My Dragon Datsun 521

[DanielC]

On this page.

  First post 

     Rust spot removal on front apron

     Metal finishing on front apron.

     Weld repair on cracks.

     Final cleaning, and phosphoric acid treatment.

     Bulleyes Pick metal work.

     Primer on apron.

  Sixth post

     Pull fixtures for radiator core support.

  Eighth post

     Bumper bracket straightening.

  Ninth post

     More bumper bracket cleaning, Weld repair, spraying with primer..

  Tenth post

     Fix primer mistake, Paint, prime and paint inside of bumper.

  Twelfth post

     Radiator core backside prime.

  Thirteenth post

     Front cab mounts

   Fifteenth post

     Front lights installed

   Nineteenth post

     some electrical details

 

The lower apron has been roughed in to shape, but it is nowhere near perfect, and reality is it will not be perfect, most of the apron is under the front bumper.

This is a close up picture of some rust spots that were still in the apron.

 

This is a rotary brush, made by a company called Nylox.  It is a nylon bristle, impregnated with an abrasive, and you use it like a wire brush, only is it better.  It does take a long time for it to clean metal, but it does a very good job.  You cannot use excessive pressure with it, the nylon will melt, and stick to the clean metal.   keep it moving, lighter pressure.

 

Same area, after using the Nylox brush.

 

This is that area, after a phosphoric acid treatment, and using the Nylox brush again.

 

There are four holes in the apron, and there is a small flange on the holes.  The thin metal of the apron gets a lot of strength from the flange, but if the apron is bent, and then flexes, it cracks the metal in the flange.

I did a small tack weld in the crack.  Before welding the crack, I had the apron shaped how I want it, because after welding the crack, it will be much harder to bend the apron, and may crack it again.

To make the weld close to the edge of very thin metal, I backed up the weld with a piece of copper, made from a short piece of copper pipe that I had flattened.  Then a very short tack weld, let it cool, and one or two very short welds again as needed.

 

I used a 3 inch (75 MM) cutoff disk in a die grinder to clean up the weld.

 

The weld was done on this side, this is after grinding and sanding the weld.

 

The other side of the center of the apron that had a crack.   This was a pretty decent apron, only two cracks in the center section.

 

Metal cleaning/Etching

This is a phosphoric acid solution to do a rust removal, and final cleaning of the metal before primer.  This is only one brand, made by PPG.  Other auto paint companies also make a product like this, and there is another product called Ospho that can also be used.

 

I first set the apron on a 2x6 clamped to a sawhorse,

and after diluting the phosphoric acid according to the label on the bottle, I scrubbed the apron with this piece of Scotchbrite pad wetted with the solution.

 

I also used the phosphoric acid solution and the Scotchbrite pad on the inside of the apron.  In this picture, I just used some fender washers and screws to hold the apron to the 2x6 clamped to the sawhorse.

 

After the phosphoric acid has dried, I again use the Nylox brush and a drill to remove the dried phosphoric acid residue.

 

Apron board

I wanted to do just a little more metal finishing on the apron.  In this picture, I had just screwed two short 2x2 to the edge of a 4 foot 2x6.   For you not in the USA, Metric folks, lumber dimensions in the USA refer to the rough cut lumber size, and a 2 inch by 2 inch board is actually 1/2 inch smaller than that.  A 2x2 is actually 1 1/2 inches by 1 1/2 inches.  That calculates out to a little over 38 MM.  A 2x6 is 1 1/2 (38 MM) by 5 1/2 inches, about 139 MM

 

I screwed the apron to the 2x6, with wood screws, and fender washers,

 

just a close up of the wood screw, and fender washer,

 

Then I clamped the 2x6 to the edge of a table, using the the 2x2 short pieces of wood for a foot (not a dimension,) an actual foot to stand on) so the underside of the apron was completely hanging over the table.

in the left side of this picture, you can see the clamp.

 

 

This is a BullsEye Pick.  You place the flat piece of metal centered over small dents.

 

When you squeeze the handle together, the bottom part of the pick moves up and hits the underside of the dent, centered in the hole in the foot of the pick.  In this picture there is a rounded end of a bolt in the pick, to bring larger areas up gently.

 

I can also swap the pointy end out on the pick, and raise smaller areas.

