1970 Datsun 521(A frank'n truck)

[wayno]

He really fucked over the neighbor, because of that guy, my neighbor has lost $500.00 a month minimum, each and every month, according to the city of Vancouver, he cannot make money out of his garage, so he has to rent a commercial building/unit, he had been making metal fences, gates, awnings and such in his garage for years, now he has to drive to work, it was such a great thing to have him on the street to watch over everything every day except when he was off installing one of his creations.

[wayno]

I had to work today, and tomorrow also, not getting much done on the truck.
The more I drive it, the more I like the power it has, but I think it's getting crappy mileage, the needle goes down pretty fast.
I miss having power steering.

[wayno]

I did some stuff to the truck today, I made the 720 floor covering work in the 521, it wasn't really that hard to do.
I also made a temp fix to the carrier, I used some air conditioning hose I cut out of my 1980 720 a while back and some zip ties, the rubber was shot, now all is good.

When I looked at the spare tire under the back, I realized that I could not lower the tire if I got a flat, the plate was in the way, so I added a hinge so I could flip up the plate to have access to the spare tire crank.


Justin dropped off the stock exhaust the other day, I re-installed it back in the truck and removed my temp one I put in using the resonator.

[wayno]

I did a few things today, I installed an antenna for the radio.

And I installed a speaker.

I also replaced two of the wheel mount studs on the driverside front, one broke off trying to remove the lugnut, the other was all buggered up, I had to remove the calipers and the hub, then remove the rotor from the hub just to get the studs out and back in, it might have taken less than an hour, but I had to go buy the studs, so it took a little longer.

There is not much on AM radio, but I guess news is better than nothing.

Yesterday I topped off the transmission fluid on this truck and the work truck, both were a little low, hope there is no damage.

[devilsbullet]

House across the street from me is up for sale. Only a one car garage, but enough room for about 6-8 vehicles in front of the garage. And none of the neighbors will complain about cars, I've got 6 they can see, guy two houses down has a lifted bright green Chevy or ford parked in his front yard, guys next door have 3 cars between them, only one is parked on pavement... Not bad cars or neighborhood, just nobody is that concerned with others business

[Spoona_Jay21]

Love the work on these trucks man. Wayno, you are legend.

I do have a question, maybe a bit noobish to ask. Bit since, by this point the cab and frame don't have the same vin, so which is used to register? Is it registered as a standard cab 720, or a 521?

[wayno]

Love the work on these trucks man. Wayno, you are legend.

I do have a question, maybe a bit noobish to ask. Bit since, by this point the cab and frame don't have the same vin, so which is used to register? Is it registered as a standard cab 720, or a 521?

They don't care about frames in this state, only body parts/bodies(cabs) are important, it is registered as whatever the cab is, now if I wanted to jump threw all the hoops, I could go to the WA state inspection office, and show them that I owned both vehicles, and they would combine the titles to show both the frame number and the body number, it would cost me money, but it would then be to the letter of the law.
I do have both titles in my name, and neither are in smog, I will not own anything in smog, they don't know what they are doing in them places, them places only exist to collect money, I once owned a 1982 Datsun diesel that had to go threw emissions, I went in and told them it was a diesel, but the idiot kept putting the sensor in my tail pipe, and it kept popping off, so another idiot held it in there the last time, when it came out, and it did, even though they were holding it in, it sounded like a shot gun going off, everyone in the station came running, the guy that looked like he was in charge told the idiot to not do that(I probably could have got sued by the idiot if he had got hurt), and he(guy in charge) went to the console, hit a couple buttons, came over to me with a piece of paper that said I had passed and told me to leave, that first idiot kept putting that sensor on the hood that is supposed to pick up the distributor even though I told them it was a diesel, I have not been back there since that day that I can recall.

[Charlie69]

my 1980 diagram has no headlight relay... but then again, I have 3 wiring diagrams for my 510, and only one even showed the automatic transmission wiring correctly.

I just looked at the dimmer wiring. First thing to grasp, the lights do not need 12v and ground, they simply want a voltage differential. They would be equally as bright with one leg at 24V and the other at 12V. Now, how you dimmer works is this, the dash lights all get 12V from the headlight switch, the dimmer switch has ground and 12V as inputs, and a wire (red/bue) as a output, this output sweeps from 0v (ground), to probably 3v or 4v (merely a guess for example). This means there is a voltage differential across the bulbs from 12V to 8V, and why the lights dim.

Now to preserve wiring, and to isolate how things are done, the way I would get the tach to dim is this: Open the tach, disconnect the bulb inside from grounding with the tach, and attach a wire. Run this extra wire out of the tach as the "ground" of the bulb inside. Connect your 12V light wire for the tach to Red/yellow, and now connect your new wire from the tach to Red/Blue of the dimmer switch. Bam, 1 extra wire, and now your tach dims with the dash lights.

Quote Wayno
Yes I understand this, but it is a major hassle trying to do that with a 521 instrument cluster, I would have to build a mini harness that is separate from the dash harness and buy 5 plastic bulb holders that would fit in each hole, now maybe if I had thought of using the red/yellow wire in the headlight switch I could have made it so the dash lights came on with the headlights/park lights, but neither me nor Charlie thought of that, and since there was clean power coming from the harness to supply power to the stock tack, I just used that power to power and illuminate the aftermarket tach also, I don't care if it is on all the time, I just put it in that truck because it been in the cabinet for years and I wanted a tach, and the only stock 720 tach I have left doesn't work, if it did, I would have made a holder for it as it is square.
This build was put together out of parts I have laying or packed away around here, the only part I have had to buy was a brake line hose for an 85 as I somehow screwed it up piping the brakes, I also bought a gallon of antifreeze, I forgot about that.

