New World Datsuns...

bought this a year ago for cheap, had it a few months then sold it due to no time....

Saw it on craigs list three weeks ago. So far i've got about 100 hours or so of labor into it.

Got it back with a warped head. Just stuffed a rebuilt L18 in it. L18, borg warner column shift auto. Its been trying my patience and winning here and there. After I stuffed the motor in I realized I bent a lever for the shifter. Its still work able. Then a trans cooler line broke... Got that fixed. Still need to dial in a few things, but I've been rocking her to and from the store, checking for leaks, tuning etc. Going to take it on a 8 hour drive here soon and give it a good road test....

She's all back together and driving....

Need to tune it a bit more. Need to tune the carb, check the timing. adjust the valves. Motor is an L18 that was rebuilt. Pistons, rings, bearings, pumps everything all NEW... Motor has about 20k on it. Nice and broke in.

Sold / parted / trade off that 521 due to no title. Got everything I need for a dogleg 5 speed swap. All I need to do now is make the trans crossmember mods out of the rectangular tubing.

Went and dropped some coin and got new tires.. Went with these Z rims. I looked around on the net and it doesn't seem like there's to many of them around. I kinda dig them. Got all four polished up tonight, my other half helped me out and did two of the rims.

Before with new tires


the meat


The end product




Throwing them on the wagon tomorrow.

I need to lower the front two inches, then flip the small leaf in the back on top, upside down to snug it down a bit back there and give it a little lower. Needs new shocks in the rear and new shock oil in the front at least. Needs brakes in the rear....

This will fuck your night up!!!!





Passenger side is TOAST...

Driver side was fine. Lots of meat left on shoes, drum is fine. I'm guessing the passenger side was always adjusted wrong, or driver side cylinder is dead. ordering new cylinders asap and replacing them both. I had to run with what I have for the time being. Hoping to get a set of new drums soon. Anyone know if the 240z drums are the same??

All back together for the time being. So different not having to pump the brakes anymore. Touch the pedal and the brakes are right at the top. Took it for a spin and hit them hard, it pulled to the right a little bit. Assuming the latter of the two scenarios up top

Leaky oil pan gasket.... No fun fixing that one, specially in the car.

manual pedal setup
clutch master
Stainless steel braided clutch line since finding a stock hardline is impossible in this area it seems....



Automagic removal!!

5 speed dogleg installed. Will continue thru out the week

1x3x6 rectangular tubing, to do the dime quarterly mod. Found a place local that has super great prices on steel. Paid a whole 3.21 cents out the door for these two pieces of metal, cut.



Remember kids, measure twice cut once! Good thing I own a wire feed to fix this mistake!





On the ground, runs and drives




Need to clean up shifter hole, patch it a little. bet a shifter boot on there... Couple little details here and there, but cruises. Wish the clutch grabbed a bit better, so no burn outs. but does work like it should.

These are before pics. There is a horrible build up of grime and stuff on the wagon... Got my DA sander out, some terry cloth attachments for it, and some maguires ultimate compound.. Below is just the before pics... After pics coming another day! It started to rain, and I want a good finish before I take after pics.







Cleaned the inside out, vacuumed too.

Need to install some MR2 seats I picked up. I hate to throw these 510 seats in the garbage. They are a little torn up as the stitching has come out, but they are still VERY comfortable. As if they were never really sat in. I have driven this car for 5 hours straight and had no numb butt or back / shoulder pain. Sometimes that happens in standard cab cars, or in the B as the driver seat is horrible

Need to get some Maguire interior spray stuff (like armorall but WAY better and won't crack your nice dash, like my nice dash)



Anyone ever remove these alum vinyl trim pieces? What do they attach to? And how do they attach to the body??





Spend an hour or two on this side of the car, cutting with maguires ultimate compound. It helped, but I really need to use a buffer, foam pad, and maybe even a wool pad.

Found a roach clip under the seat when I pulled the driver seat out


So the temp and gas gauges were kinda meh. Sometimes the temp gauge worked, sometimes it didn't. Sometimes the gas gauge would just read empty. If I pushed on the pc board, it'd work. I knew it was time!

Pulled the gauges out and cleaned the contacts, all of them. For the lights, then removed the gas/temp, and cleaned those contacts.

Little tip. Don't touch the contacts. Finger oils are bad, just like on your pistol, or whatever else. Don't touch the metal! If you do clean it off well. What works really good for cleaning the brass contacts is.... Go steal one of those rectangle pink erasers from your kids school supply stash. Press down a little, and start erasing the corrosion. A SUPER light smear of electrical contact grease, good to go. Basically just put a tiny bit of that grease stuff on a paper towel or whatever, and make the contact look shiny. It doesn't take much and I don't want a glob of that stuff on my pc board....

I replaced all the lights in the cluster with lights from superbrightleds.com For under 20 bucks, I did all the lights in the gauge cluster (minus tach cuz i dont have one). And that doesn't include turn signal lights either, those aren't wedge based bulbs. I can provide links to all those interested.

If you have a hard time seeing your gauges at night, this is an investment worth every penny and more.







Before




After

Posted this on the other datsun site i hang on.

This thing has come a long ways in two months...

Old tired L16, borg warner automatic, speaker wire for IGN wiring...






Current
fully rebuilt L18, bearings, pistons, rings, everything. Every bolt hole chased, cleaned.... new bolts, lock washers etc top to bottom. Intake / exhaust needs new bolts to be complete all new... but close enough eh!

Was borg warner, now Dogleg 5 speed! Runs great, I can do 90 up hills and more if I tried.




And on that note. I'm just about out of work for the day... Going home, dicking around... Packing, washing, vacuuming and hitting the road to canby tomorrow.

Peace out girl scouts

I can't wait for my photobucket to not be over the limit on BW so my pictures show again

Come one photobucket! Lolol

any day now....

I want to read this thread.
I really do.

But I need small words and lot's of pictures.

lol right.

Oh well. Off to the store to get a square battery for teh DMM, then head back and start test light plugs for 12v... maybe do the brakes on the wagon and b today.

Jacob. All contacts read 12.8 volts on every contact on the light plugs

With the headlights on dim. There's a slight voltage drop on river side low beam, black with red wire. The high beams have a very slight glow in the lights

Are grounds all good?

Should have stock 510 rims/hubcaps in two weeks...

Gonna throw these wheels on the B tonight maybe tomorrow and rock the b for a bit... Maybe snag a new oil pan gasket and pull the motor on the 510.. Get it fixed so it will STFU (quit dropping oil on ma rocks)