DD Wagon, Autocross Ready

[Son_of_a_Datsun_Guy]

Some of this will just be repeated from Ratsun.net, as I have a lengthy thread there, but I will clean it up and add additional details and thoughts as I go (ie. "this didn't work", "this worked!", "that looked like the wrong side of a donkey when I was done", "this actually turned out clean") as well questions and clarifying statements that I might have.

Just like projects on a car, every first time is a prototype to be redone and reconditioned. There's always a "I wouldn't have done that again".

So here goes:

Okay, so I had a thread on the 510 section, but now that the car is actually starting to get underway I decided to make an actual "build" thread. This is kind of a father son project, so the "we" will be my dad and I working on the car.

I got the wagon in December of 2010, and it was basically all cleaning from then until the summer of 2011, which is about when I got my driver's license.




White interior....






Once the car was "clean" and summer came around we tried to start it... well turns out there was so much crap in the gas tank that it was plugging the fuel line, so we shipped it off to get recoated and blew the fuel line. Once that was done we replaced the brake lines and the master cylinder. Then she was out for her first test drive!





That was the day before school started, so the hood was on and that night and it went with me to school the next day. The look on people's faces made me want to roll over and die laughing.


I put some beauty rings and chrome lug nuts on the old Toyota steelies that the car came with, and I've been rocking them since last august. Soon though, everything will change.





Did some improvements on the interior as well as some tear down to fix the heater core and put a JVC in (I got tired of putting an iPod dock in the passenger seat whenever I wanted to listen to music.) and got a new steering wheel.



It's actually a hand - me - down Momo from my dad's 510 (the deal was I'd "buy" that one from him so he had an excuse to get a nice new shiny one for his car)



Decided that the rusty hatch needed to be covered up, one of the PO (not Dennis, who I bought it from) tired to paint it and got the body color wrong and didn't seal it.

[Son_of_a_Datsun_Guy]

I also took the roof rack off at some point and plugged up the holes, planning on getting an old school wood slat VW roof rack to replace it. (HAHA, nope.)



Some engine bay shots after a little clean-up. Still running that little L16, gosh I love that little motor, starts up every time Posted Image



Crap gaskets



I replaced all of the door gaskets with the exception of the hatch with Datsunlandsocal gaskets.

Here's how she sat just before December, one year anniversary!




Little more engine bay work, cleaner and a new overflow tank to go with the three row radiator to replace the old two row that blew up on me.





Ok so I got creative with the valve cover, ended up getting a spare one from pick n pull and painted the letters blue to put one while the better shape one went to the sand blasters.



Then got the actual cover back, and polished the letters.






Now for some stuff that is actually interesting...
Got a set of third gen prelude seats from the junkyard, no easy way to put them in, but they have more bolster and side support than any OEM seat I've ever seen that I'd be able to actually get my hands on, and I paid like sixty bucks for them. So I took the car over to a guy that I know through my dad who does some pretty amazing metal work and had him put in a new seat bracket. One of the joys of being 6' 4" is that the seats needed to be moved 4 inches back from the farthest back factory setting, and 2 inches down so I could put a helmet on in the car with out putting it through the headliner.



Before:



After:








Back seat? what back seat?

I then decided that as much of the white interior was going to go as I could do practically and cheap. So I started to take out the white panels and began to make my own out of black ABS plastic from Tap Plastics. This worked in the short term, but made way too much noise. Have since decided to go a different direction.





In two weeks I'm going to have a week off of school so I'll be able to get all of my suspension done! Moar Lower! Going to lower the car 4 inches in the front with coilovers and Design Products camber plates that I've had for a while. I have a set of composite leaf springs that will be 2 1/2 inches lower for the rear and ordered some new rear shocks. I'm going to use my dad's panasports with 205/60/15 tires to test fist and make sure there's no unmanageable rubbing (I'll probably still need to roll the fenders). I also have a super secret box of goodies that are going to help me get the wagon even lower than most... see if you can guess what they are....


They are totally not traction bars.....



Maybe I'll even have time to put the SUs on. OVER A YEAR! AND THESE ARE STILL NOT ON THE CAR!



Updates will be pending and I'll have the car lowered by the end of February!!

[Son_of_a_Datsun_Guy]

Did some work one the rear quarter panel with all the bad paint. Took sandpaper to it and got some paint off the corner, going to take a few more hours of work to clear it up completely and I need to decide how to seal it until the car gets a facelift (way far away...)

