50 Shades of Grey....

[Grinder]

Or so says my mechanic friend as we wrench on my 4dr project passed on by 510Freak

So begins the journey of yet another Datsun 510 4dr from 1972.....

[Byron510]

Your second 510, the collection of Datsuns continues to grow. The rockers and quarters look good from these shots, how is the rust situation on the car? Floods, trunk, under the front fenders ect? The rear valence is available from Dave at FutoFab. Snowflakes are nice, always liked those wheels.

As for the car mechanically, what's it got and what are your plans for the drive train? Since you are a megasquirt guru, will you apply EFI to this machine or simply keep it carburated?

Look forward to your updates.

Byron

[Grinder]

Hey Byron been meaning to reply but I've been swamped with orders at http://www.mackaypowerproducts.com which is a good thing for business but not so great for life balance :/ Anyhow its all good

Anyhow the car is another strange odd ball Island car. Strange first of all in that the floors are solid original local and not rotted out. In fact most of the car is solid. If you look at the sub frame its very scaley - scaley like most of the rest of the car is rotted away...... except it isn"t.....

Here's some of the pics Lou sent me....

[datzenmike]

Automatics are great survivors.

[Grinder]

[Byron510]

The car does look really good and solid. And amazingly intact. I'm looking at the fuse cover still in place, wiring relays on the RH inner fender still in place, nothing has been unwrapped. Door panels and seats still there. Concerning rust, the box section above the front wheels looks awesome, lower inner fenders are solid. Rockers are there, lower rear quarters look pretty good. Lou knows where to take the right pics, he's not a new comer to the game Glad to hear the floors and truck are solid, that means the car was either always parked indoors or is just never leaked.

Don't be surprised to find something under that primer on the LH side rear dog leg section in the rear door. This is a very common place to rot on 4 drs, and it starts in the rocker and works upwards. I have fixed many 510's in the area.

[Byron510]

When I saw this damage in the rad support, it looked like the car may have had a good impact at some point in the past. Certainly likely on any car this age.

2016-04-09 Rad Support.jpg (155.47 KiB) Viewed 4363 times

But the news is really good. Again Lou knew where to show you the photos. If the impact would have been hard, these areas shown below would have collapsed.

2016-04-09 RH Inner.jpg (161.31 KiB) Viewed 4363 times

2016-04-09 LH Inner.jpg (173.91 KiB) Viewed 4363 times

I don't know if this was a designed crumple zone, but it's the first area to collapse in a good impact. And there is no fix aside from replacement of the whole inner quarter, which is a major undertaking. In your case, it's perfect, so the damage to the rad support would likely have been quite minor.

Also, I see a Hella/Bosche H4 light - did you get the pair?

I can't get over how amazingly complete the car is - a good find and great base to start with.

So...the plan is?....

[Grinder]

Ah the plan... well I have my 2dr Z22ET 510vwaiting patiently for me to finish it. The poor little L16 in the 4dr is so anemic so I can't help but think about what I'm going to replace the L16 with. I'm trying not to get too crazy and go down the big project swap road. I'd really like to do a KA24DE swap which I'm also doing for the 1975 620 who's swapped in the past L16 is now burning oil since the rings are gone. I'm building an GSXR 750 ITB adapter to the KA24DE intake runners - I really want to go with ITBs. I'd also like to do an ITB kit for the L20B so maybe I'll rebuild a L20B and drop that in - quick and easy swap and I can do the 5sp swap at the same time. I'm picking up another KA24DE next week... sigh....

Basically I'm trying to get the car sorted. A rolling driving project. Next is getting it low. Put in an order with Gabe at T3 for the weld on coilover kit, camber plates and rear coilovers. Until that shows up just working the bugs out.

[Grinder]

So when I picked the 510 up we were able to get it started by jumping out the starter. Threw it on the tow truck and took it back to my friends shop to figure out whats going with the starter.... for starts... literally...



Typical mystery wiring going on. Not getting +12V from the ignition switch to the starter. Knowing the issues with the stock ignition switch after 40+ years on the old Datsuns instead of troubleshooting I grabbed an ignition switch from a 280ZX parts car and threw it in. One of my 280ZX mystery intermittent problems ended up being a duff switch after a year and a half of being out of service.... so frustrating but for the 510 it was a quick fix.

[Grinder]

So for the KA24DE with the Suzuki 750 ITBS here is some of the progress. I'm tempted to put this into the 510 instead....

The original Patient:


The modded intake and mounts:











With the runners cut and the new thicker flange welded on there is material to match the GSXR ITBs and the KA24DE runners.... close but not quite so we make it work....

[Grinder]

So once we have a car that can start next on the list is to make sure it can stop. Stop moving that is. The drums are locked on so its time to take them apart and see what's going on and do a little maintainance.



