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"Zeke"- '72 510 2Dr


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This would be my build thread for "Zeke", a '72 2door 510 formerly owned by Randy York. Randy passed away last year (RIP, my good friend). Randy was the founding and only president of UFO SoCal. I'm honored to have the opportunity to complete this build. Oh yeah, I nicknamed the car Zeke because the original owner's name was Ezekiel, this according to the original warranty booklet that came with the car. Ezekiel took delivery of his new Datsun 510 from Downey Datsun in March of 1972.

 

A few pics from when I brought it home:

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The car had been painted approx.10 yrs ago and shows some shop wear. Bumpers were re-chromed and polished up nicely:

 

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No front seats, but door panels and rear seats are nice:

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Flat towing the car home the LF tire delaminated and blew a hole in the driver's side floor (major bummer!):

 

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Bought a new floor from Mark Grimsley and will have it welded in to fix that mess. Fender also got bent out of shape. Have a NOS fender for it though...

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Stuff I've done:

 

Painted quarter window frames:

 

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Replaced painted door handles with chrome:

 

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DP Racing Steering Box Brace. Randy had installed hood lift kit. Camber plates are super rare Project Mu:

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Got the fuel tank boiled out and installed:

 

 

 

 

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New steering linkage with Experimental Engineering Idler Arm bushings:

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DP Racing LCAs, Futofab adj. T/C rods, DP Racing bumpsteer spacers and new ball joints:

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Trimmed rear control arm backing plates to fit Z drums:

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Melted out the rubber bushings with a propane torch. Made for a rad pic, but super messy. Opted to get some help pressing out the bushing shells.

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Cleaned and painted rear control arms:

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Cross member came back from DP Racing with adjustable toe and camber mods and 3" exhaust hole. Scrubbed and painted:

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Will be running urethane crossmember insulators from Top End Performance and Prothane control arm bushings from Ermish. Conventional wisdom is that urethane rear control arm bushings bind in an adjustable crossmember (true) and wear rapidly (depends), but I've had the same setup in my SR car for 15 years (not a daily driver) and they seem to be holding up just fine. 

 

The bushing kit:

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Some other progress I've made lately- mounted the low pressure electric fuel pump (AC Delco EP42S) behind the back seat under the tank with 1/4-20 riv-nuts. This pump works great with SUs or Mikunis without a pressure regulator.

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Refurb'd heater core came back from the radiator shop:

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Cleaned up the grille and headlight surrounds:

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This car will be getting an L-Series motor and ZX 5 speed. Was wondering how much I will have to cut the tranny tunnel. Turns out, not much since it was originally a floor shift automatic.  End of tape shows where shifter will be. Looks like just a little bit of cutting required to open up the hole for the shifter.  

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Day/Night rear view mirror from a '90s Maxima bolts right in!

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Near term goal is to get the front and rear suspension installed so I can put it on wheels and get it to my friend's shop for the floor repair...

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With the rear suspension out, took some time to scrub/degrease with Simple Green and then painted with this stuff:

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Most of the underside had already been undercoated/painted except for the tranny tunnel (will address later) and this area above the rear suspension. Just found some minor surface rust on some of the few remaining exposed sheetmetal surfaces. Now the whole area is protected.

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Today I assembled the semi-trailing arms to the rear crossmember.  This was harder than it looks. It is a close fit to get the arms with the new bushings into the ears and then aligned to get the bolts to go through. Much prying and persuading. I also had to spread the ears a tiny bit so that the bushing sleeves would fit, but it all eventually came together.  Installing the arms with the crossmember on the floor certainly made the job easier.

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Just need to install the e-brake cables and then the crossmember assembly will be ready to install.  The mustache bar has new urethane bushings installed, R-160 4.38 LSD diff and half-shafts have been cleaned up, and shocks are waiting to go in, so with any luck I should have all that installed tomorrow. Then I can assemble the rear brakes and the rear suspension will be done!   

