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My 521 project- new to Ratsun


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I pulled the pulley and fan off of the stocker. I will look at the mount next week when I get back home. I think I am going to pull the engine at some point to clean it all up properly and clean the rest of the bay.

 

My boy and I are going to concentrate on fixing the floor pan and the cab for now. I will gather parts and get back to the engine later on.

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The stamped steel lower alternator mount is a stock 521/L-16 one.  The cast lower mount is used on some L-18 engines, and possibly on the L-20-B.  The cast lower mount holds the alternator slightly lower, this may cause the alternator to sit too close to the steering idler arm.

DragonAltLowMount_zpsa5e0abf7.jpg

 

A long time ago. I got a JDM L-18 engine to replace a worn out L-16.  It came with the cast lower alternator mount, and the rather beefy upper alternator mount.

This upper mount.

DragonAltTopMount2_zps74148769.jpg

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Thank you DanielC.

 

I mixed up my molasses concoction last week and tossed in the violets and screws from removing the bench seat and seat belts.

 

I did find the window channel you listed as well. AS 1198 96". It is in the CRlaurance catalog. Lots of options in there for weather stripping as well.

 

Thank for the info

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  • 3 weeks later...

Flow guide valve:

FlowGiuideValve_zps6419db39.jpg

Notice the three letters on the valve, "A", "F", and "C"?

"A" goes to the Air cleaner.

"F" goes to the Fuel tank, or actually to the vapor separator.

"C" goes to the Crankcase.

 

I do not know of a source for the tie rod boots.  It is possible tie rod boots for an early 620 might fit.  Many parts for the 620 are the same basic size as 521 parts, but are measured with metric dimensions, and 521 parts use imperial dimensions.

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Thanks Daniel..C

 

The boots on my tie rods are disintegrated. The tie rods are fine though.

 

On a side note....I did at one time find an online copy of "how to keep your l series Datsun alive"

 

Finding the book is not easy. Does anyone have a link to the online version, my searches through my history have not been successful.

 

Thanks

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Worked on mounting the pathfinder alternator today.

 

It looks like it will fit nicely without having to go with a zx water outlet.

 

A good lesson on not all of these Ratsuns are the same.

 

The original mounting bracket had a nut welded on the inside of one end. I needed to grind that off to fit the new alternator. I will need 1 washer as a spacer for the final mount.

 

I mounted it up to line up the new v groove pulley. I used the ruler from my combination square. On end it fit in the 2 v grooves between the crank and fan pulley just right on my engine. A small amount of slop, but a great way to measure how far out the new alternator pulley was. You can just make out the edge in the pic. I needed to move the alt back 9mm.

 

20161002_124529_zpstvh0zzsg_edit_1475462

 

20161002_124606_zpsdwuiubt3_edit_1475464

 

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To make the adjustment I am elongating the

Bracket holes. I don't think it will move considering the direction of force being perpendicular to the bracket. If it does I will fill the holes with weld and re-drill.

 

Some work on the drill press and some shaping of the holes and it worked great!

 

I now have the bracket back off again and painting it up.

 

The tensioner bracket fit as well amazingly. Maybe some minor mods to get it perfect.

 

I will post more pics when I have all mounts in again.

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  • 2 weeks later...

My original tie rod boots had disintegrated I found an original set of oem... $88 for the 6 of them was too much though.

 

I found an alternative. Energy suspension

20161015_094920_zps5iywfayf.jpg

 

I prepped and painted the steering link and the idler arm as well as the clutch,brake and gas pedals

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Here is one of the boots fitted on the tie rod

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$5 a pair.

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sweet thread. don't know if u got the carb situation figured out (i skimmed through) or if someone already suggested it, but if it's in the budget I recommend just getting a weber 32/36 dgv carb. 

 

great progress, and hope your son enjoys it.

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Thanks Skyblue,

 

I picked up a Weber pretty cheap. Yes it is an original Weber. Its on the shelf for when we get back to the engine work. Doing the interior first. We welded up some panels on the floorboard holes this weekend and will pain it soon with KBS rust encapsulating paint to give all areas some protection. Not to restoration level, but functional.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I just go to the wrecking yards and look at all the vehicles with big doors, I check every seal till I find what I need, mid/late 90s Mazda SUVs have what I want and they work great and are cheap.

  

The door seal I used on my 320 was from a Chevy truck.

Savages!!!

 

 

Why had I never thought about that? WTF?!

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  • 2 weeks later...

We got the interior sprayed on Monday. First attempt at doing any painting with mixing and syphon type sprayer. I set it up and the lad did it himself. Pretty good considering he has never done anything like that yet. A few runs on the back wall, but it is just to get looking fresh. Fun project.

 

i will post a few more pics once we remove the masking.

 

20161114_162611_zpsxq7adr43.jpg

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  • 2 months later...

It has been quite awhile since I updated the progress. We have been busy with the interior work mostly.

 

We painted up the interior door sills and the doors themselves. I let Jack do most of the painting. The paint we had might have been older from the PO. We learnt a bit about spraying and not having it run. We still had some runs that we will wet sand out. It turned out pretty decent. we cut the holes for the 6X9's he bought. We built the door cards and are going to cover them with 3M carbon fibre wrap. We used the same on the dash cap. For securing the door cards we are going to try using Rivnuts and Button head screws. The vinyl wrap shows every little bump so the plastic panel pushes would have showed up. The rivnuts are only as deep as recessed portions of the metal on the door, so I don't think there will be a clearance issue with the window mechanism.

 

 

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We installed the new headliner. I got the material on EBAY for $25. For now we just sprayed the existing one and laid it on top. It is looking good so far. It was easier than removing the old one and if it goes south we can redo it later on with new foam first. I used 3M spray adhesive 77. It looks nice and fresh now.

 

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521 Dash cap fix

 

We thought we would try to fix the dash we had currently and see how it goes.

 

The original had many cracks and was pretty beat up. I had seen a YouTube that a BMW guy redid his with "flocking"

 

Jack decided on the Carbon fibre look and we used the fill method from the flocking video to make it smooth for the vinyl wrap.

 

First we excavated the cracks a little so the foam had more surface area to adhere to. Then we filled the cracks with insulation foam.

 

20170203_151158_zps8tmrzd8d.jpg

 

I laid some masking tape loosely over each run of foam to push it down some.

 

After it dried I removed the larger excess with a knife. The next step was sanding it down to even with the dash surface. I also found some padded dash filler. I got lucky....the auto body supply place had it on the shelf for so long they just gave it to me. It is basically bondo that flexes a little.

 

20170203_152637_zpsgbldwrqe.jpg

 

It worked fairly well. I spread a layer of that over the foam and sanded again. In retrospect I should have maybe just used the bondo as the foam was still a little spongy in spots. It seems to have worked for now.

 

20170121_145437_zpsgrng7uee.jpg

 

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The vinyl wrap was a little tricky. I did have a heat gun on hand which was good. It does have a few wrinkles here and ther that are pretty small, but it is a huge improvement. We painted the metal vent grills and the ash tray as well.

 

 

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If this doesn't last then we will look to Ramzoom for one of his fibreglass dash caps. They look pretty sweet.

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