 

 

After a bit more metal finishing, and again, I did not finish it perfect, most of the apron is under the bumper a final clean, and wipe down.

I like to paint parts on a table.  To hold the apron, I cut two short pieces of 2x4, that the apron can rest on and not flop around when spraying primer on it.  I prime the inside, not visible, or less visible side first. 

 

Just a close up of one end of the apron resting on the wood block,  the wood block is screwed to the table.

 

I sprayed the inside of the apron lightly with an etching primer PPG SX 1071/1072 , turned the apron over, and sprayed the outside.   I let it dry according to the directions on the paint data sheet, and turned the apron back to the inside up again, and sprayed the apron with PPG DPLF epoxy primer.

After that had dried an appropriate time, I sprayed the outside only with a sandable surfacer.

 

 

I have done more on Dragon, I need to catch up with where I am, but I have had enough of editing computer work, and I want to go out and work on Dragon some more.

 

 

I was planning on going to Powerland 2020, but it seems the governor of the state of Oregon wants us cringing in fear in our houses, and not going out.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 31, 2020 by DanielC

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

I need a bullseye pick.

 

Nice work.

[DanielC]

Make one.  It is just 3/8 pipe bent to shape with a hinge, and spring.

The 3/8 pipe can be threaded with 3/8 coarse thread.

[gene knight]

nice work

[mainer311]

Jesus man, great stuff.

[DanielC]

I have been working on fixing old collision damage on the radiator core of Dragon.  I needed to pull some areas forward, and this is how I did it.

For pulls close to the radiator, I got some longer bolts with the same thread as the radiator bolts,  5/16-24, and put those bolts in the radiator core.

 

This is a bracket that I can attach to the radiator core by putting over the longer bolts,

 

and then putting nuts on the bolts.

 

Then I bolt this pulling eye to the bracket I made.

 

and this is how I did some pulls.

 

There was also some low spots away from the radiator core.  I drilled some holes in those spots.

 

This is a close picture of the pulling eyes I made.  I cut the foot with a cutting torch from a piece of 1/2 inch steel, and drilled a 3/8 hole in the middle, and two 1/2 inch holes on each side of the center hole.  I then took a 1/2 inch piece of round rod, and after heating the rod with cutting torch, bent the round rod 180 degrees.   The  "U" shaped rod was then welded to the 1/2 inch flat steel.

 

This is one pulling eye bolted through one of the holes I drilled in the radiator core.

 

I backed the spot I was pulling with a larger thick washer.

 

After doing several pulls on the core, I test fitted the fenders, grill rail, and lower apron, and the bumper on the truck.

The next day,  I took the fenders, grill rail, and lower apron, and the bumper off the truck.

 

Now to weld the pulling holes.  This is a magnet on the back on one of the holes.

 

Looking through the hole, there is the magnet.

 

I have a metal punch, and I made some slugs the size of the hole.

 

This is the slug, being held by the magnet.

 

Then I welded the slug in the hole,

 

and then ground some ugly welds.

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by DanielC

[gene knight]

nice work, keep it up the good work and pretty soon it will be done and back on road. was there any frame damage from accident?

Edited May 4, 2020 by gene knight

[DanielC]

There is no frame damage that I am aware of.   It is a long term plan, but I can check for frame damage but I need to pull the cab, and drive train off the frame to check.

 

The next day, I just wanted to take a big hammer and pound on things.  I picked through my 21 bumper brackets, and chose four pair of the least damaged ones.  The fifth pair on the right was the pair I used on the test fit of the bumper in a few posts above.

 

Here is the big hammer I referenced, and the first pair of brackets that I needed to straighten.

 

Another good tool to use on bumper brackets is a big Cresent Wrench.   Actually this really is a Cresent Wrench, made by Cresent Tool company in Jamestown, NY.  I am twisting the front curved part of the bracket slightly clockwise.

 

What I did was to use one of the good pair of bumper brackets to compare the opposite side of the pair of brackets I was working on.

 

For reference, here is the good pair again.

 

In this picture, I am bending the top curved part of this bracket more to the right.  Notice the piece of bar stock steel clamped to the saw horse, I used this as an anvil to straighten the long flat part of the bracket.

 

And this is after that top bend to the right of the left bracket, again comparing to the right good bracket. 