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Spent some time this afternoon working on the rear brakes. Original brake adjusters were serviceable, so I cleaned 'em up, greased and installed 'em. Glad they were still good since new replacements have gotten pretty pricey lately.  Also installed the wheel cylinders. For some reason I keep forgetting to order the rear linings from Porterfield. :blush:  

 

Also got the rear sway bar installed.  Can you spot the difference from the last pic above?   ;)

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While waiting on brake linings, will probably move on to installing the new brake and fuel hardlines.  Really looking forward to finishing up underneath the car as all of this crawling around on the floor is getting old! 

  

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Been doing some plumbing.  Here's the custom TSR fuel line running under the passenger floor. It is held in place with 5/16" Adel clamps. I installed riv-nuts to accept 1/4-20 cap screws to affix the clamps to the floor (haven't yet taken the time to clean and paint that scuzzy tranny tunnel, but it's on my to-do list!):

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Custom TSR rear brake line runs under driver's floor and is held in place with 3/16" Adel clamps, riv-nuts and 10-24 cap screws:

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Here you can see the rear brake line running down the firewall and under the floor at the rear of the frame rail. You can also see the LF brake line which runs down behind the steering box and along the frame rail forward then wraps under the frame rail behind the crossmember to the wheel well. Lines couple to the brake and clutch masters using banjo fittings:

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Hard lines terminate in AN -3 fittings in the wheel well. No more rusty clips!  I'm having custom braided SS hoses made to go from the -3 fitting to the calipers:

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View showing the master cylinder plumbing. RF brake line and clutch hydraulic line run under the drip rail across the top of the firewall. Brake master is a 13/16" HL510/810 unit, and the clutch master is stock 510.

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Here you can see the clutch and RF brake line running across the top of the firewall and down to the frame rail. RF brake line runs up right frame rail and wraps under similar to the LF line. You can also see the fuel line termination which looks like it will be on top of the brake lines but will actually run adjacent to them once I work out the fuel filter location and hose routing.

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Porterfield rear shoes should be delivered tomorrow, so I should be able to finish up the rear brakes, and if I'm lucky I might receive my brake hoses and get those installed tomorrow, too! 

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Thanks. I can't take credit for the line routing, though.  The TSR brake line kit comes with the lines all pre-formed, and the fit is excellent. I will, however, take credit for figuring out where they all go since there were no instructions and I had never seen them installed on a car. :huh:   

 

In other news, took delivery of the Porterfield R-4S pads and shoes this afternoon and was able to finally complete the rear brakes.  I wasn't quite sure which shoe was fore and which was aft as they weren't marked, and it wasn't clear from the '73 510 FSM.  I ended up following the directions in the How To Keep Your Datsun Alive book, which is usually a pretty safe bet. Here's a couple pics:

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Now I have a functioning e-brake so I can roll the car out into the driveway without having to rely on wheel chalks to keep it from rolling out into the street! 

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Received 3 of 4 brake hoses yesterday. Vendor needed some additional info on the RR hose, so that one is lagging. Front brake hoses with -3 AN at hardline junction and banjo fitting at caliper:

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Final installation of the LR line and hose:

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...and here's the RR lines at the junction tee.  Line from BMC comes in at the banjo fitting.  Line opposite goes over diff to LR brake.  -3 nipple awaits RR hose installation.

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Still looking for a set of 280ZX struts and hubs to complete the front suspension. Eagle Rock swapmeet is tomorrow, so maybe I'll get lucky...

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A few miscellaneous things:

Finally found a steering wheel nut (M16 x 1.5) and star washer at a local Torrance hardware store known for having an amazing selection of metric nuts and bolts (Ace Hardware on Carson Street, used to be Lovelady Hardware). This after an unsuccessful venture to the local Pick-A-Part yards looking for same. This store is one of the last remaining real hardware stores in LA that somehow managed to keep its unusually deep inventory of fasteners despite being taken over by the Ace Hardware chain. I've got the crusty stock steering wheel on there for now...

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Here's the Formuling France wheel I plan to use on this car, a NOS eBay purchase. I already had the adapter and Datsun horn button from a worn out FF wheel I ran on my other 510 for many years.

