My '76 710 Goon

[datzenmike]

Bought an old engine stand for $25 yesterday. Found in someone's back yard half buried. Just got it home. The wheels are seized and the front one's on a caster. Plenty of old shopping carts in the ditches for donors. My L24B is almost done but it would be nice to have it in the air for a few more things.  Would work for transmissions too.

 

Want to power wash the old girl to get all the PNW mold, needles and maple keys off.

[datzenmike]

Spent way over an hour power washing the mold off but looks better. Did under the hood and each time it looks a bit cleaner. Tomorrow I'll take the wipers off their pivots and take the plenum cover off and clean out all the crap that must be in there. Two tires needed a bit of air. If really nice I'll start polishing the mags. Put battery charger on.

 

My rear view fell off.

Clean and vacuum the inside and empty out... OH THAT'S where my ratchet went!!!.

Put pass side carpet back on the floor.

 

[datzenmike]

Removed plenum cover and unlike the 620 and the 510 there is a huge opening on each side for drainage. I cleaned it all out anyway. Removed the wiper linkage dismantled them, greased them and put back. The grilled plenum cover I'm going to paint.

[datzenmike]

Power washed the front again as you never get it all the first couple of times. Took the grill off and found I have 3 more in the shed. Power washed two candidates and removed enough SS trim to make one good one and will keep the original safe. Did I mention it's like working with razor blades? Polished the chrome and rough sanded the plastic. Going to a darker color. Thinking of a black hood, not shiny but not flat black.... maybe antique black.

[datzenmike]

 

 

Oh -oh

 

Then I remembered something I read on Ratsun. Tapped the tap and ever so slowly it backed out. As it turns out I have 3 of these.

 

 

Painted a spare grill to try it. When dry will put the chrome trim back on and see. It's semi gloss flat black (a contradiction in terms I know) Perhaps I'll try a darker gray on a different one.

[datzenmike]

So today I converted the lever/linkage type throttle, similar to the 510, to a throttle cable.  I think it's from a 720 and I thought it would be too long as the Z series carburetors are on the right side, but it loops around the back of the brake booster and comes out down and under the master cylinder near the intake. If anyone else has done this.... I salute you for your effort. 

 

I figured a cable was the easiest way to run R-1 carbs. Linkage would be a nightmare.

[datzenmike]

I noticed last fall that every time I shut down there was a puff of steam. The rear coolant port was leaking. The rear bolt wasn't that tight when I removed it. Studs and new shoulder bolts will help.

 

 

Intake and carburetor off and stored. Rather than pay for studs I bought a meter length of threaded stock and made my own. I have enough for the 4 top intake, 4 bottom intake/exhaust and the 3 exhaust (which were the only real studs on it) I'm leaving the exhaust manifold on for now so I can try to pound the exhaust pipe towards the rear to separate it from my custom 240sx down pipe. Then I'll either lift the manifold and the down pipe out or separate them and remove. With the down pipe out I can drill and weld in the bung for the O₂  wide band.

 

Then I can start fitting my R-1 intake I made.

 

 

 

 

[datzenmike]

OK... got the L16 exhaust manifold off along with my 'custom' 240sx down pipe with a Mklotz flange. Marked and drilled the O₂ bung mount. I mounted it on top of the pipe so it can't get hit and there is room to pull the transmission.

 

 

 

 

Bung welded on and pipes all together with new home made flange gasket. Still have to mount the sender and push the exhaust pipe onto the down pipe and get a new clamp. Replaced two of the exhaust studs with new ones. Everything got anti seize on the threads. Cleaned the head surfaces for the new gasket.  

 

The TVV on the thermostat housing is broken and not being used anyway so took it out and found a suitable pipe plug on a KA intake. Much neater.

 

 

The shroud for the ATC was just wired on so while the manifold was off I drilled the bolts out and bolted it down properly. I'll miss that buzzing. Intake and exhaust head and manifolds were port matched last year.

 

 

All these little things will make it more reliable and easier to service and work on but it ate up a lot of time today. I'm bagged.....

