Shawn’s ‘72 Driver

Post by **Byron510** » 28 May 2011 21:45

Well, I sorted out all the electrical gremlins today, save for the front running lights – still not sure what I‘ve missed there – signals work fine, but no running lights.
We flashed her up, after Shawn primed the carb, and made sure she had all the vital fluids in place. She ran pretty rough, shut her down and realized that the #1 and #2 plug leads had somehow been switched along the way – too many cooks!. Then she fired right up – no issues at all.
I drove it into the driveway under its own power: that felt good after all this time. Shawn was elated that it started and moved. We armed it up; the Webber needed a couple mixture tweaks, and idle adjustments and then it ran just fine. Good enough that we may not switch the stock carb onto it.

We took some photos, and then moved it above dad’s custom for now. When we measured it up, we thought this stacking of the cars was going ot be tight –man we had 12 inches to spare, no problem. Then it was spring cleaning for two hours. The amount of crap Shawn and I had drug into that garage to complete this care was amazing. So we sorted, cataloged and scrapped items.

After it all, Shawn was beaming. I’d been telling him that the car was close, but he didn’t really believe it until today. There are still some odds and ends to deal with. The ride height needs to be worked on – maybe a bit lower up front, a bit higher in the back to give it a bit of rake. The new heater hoses are due in next week, so these will be installed and then anti freeze put in. The front brakes need a freshen up I think – the pass side doesn’t seem to be fully releasing – we’ll take it for a drive, get everything hot and moving, maybe the caliper will change its mind. There’s definitely no caliper parts locally, so if we need to rebuild them, I’ll need to source a pair of calipers or rebuild kits in the US. We still have to find some bumpers, I’ve got some old ones that aren’t very great, but we’ll pick the best for now. There just isn’t the budget this year to do any chrome work – maybe next year.

Shawn insured his blue Ratsun car a couple weeks ago - he just loves driving the thing. I watched him carving through traffic in my rear view tonight on the way home, trippin' down the highway. He definitely enjoys driving.

Pics from today.

Byron

Post by **Byron510** » 28 May 2011 21:46

A couple pics in the next bay over...

Post by **RonM** » 30 May 2011 15:07

Man! I want to play over at Byron's sand box. Nice toys

Post by **Byron510** » 30 May 2011 22:01

RonM wrote:Man! I want to play over at Byron's sand box. Nice toys

I'm afriad that these toys all belong to dear ole dad - except the 510 which is my big brothers...
It was nice of dad to put up with us for this "quick paint job"

We pretty much pulled off a 1/2 resto over the last 9 months.
Byron

Post by **Datsun 1600 Nut** » 30 May 2011 22:06

Byron, Shawn's car looks really good. But like you say the front needs to come down a bit...

What car is the green custom in the garage under the lift, it looks so SICK in these photo's....

Regards
Jared

hammer_down · Post by **hammer_down** » 01 Jun 2011 13:59

Byron,
I am so glad I saved this car from getting chopped up some 7 years ago. It was being parted out here in TC, WA. It had many parts stripped off it when I went over to "cut the L rear quarter, rear panel and trunk off it". After giving it a once over, I knew it was too rust free and dent free to cut up and had to be saved. I worked a deal with Glynn and towed it home. I was planning on it being for my son but he wanted a PU instead. Was able to send it to Jeff and Frank for free since they promised it would not be cut up (after it sat in my shop storage bay for a few years). Glad it was finally "restored". Excellent work!

<Big Thumbs up!!!>

Hope to see it one of these days.

Post by **Byron510** » 01 Jun 2011 21:56

hammer_down wrote:Byron,
I am so glad I saved this car from getting chopped up some 7 years ago. It was being parted out here in TC, WA. It had many parts stripped off it when I went over to "cut the L rear quarter, rear panel and trunk off it". After giving it a once over, I knew it was too rust free and dent free to cut up and had to be saved. I worked a deal with Glynn and towed it home. I was planning on it being for my son but he wanted a PU instead. Was able to send it to Jeff and Frank for free since they promised it would not be cut up (after it sat in my shop storage bay for a few years). Glad it was finally "restored". Excellent work!

<Big Thumbs up!!!>

Hope to see it one of these days.

Hammer, I'm glad you saved it as well. Jeff and Frank put it back together mechanically - it did run, but needed to be sorted a bit better. It was complete, but Shawn and I chose to find new front fenders (as we discussed before) as I didn't have the time to properly repair the ones on the car. In hind sight, we should have exchanged the hood as it took way to many hours to get it right! Then it got new paint, all new rubber seals and a new headliner, a nice set of E30 leather seats, a 5spd conversion, I shortened the front struts so that it could retain a lower stance with suspension travel. It’s not done yet, but it’s really close.
So there were a few hands involved in brining this car back to life, and I'm sure it'll be around for many years to come. It would be great if Shawn and I could take our cars to Seattle at some point this year to attend an event - I'll be sure to PM you if this happens.
Thanks for saving the car, and thanks to Jeff and Frank who passed the car one to us at a reasonable price. Shawn is very grateful at this point.

