Australian goon makeover

[Ratwagon1600]

Had the goon for a couple of years. Owned Datsuns for about 28 years (my first ever daily was a 1600 sedan) and I've always wanted a wagon.

 

Was using it for a hack/runaround car until the motor got a little excited and then decided to shit itself.

 

It's been off the road for a while and I recently decided to resurrect it. Thankfully, a Datsun owning acquaintance gave me a spare L18 he had, and after bolting it in, mucking around with the Su's and adding the electronic dizzy, it fired and runs great!

 

Have a couple of spare L20's and L18's to rebuild and will probably ending up doing a 2.4 motor eventually ( we call them grunters).

 

Have a race car (sedan) project which I have lost interest in so I'm going to transfer some of the bits I have built for it into the Goon. Plans are to get it back on the road (hopefully this week) and then start the makeover. Put a new screen and screen rubber in yesterday and the difference is amazing. The old screen looked like it had been sandblasted and the screen rubber was that perished every time it rained the front passenger compartment became a swimming pool.

 

Today's plan is to bolt one of my spare doors on as I couldn't be bothered panel beating the existing one, recover the dash pad and refit the pad, valance and a few other bits.

 

On the cards is some of the following (a lot of which will be pilfered form the race car project):

 

Big brake conversion

 

Adjustable control arms

 

Nicer front guards (already test fitted to the goon)

 

Hydraulic handbrake

 

Independent rear end (Datsport adjustable kit) although this is more a long term goal

 

Disc brake rear and sway bar for the existing solid diff

 

A BRE themed paint job

 

Rising sun under the bonnet (love some of the ideas I've been able to borrow from Ratsun)

 

Half roll cage

 

Lowering of the arse end as it currently sits way too high

 

Convert the front struts to coil overs (longer term)

 

Strut brace and under body bracing,

 

And a whole heap of other stuff.

 

Assuming anyone's interested,I'll keep posting pics as the makeover progresses.

 

Cheers

 

 

 

 

 

[DRIVEN]

Just assume EVERYONE is interested and keep posting.

 

...and welcome to ratsun.

[Duncan]

I'm certainly interested! I have an Aussie-spec goon that I brought over here two years ago. I drove it around for year and the resto is (slowly) underway.

 

It will be nice to see yours come along.

 

Here's my thread..

 

http://community.rat...ans-71-oz-goon/

 

BTW, if you happen to run across a "wagon" badge for the back hatch, I've been looking for one with no luck..

[Ratwagon1600]

Thanks guys.

 

Duncan, found your thread a couple of days ago. It was nice to see the south Aussie number plate on the front of the car. I'm also chasing a Wagon badge, so far, no luck on finding one.

 

Couple of more pics of some of the bits to be put in the car. Dash pad vent covers (not sure what they are called) were looking a little dated so have given them a paint. Can't believe how dirty they were!

 

[Ratwagon1600]

Not a lot of progress since the last post. In between work, the shit weather we are having here ( it's just gone into our winter) and a bottle of jack Daniels that gets in the way, not much has been done.

 

Paid the rego (woohoo) so the goon can now be legally driven again. It's Saturday here today so I've got the whole day to bolt enough bits on to make the car roadworthy and the take it for a spin.

 

Finished the dash pad last night. Used builders expanding foam to fill up the holes and cracks in it then reshaped it with a board file.

 

Covered it with faux leather and it doesn't look too bad. Got the hoop for the cage bent up and will now start planning the half cage. Eventually I'm going to do an independent rear end conversion so I'm not quite sure of where I'm going to run the back stays to. Will do a similar cage design (back only) as the one I have done for my race car project (pics below).

 

Cheers

 

Jason

 

[Ratwagon1600]

Time for an update.

 

Got the goon in roadworthy condition yesterday and finally, after almost 16 months took it for its maiden test flight.

 

What a blast!!!

 

Today, had another run to the local hardware store to get some bits. Got home to this:

 

 

Fortunately it will be fixed by a new radiator cap.

 

Starting to plan the gauges and dash layout. Bought some bling for the dash ( faux carbon fibre stick on) and dug out some gauges to fit in the centre console:

 

 

 

 

Glovebox needs a lot of love so am starting to repair the broken mounting points with some fiberglass:

 

 

 

More soon.

 

[Ratwagon1600]

Fuse box was a little crusty.

 

 

So, treated it to a quick bead blast and a new set of fuses.