[opalbeetle]

On 4/27/2019 at 11:36 PM, datzenmike said:

With the down pipe out I can drill and weld in the bung for the O₂  wide band.

 

Hey, Mike.  What wide band did you decide to use...sorry if I missed it earlier in the thread.

 

On 3/31/2019 at 4:41 PM, datzenmike said:

Power washed the front again as you never get it all the first couple of times. Took the grill off and found I have 3 more in the shed. Power washed two candidates and removed enough SS trim to make one good one and will keep the original safe. Did I mention it's like working with razor blades? Polished the chrome and rough sanded the plastic. Going to a darker color. Thinking of a black hood, not shiny but not flat black.... maybe antique black.

Any chance you have a picture of this?  I just painted my grill shiny black. I should post up some pictures.

[datzenmike]

It's a kit by Innovate. Gauge, wiring, bung, O₂ sensor.  3918 MTX-L plus

 

[datzenmike]

Slowly but surely.

 

Had to make a brace that might hold the 720 throttle cable.

 

When installed, one of the intake tubes needed to be bent down slightly. Only the tops of the intakes are bolts, all others are now studs.

[datzenmike]

 

720 throttle cable on but will have to bend the pedal lever to remove too much slack.

 

To do.. vacuum pump for the booster, vacuum advance, fuel connection. Bot using the ware to cool/warm the intake so that needs to be sealed up. Have to do something about the block vent and lack of PCV valve.

 

[datzenmike]

Was at the wreckers a week ago and found a set of side post battery cables. The battery that was in the goon was bought with the car (2010) or was in my 620 before that and I don't know where it came from as I haven't bought a battery in decades. So the work van was in a minor T bone and they scrapped it because it's costs more to fix and what a12 year old van is worth. So I had to clean all our equipment out of it and thought why not swap my old battery for a 3 year old one. It has top and side posts. So because Datsuns are all top post a switch is in order.

 

These newer cars use very heavy thick cables for everything. My '02 Altima alternator came with an output wire that was thicker than my positive battery cable and made it look like a wire. The positive and negative cables are bundled together so Positive to the starter solenoid, and the ground to the starter bolt. Why not all the heavy current has to find it's way to the starter housing anyway why not directly? The ground strap perfectly reaches the ground connection under the battery tray.

 

 

Ground cable and body ground comparison...

 

The positive terminal also has a red molded cap that clips on the terminal, and a main lead in wire to the fusible links. The lead in I had to shorten and joined to the car harness with a disconnect plug. All soldered, shrink wrap and harness wrapped. Like the body ground the lead in wire was as thick as the 710's stock positive cable.

 

The battery cables came from a FWD Pontiac Trans Sport. No grill so the starter and ground were super easy to get at.

[datzenmike]

 

Ordered a vacuum pump from Amazon, baby.

[Draker]

53 minutes ago, datzenmike said:

 

Ordered a vacuum pump from Amazon, baby.

 

DIY AC?

[datzenmike]

No. I need a vacuum source for my brake booster.

[datzenmike]

Throttle pedal bent to remove slack that can't be adjusted out. I set the adjustment screw roughly in the middle so I can later adjust either way. Put brick on pedal and lifted the slide and it's full open.

 

Bought some fuel rated hose and connected it up to the fuel by pass/return line.

 

The coolant pipe from the intake to the thermostat by pass has to be sealed up. Found some hose laying around and gear clamped it on and stuch a cut down head bolt in the end and gear clamped it also. Nothing permanent, this can always be set back to carburetor.

 

 

So little done but SOoo much time spent getting it done.

 

 

 

 

[datzenmike]

OK, fuel line blocking front carb and jamming the pedal. Moved and set the throttle pedal even better.

 

Installed the O₂ sensor and pushed the wiring up through the  shifter hole. No sense drilling more holes. The wiring will be hidden under the console. I'm going to get a spare relay and fuse to bring a dedicated 12 v for my air/fuel, oil pressure and temperature gauges. I noticed that when I switch my headlights on the oil pressure drops about 15 PSI even though the volt gauge (Nissan 720 gauge) remains fixed.

 

Down pipe to resonator re-installed and new clamp. Car now on ground.