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Lastly, installed a 240Z door grab handle as a "chicken strap" above the passenger side window. Many may not be aware that the captured nuts exist under the headliner in most, if not all 510s, on both driver and passenger sides, as well as for the back seat passengers above the 1/4 or rear door windows. 240Zs, 710s and S10 200 SXs all had grab handles that will bolt in.

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Scored a pair of 280ZX struts at the Eagle Rock swap meet today. Stoked! Stripped 'em down and degreased with Simple Green when I got home this afternoon. Now I can have the ZX perches shaved off and the steel DP Racing coil-over sleeves welded on. Still need to find a set of hubs, though...

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Filed under miscellaneous boring little parts I've been looking for, today I also found a brake master pushrod/clevis and rubber boot for my 13/16" brake master cylinder (Thanks, James!). Bought the BMC new but came with neither of those pieces. Also got a line on an e-brake return spring from a friend I met up with at the meet. Somehow mine got stretched beyond usefulness. Still need another stainless headlight ring, and the heater/blower flapper vent assy.    

 

All-in-all it was a good day. I'm really glad I went to the swap meet.  

 

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A few comments on why I chose the 13/16" brake master. Simply put, I like the pedal feel on my SR car with 280ZX front brakes and stock rear drums. This seems to be a good compromise between stock 3/4" and the 280Z 7/8". One obvious difference is that the bleeders are on the fender side. So what? How often do you bleed the BMC? And when you do, just stick a hose on the nipple and drain where convenient. Here's a pic of the BMC:

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The only issue is that you need to use a plunger rod boot without a flange since there's no provision for the flange on the 13/16" BMC. Here's a side by side with the stock 510 3/4" BMC on the left.

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The flangeless "Tokico" boot fits perfectly:

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So there you go...

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I noticed in an older photo of a rear brake install on my other 510 that the shorter "single" spring was at the top and the longer "double" spring was a the bottom. This is opposite of how I installed them on this car (see pic in post #15). Sure enough, the FSM confirmed that I goofed. So today I had to pull the drums and rectify the situation. Just goes to show that it's always good to double check the FSM. Now they are correct:

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While I've been waiting on front brake parts to come in, turned my attention to the heater assy which was missing from Zeke. I had sourced a blower and heater core from the Eagle Rock swapmeet, and had the core refurb'd at a local radiator shop:

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Recently I was able to acquire the original heater/blower assy from Zeke. Unfortunately the core outlet is on the passenger side vs. the unit I had sourced. Here's the blower assy and you can see the pipe from the heater core on the left. Reference the previous pic, you can see there is no provision for the core pipe on the left side.

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Here's a side-by-side of the two types of heater core:

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Unfortunately the original core leaked. Here's my test apparatus:

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And here you can see the foamy leakage above the capped inlet tube:

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My plan is to use the refurb'd core and appropriate heater blower assy, which is actually in much better shape than the original.  

 

I still need to source a heater valve. The original one leaks. For the hell of it I disassembled the heater valve. Here's a pic of the disassembled valve. Note that I had soaked the tubing in vinegar for a few hours before this photo. They really clean up nicely after the vinegar bath:

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Here's the plunger assy which has three rubber seals which harden over time and leak:

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And here's the plunger assy blown apart to show, from R to L: c-clip, piston, rubber seal, washer, c-clip, washer, rubber seal, plastic ring, rubber seal, plunger cap, metal rod.

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I've got a tentative line on a replacement valve, keeping fingers crossed...

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You really should use the spherical bearings in the trailing arms with the DP adjustable crossmember. Urethane bushings are fine if the crossmember is stock and you aren't adjusting camber/toe. The bushings need to give when adjusting camber, and that's when normal bushings start to bind. Same deal when dialing caster using adjustable tension rods. I'd be surprised if you could even move the trailing arm with urethane.

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There is an entire thread dedicated to the rebuild or replacement of the 510 heater valves. In it are two modern part numbers that could be fairly easily retrofitted in to a 510.

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