 

 

Started on the mounting plate for the oil pressure and water temp gauges. This is going in the centre of the console where the radio would normally sit.

 

 

 

 

[Willdatsun]

Where are you in Aus?

[Ratwagon1600]

Where are you in Aus?

 

Unusual question, but happy to answer.

 

Located in the A55hole of Australia at the moment (Canberra).

 

Too bloody cold here for my liking, but it's home.

[troyt]

Great to see another wagon brought back to life. A cage and irs sound pretty cool...

[Ratwagon1600]

Great to see another wagon brought back to life. A cage and irs sound pretty cool...

 

Thanks!

 

Can't wait to get the poor old goon tricked up.

 

Certainly want the cage in as soon as I can.

 

IRS will take a little it longer, but, is definitely going to happen,

 

Cheers

[datsun 521 ute]

Good to see another aussie on here and welcome to the community. Great info and a great bunch of guys on here also. Good work on the wags :thumbup:

[shoom]

re you sure the dog wasn't responsible for the little 'artefact'? ;) I thought this thread was going to be about some model who goes downhill, looses her looks and starts wiping herself out with cheap cask wine , given the title lol

[Ratwagon1600]

Ha Ha, ill have to find some Aussie tittie shots to put in one of my posts.

 

For our American friends, a "goon" is Aussie slang for cheap cask wine or a flagon of cheap alcohol.

 

Generally "goons" would be consumed by what you would call trailer park trash.

 

Anyway, back on topic, Haven't been able to get the Su's balanced the way I wanted so took them off last night in preparation for a full tear down and rebuild.

 

Need something to keep the poor old beast going so dug through my pile of standard carbies till I found one which wasn't too crusted up.

 

No carbie cleaner so a quick blast with brake cleaner (not good for rubber seals I know) and a bit of a scrub and it appeared okay. Found a stock air cleaner (yuk) and gave it a quick clean as well.

 

Bolted the carbie on, quick spray of auto start fluid down the throat and it fired like a champion!

 

 

Drove it to work this morning and it didn't run too bad. Will play around a bit with the mixtures tonight and then getback into my list of other things.

 

Really need to lower the back as I hate the look of how it sits at the moment.

 

Cheers

[Ratwagon1600]

A few electrical problems this week. Indicators started to work intermittently, then stopped working all together. Then to add to the fun, when I shifted into fourth and fith gear, the charge light came on. Got to be a bad earth somewhere. Traced it to the earth(s) on a couple of relays the previous owner wired into the harness next to the fuse box (why he did it I don't know).

 

Ran all the earths from the relay direct to the Neg terminal on the battery and voila, problem solved.

 

Instrument cluster was a little crusty, so again dug through my pile of spares till I found enough bits to make a good one.

 

 

You can see the dodgy bridging wire on the old one.

 

Indicator switch felt like it was full of gravel so took it off and gave it a clean up.

 

 

Stripped it right down, degreaser, into the bead blaster, then a quick clean in a small ultrasonic cleaner I have. Got bored so I quickly machined up a billet aluminum end for the indicator stalk and put a

Knurled end on it. Bit of a rough job, but it turned out ok. Bolted it back together, lubricant where appropriate (including some JD shots for the assembly technician) and this was the end result.

 

 

Took the cargo mat out of the back so I can start prepping where I am going to mount the half cage and got greeted by this.

 

 

Bitumen/ body deader everywhere. I'll get into this today with the heat gun and a scraper. Hopefully there's no hidden surprises underneath though the underside of the car looks fine.

 

More soon.

 

Cheers

[Ratwagon1600]

Haven't tackled the body deadener in the back yet, maybe this weekend.

 

Decided to door the poor mans lowering job last night.

 

Flipping the small spring gave me roughly an inch and a half in drop and I'm much happier with how the back looks now.

 

I'm going to wait till I swap the front struts before I settle on the final ride height.

 

 

 

 

 

[Ratwagon1600]

Speedo cable decided to die yesterday, so, I did what any discerning Datto owner would do and:

 

Dug the 15inch wheels out from behind the shed in preparation for the big brake conversion I am cannibalizing from my race car project.

 

 

Bloody filthy on the inside, so, despite the fact the inside won't be seen, gave them a quick bit of a work over with the wire wheel on one of my grinders and:

 

 

Good enough for what I want. Going to do a charcoal gray centre, and polished edge, not dissimilar to what is on my Stagea:

 

 

More importantly, also off the race car project is my rose jointed control arms and lengthened tie rod adjusters.