The pads need to be adjusted so we take the adjusters out and clean them up and adjust the brakes - much better! Take it out for a test drive and it runs like a bag of hammers but we can get up to speed to jab the brakes a few times. Turn around at the cul de sac, stall and restart. Manual choke is almost unusable so add that to the list. Brakes work but the wheel cylinders are sticky so time to call around and see if I can get some wheel cylinders locally. I'm devastated by the ridiculously high price of parts for this car and I'm just getting started.... bye bye engine swap budget its all going on brake repairs. I pick up the $16 a pair wheel cylinders and wonder if I should have ordered in the almost free ones from Rock Auto for $7.80 a pair plus $11 shipping. I'm so pleased with my almost free brake parts that I leave the parts store without grabbing a bottle of brake fluid and head over to Gord's shop to do the brakes. Oh well it gets done the next day and instead I install a new choke cable to make use of my time. Rear brakes done... for now...

[Grinder]

Time to get this thing running properly. I don't really know what I'm doing so I bring in my expert who has been into 510's since she was one fender high. Photo courtesy of the Byron 510 Photo Archives.



She's not afraid to swap in a new KA24DE into her 1993 240SX.... or should I say newly siezed engine - oh well make that two engine swaps into the 240SX I knew I had the right crew assembled to take this tune up task on...





I had a 1981 1/2 280ZXT that she wanted to make into a driver.


Typical Datsun - not to bad right? When we put it up on the hoist we could see the wiring harness in the rusted out gap between the floor boards and rockers so a part out it is. Nothing wasted here...


I parted the car out and refurbished the wheels for her


anyhow...back to the job at hand.... speaking of one fender high apparently we are suppose to screw the fenders to the car says the expert.


So one of the main problems is that when the car is running and you turn the lights on it stalls. Not a good combo. It also likes to stall at the lights and stop signs unless you give it some choke and put it in neutral which makes driving the car not quite as enjoyable as I know it can be. It seems like its a spark issue and I suspect the voltage is dropping and the coil isn't reaching a high enough voltage for a strong spark. That is the perfect excuse to start going through the electrical. Something most people don't like doing but since I'm and Electronics guy its right up my ally. New battery terminals and cables and fix the ground points on the car. Car hesitates and stumbles through with the lights turned on - getting better. The headlights look a lot better too - getting somewhere. Pull the fuse block which gets cleaned and refurbished with new connectors, etc. Fuseable links get replaced with ANL fuses and replace connectors. Car runs and stalls less... something else is a problem here. Car has a matchbox dizzy - that gets rewired with weather proof heat shrink and solder instead of the butt splice connectors - ew. Also has an MSD coil... and a ballast resistor... still connected.... so yea my 12V coil is running at 6V. When the lights were turned on it was probably dropping to 5V and all the improvements was bringing up the voltage fractionally. Jumpered the resistor out and we have a fully functioning ignition system. Now I can drive at night with the car in gear at the lights - yay

Looks like the plug wire, cap and rotor have been changed recently. The Bosch plugs get pulled and look decent so they go into the garbage can and a set of NGKs goes back in. Pull the valve cover for a valve lash adjustment.

Before valve adjustment:


After valve adjustment:


(note: this smart alec forgot to take the after picture so yes its the same picture....)

Oil flush and change and we're up and running

[Byron510]

Awesome that you can get your kids involved. I too have a much better chance at getting my daughter involved than my son at the moment, that may change with time. My daughter will at least get in the 510. Things are looking up though. When I pulled home the Red 280ZXT 5 spd recently, while putting my 6 year old son to bed recently, he says "So can I have the red car when I grow up?"....

The photo of your daughter from near beginnings to current is cool. Nice 68 510 in the background... I still have those axle stands somewhere. that's hilarious because I made them to show off my new hot set up 280ZX brake conversion with all my hand machines coil overs, adjustable TC's, bump steer spacers and spherical bushed LCA... all stuff that today some 20 years later anyone can buy off the shelf from multiple sources! No need to show any of that off these days, it's all considered kind of standard!

Byron

[James]

Speaking of Kids - Daughter 14 - son 13. She will come out and wrench and is interested. She wants a 510 to drive in high school (Mom is not keen on this...). My son doesn't want anything to do with any of it. It all looks like work to him....

Sorry for the divergence - nice project! Keep the Fam involved...

[Grinder]

So next on the hit list - make the car smell less like gas and more like fresh air. Car was a little stinky then I filled the tank and discovered that the filler neck is leaking. I read up on quite a few different solutions including the 280ZX filler which I have a parts car sitting in my yard with the filler in place.... for now and the car is almost parted out (to the delight of my wife). I decided to get a couple of pieces of 4" heat shrink with the meltable inner jacket to seal it up so I can drive the car around without hallucinating until I can get the filler neck fabbed up and installed. I took the stock clamps off because I figured the large screws would be a bit of a pain to deal with and replaced them with standard hose clamps. As I took the pipe off the filler neck I realized it was torn all the way through and getting the heat shrink up there would be nearly impossible. If the whole thing wasn't sealed then it wasn't going to work.





I figured I'd just tape it up with some electrical tape. I knew it was going to rot away but I just wanted a week or so of relief from the fumes till I could fab up the 280ZX system. Then I thought instead of electrical tape why not use some self vulcanizing tape instead. I started wrapping it up and I was thinking well now it's not vinyl and it doesn't have glue in it so maybe it will last longer. Actually its rubber.... and the neck is rubber.... maybe this will work out as a more permanat fix... only time will tell but after a week of driving it around and another partial fill up there isn't a drop to be seen. We'll see how it holds up but I know its better than my original temporary fix.