The 510 Realm

Well where to start?

I've owned this 1972 Datsun 1600 for acouple of years now, most of that time it's just sat around waiting for me to collect parts or motivation to work on it. Recently though, a teenage girl attempting to drive her mother's car totalled my daily driver in traffic, leaving me with a small sum to throw at the Datsun, and hopefully get it painted and road-legal.

So now the build begins in earnest

So here are a few pics of the body minus almost all of the exterior trim. I installed the Recaro seats by myself, they're out of a CC Mitsubishi Lancer GSR. I chose them because they're light ad because IMO they're the most comfortable car seats you can have.

Seats are kick ass.

Seats are kick ass.

Thanks, they were a whole separate nightmare in themselves!


Holy shit, what a nightmare it was getting the engine out! I actually didn't want to paint the engine bay at first, but a friend told me I would be gay if I didn't paint the engine bay too.

"Fuck you buddy!" I replied, "I ain't no poo-jabber!" and set to work.

I figured it would be easier to take the engine (L20B) off the gearbox (FS5W71B) then lift it out separately. Actually it was a total bitch.

For a start, the idiot P.O. (I could write a book about all the things this guy messed up) cheaped out and had the header welded right on to the exhaust, which is one piece right back to the rear crossmember. Even with the engine out it can't be removed with the car on the ground.

Secondly, a lot of careful wiggling of the engine (and swearing and grunting) with the engine mounts and gearbox crossmember totally unbolted was required to get the engine separated off the box and past the front crossmember.

When it comes time to refit, would it be easier to install the engine and box as one piece?

The P.O. had a thing for blue detailing too.. the engine was actually painted blue at some stage. I decided to paint it red, as it matches the plug wires, and everyone knows that painting it red makes the car go faster.

Yes - I would install the tranny at the same time - otherwise you are going to have to go underneath, and re-install the tranny. Its pretty easy to angle the whole thing in. You need to have a leveling piece which allows the unit to tilt.
Also - you can have a flange welded up at the back of the header to allow it to be removed.
Here is a pic of mine going in so you can see the angle ( I took off the crank pulley for more room...) This is with a longer z 5 speed. I have heard of people removing the crossmember and installing the whole thing from below.
Project looks good!
Blue is the stock nissan block color.....

Thanks for the pic James, better to find that out now than later! I think we're using exactly the same type of engine crane too, which helps. Yeah I'm going to chop the exhaust and get it slip-jointed when everyone opens up for business again. Interesting that blue is the stock engine colour, I figured it was painted by the P.O. because he painted the whole crossmember, front control arms, front hubs, struts etc. blue too.

I'm too much of a pauper for chrome, so I had a go at polishing the rocker cover myself. I really like that it's the early type rocker cover and has the metal cap too.

I used Blue Magic and a buffing machine with a yellow Pacer pad on the rocker cover. I think it turned out pretty well.

broke wrote:...and everyone knows that painting it red makes the car go faster.

i painted mine green!

Valve cover looks good!

I figure my yellow spark plugs wires are good for at least 5 h.p. (at least from the mind-dyno).

Hmm, well according to the now-defunct "beaterz.com" and "www.riceboypage.com" yellow is actually the new red... I'm not sure what benefits green gives... better fuel economy? Or more reliability perhaps?

broke wrote:Hmm, well according to the now-defunct "beaterz.com" and "www.riceboypage.com" yellow is actually the new red... I'm not sure what benefits green gives... better fuel economy? Or more reliability perhaps?

Green is Money, Baby! Money!

some brake clean should help with the grease between the lettering.

You can never go wrong with white on a dime