Wayno I have a spare 720 late model tac, the round one if you want it.

Well I have made some progress I spent the last week working on a 1984 720 tilt column install. I hope to finish it tomorrow. I have been working on the wiring. I decided to run a 1980 720 2WD king cab automatic wiring harness. I have the wiring done for the 520 instrument cluster to the 720 harness. 2 wires to shorten up tomorrow when I get some connectors and the instrument cluster will be plug and play. I bench tested all my work with a multi meter first and then I hooked up individual circuits to a 12volt power supply and tested each with power. No smoke so far.













Wiring takes a lot of time. It is definitely something you cannot hurry.

A big thanks to Wayno for his input on this mod.

[Charlie69]

Wayno, I started putting my 520 on a 1980 720 standard cab today. We have the engine mounts welded in the frame and the engine and transmission set in the chassis. Set the cab on and notched inner fender wells for steering box and upper A arms. Checked my radiator and there is not enough clearance for the fans. I will move the engine and trans back 3/4" and that should do it. I have the room to move the engine back because of the custom firewall I put in. Front wheels look well centered in the tire opening in the front fenders. we have decided to remove all cab and bed mounts from the 720 frame and weld them back to match the original mounting holes in the cab and the bed. It looks like we will shorten the frame about 1 1/2" to close the gap between the cab and the bed.

Ratsun is not as interesting since you quit posting.

[Charlie69]

Double post! OOPS!

[wayno]

Wayno, I started putting my 520 on a 1980 720 standard cab today. We have the engine mounts welded in the frame and the engine and transmission set in the chassis. Set the cab on and notched inner fender wells for steering box and upper A arms. Checked my radiator and there is not enough clearance for the fans. I will move the engine and trans back 3/4" and that should do it. I have the room to move the engine back because of the custom firewall I put in. Front wheels look well centered in the tire opening in the front fenders. we have decided to remove all cab and bed mounts from the 720 frame and weld them back to match the original mounting holes in the cab and the bed. It looks like we will shorten the frame about 1 1/2" to close the gap between the cab and the bed.

Ratsun is not as interesting since you quit posting.

The 520 cab is a little harder to put on the 720 frame, but it is doable, as I did it myself on a kingcab frame.
One and a half inches should do it on the gap, but to tell you the truth, I don't even notice the gap anymore, I got it to the point that it was just about an inch to big of a gap, but if it is sitting next to another 521 I can see the difference.
The kid down the street did what you are talking about on the cab mounts, just make sure it is perfect before you weld them on, measure twice and weld once, he actually didn't cut the original ones off all the way, he cut just enough to use the stock 521 set of mounts welded onto the 720 cab mount arms, that way he could use the 521 mount hardware.
If I were you I would keep a certain part of your 520 frame, maybe weld it into the 720 frame.

[Mowhawk731]

Been reading these pages over and over wayno and got inspired. Love the truck man. If you had it to do over would you have bought a universal wiring harness to complete your project? I bought an 81 to set my 521 on but the wiring is a hack job.

Thanks in advance

[510freak]

Welcome to NWDatsuns Mowhawk731
wayno,is an inspiration for most(if not all of us)

[wayno]

Been reading these pages over and over wayno and got inspired. Love the truck man. If you had it to do over would you have bought a universal wiring harness to complete your project? I bought an 81 to set my 521 on but the wiring is a hack job.

Thanks in advance

No, I would use whatever 720 wiring harness that came with the engine, I have done it so many times now that it's not that hard anymore, and others chime in and tell me other ways I coud have done something with what I have, like Jacob telling me I could have used this certain wire for my dash lights that I didn't think of, and neither did Charlie.
I try to only use good tested wiring harnesses, and if you do use a 720 wiring harness, remember that the round headlights are wired differently than the square headlights, so you have to make pigtails to convert to round headlights.
I am cheap, no way would I spend money on a new aftermarket wiring harness when I have a good stock harness to work with.

[DRIVEN]

On the headlights; I added modern relays for my low beam and high beam circuits when I had my 1200. Made a dramatic improvement in light output but more importantly, it took most of the amperage load off of my 40+ year old wiring. Basically, the original circuit just acted as a trigger and all the load was going through new (common) relays and new heavier gauge wiring. It's something I've done to a few old cars. Just something to think about.

[izzo]

On the headlights; I added modern relays for my low beam and high beam circuits when I had my 1200. Made a dramatic improvement in light output but more importantly, it took most of the amperage load off of my 40+ year old wiring. Basically, the original circuit just acted as a trigger and all the load was going through new (common) relays and new heavier gauge wiring. It's something I've done to a few old cars. Just something to think about.

I've done this as well, huge improvement!!

[Charlie69]

Been reading these pages over and over wayno and got inspired. Love the truck man. If you had it to do over would you have bought a universal wiring harness to complete your project? I bought an 81 to set my 521 on but the wiring is a hack job.

Thanks in advance

Go to a wrecking yard and pull a 720 harness. Try to find one that is the same year or at least has the early style gauges. If yours has the z22 engine and standard trans then that is the harness that would be the one to look for.

Do not waste your money on an after market harness.