 

Now I am working on the right bent bracket, comparing it to the left good bracket.

 

Again, this bracket is bent slightly forward, the bracket was clamped to the saw horse, and the big wrench was used to pull the top of the bracket slightly back.

 

The long straight part on several of the brackets had a slight bend in them.  I just used the big hammer to pound that part straight on a flat block of steel.

Edited May 5, 2020 by DanielC

[DanielC]

More work on the bumper brackets.  I straightened them to where they are usable, I think.  time to clean them.

I used these 3M clean and strip disks to clean them.  You can get then on Amazon, use 3M 7471 for a part number.

 

This is a Chicago Pneumatic air sander I use to power the disk.  These clean and strip disks are very good at removing paint, rust, primer, body filler, but do not cut into good metal a lot.  Caution, they do remove skin very well.  The disks start out at 4 inch diameter,  (100 MM), and slowly wear down.  I could still use this disk on the air sander in the picture, but I also can use the work down smaller disks on a smaller grinder, and get into tighter places. 

 

This is the business end of the air sander.   On the 3M disk, is a fender washer, with a 1/4 inch hole, and the adapter that screws on to the 7/16-20 thread of the spindle of the air sander.  Not seen, in the hole in the adapter is a 1/4-20 Allen head cap screw.

 

This is a 1/4-20 "T" nut pushed into the hole in the center of the clean and strip disk, with the Allen screw through the adapter, fender washer, and Clean and Strip disk.

 

This is an "exploded" view.

 

I put a new clean and strip disk on the air sander before I started to clean them.  First, i pushed the "T" nut into the hole in the new disk

 

Then I put the Allen head cap screw through the adaptor, and fender washer,

 

and screwed that assembly in to the "T" nut pushed into the clean and strip disk.

 

Then I put the new disk on the air sander. 

 

Back to bumper brackets

The metal in the corner of some the bumper brackets was distorted, I do not know if this was from original manufacturing, or because of accidents, and straightening the brackets again, or who knows.  These are 50 years old.

A slightly worn grinder disk on a small angle grinder matches the curve of the inside of the bumper bracket close enough.

 

I ground some of the ugliness off a little bit.

 

and then I went over the entire surface of the five pair of bumper brackets with the 3M Clean and Strip disk.

 

after that, I scrubbed the brackets with a small wire brush, and phosphoric acid solution, and then let it dry.

 

A few day later, I re-cleaned the bumper brackets with the 3M Clean and Strip disk, and then touched up areas missed with the drill and Nylox brush.

 

When doing the dried phosphoric acid removal, I noticed these cracks in one of the bumper brackets.   I am preparing to weld them.   In this picture, I have backed up the area with a piece of copper, and I also turn the welder up a bit to make sure I get good penetration.  this also allows the metal to not under cut the edge of the bracket.  You probably are a better welder than I am, if so you can choose to weld however you are more familiar with.

 

Here is the welds, after wire brushing.

 

Welding causes the metal to shrink slightly.  By hammering the weld, it stretches some, or at least relieves some of the stress in the metal.

 

and this is the weld ground off flush.

 

There were still traces of phosphoric acid on the bumper brackets, and it has been a few days that the brackets sat with bare metal, and the steel starts to oxidise again.  but it is pretty easy to clean the bare metal, if if has not sat very long.   Again I used a Nylox brush in the drill.  I have done most of this bracket, but stopped between the two holes.

 

This is after using the Nylox to the end of the bracket.

 

In this picture, I am doing a final wipe with reducer to remove the last of the dirt off the metal.

 

and while the bracket is still wet, wipe it dry with a clean paper towel.

 

I then mixed up some etch primer, PPG SX1071/1072, and sprayed a light coat of that on the bumper brackets.  To reduce time between final cleaning, and spraying the etch primer, I would clean one pair of brackets, then spray the just cleaned brackets, and clean the next pair of brackets.

 

Later that evening, I sprayed some PPG DP40 LF on the brackets.

sorry, on picture.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 10, 2020 by DanielC

[DanielC]

After spraying PPG 40 LF on the bumper brackets, I though I had waited long enough for the primer to cure.  When I picked them up in the morning, I had this.