 

Rear view mirror fell off last winter and I have the mirror but can't find the glue on metal button anywhere on the floor. Using a regular one and modified the mirror mount to fit it. Trying JB weld for the button. This originally was a Monte Carlo mirror with L&R courtesy or map lights. This latest mirror allows me to connect the doors to the map lights but the glue on button is different. Hopefully this works.

[datzenmike]

 

Vacuum pump arrived. Now have something to do this long holiday weekend. Checked fit to booster hose... close enough and nothing a hose clamp can't make perfect. Need to mount this on firewall? Moving forward.

 

There were two or more on Amazon, same picture. I went with the one that was about $50 more, turns out it's from Mexico rather than from China.

[datzenmike]

 

Installed vacuum pump using several vacuum lines from other boosters. Elbows all in the right places. Have to re-locate my coil though.

[datzenmike]

Coil moved a few inches and my rat's nest wiring for it and everything else near it cleaned up and wrapped with electrical tape. All I need are the two to the matchbox and the temperature sender. The choke heater, BCDD and two others I bundled and wrapped in case I need them later. The idle cut powers the vacuum pump. The pump is a bit noisy maybe I can add more rubber damping.

 

Got in last night and the brake pedal went to the floor. Master for the fronts was dry so this morning I refilled and used a pump from a Windex bottle to suck brake fluid from the bleeder, through the lines. Seemed to work ok.

 

Wire wheeled the rust off the rotors, they get a lot of surface rust sitting since last September.

 

Tried starting last night..... nothing. Checked the spark. There was a drip on the hose at the carburetors. Adjusted the hose clamp and tried again today, takes a while to suck up gas from the tank, did this with the carburetor if it sat for months. It did fire once and that was all. Going to try that Windex sprayer with some gas in it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[datzenmike]

OK, Windex spray of gas down each barrel and BOOM away she went. Cold without the enrichment on or anything adjusted it revved a few times and I let it down and idled at 500. Which it never would with the 340 Hitachi. Shut it off because no coolant put back in yet. Filled and dripping from rear manifold because I only snugged it up in case I had to remove it. Tightened and restarted and gas dripping probably wasn't the hose. Number 2 is flooding or float stuck, run and shut it off.

 

I don't care, I'm elated. Shit eating grin when my wife came out front and said what was that?

Will pull the carburetors off tomorrow. It's the only way to really get at the float chambers on the bottoms.

 

Something else.... I know I changed the battery, but I've had booster cables on and two full batteries and it never turned over like it does now!!! It's way faster turning. This must be those thicker GM battery cables.

[Cheetahking]

Fun to watch you go through this car.  

[datzenmike]

OK got the carbs off and the #2 float chamber bottom off, can't see anything wrong so took the others off and looked at them. Sealed them up and put away.

 

While it's off I'm taking the rear manifold off and drilling and tapping a hose barb so I can connect the water passage through the carbs. The stock Yamaha had and used it so why not. It will warm them up and maintain a more even temperature.

 

Checked the radius of the throttle pull on the R-1's and it's 0.642" while the pedal is set up for an Hitachi that is 1.1". This means the pedal travel is about 1/2 the distance now. Did some measuring on the pedal lever on the floor and moving the fulcrum 1.5" upward will lengthen the stroke close to 'normal'. As it turns out I can move it 1.4" so this is a big improvement. 

 

 

Welded 1.3" higher up and made an aluminum adapter plate to support it on the floor. The bottom two holes will allow the use of the original threaded holes. It's in but will need fine tuning once the cable is poked through and connected. Goddamn this eats up time. I remember when I was 25 and had my 521. I threw shit together with no drill or welder..... and yeah it was shit reliable too.

[opalbeetle]

Hi Mike! 

 

The progress is is awesome! I’m enjoying following along. 

 

I was wondering about the vacuum pump. Why did you go this route? (If you mentioned why, I missed it or have forgotten...my memory hasn’t gotten better as I get older.)

 

My Diesel LandCruiser has a vacuum pump mounted on the back of the alternator for the vacuum needs of the truck. 

 

Thanks!