebuild/conversion into my '66 roadster. Fired her up last night at 1:30
a.m.! She kicked over right away. Other than a cloud of smoke coming off
the exhaust manifold, all seemed fine. That was a fuel line leak, fixed it,
and looked forward to a test drive. So after work today I jumped in and
took off. Great, great, great! I forgot how strong U20's were, not having
driven one in 20 years. Man, did I get a lot of stares cruising around the
streets with no hood or grill on the car.
So I get home, and notice the coolant is low. Top it off, and check 5
minutes later and it's low again. No drips under the car. Wait a minute,
this is a freshly rebuilt, can't be a header leak. Oops, the passenger
floor is wet. My heater sprung a leak. So I bypassed the heater
connections.
It's been one frustration after another, but I learned from the experience.
Here's the rundown on putting a 2000 engine in a '66. This is not in the
order of actually doing it, just what came to mind.
1) Cut a shifter hole more forward of the existing 4-speed hole. After
cutting the tunnel brace, take the cutout piece, turn it 180 degrees and
use metal epoxy to blend it into the old hole.
2) Cut the tunnel brace. Seal the exposed cuts to prevent rust.
3) Take the existing 4-speed trans mount bracket, and move it down to the
bottom holes. What I didn't figure on, was the trans mount holes were more
towards the rear so I had to drill new holes in the bracket to match.
4) Take a sledge hammer, and create a pocket on the inside drivers fender
to make space for the 2000 SU air filter housing. Use a body hammer and
dolly to finish up the sheet metal.
5) The speedo connector is a tight fit, so connect it before bolting up the
trans mount.
6) The 1600 alternator is on the passenger side, while the 2000 has it on
the drivers side. Unravel the wiring harness tape, and move the voltage
regulator and alternator harness to the drivers side. The voltage regulator
has a short-length bunch of wires to the alternator, so it needs to move
with the alternator. Mount the voltage regulator near the overflow tank.
Put a new ground strap from the alternator to the chassis.
7) The temp sender is also on the other side of the engine. So make an
extension wire with connectors, add it to the wiring harness to get it to
the passenger side. Then tape up the wiring harness with electrical tape.
8) The reverse wires on the 5-speed trans use bullet connectors, while the
4-speed uses flat wire connectors. So crimp flat wire connectors to a piece
of wire, and use a vampire tap to clamp on the 5-speed reverse light wires.
9) The heater hose connections are different, so you'll need to rig your
own set of hoses. I used a two-piece setup for the long connection from the
front of the intake manifold to the firewall, with a metal connector tube.
This avoided any rubbing of the hoses on anything.
10) The choke cables were too short for the U20! So I made my own from
bicycle cable. The guy at the bike shop asked what bike it was for. When I
tried to explain it was for my car, he asked if it was for SU's! Turns out
he did the same thing for his MG. Not only that, he put a Datsun cam in his
MG. Seems that they're compatible!
A number of little things got in the way. I couldn't find the U20 clutch
housing bolts, so I figured I'd take them out of the 1600. Oops, standard
thread versus metric, so I couldn't use them. I ran into this a lot with
bolts and nuts. Thought I'd drop the engine in without the exhaust header,
so it'd be easy to hook everything else up. Oops, the header won't squeeze
by the frame, so I cursed, undid the motor mounts and lifted the engine
again. You gotta mount the exhaust header before bolting the motor mounts.
There were lots of little things I encountered rebuilding this blown
engine, and the carbs, alternator, etc. A heck of an experience, I'm glad I
did it. Now to cruise with the BADROC guys this Sunday at the Old Car Show!
Fred "katman" - So.SF
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