 

 

I used the X-acto knife to scrape and pick at loose paper stuck to the bottom of the bracket, A sponge pad with 150 grit sandpaper in a few areas. and then the Scotchbrite pad in other areas.

 

I sprayed some more DPLF on the bottom of the brackets.

 

Then I sprayed the brackets with Atlasta (formerly DuPont) 99A black Centari, with 793 gloss hardener.

 

I have a good bumper I got rechromed a few years ago, but the inside of the bumper was not looking as good as the outside of the bumper.  I used a rotary wire brush in the inside of the bumper, then some steel wool, and masked off the outside of the bumper.

Then I primed the inside of the bumper with DPLF epoxy primer,

 

and about 2 1/2 hours later, with the primed inside of the bumper in the afternoon sun, I sprayed the inside of the bumper with with Atlasta (formerly DuPont) 57704 gray Centari, with 793 gloss hardener.   To hold the bumper while I worked on it, I took a short piece of 2x6, drilled a 3/8 hole in the center of it, then countersunk the hole on the bottom of the 2x6 for a bolt, and used a 3/8 nut and washer on the inside of the bumper to hold the bumper to the 2x6.

 

The bumper and the brackets were left outside in the sun.

 

Edited May 11, 2020 by DanielC

[greenthumb]

Terrific attention to detail as always Daniel. I really enjoy your comprehensive progress reports. Great work!

[DanielC]

I have been working on the back side of the radiator core, outside of the inner fenders.  I've done done some weld repair, closed the gap in some flanges, removed rust as best I could, and sprayed etch and epoxy primer.

There are a lot of areas that are hard to get to to remove rust, old paint and primer.  One of the tools I use is this wire wheel.   

 

I sometimes put this extension on the wire wheel,

 

and turn the wire wheel with a drill.

The wire wheel seems to work better for me with lower RPM, and I reverse the drill quite often, because the wires on the wheel bend away from the direction of rotation.   By reversing the rotation of the wheel, the wires then dig into the rust pits deeper.  Treating the rusted areas with a phosphoric acid solution also changes the rust, and makes the rust easier to dig out with the wire wheel.   In some areas I go over with the wire wheel, then phosphoric acid solution, wire wheel again, more phosphoric acid, and wire wheel again.

 

There are two pockets on the backside of the radiator core with body mounts under them.  I wanted to remove the body mount, and the bolt holding it.  Because these bolts art under the truck, they probably have rust on them, and can easily break if you just try to remove the nut.

The first thing I do us use the small wire wheel and clean the threads on the bolt sticking out past the nut.

 

Then I apply a penetrating oil.  You can by or use your favorite penetrating oil, i have found a mix of ATF, and Acetone works as good as anything else.

 

Seven hours later, really, I sprayed an etch primer on the back side of the left side of the radiator core.

 

And after that etch primer had sat the recommended time, I sprayed epoxy primer.

 

That was last Sunday, yesterday on Monday I worked on the right back side of the radiator core support.

 

A closer view of old body work, and rust, and a bad repair.   I do not recall If I did this, If I did it was in the 1970's. 

 

Anyway, after another long day of fixing what I could, and removing rust and old paint I could reach, I sprayed this side with etch primer,

 

Then I sprayed epoxy primer on the back right side of the core support.

 

The above was Tuesday, and Friday it was warm enough to paint again.  I sprayed some gray Centari here,

 

and here.

 

Really, the paint is the same color.  Even though the sun was setting, and behind trees, the left side was toward the sun, the right side was away from the sun.

 

On Sunday, I did two small weld repairs on the top of the radiator core.  Then I masked off the back side of the radiator core, and put two old mud covers on the back side to prevent over spray from getting to that side of the core.

Then a light sand on good paint in the front of the core, heavier sanding where needed, sprayed bare metal with SX 1071/1072, followed by DP40LF, and then black Centari.

Edited May 18, 2020 by DanielC

[DanielC]

You may have noticed that when I was priming and painting the radiator core of Dragon, the front cab mounts were removed from the cab.  this is a picture of the bolts and mounts I removed.

 

Yes, one of the bolts was bent.  Never mind the rust.

 

The stock front cab mount bolts are 3/8-24, about 2 1/4 long.  I went to a local Ace Hardware store, and bought new bolts, and they also had nylon lock nuts, and these thick fender washers.

