1962 Datsun U320

[izzo]

looks sick

did you figure out the issue with it dying?

[510freak]

What Tim said!

[wayno]

looks sick

did you figure out the issue with it dying?

Yea, it's unreliable.
It's the carb that is messed up, I am afraid it will leave me along side the road if I drive it that far(Canby), the other carb is even worse, I need them both rebuilt by someone that knows what they are doing, I am back on the one that I rebuilt again, I don't know what I am doing.
I believe it floods when moving, but if it is sitting still it seems to be fine, you know how it is, I go around a corner and it starts to run like shit and if I don't keep it revved up it dies and will not start till I pull everything apart again, but if I can keep it running it will sometimes work itself out of it and start running good again.

[yello620]

I need them both rebuilt by someone that knows what they are doing.

Wayno, I had a carb rebuilt about 18 years ago by Savas Tuning in Milwaukie. They did excellent work, that same quadrajet carb is still on my Landcruiser and runs excellent. It was not cheap to get rebuilt back then, but it has been worth every penny of it to not have to mess with it for 18 years.

I have no idea if they can work with what you have, but worth a shot. http://www.savastuning.com/. I think I dealt with a guy named Chris, could be wrong, that was a long time ago.

[wayno]

I need them both rebuilt by someone that knows what they are doing.

Wayno, I had a carb rebuilt about 18 years ago by Savas Tuning in Milwaukie. They did excellent work, that same quadrajet carb is still on my Landcruiser and runs excellent. It was not cheap to get rebuilt back then, but it has been worth every penny of it to not have to mess with it for 18 years.

I have no idea if they can work with what you have, but worth a shot. http://www.savastuning.com/. I think I dealt with a guy named Chris, could be wrong, that was a long time ago.

I will contact them as soon as I can, thankyou for the help, there is only one place I know about right now, and that is down in LA by Marcos's home(Burrito213), that's a ways away, and I don't have there number or address, but Marcos would get that info for me I am sure.

If I knew what Weber to order, I would do that, but the parts stores just look at me with that look of confusion, it's like if the info is not on the computer..............

[izzo]

What is that? A 1.3 liter?

I bet you could get away with an old honda accord weber... They were small. Also, the B210 was a 1.4 motor. So it will be really close if you just get one of those... You will likely need to make an adapter, tho those old carbs are pretty similar. I noticed the older accord, isuzu, toyota adapters are the same, i heard the L series weber adapter was same as toyota but IDK for sure...

You should tkae a picture of the intake where the carb mounts, and some measurements (outside diameter across both ways). Bolt location measurements across both ways. and send that information to carbs unlimited (they are located in washington) and could help you out. they specialize in weber carbs.

[K_trip]

It looks like this is what is going to Canby, I am ready.

It looks great - I love how the interior turned out - very classy!

[MicroMachinery]

Great job Wayno! I'm loving what you're doing with this thing. That interior looks primo as well, RatDat. I'm sure I'll be getting some work done by you in the future.

[RATDAT3]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^Thanks guys!

[olddat]

Hi and nice too see what you have done to the old 320. I also have one of these that ive had since I was 16 as my first car. I got it off a local guy for $175 bucks with another one the same and two station wagons as spares. Unfortunately the wagons got buried under sand and my grandpa had a cleanup around the farm where my spare ute was kept. Those spare would have been so handy for people now days. Did still manage to keep some spares though thankfully. Still got a couple of the carbys and dizzys around. Still have a full wagon chassis that i turned into a buggy as a kid too. Shame I didnt see this post earlier as I may have been able to help you out with some stuff. Biggest problem would be the fact that all that stuff is sitting in a shed at my mums in Ceduna and im in adelaide so dont know when ill be able to get it. Anyway nice job on the car again mate.

[draker]

olddat - Welcome to NWD! Always glad to see new members joining up from around the world.

Sorry to hear about your spare cars.

[wayno]

Hi and nice too see what you have done to the old 320. I also have one of these that ive had since I was 16 as my first car. I got it off a local guy for $175 bucks with another one the same and two station wagons as spares. Unfortunately the wagons got buried under sand and my grandpa had a cleanup around the farm where my spare ute was kept. Those spare would have been so handy for people now days. Did still manage to keep some spares though thankfully. Still got a couple of the carbys and dizzys around. Still have a full wagon chassis that i turned into a buggy as a kid too. Shame I didnt see this post earlier as I may have been able to help you out with some stuff. Biggest problem would be the fact that all that stuff is sitting in a shed at my mums in Ceduna and im in adelaide so dont know when ill be able to get it. Anyway nice job on the car again mate.

Welcome to NWD

I am working on getting this vehicle complete and running, then I will have to tear the cab off the frame and restore the frame the best I can, it has a lot of surface rust that needs to be taken care of, it also was in a wreck and driver side door pillar needs to be straightened out, then the fun begins, it has dents everywhere, but it is different, and that is what I wanted.
Post a photo of your U320, better yet start a thread on it, and take a bunch of photos.
Since you own one of these trucks, can you tell me how the 2 wires in the photos below connect up to the rear/back seat side windows, I have not a clue how they are connected, and the former owner doesn't know either.

