Wynona the wagon's resurrection!

[DRIVEN]

Why so cautious? You both have whatever it is already anyway. Might as well get on with life.

[HRH]

Oh, it gets better. Check the Covid-19 recommendations. You can still catch covid at the end of your 10 days. So let's say I have covid, and I stay my 14 days away. Let's say Rose catches it on day 13. She still has to wait 5-8 days after I got it to test. And then she has to self-quarantine. So possibly, she would be out of work for 24 days at this point. This is all worst case scenario. Mind you, that's just guidelines. Still no test results yet. Not sure what I'm going to do, but to play the side of caution, if we social distance in the house (meaning I sleep in the basement), IF I get a positive test result back, then at least she can spend the bare minimum time after from work and can get the covid test quicker. It's rather confusing. I'm just slightly annoyed about it at this point in time.

Here's the thing, I'm not worried about the general healthy people out there getting it. I'm worried about the people who are going to fall seriously ill or die because of it. People like my buddy Mitch, who lets the dogs out. He has a shit medical history and lots of issues. So if he comes over to let my dogs out and eye drop one of them at lunch, and gets covid, I'm putting him at risk.

Rose's boss has a medical thing going on, that's a risk. MOST people will be just fine, but in the interest of being a good person and playing the ultra-cautious roll, I'm going to have to suck it up a bit. Which pisses me the fuck off, but oh fucking well. At least I can get food delivered and order stuff on the internet and I have lots of car projects to work on if I stay at home.

[DRIVEN]

Sounds frustrating and complicated. Best of luck to you then.

[HRH]

So in my covid exile today, I secured more space for the wagon parts, and the extra hardbody fenders. I didn't need two lefts, but I found the blue before I found the red that matches. Just haven't had a chance to put it on yet. Attached a couple pieces of plywood to the wall against the foundation cinder blocks, hung them on screws. Then drilled some holes for the hooks from harbor freight (1.99 each, good to 50 lbs, so 30 lbs, lol) and made a spot to hang the rear hatch from the donor wagon. The other fenders I hung from the rafters in the garage where I shouldn't be able to bang my head on them, even with the 7' ceiling.

Now I'm thinking about making a 10' x 7' pony wall in the basement next to the workbench so I can hang doors, and maybe get all my windshields and back glasses off the floor stand and on the wall. There will be many car parts!

Still no fucking test results back!

[HRH]

Getting closer to yanking the engine and trans and getting the axle out. Got her up on jack stands now, waiting for the weekend.

[HRH]

Engine and trans are out. Now to get the axle, then cut her up. The cat has taken to sleeping in the front passenger seat. She'll be sad when there's no more seat for her.

[HRH]

That's the last of it, though I saved a lot. Ended up keeping the whole front clip from the firewall forward.

[HRH]

Got the fuel leak at the filter fixed in the wagon today. I've also decided, since I have the spare wagon axle, I'm just going to measure length on the non-snapped one for the Ford 8.8 swap, then I'm going to yank the axleshaft out and replace it with the spare wagon axleshaft. That way she's still driveable while I'm building the other axle. I just won't go find VHT compound and try and drop clutch it, lol. Regular street driving I should be able to abuse the stock axle for a bit more.

[HRH]

Am I the only one who updates his build threads?! Lol. So I'm finally going to go measure the rear end hub to hub on the spare wagon axle today. Then after that the garage is warming up and I'm going to see if I can get the new turbo on for the z car and then attempt to find boots and fittings that will make it all work. Not to mention downpipe. Factory one definitely won't work. Debating through the hood turbo pipe, but pretty much decided against it, plus I think exhaust has to exit behind driver for road racing. I'd be okay for drag racing, but that's not what this car is going to do.

[HRH]

[HRH]

The rear axle flange to flange is 56.5625 or 56 and 18/32. I may even have the Datsun guru shave a couple of sixteenths off that just to suck it in a little bit more. he mentioned we may want to narrow it even more for new wheels if I wanted to get more tire out of it but I think at this point it has plenty of tire. if I go to a drag car option at some point I'll probably use a different wagon. Besides that I want to drive it I don't need a drag car. And now that I'm looking at it the trailing arm setup would be in the way of getting a lot narrower. I'd probably want to do leaf spring if I was going to run a super narrow axle for big meats.

As you can tell, I found the biggest, thickest piece of angle iron to make plates to get an accurate measurement, because I couldn't find any thinner angle iron. In the process, I ruined two jackets with grinding wheel sparks. Sigh. Ordered a new jacket. Should have been wearing the cotton, not fleece. Poly is great for warmth, not for sparks.

[Laecaon]

Am I the only one who updates his build threads?! Lol.

Right now yes...

Also, I dont have my thread in the project builds section, but the 510 section. And I did order some material a few days ago to make some more progress on it...

[DRIVEN]

I don't post Datsuns so it's mostly ignored.

[HRH]

Lol, alright, well today turned sour. I did get some stuff done. Going to have to re-clock the new turbo, annoying but not a problem. However, my manifold has warped. I should have remembered the Maxima 6 cyl manifold likes to do the same thing. The last runner raises from heat cycles. CX racing makes a really nice L28ET manifold for $750ish on ebay, but that's also the price of an LM7 5.3 V8. However, my Datsun guru says we may be able to weld it. The big key is not to cut it with a grinder as the resulting leftovers get pushed into the cast iron and makes it a real bitch to weld. So you have to use a sawzall or band saw to do it, and then chamfer the edges with a carbide burr, not a grinding wheel. Bolt it to a spare head, (hey I have a bunch of those!) then weld and it should be right as rain for much cheaper.

Possibly little known fact, this is partially why the last stud on the L 6 cylinder head always snaps off. Enough heat cycles and the pressure of the manifold raising on the stud.

I'm really getting tired of spending money on this car dammit! Just go back together! I have a box van to feed! And a 910 axle to build for the wagon!

[DRIVEN]

Long shlong problems.

[Laecaon]

Not the way I expected it to warp.

CX racing stuff... If there are knockoff chinese ones on ebay too, it's the same part. I bought SS manifolds for my BMW. Not flat at all like all cheapo manifold. About 20 minutes on the belt sander with a 50 grit belt, and both manifolds were flat. I never had to retighten the nuts because the flanges were actually flat.

[HRH]

Ah hah, this is where I posted it! Wrong car, lol!

[HRH]

Ok, I had planned to just put a RR axle shaft in from the parts wagon I cut up. Finally got around to yanking that out today. Sadly, it's not to be. For one, it broke off shortly after the splines that go into the side gears. For two, I can't get it out. And three, there are a ton of metal shavings that have been swimming around in the bearings, meaning, it's a dead axle unless I wanted to rebuild it. Looks like I need to get started building the Ford 8.8. I haven't made much progress other than a few measurements. And annoyingly, it needs a lot more money thrown at it. I think for right now I'm going to concentrate on the race car since it's getting closer to running and shouldn't need a ton of money thrown at it. Theoretically. I need to win the lottery so I can drop them off at shops and pay someone else to do the work, lol.











Took the cat to the vet for some shots today. She did pretty well actually.

[flatcat19]

Getting awfully gray.

[HRH]

Yep, the cat is quite gray!