 

Looking up through the cab mount on the frame, the cab is aligned pretty good with the frame on this side.

 

This is the cab mount that goes under the cab, but on top of the frame.  It is hard to tell in this picture, but the metal ring is raised slightly to fit into the larger hole in the frame.

 

I had to lift the cab away from the frame, I just used a crowbar to do that.   When I was moving the cab, I unbolted the left side of the radiator to avoid stressing the radiator too much.

 

After lifting the cab, and sliding the mount in between the frame and cab, I used this long punch to center the rubber mount.

 

The mount centered.

 

Then I dropped one new bolt, with a smaller new thick washer in the mount hole.  notice the out of focus second mount rubber, washer, and nut.

 

The bolted left mount, looking up.

 

Same mount, side view.

 

 

The right side was not aligned very well.

 

The left side of the radiator was bolted to the core again, and the right side of the radiator was unbolted.   I took a picture this time, but the picture is sideways.

 

I noticed this hole in the front bottom of the inner fender, just behind the cab mount.  i could look through this hole, and see the same hole on the other side inner fender, i drilled out that hole too, with a 5/16 drill.  521 cabs are measured in SAE dimensions, i would not dare to use a 8 MM drill.

 

then I used a long piece of 5/16 all thread rod through both holes, side to side,

 

other side,

 

This is the all thread inside the engine compartment, left side.

 

This is the all thread inside the engine compartment, right side.

 

Again I lifted the cab with the crowbar, and slid the cab mount in between the cab and frame, and with the long punch aligned the rubber mount.

 

Everything aligned close enough.

 

 

Then I bolted the right side of the radiator back to core support.

 

Even though is is not registered to drive on the road yet, i still use Dragon on the farm doing this,

 

and yesterday, I was working on some fence, and the fence tools are loaded in Dragon, and I took Ratsun to get some more fence posts.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited May 24, 2020 by DanielC

[datzenmike]

Rides really well with 400-600 extra pounds in it.

[DanielC]

I have done more work on Dragon.  I put on the lower grill rail, the fenders, the front bumper, side lights, park lights, and the headlights.  I do need to take the bumper off again,  to get to the lower apron, to paint it.

 

The right front side.

 

Dragon has a pair of Cibie headlights for the high beam.

 

looking forward, low beams.

 

High beams.

 

A few weeks ago, I put this tachometer in Dragon.  I need to put a resistor in the tach light wire to dim the light in the tach down.

 

And a picture of Dragon back in the barn where I park it.

Edited May 31, 2020 by DanielC

[greenthumb]

Looks terrific. So straight! 

But that bumper though... niiiice

[banzai510(hainz)]

I love it!!!!!!!!!!

 

[BrothersGarage]

Into the home stretch, and man does it look fantastic!

[DanielC]

Last Mondays post was a quick one, no details.  Here are some details.

The lower grill rail on Dragon is held on with around 40 #6-32 screws and lock nuts. 

Since the radiator core support and the grill rail are both painted, and not welded together, they are not electrically connected.  The park lamps depend on the welded connection to ground.

This is how I fixed that.  The black wire goes behind the headlights, and into the engine compartment with the headlight wires.

 

I need to get grommets for the headlight wires.

 

From the headlight bucket, the park light ground wire goes back..

 

To the first handy screw on the inner fender.  That made the park light and turn signals work.   The one ground wire grounded both park lights right and left.

 

The side marker lights had no problems, they have their own ground wire.

 

For the headlights, two of the four 10-32 nuts welded in to the radiator core were gone.   A lot of sound equipment, both professional, and "home HI-FI" is designed to mount in a 19 inch wide rack.   The standard screw thread to hold the equipment into the rack is 10-32.   Because sometimes equipment gets changed in and out of audio racks a lot, some audio racks just have a hole where the screw should be, and they use these replaceable inserts with a 10-32 trapped nut.  This insert just slides over the hole where the headlight screw goes, and that problem is done.

 

I have put Cibie 55 watt halogen lights in the high beam spot on Dragon.  The stock fuse box is barely adequate for a stock 521. 

There is a really easy way to improve the headlight power supply even to a stock 521.  You add an extra relay by the OEM 521 headlight relay, like this.

