1963 Datsun 320 kingcab

[DRIVEN]

Always feels good to solve the puzzle. Should stop great now. My 510 actually has 2 right side calipers on it (previous owner). I had to roll it upside down and put a piece of wood between the pads to bleed it, then reinstall.

[wayno]

I am not really that happy with myself, that is a newbie mistake, I even remember looking at that and I still put them on the wrong sides.
I bled them calipers likely between 50 and a 100 times and never noticed they were on wrong, but everything else is in better shape now, all new everything.

Good thing I am taking pills to keep my blood pressure down, every time I hit that pedal I would think is this never going to end.

I keep walking out there and stepping on the brakes, like I can hardly believe they are really fixed, and it is right on the top.

[Laecaon]

This is why I asked about about the MC possibly being backwards. So simple that it's easy to overlook, like mounting the calipers upside down. Good job on finally figuring it out.

[wayno]

I sure did learn how to change out brake master cylinders, and I really learned how to bleed brakes.
As I said before, that brake line that blew up on me blew up in my garage not on the road, that is good, I now have a bunch of good used rubber hoses, I guess I will keep them in a box just in case, I also changed all the brake lines except the connection to the new SAE rear rubber hose going to the axle, from that rubber hose on everything is SAE.
I went out there again and stepped on the brake pedal, I just can't believe it is over with.
I need to make sure the pedal rod is adjusted properly and then set the lock nut tomorrow.
I also deleted the inline brake light switch on the firewall when I made new brake lines, so I will need to wire a switch on the brake pedal for the brake lights.
Somewhere in the near future I will need to change out the rear gears to the 437 gears, I only want to change the gear oil once, and it likely has not been changed in 30 years along with the transmission oil, engine oil needs changed also.
I also got this idea of trying to use a 320 window crank to roll up and down the rear windows, not sure if they could be rolled all the way down, but maybe half way would be nice, I could shorten the arms a little, I still have the inner doors and that might be a way of covering the holes on the inside of the cab below them windows.
This truck should be ready for Canby by June, it may not be painted, but it should look decent in primer, still have lots of plans though.

[wayno]

This is what the truck looks like as of today.











It is still too high in my opinion, but 3 inch lowering blocks on the rear has the axle almost resting on the bump stops, so to go any lower I will have to cut the bump stops half off, and I will have to use 720 4X4 leafs, I measured them and they are the same length.



If I try 4 inch blocks, the lower shock mounts will drag on the ground if I get a flat in the rear.



I think that I need some new shocks also, but if I can find a set of 1968-1973 510 wagon shock mounts, I will need a different type of shock, so I need to look for a set first before buying shocks.
The brakes work great, I pulled the right rear e-brake cable off to loosen it up, as the shoe was dragging because the cable was basically stuck, all is good now.
Pretty soon I am going to have to start doing the body work to smooth it out and hide the welds, not my favorite thing to do.

[wayno]

Didn't do much to it today, drained the transmission and engine oil, took the oil filter off and then found out that neither Baxters or NAPA have an oil filter cartridge on the shelves, have to wait till Monday after I do a tile roof to pick it up, one in Portland, and one in Tacoma that will be shipped to the Baxters that I live close to.
The transmission gear oil looked good, the engine oil came out like water consistency, but was oil, hard to say how long it has been in there, could be 10 years or more, I will wait till I change the rear gears out to change that gear oil.
I might have a leak in the front seal of the transmission or engine rear seal, it's coming out of the bell housing drain hole, it's likely the engine rear seal.

[wayno]

I also got the headlights working, it turned out the it didn't have the dimmer switch and that is why they didn't work, it now has one and the left headlight needs replaced, it only has the brights.
I am thinking that it might look nice with tri-pole headlights like the NL320 has, but I already have a regular 7 inch replacement bulb on the shelf.
All the other lights work also, even the rear license plate light.
The front wheels are barely in the fender wells, while the rear wheels are pretty deep in the wells, I am now kinda sorry that I scrapped the 520 rear axle I had, I believe it was only 3/4 inches wider than the 320 axle, I will go out back tomorrow and see what I have, maybe there is something out there I can use under this truck, I don't believe they make thick spacers for 6 lug.

[DRIVEN]

I know you had this for sale for a while before you started doing all the work. What is your plan once it's done? Back up for sale or are you planning to keep it for a while?

[wayno]

I will keep it for a while I suspect, maybe I will put a stupid high price on it.
I am planning on driving this to Canby, hopefully it will be done or at least in primer, have 3 months left.

[wayno]

I have a cartridge oil filter in this truck, the part number is 51302.
The filter is taller than what I need, the proper size height wise is part number 51300, but that filter doesn't fit, so I have to cut the tall filter to the height I need and put the top on it from my old used filter.

I forgot to take a photo of the untouched filter, so here is what it looked like with the piece I cut off stacked on the old filter.

This is what it is supposed to be height wise(old filter).

This is how much I cut off to make it work for me.

[wayno]

So I measured my rear end today opn the L320 to see how wide it is, 44 inches from backing plate to backing plate, the rim itself is recessed into the well around 4 inches.









