Anth's '69 510 FJ20ET from AUS

[anth]

Hey guys, I've posted on here and the Realm a few times, so I thought I might aswel show my like-minded US datto lovers my car, since I've just written up a build thread for another forum. Here goes...

 

I won't put all the progress pics here but if anyone's interested in all the details just head to the Project 510 section of my blog. http://buildthreads.wordpress.com/category/project-510/page/2/ (as with all blogs its all in reverse chronological order, so head to the start and work your way back)

 

1969 Datsun 1600

 

Body

Ford Sno White respray (previous owner)

Re-chromed rear bumper & numberplate light surround

NOS tail lights

Mk1 Volkswagen GTI front lip

'73 JDM grille & headlight surrounds

GT teardrop mirrors

 

Engine/Driveline

FJ20ET, 3" exhaust, 155kw at the wheels

5spd gbox

R180 LSD

 

Suspension

Front struts converted to coilover, shortened 50mm

Koni Yellow Z31 inserts, damper adjustable

T3 Weld-on coilover kit

T3 adjustable camber tops

Nissan America 1" bump steer spacers

Troy Ermish Racing rear coilovers

Whiteline swaybars front & rear

 

Brakes

F: Mitsubishi Verada discs & VL Holden Commodore calipers

R: R31 Skyline discs

 

Interior

N13 Pulsar front seats (not recommended, too soft, installed by previous owner)

Autotechnica Steering wheel

White venetian rear blind

 

Wheels

Work Ewing III (refurbed by me)

F: 15x6.5 +21

R: 15x7 +16

Hankook 195/45/15 tyres

 

 

Future plans:

Front mount intercooler (purchased), alloy radiator, modified plenum to clear intercooler piping (purchased)

WRX front seats re-trimmed to match stock rear seat, new door trims, Nardi Classic steering wheel (wood or leather, can't decide).

Wolf Creek CV conversion (purchased, in transit), R32 RB20 gearbox

A re-spray would be nice but not for a while

 

how I bought it...

 

some of the mods...

 

rear ended :(

 

 

 

 

I'll update this thread from now on with any future mods :)

 

cheers :thumbsup:

[nosh1t]

very kool man

clean looking too

[nick_m]

I.........LOVE..........IT.

very cool dude. I wouldn't change a thing :)

[freaky510]

you have now become my favorite 4dr dime!!!!!:eek:

[nis720]

That is a very clean car.... not that I'm into that sort of stuff :cool:

[anth]

thanks guys :)

 

I got featured on i put in WORK :D check it out

 

 

and heres some pics from some meets (i didnt take these)...

(I hate speedbumps!)

[woodside4032]

Very Purdy:cool:

[SIXTY-NINE-DIME]

:love::thumbsup::thumbup:

[nick_m]

was the gti lip hard to mount, i've just picked one up for my B110.

Any tips?

[fisch]

Crapola granola dude that is one sweet ass Dime!!!! Stunning!

[510_Dillon]

definetly one of my favorite dimes :D

[anth]

thanks guys :)

 

haha dillion your dime is one of my favs! so jealous of your exhaust tunnel in the floor, I really need one, 3" exhaust is just too big under a low datto

 

nick_m: the gti lip was not hard at all to mount, you can read about how i did it here http://buildthreads.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/project-datsun-1600-part-8/

Because the lip is plastic and the valance is thin metal, they both are soft enough to "form" into each other.

 

If anyone wants wallpapers of those nice pics in my first post, they're up on my blog (see signature for link)

[anth]

It

[fisch]

Awesome update! Thanks for sharing!

[Ant-dat]

Very nice,

What dif you running still R160?

[anth]

Thanks guys :) Diff is an R180 LSD

[5dimer]

Very nice bro!!!!!!!!

[Yakuza]

nice..!!!!!!

[MAG58]

Gorgeous Dime! I love FJ20's with a pasison.

[anth]

thanks guys :) another update...

 

In my last update on the Datsun, I mentioned my diff was playing up just after I installed my CV driveshaft conversion. One of the first things I did was drain the diff oil and inspect the drain plug. This is what I found...

 

After smearing it around a little bit to dislodge the oil, you can really see the amount of metal stuck to it. Something wasn't right.

 

After doing a few more tests to make sure my problems weren't driveshaft, tailshaft, or wheel bearing related, it was apparent that my troubles were in fact diff related. I decided to take the easy way out and have my diff removed by my workshop. The idea of dropping the whole rear subframe on my garage floor to get it out wasn't appealing to me at all, especially after having been under the car installing the CV's so recently. Add to that work has been really busy, yadda yadda yadda, I just paid someone to do it.

 

It's my diff in a box!

 

After having it removed I took it to local diff specialist Terry's Diffs & Gears (0407 903 308) to be dismantled, inspected and hopefully repaired. I had to wait anxiously for the news, I was hoping it wasn't the LSD as they're getting expensive to source. After a couple of days I got the phone call telling me that my crown wheel & pinion needed to be replaced, but my LSD was fine. It was such a relief to hear that, but at the same time I was really hoping it was just going to be a simple bearing job. Win some, lose some. It could have been much worse.

 

Here's the damage to the pinion. All but one tooth had the very ends chipped off.

 

After chasing up a few leads, I ended up at [url"http://www.zshop.net.au/]The Z Shop[/url], a huge Datsun/Z-car workshop in Melbourne's eastern suburbs. The owner, Lindsay, is an oldschool guy who provides oldschool service. I sifted through a box full of crown wheels and a box full of pinions until I found a pair in good condition. I took them back to Terry who told me they were no good. Damnit! It wasn't that the parts were of poor quality, it's just that ideally the crown wheel & pinion should come from the same diff, whereas mine were two random parts from unknown origins. Otherwise when the diff is rebuilt it might be noisy from the get-go. So, back to The Z Shop I went to return the parts. Lindsay, along with one of my friends and myself then set about to find a complete R180 diff with a matching ratio to my own (3.55). We found a few candidates and took them back to the main workshop area to take the back cover off and inspect them, which involved Linsday wire-wheeling some of the gears to assess their condition. Out of the three diffs, we chose the best one and I was on my way again, back to Terry's to see if he approved of my purchase.