After mounting the new relay, pull the red wire with a yellow stripe off the original 521 headlight relay, and put that wire on pin 86 of the new relay.  Ground pin 85 on the new relay.  The yellow wire goes from the hot side of the fuse box to an additional fuse.

 

The other wire from this fuse goes to pin 30 of the new relay.

 

Then you make a short jumper to go from pin 87 on the new relay,

to the terminal on the original 521 headlight relay you pulled the red with a yellow stripe wire from.

 

Why add a second relay, you ask?  I will get to that.  First, lets look at the main fuse box.  This is the third fuse box I have had in Dragon.   Aftermarket quartz halogen headlights are hard on barely adequate Datsun 521 fuse boxes.   By the way, 521 trucks had either a three always hot fuse box or a four always hot fuse box.   This is a four hot fuse box.  Four hot fuse boxes had a separate fuse for headlights, three hot fuse boxes had all the lights on one fuse.

The wires on this side of the fuse box from left to right.  Two black with a white stripe, one comes from the ignition switch when the key is on, the other black with a white stripe wire goes to the ignition coil.   Thick red wire, third position comes from the alternator main out.   Dragon has a 50 amp alternator.  At one time, Dragon had an amp gauge, and this required bringing the alternator wire up here.  The thick white wire is from the battery positive.  The yellow wire goes to the new headlight relay.  The thinner white goes to the ignition switch.

Finally, why the new relay.   Headlight current comes from the battery and alternator, goes to the original fuse box, and through the headlight fuse.  From the headlight fuse, the current goes on a thick red wire into the cab, through some connectors, to the headlight switch.  Headlight current then is on a thick red with a yellow stripe wire,  through even more connectors, back in to the engine room, and finally to the (original) headlight relay.  Adding a new headlight relay takes headlight current out of the main fuse box, and shortens the distance the current had to go from the battery to the headlights, this gives the headlight more voltage, and the headlights are brighter.  Even stock headlight will be brighter

 

I put this tachometer in Dragon.

 

These are the tachometer wires.  Black, Red, White, Green.  Black is ground, red is power, white is the internal light in the tach, green is the signal, or trigger wire.

 

I had recently installed a voltmeter in Dragon.  To hook up the volt meter, I used the stock accessory wires in the original 521 harness, these wire are under the ashtray in the center of the dash top.   One wire is ignition hot, another wire is lights on hot.  Notice a red and white wire going into a split wire loom tube.

 

Look at the split wire loom tube, with a red and white wire.  The red wire goes to the volt meter, and get power when the key is on.  The other side of the voltmeter is grounded by a black wire going to one of the screws that hold the gauge bracket to the dashboard.

The tachometer black and red wires are just piggybacked on to the voltmeter terminals.

 

At first, the tach did not work.   Here we go with another 1970's throwback.  Electronic ignition was just starting to get used in a very few cars.  But somebody figured out how to make a capacitive discharge ignition system, that used the original points as a trigger only, and the points then lasted much longer, and you also had a much stronger spark.

 

 

The instructions with the tachometer said to connect the green trigger wire to ignition coil minus.  I did that, the tach did not work.   Then I thought, what if I connect the green tach trigger wire to the points?  The tachometer now worked.  

 

Then I hooked up the tachometer illumination white wire.   The light in the tachometer is way too bright. 

 

Also in this picture, I have installed four LED 194 replacement lights for combo meter illumination.

 

Today, I spliced some resistors in the tachometer light wire.  This is much better.

 

 

[DanielC]

A little more on how I chose the resistors to dim the tachometer internal light.  This will be more words than pictures.   The first thing I did was to remove the lamp holder from the voltmeter, so the only current going from the accessory light wire under the ashtray was current for the tachometer illumination.   Then I used a digital multimeter to check the current going to the tachometer lights.   This is the multimeter checking resistance, the only picture of the multimeter.

 

The tachometer lights were drawing about 47 milliamps, at about 14 volts, engine running.   If you divide volts by the current, that will give you the resistance.  In this case, about 297 ohms.   The tachometer uses LED internal lights.  LEDS have a voltage drop across them when they are on, but it is not like a normal resistance.   If you do not supply a LED with enough voltage, it simply does not turn on. 