 

 

These are going on the wags tomorrow, and, I reckon I'll gt at least three degrees of neg camber on he front ( love my neg camber and don't give a fcuk if it chews the tyres out). Ran a similar setup on my rally car for years and never had a problem,so, this should all be good!!

 

[Duncan]

Nice work, Mate!

 

It's all the little things that take up the time.

 

Please check the thread below carefully, there's a local fellow here who is making a reproduction "Wagon" badge for the rear hatch. I plan on picking one up very soon, and I can send you a pm on how it looks. In looks damn nice in the photo!

 

Shagy is a cool guy, and is very local to me. I will keep you posted. Love those Aussie goons!

 

I think the photos are on the first page of this thread.

 

http://community.rat...ck-july15-2012/

[Ratwagon1600]

Definitely interested in the reproduction wagon badge and also the 510 one. If you can let me know when these are ready to go that would be very much appreciated!

 

Bit of a car shuffle happening in my house at the moment. The goon is off the road for a couple of days while I swap the front end stuff around. Big brake setup and control arms as above. Still have to pull my finger out and order the castor rods from futofab.

 

The starter motor died in the Stagea and despite a rebuild, it's stuffed! 2nd hand starter motor on order.

 

Picked up the wife's new daily driver on the weekend (a 2012 Hyundai Santa Fe Trail). Not a Datsun / Nissan I know, but wife likes it. It's an all wheel drive, turbo diesel and gets along quite nicely. Now she's got her car I get the 2008 Toyota Hilux SR5 (her old daily) as my other daily/tow car (woohoo).

 

The Hyundai went back to the dealer today as the knuckle dragging fuckwits who fitted the towbar decided to put the bar on the ground (painted side down) when they fitted it, which ended up putting a lot of scratches in it! Dealers putting a brand new bar on from another car (fair enough as the car we got is brand new) and we get it back in a couple of days.

 

Scratches like this across the whole of the back of the bar.

 

 

 

Found these treasures under the rear seat of the goon). Don't look like they have seen the light of day for a long time.

 

 

I'll put some more pics of the front end changeover up tonite.

 

Cheers

[Ratwagon1600]

Little bit more work done.

 

Out with the old:

 

 

And, in with the (newer):

 

 

[banzai510(hainz)]

Should get your old lady a 1969 Patrol and tell her she better like it!

I love the FJ70 trucks you guys have done there.

 

Here desiels are rare in those early rigs. Americans hated them untill recently(desiels)

 

The US Airforce spends alot of money to knockout out a GUY with a Koran armed w/chinese AK driving Toyota Desiel truck.

[Ratwagon1600]

Wasn't a fan of diesels at all myself till,I drove the new car, it certainly is torquey (the turbo obviously helps).

 

Anyway, back to the goon. Slowly chipping away at the front end changeover. It's been way too cold here at the moment to do too much after work (most nights it's getting down to an average minimum temperature of -5).

 

The previous owner used to use the goon as a rally recce car and the front crossmember certainly shows this. The lip was bent up around the sway bar causing a fair bit of rubbing/wear on the bar.

 

 

Cut most of the lip off last night and will tidy it up tonight in preperation of fitting another sway bar I had stashed in the spares pile.

 

 

Cannibalized the rest of the new steering components out of the race car project and these are now bolted in as well.

 

 

Hopefully will get it back on the ground tonight in preperation for a home wheel alignment tomorrow, and a test run on the new(er) wheels and neg cambered front. I'm hoping for roughly 3 degrees negative camber (tyres meh).

[Ratwagon1600]

Been a little while since I've provided an update.

 

Postman delivered these the other day.

 

 

Given them a clean up.

 

 

 

This afternoons job is to clean up all the threads, and give the jets etc a clean in the ultrasonic cleaner.

 

Came off a similar spec motor to the goon, so, hopefully instant get up and go when they are bolted up.

[Ratwagon1600]

Carbies bolted in.

 

Fuel lines and linkages to be sorted tomorrow.

 

[Ratwagon1600]

Oh well, tomorrow has now become a month due to many other commitments.

 

Finally finished the linkages and the air cleaners last night.

 

Still need to get the angles better, but at the moment it's working ok and I'm pretty happy with the result so far !