Before:


After:





The quarter panel stayed like this for a very long time.

The last thing that I did was decide that I was tired of looking at those big rectangular holes where those silly drain vents were on the back of the hatch. So I took some aluminum and and old bike inner tube and made a sealed plate to keep water from getting in and to cover them up. Might paint them black later so they don't stick out so much.

[Son_of_a_Datsun_Guy]

Okay update from the first day of break as promised.
Not too much going on, a lot of disassembly, Friday afternoon a buddy and I put the car on jackstands and started to take apart the front suspension. We only got to take the brake calipers and rotors off before it got dark, so today my dad and I began to take some more stuff apart.





So far we've got the front struts off, and the crossmember and control arms. The PO had already put new nylon ball TC rod endings so that didn't need to be done again.
The crossmember had to come off so that we could get to the oil pan. It's been leaking because of a bad gasket (we hope, cause if it's not that it's the rear main seal, which is a bigger pain in the ass). While I was taking that off dad stuck the factory carpeting back in the car, because I had forgotten it was sitting in the garage since we took it out, back when we first got the car.







Le sketch in car motor mount.



Tomorrow oil pan back on, rear end of the car out. Then we should have the front inserts from Troy Ermish, and the rear springs (which should have been here from last week) should be here on monday or tuesday.

[Son_of_a_Datsun_Guy]

Today I got the oil pan back up under the car with a new gasket, and put the crossmember back on. Found out that the rear springs are going to be here on thursday.... and I'm going to probably need to pick up the inserts from troy sometime mid-week.

In the mean time I'm going to try to get the spook on, and do some more interior work and cleaning while the car is off the ground.

Spook mock up pics, looks awesome.






I've decided that the car is going to need a VG33 eventually (far future, but planning on it none the less) My dad had one in his car for a long time. WHAT! A VG? Man, I can't believe I thought that was ever going to happen

[Son_of_a_Datsun_Guy]

Finally got all my parts for the suspension.





And even a 7/8 inch sway bar I picked up from Troy, hopefully will make the car handle well without taking away street drivability.



Ran into a problem with the sleeves for the camber plates, turns out I was wrong and picked up the wrong ones from Troy, those are for tokikos and I got Konis. So we got a couple of plastic tubes and made temporary ones until we can get the correct ones from Troy.





Went with 200lb springs up front since I'm still only lugging around an L motor. Then the camber plates were too big for the openings in the strut towers, hooray for big grinders!! (maybe small to some of you but it's big enough)



I don't have any good pictures of test fitting the front wheels, but I'm excited. When I dropped the front of the car it bottomed out on the jack with the wheels barely touching the ground. Won't even be able to fit a jack under the thing any more Posted Image Promise more pics tomorrow when I get the rear end done and the whole thing on four wheels.

I did paint my back seats, and I've got a pic too!

Before:


After:

[MCMLXXXV]

nice project ! I never saw those camber plate before . Did you get the offset on or the centered type?

[okayfine]

FYI the vents on the wagon hatch are part of the flow-through ventilation system - equivalent to the sedan's c-pillar vents. Datsun didn't punch holes there only to drain water through the inners of the hatch

Some people shave them on the sedans - depends at least in part in how much you cruise with the windows up, and how much misting up you get in your part of the Bay.

[Son_of_a_Datsun_Guy]

FYI the vents on the wagon hatch are part of the flow-through ventilation system - equivalent to the sedan's c-pillar vents. Datsun didn't punch holes there only to drain water through the inners of the hatch

Some people shave them on the sedans - depends at least in part in how much you cruise with the windows up, and how much misting up you get in your part of the Bay.

Yeah pretty much zero mist, haven't driven with the windows rolled up in a very long time. I'm going to college down in SLO soon so I don't think I'm going to have many issues there either.

They are the centered camber plates, I believe the offset kind are for dealing with caster (?) which I don't really mess with since it's not a true race car.

[Derek]

This is a cool project, racy wagons are great.

I've worked on our Lemons race car at a teammate's house in Los Altos and we had the cops called on us for MIG welding in the driveway. Your neighbors must be much more reasonable!

[Entrymax]

SODG, I'm also building up a wagon right now to take with me down to SLO for college two years from now. Look forward to meeting you