Byron

Post by **Byron510** » 18 Sep 2011 21:46

Shawn and I spent the day trying to tie up a few loose ends. We spent about an hour and a half trying to get it started. I ran when we last worked on it two months ago. Anyways, I knew we had carb issues last time…

Thanks to Spence, I had another carb for the project, so we stared there. But there was this little thing in the back of my mind that nearly always holds true – 99% of all carb problems are in the ignition. And this car still has points (for now). However we did the carb swap. It already had a 32/36 on it, but we took it off, and the adapter plate. I’m glad that we did. There were issues, and the carb itself may have been alright in hindsight. But it got swapped anyways. The manifold threads had been pulled up quite badly, so I chamfered the holes, and draw filed the surface – it was pretty good. Then I draw filed across the adapter – man it was a mile out – you could see it by eye! No wonder there was this thick home mode gasket in place – it was likely necessary to try and seal it (which it wasn’t). Also the stud that go into the adapter protruded past the gasket surface, holding the adapter itself up further complicating any proper sealing. So with both surfaces of the adapter actually smooth and flat, I cut new gaskets while Shawn installed the adapter. Then I removed those damn M8X 5/16 fine thread stuffs that come with the kit. Maybe it’s because I’m a machinist, but any part that is bolted down with four bolts ought to have four identical bolts unless there is good reason. So I turfed these bloody make shift adapter parts and installed proper M8 studs. I then has to do a bit of filing in the carb itself as the holes in the DGV are about 1mm wider bolt spacing that the 510 carb base. A rat tail file made nice work of that. Then the throttle linkage had to be extended about 25mm ( 1”) in length as it was just too short. The orientation was also a bit off so we tacked both issues at once.
So with this all out of the way, and a new set of plugs and tested set of NGK wires I had lying around – we cranked again – no start.. DAMN! So I pulled a wire, and just cranked it to see what the spark was like – it was pretty much nonexistent at the lead, and really weak at the coil. Point gap had been set and double checked. So remember my comment about carb issues related to the ignition – yep, it was the ignition too. So I took a long shot and swapped in another condenser from some other old distributor and installed it – BANG, huge spark at the plug lead. Bolted the distributor back on and barely hit the starter and she fired right up and purred like a kitten – a loud kitten as there is no muffler!

Afterwards we did a hockey stick alignment job, found out she was 1.25 toed out at first, now she’s 1/8” toe’d in – good enough to get her on a test run – aligned the steering wheel on that test run, otherwise she drove pretty darn good. Shawn did all the driving – big grin. First time he’s driven the car so that’s pretty cool.

We got back, dug out some seat belts from my pile “O” crap and I had to depart. Shawn was washing the car when I left – soon we’ll see it on the road. Maybe even at Oktoberfast – have to see.

Byron

Post by **RonM** » 19 Sep 2011 08:42

Thanks, That was good for a rare morning smile.

Post by **Camano510** » 20 Sep 2011 07:13

Hey Bryon, I've got a set of complete strut assemblies (springs, discs, calipers) from my 71 that you can HAVE if you want. If/when you come through WA, let me know beforehand and I'll meet you along the route, somewhere. Camano Island is exit 212, and I'm in Everett EVERY day. Parts sat for a while, but you can save them with minimal effort.

Post by **Byron510** » 08 Jul 2012 00:20

Finally Shawn has had a chance to get back on this project.
He sold his DD 510 a couple weeks back, so last weekend I dropped by his place for a day and we went to work on those spongy brakes. It was a sized caliper, so I rebuilt another set that I had over the winter and last weekend we installed them in his underground. Dear ole dad came out to keep us company as well. As there is with any "new" project, there are hundreds of things still needing to be done. But getting the car road worthy, through the emissions test and insurable is the first step. At that point, he can bring it by my shop and we can complete the minor tasks left - like installing a muffler would be a start. The strait pipe sure has a back to it

We managed to get a seat belt in the driver’s side, but it's not a permanent solution yet. It doesn't work with his seat, position combo - as many stock belts done. So the next step may be aftermarket or making something else work.
Tires are definitely on the replacement list, but I sure do like the Panasports on the car.
Ride height needs to be leveled...
Nearly everything electrical is now working, which is a bonus - still need to figure out why we are missing the front running lights , rears and all marker lights work fine....
Bumpers need to be sourced and installed soon.
Here are some pics from last Sunday, in the rain with the Bronze

Byron

Post by **Byron510** » 11 Aug 2012 18:22

Shawn and I spent last weekend sorting out issues on the car. Since he started driving it a few weeks ago, he's been running the blue bottle only for a muffler, and has consequently received a few official letters from his fellow strata members in his condo - so this needed to be addressed sooner rather than later.

Obviously a stock exhaust hasn't been on the books or available for some time. But in calling around, I couldn't even find a 1 1/2" inlet muffler locally – no stock, so this Walker 1 3/4 had to do; PN 18164. Now keep in mind - this is a cruiser, not a performance machine, so the quieter the better. The muffler is still quite a bit longer than the original, but can fit between the quarter and the wheel well easily, and can be positioned level. I hate mufflers that sit at an angle – seen too many, looks hack to me. Even my own car could have been better. At any rate, I had to hang the muffler below the stock steel mounts, lowering the muffler into view, but there wasn’t much option. I utilized one of the original type rubber isolators, and I found another type that worked good at the rear- sorry I don’t have a PN – it was laying on the shelf, the parts kid didn’t know where it came from and consequently no PN – so I got it for free.

Following are some of the photos of the installation. The last photo shows the metal brackets in position – this took a while to get right, so that the muffler hung level. I also welded the steel hangers to the clamps so they could be re-used later on if necessary.