New World Datsuns...

...and here we are 6 months later. I had shoved this in the back corner of my dad's shop and done my very best to forget about it.


Went over this afternoon and shuffled things around, swept the floor, set up a table, and organized things a bit.



I made an addendum to my original list and refocused my plan of attack. Now I guess I'll have to just get after it.

I got distracted this morning by nice weather and didn't make it over there until after noon. My dad had jumped right in and degreased and scrubbed the bottom side of the hood. He also did a little sanding on the inner fenders. No grass grows under that guy's feet. I moved some things around and did some more sanding, then layed a fat coat of primer down. I'll check it again in the morning to see what needs to be touched up.

Postimage is currently down.

All that prep work sucks balls, but once you lay down the color, it all seems worthwhile. What type of primer you shooting?

Well, yes and no. I'm not going to the original color. It'll look waaaay better than the gross charcoal spray bomb the previous owner did though. It's just rattle can primer that will have properly applied rattle can paint over it.
If the car was 100% stock (and the rest was a little nicer) I'd definitely be going original paint color. But realistically the next owner probably won't get too hung up on that.

That’s final color right? Looks a lot better than the black.

heh, you have a radiator where your radiator goes.

Electric radiator. Tesla speed parts, yo!

Soooo jelly of your workspace and the nice new paint!! I have very much less space.

It's borrowed space so I can appreciate it like you can. Miss having my shop.

I left off today essentially as you see it above. Engine and radiator in and a lot of stuff hooked up. Next thing I'll do is raise it and install the transmission. I may rework the transmission crossmember. It works fine as-is but if I was building the car today I'd do it differently.

The tedious task on deck is modifying the harness and cleaning up the wiring in general. Again, if I were building the car today, I'd do it differently.
As it lays now...

Red is the bundle that went through the firewall (at purple circle) and tapped into an aux fuse panel as well as things like tach feed.
Orange is the ECM connectors. It was mounted just behind the driver's side headlight.
Green is CTS, knock sensor, and oil pressure switch.
White is all the misc. throttle body sensors.
Blue is injector harness.
Yellow is the coil and ignition module.
The two relays are fan and fuel pump. Note the lone blue wire that feeds the pump.

The way I'm planning to change things is by mounting the ECM below the glove box and running injector harness and throttle body related through a hole above the gas pedal. The coils and CTS bundle will go through a hole on the passenger side way high and close to the fender. Should clean up the underhood area considerably. The rest will live under the dash.

The body harness (lights, horns, wipers) is what's wadded up and stuffed inside the white grocery bags on the passenger fender. That will get rewrapped and routed in the factory location.

Doesn't look a whole lot different but a lot of little tasks have been handled. Transmission in and driveline hooked up, exhaust connected, all the hoses and fittings checked, plus a few forgettable odds and ends.

Wow that turned out really nice.

Thanks for watching.


The stuff I had on order finally showed up so I went over and put in a couple hours today.


My fuse panel had been soaking in vinegar for a week so I cleaned it off. Came out pretty nice.



I reinstalled and adjusted the underdash clutch and brake pus rods and the shifter. Then I installed the fuse box and removed the old accessory panel and a bunch of add-on wiring. I'm really kind of embarrassed about how I did it 8 years ago.




I think I've decided on how I'm going to hide the PCM and new electrical panel. Last thing I did was lay the forward body harness in place and evaluate the engine harness. Basically everything to the right of the concrete expansion joint goes away. The portion on the left will be about 50% reconfigured.

A couple more hours today. The body harness is basically done except for taping one section. If I powered up the main feed, the lights and wipers should work.


Next step is to lay in the engine harness, take some measurements, and reconfigure some circuits. Then wire in my accessory panel.

I ran across a set of hubcaps in a box. Hung them just to remind myself how they look. Undecided.

Them appear to be 520/521 hubcaps, I have no idea if they used them on the 510 wagon.

Those are the Roadster wheels I bought from you years ago on 15x7 hoops.

I could not tell they were Roadster wheels which do have the nubs to hold them type of hubcaps on, I was wondering about how 510 Wagon wheels could be holding that type of hubcap but I don't know everything, I thought they had full size hubcaps.
If them are the same hubcaps I bought for cheap you need to keep them inside when raining as mine rusted right away.