[olddat]

Would like to help you out with those rod that i guess would be torque rods to hold the windows closed but the cars at my mums which is 8 hours drive from my place. I do have the factory spare parts manual for it and mums coming down this week so ill see if she can find it and bring it with her. Maybe it will show something in there. I dont have any recent photos of the car as its just been sitting there half way in an old chicken shed for the last 25 years. I came to adelaide for my job and didnt bring the car here as I needed something a bit faster to get me back to mums 800km away. The diffs on those are really low and it would rev to about 4000 rpm just to do 80kph in top gear. Ill see if I can find some of my old photos of it around. Next time I go back to mums when I get some holidays ill pull it out the shed and take a photo of it. There a solid old thing and last time I seen it there wasnt much change from when i drove it all those years ago.
One thing I did do to mine was put a morris elite 1620 motor in it for more torque. The motors bolt straight up to the gearbox. The only mod I had to do was to fit the datsun sump with the front section hammered down a bit as the 1620 has more crank throw. Still have the original 1200 engine sitting in the shed.

[wayno]

I look forward to seeing photos of your old U320, and the spare one also, if you ever plan on scraping any NL,U, or V320s let me know, I would like to buy some parts from you, trim, wiper motor and wiper transmission, taillights, hubcaps, good dash knobs, if my transmission ever gives up I don't know what I am going to do, as the only parts are in Australia.
We in the USA never got a lot of the 320 variants, and we did not get any RHD U320s like mine, mine was imported to the US in 2005 by someone else, it was won on ebayAU, they tore it down to restore it and lost interest.
You can change the gearing in the 320s, you use a Nissan 720 gearset, and change the side gears out to match your axle ends, it's not that hard, takes about an hour when you know what to do, I have 390s instead of 488s in my NL320.
If you ever recall how them wires connect to the side windows if that is actually what they connect to, let me know. wayno

[wayno]

Well Canby is over with, I somehow got the U320 to the show without being broke down, or having any issues other than dragging my spare tire holder on the U320 on the way home.
Unfortunately I did not get a lot of the parts from the various places that were working on them till it was to late to install them.
I took possession of most the chrome Friday night after I had delivered the U320 to the Canby fairgrounds, after looking at it for a while I suggested that the rear bumper was not going to work, he said he had a lot of time into that bumper and he could not do any more with it, I guess I will try bending it myself to get it as close as I can.
After I took the vehicle home I let it sit for a week and a half, a couple days ago, I cut the grill and bent it enough to install it, it looks alright, I can live with it, so today I installed the front bumper, well it is not right either, it doesn't hold the same curve through it's length, I might have to bend on it also, anyway when the parts were delivered to the shop I arrived at the same time, when unwrapping the parts one has to wipe this coating off the parts, it is kinda a white dust, well when I wiped the overriders off today to install them on the front bumper, one area on the front would not wipe off, I tried everything to clean it off, I have come to the conclusion that it is a defect in the plating process, I just cannot get a break, I cannot seem to find a decent plater, here are some photos of the front, the overrider on the right in the photo is not right.


The taillight bezels are awful, along with the dividers for them, the pieces of metal below them came out with one good that fit, the other had to be bent to fit and now it's not so good anymore, the rear bumper is awful, the front bumper is so-so, the overriders came out 50%, the grill was so-so(bent), and the 4 out of 9 hubcaps he gave me are good, but I am still waiting for the other set of hubcaps, I have already paid for them, I called about them today, and got excuses, he said they would be done by now.
I try to be nice and not bitch to much or bother them and let them do their job, and I don't seem to get anywhere with any of these plating guys, I cannot find a good one, I now have over $5000 into crap work over the last several years with these platers I pick.
I used Oregon plating back in the 90s for my roadster, the work was decent, but the chrome did not last but a couple years, and it took 6+ months to get done.
If these were Chevys or fords, I could buy what I need already made and chromed, but they are Datsuns, I don't know what to do anymore about the crap work, this is the second time(2nd plater), the first time I used a Ratsun member.
There is more to this than what has been said here, one example is I offered the rear fiberglass bumper I bought from Steriod to this latest plater so he would know what the one I gave him was supposed to look like, he declined.
I will admit that the rear bumper I gave him looked like crap to me, but he said he could do something with it.

I know I should take the stuff back and say it's not going to work, but I don't have anything around here to replace the parts with, some are so rare that it took me years to find them, I will not be giving them back to this guy again, I wish guys that don't know if they can fix something would just say it was over their head.
Enough of my ranting.
gcmustang gave me this at Canby, thankyou very much!

I won this at Canby and I didn't even enter for an award.

Canby was fun, 50 weeks left to go till Canby 2015.
See you at Blue Lake if you can make it. wayno

[DRIVEN]

Sorry to hear about your experience with platers. I remember a few years ago that guys were shipping parts to Mexico because US platers couldn't do it right anymore. Apparently it was more to do with EPA regulations making it impossible to get the correct end results more so than lack of skill. Looks like you're running in to both problems. Rather than have you name names here, I'll talk to you before I get any work done to see who can and can't be trusted.

[wayno]

I don't see these come up very often.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Datsun-L320-Fro ... 67&vxp=mtr

[RedBanner]

Spendy.

[wayno]

Spendy.

Last NOS set I sold for $100.00 to a datsun friend, they are getting harder to find every day.
I also have some aftermarket ones, they are not as nice.

[wayno]

I worked on a few different things today, first thing I did was take that POS rear bumper that was chromed but not the correct shape, and I bent the shit out of it till it looked close, it actually turned out pretty good considering, then I put the 2 tone rear taillight lenses on their own buckets then installed them on the U320, then I put together the Aussie taillight bezels and installed them also, I am getting ready for Blue Lake.


It looks good in the photos, not so good in person.

I also re-installed the overrider on the front bumper, I could not fix it, but they seem to have polished it up good/fixed it without re-chroming it.


This is what it looked like before.