Success! We were onto a winner, he told me the gears were in superb condition and the rebuild could start immediately. I left the parts diff at Terry's and let him work his magic. Before I left, I took my diff cover home so I could polish it. Since I don't have any pics of the actual rebuild, I'll show you what I did with the cover.

 

The stock cover, painted black in a previous life.

 

I had this tin of paint stripper left over from when I re-furbed my wheels. I poured a generous amount over the cover.

 

There must have been only one coat on it, because the paint came off incredibly easily. You can see the raw metal underneath and I haven't even tried to wipe paint off yet.

 

After a quick scrape, 90% of it was off.

 

Then, after a wash, it was almost free of paint. The remainder was scraped and/or sanded off.

 

The trusty Mothers Powerball Mini was brought out again, along with some metal paste for a quick once-over.

 

The end result was a nice and clean cover with a little bit of shine. I wasn't too pedantic about it as it's going under the car, after all.

 

After only a couple of days, I got the call from Terry to pick my diff up, freshly rebuilt with all new bearings, the crown wheel & pinion that I sourced, and a fresh black paint job. Complete with my polished cover it looked the part.

 

While all this was happening, I got my hands on some exhaust heat wrap to put around the exhaust where it passes under the CV boot. This was applied to the exhaust and then sprayed black while the diff was being re-installed. I also had the exhaust heated up and hammered a bit on the closest section to the CV for extra clearance.

The finished rear end looks even better than before.

 

Now I have the tedious task of running the diff in. I've been told to keep it under 100km/h and to generally take it easy. Unfortunately the CV's are still hitting on the exhaust under load, which is sort of a blessing because it means I can't really give it any stick, aiding the run-in process. Once it's run-in I'll take it back to the workshop to have the exhaust clearanced further, it might need to be cut and re-welded, we'll have to see. For now I'm just happy that its driving again and ready to be enjoyed over the summer months.

 

That should be about it as far as major mods are concerned for a while. For the next year I'm planning to just do small detail stuff such as cleaning up the engine bay and getting a nicer steering wheel, nothing too drastic as it s been a big year for this car. I should have some nice new photos up soon, too.

[anth]

hey guys,

 

not sure if you saw but I did 4 guest blogs on Speedhunters.com last month for 'builds month'. One of those guest posts I chose to write about my Datsun, here's the link... http://speedhunters.com/archive/2010/03/30/guest-blog-anthony-crivelli-build-threads-com-gt-fj20et-datsun-1600-a.aspx

 

The other 3 builds were about other peoples cars, builds that I've been keeping an eye on for a while, the links are as follows, hope you enjoy them :)

 

http://speedhunters.com/archive/2010/03/04/guest-blog-anthony-crivelli-gt-gt-kaiser-drag-n-build.aspx

http://speedhunters.com/archive/2010/03/08/guest-blog-anthony-crivelli-build-threads-com-gt-gt-sunbeam-minx-f20c.aspx

http://speedhunters.com/archive/2010/03/18/guest-blog-anthony-crivelli-build-threads-com-hyundai-excel-sports-sedan.aspx

[anth]

small update...

 

One thing that I've always wanted in the car was a Nardi Classic steering wheel, yet I was torn between woodgrain and leather. I love the way woodgrain looks, but I was never sure of how it felt. When a leather 350mm classic came up for sale at a low price, I snapped it up regardless of the material. Understandably, it didn't come with a horn button or a trim ring, so my hunt wasn't quite over just yet.

 

The wheel that came with the car was an Autotecnica item based on a Momo design which was very popular in the late 90's.

 

Here is the Nardi as it was delivered, no rips, tears, dents or scratches, just some worn leather and in need of a bit of a clean.

 

A very handy similarity between Nardi & Autotecnica is that their boss-kits use the same bolt pattern, so a new boss wasn't needed.

 

For the sake of getting the wheel on the car, I used my old horn button and slapped a Mooneyes sticker over the logo. I was happy to be steering with the perfectly round design of the Nardi, but the look wasn't quite right yet.

 

After a bit of searching, I found a horn button & trim ring thanks to Dan from OzDat.

 

Unfortunately, the metal spacer that sits between the wheel and the boss was too small to house the Nardi horn button. I guess the similarities between the brands ended with the boss kits.

 

After a quick call to Dan to discuss my problem, we discovered that he actually needed the smaller spacer that was on my wheel, and he also had the larger one that I required. He generously drove to my work where we swapped the items over, and with that done we both had what we needed.

 

With the new spacer installed, the Nardi horn button could be inserted. Still looked a bit bare though.

 

Much better.

 

 

:)

[VintageRice]

LOVE your car.

 

Planning on painting my 2dr white. Just love white cars. Beautiful.

[Hoosier77]

you have an extremely nice car, you must have a good job!!!!! only one thing wrong with it, hood pins!!!! YIKES MAN!!!!

[anth]

Back from the depths, time to get back on track. I read Ratsun every day so I feel bad for not keeping this thread up to date, so I'll start now!

 

Here's some picture from a drive day a couple of years back to kick things off...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cool pic someone else took at a meet...

 

 

and my sump plug (oil pan to you guys) after a few hard drives. This has since been replaced but the new one looks pretty much the same now haha.

 

 

chilling in the garage

 

 

I'll update shortly with new progress on the car :)