I have a collection of resistors, and knowing the apparent resistance of the lights in the tachometer was about 297 ohms, I found a 330 ohm resistor, and put that in series with the tachometer light wire.   It dimmed the tach lights a little, but not enough.  Then I tried a resistor of around 680 ohms, and with that resistor, not all the lights in the tach came on.   Then I decided to try about 500 ohms of resistance, but I did not have a 500 ohm resistor.   But I did have several 1,000 ohm resistors.   Two 1,000 resistors in parallel makes a 500 ohm resistor, that can handle twice the power (watts).

That resistor pair measured 494.5 ohms, and put that in series in the tachometer light wire.  That dimmed the tach light about right.

These are small resistors, rated at 1/4 of a watt each.   I measured the current in the tachometer light wire again, and it measured around 11 milliamps.   If you measure the current and multiply that by the volts, you get watts.  11 milliamps (.011 amps) times 14 volts equals about 0.154 watts.  Two 1/4 watt resistors can handle 0.500 watts.

 

Remember the light for the volt meter is disconnected?  The voltmeter current need to not go through the tach light resistors.   I crawled under the dash, and cut the wire going to the tachometer lights only.   Then I cut a few pieces of heat shrink tubing, and got some solder,

and the soldering iron and a heat gun,

And soldered the resistor pair into the tachometer light wire.

After soldering, I slid the heat shrink tube over the connection.

 

That was repeated on the other end of the resistor, and a larger piece of heat shrink was put over the resistor pair.

 

 

Edited May 31, 2020 by DanielC

[DanielC]

A few posts ago, I mentioned I need to find some grommets for the hole that the front light wires go through.

 

I found these grommets at Ace Hardware.  The old grommet is also in the picture.

 

A close view of the details of the grommet.  If you search "Jandorf 61487" you can find the grommet from several sources.

 

This is the hole the grommet fits.  Yes, the inside of the engine compartment needs  work, much easier done when the engine is out of the way.

 

To put the grommet into it's hole, with the light wires going through the grommet, you need the light wires unplugged from the headlights, and the park lights.  The light wires will go through the hole in the headlight bucket, put the three wire headlight plug through first, then the two wire headlight plug, and then the park light wires through the hole.

 

Put the grommet on the three wire headlight plug first,

 

then the two wire headlight plug,

and then the park light wires through the grommet.

 

Push the grommet part way into the hole, and then work the split in the grommet into the edge of the hole.   Then work the grommet split around the hole's metal edge.

 

The grommet installed.   The grommet need to stretch slightly to have the headlight plugs go through the grommet, and it cannot if the grommet in already in the hole.  The wires go through the hole, then the grommet goes on the wires, then the grommet goes in the hole.  in that order.

 

I also mentioned previously a #10-32 nut insert used in audio racks to replace a bad nut welded into the radiator core for the headlights.  This is that insert.

 

Plug the park light wires in, and then install the headlight assembly with four screws.

 

I also put the right side headlight trim on, put the top and side screws in the trim,

 

The left side trim top and end screw.

 

and put the center lower trim piece on.  The two end screws on the center trim also hold the lower end of the side headlight trim.

 

 

[DanielC]

Put more "jewelry" on the front of Dragon yesterday, and today.

[BrothersGarage]

1 hour ago, DanielC said:

Put more "jewelry" on the front of Dragon yesterday, and today.

 

She looks fantastic!

 

[DanielC]

More work on Dragon today.

I got this light working.

 

I cleaned up this switch for the engine light, I had to dig the switch wire out of the wire harness, and splice a short piece of wire to the harness wire, and put a spade connectors on the harness wire, and switch wire.

 

Digging through a few boxes of Datsun parts, I found two of these rear hood bumpers.  They are probably NLA from Nissan.

I put them in their locations, right side.

 

And left side.

 

I have an idea I am working on for the front hood bumpers, I went to a Pick-n-Pull, and harvested some screw in hood bumpers from a few Fords in the yard.

 

I also worked on the windshield wiper motor.  The motor in Dragon only runs on low speed.  I have three other wiper motors.  One runs both speeds, but does not park, another one also runs low speed only, but does park, and one is good.  

 

 

[wayno]

I believe these are the same thing.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Datsun-Roadster-Hood-Bumpers-1965-1970-OEM-NEW/313085089423?hash=item48e553568f:g:E54AAMXQIPJRjDvL