The front has a little bit of positive camber, right now it rubs the fender a little, but that can be fixed with an alignment.

So I have a couple rear ends out back that are 47 inches apart at the backing plates, I will have to re-locate the spring perches, but I think it will look much better, I originally was going to use some mag wheels on it to fix this issue, but they stick to far out of the front fender wells.

[wayno]

So I worked today, came home limping, have a two day job to start tomorrow, hope I can finish it.
I fitted sheet metal into the hole below the rear passenger side window today.

Here is is in place.

Then I played with a modified 320 door window gear to see if I could come up with something that will roll up and down, I didn't get a photo of the gear assembly as I forgot to take one, but I cut the arm off and re-mounted it 90 degrees, I will get one tomorrow if I can move when I get home.
Here is the gear assembly mounted.





It rolls up and down with a little help, but it will not roll all the way down, it sticks up a couple inches and there is not a lot I can do about it, the arm is as long as it can be, and the electric setup I have is too big, it sticks out the side too far, so that particular type will not work, if I can remember I will take a photo of that also.

[Laecaon]

A more modern cable type mechanism would probably work way better for this application, but also way harder to make work I would think.

[wayno]

OK, so I took it out and took a couple photos, you can see where I temporarily welded the arm back on.



Here is the electric window setup, where the motor and orange hose are are to far to the side, it will not fit in the hole/slot.

This is what the gear assembly/arm normally looks like.

[wayno]

Well I could not get the rear window to work properly, it would not go all the way down, and if I turned the crank to hard when rolling up it came off the window, so I have given up on that way for now.
I also have been looking at electric window mechanisms, the ones that might work are very expensive($400.00+) or if they are cheaper they have a lot of bad reviews, so I stopped looking at them also.
I settled for this right now, it works great so far, I will either make a new insert as I made holes in this one trying to make the roll up type mechanism work, or I will cover it which is what most likely what will happen, I am making this up as I go.
So here is what I did.

And here it is up, half way down, and down all the way.





Right now I am using a old wing nut to hold it, I might get a low profile knob or stainless steel wing nut and washer, or I might find something nicer, or I might just use this as it is, it's kinda hidden when the seat is in a normal position.



I ran out of metal for the driver side piece, I will look around some more, maybe there is another piece I can use, but the hood is all cut up now, nothing big enough left after this piece and the 2 rear skirts, if I had known what I needed to start with I am positive this one hood would have covered the 4 pieces, but that is how it goes.

[DRIVEN]

I really like that. Simple solution that should work reliably for decades to come.

[wayno]

Well I found another piece of metal, the skin of a door that was already cut in half.
So I made the other side, it went a lot faster, but I screwed up and drilled the holes in the wrong place the first time.
Here it is in all its glory.



This is a fairly simple way of doing it, I might do this to the 520 kingcab rear windows also, I will see how much I like it before committing to doing that one this way also, it looks better than nothing like the 520 is now.
The next time I pull this covers off I believe I will put stiffeners on the inside next to the slot, I should be able to drill the stiffeners and spot weld them in without ruining the outside, although I make mistakes all the time.

[wayno]

I really like that. Simple solution that should work reliably for decades to come.

Thankyou, it's what I thought of fast as the other way didn't work very well, and I seen something like this before somewhere, I just don't recall where I seen it, likely not on a vehicle at all.
It's not easy to cut that slot straight with my grinder using a cutting disc, the first one looks like it's at a slight angle going down, oh well. it's mostly hidden, so no one can even tell except me.

[wayno]

Didn't do much to it today except a little(10 minutes) grinding on the tack welds, I keep looking at the box and seeing what I did to the 520 on it, that is a shitload of work, and I just need to get it decent enough for Canby, I don't need another multi year project.
I was looking at the box of extra trim I have and I believe that I can piece together enough pieces to have the trim go the length of the truck.
Now just above where the trim would go are some holes evenly spaced the length of the box, I am seeing little hooks of some kind in them holes for a box cover, but to make that work I would have to remove the stock hooks on the box rails, otherwise them hooks would stick out and eventually push thru any cover I had made as they stick out and not just down, it looks like I could remove the hooks pretty easy and anything that was left over would be covered up by the cover.
You can see one of the holes I was talking about in this photo, they are on both sides between every hook, and they are less than an inch below the tip of the hooks, so any cover would be pulled almost straight sideways into the tips of the stock hooks if I use the holes for hooks and leave the stock hooks there, I believe the stock hooks are going to have to go.

Also if I took the hooks off I could put snaps on the bottom of the rails and hold the cover on that way instead of hooks in the holes, I just thought of that, that might even look better, but not as easy to remove like small bungee cords would be, and bungee cords sewn into the cover are adjustable while snaps are not, to much thinking going on here, it will never be done.

[wayno]

Have not done much with this lately, but today I mixed up several batches of bondohair and did the top and the sides in back of the front door, but now I have to wait for a dry day to move it out of the garage to sand it, as I don't want all that dust in my sorta semi clean garage, it seems clean to me.