"Zeke"- '72 510 2Dr

[Tedman]

Just got back from Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion in Monterey. All I can say is what an amazing weekend!  Zeke made the 800 mile round trip without a hitch! Drove up from LA with the West San Fernando Valley Datsun Club. We met up in West Hills where Dave hooked us up with these bad ass t-shirts.

 

We had three 510s, a Bluebird Coupe and a 620 PU make the trip.  L to R is Warren's flared 4 door, Zeke, Brian's Coupe, Josh's flared 2 door, and Dave's white rental car in the background. Chuck showed up shortly in his 620 PU, and we hit the road.

 

Gas stop in Santa Maria.

 

We stayed in Paso Robles Thurs night while the rest of the gang continued on to Monterey and vicinity, then we all met up again at Laguna Seca on Friday morning in the Datsun/Nissan car corral between turns 2 and 3.  With over 150 cars registered for the corral, I'd say less than 1/2 were there on Friday, but turnout was much better on Sat and Sun was huge! Here's A few pics from Friday.

 

 

 

By Sunday the Datsun corral was packed!

 

At the lunch break on Sunday, the Datsuns/Nissans got to do parade laps on the racetrack. They let us take two laps of the track which was awesome! The BRE 240Z led the way, followed by the Skylines, Roadsters, 510s and Z's. Here we are staging for the parade laps.

 

A couple of screen grabs from my GoPro from the parade laps:

 

 

Of course, there were plenty of Datsuns racing, and most of those were 510s.  We all went up to the Corkscrew for the big 510 race on Sunday afternoon. Troy Ermisch won the race in his copper colored B Sedan 510, and Taz Harvey came in 2nd in his orange BRE striped #51 510.  Here's Troy holding off the Lotus that was challenging for the lead until the driver overcooked turn 2 attempting a pass.

 

Taz Harvey rolling under the bridge to 2nd place.

 

The ex-Paul Newman 510 #75 made the race after blowing a head gasket in practice. It was a rare treat to see this 510 racing on the west coast.

 

 

Another pic from the race.  The #2 car was driven to an SCCA National Championship in 1983 by Dave Carkhuff.

 

There was plenty of eye candy on display in the paddock, too!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then there's the people. Peter Brock and John Morton were gracious as always, signing hundreds of autographs for us fans. Peter Brock and Steve Millen visited the car corral to check out our rides and sign more autographs. I also ran into so many people from the old Shasta All Datsun Meet days that it felt like a reunion. I think it's safe to say, a good time was had by all!

 

Edited September 8, 2018 by Tedman

[Tedman]

Zeke makes the drop at the Corkscrew:

[Tedman]

On the way home from Monterey I started noticing a light clunk in the LF suspension over sharp bumps. So yesterday I put the front end on jackstands and pulled the front wheels to check for a loose bolt or nut. It didn't take me long to find that the nut that affixes the LF shock insert shaft to the camber plate had backed off. Easy fix.  I hit it with my impact gun, and did the same on the right side just in case. The offending nut can be seen here, with the yellow shock rebound adjuster tab in the center.  

 

Now, one might ask, how the heck do you adjust the shock given the deeply recessed adjuster tab?  Well, the answer is that I had to have a special tool made. In this next pic, on the left is the standard Koni adjuster knob, and on the right is the special tool that Super Mario made for me. 

 

While I had the car up in the air with the front wheels off, I checked the tightness of all of the front suspension nuts and bolts and didn't find anything else loose. You never know after a fresh build...

 

So today being Labor Day and anticipating minimal traffic, I got up early and took Zeke out for his first ever canyon run.  I was really looking forward to testing out the suspension for the first time on the twisty canyon roads in the Santa Monica mountains. Unfortunately the weather and road conditions conspired against me. The cruise out to Malibu was uneventful, but once I turned off PCH onto Latigo Canyon Rd the fog and mist made enthusiastic driving treacherous. Things cleared up somewhat at the crest but then I encountered Mulholland Highway which was in the process of being repaved. The fresh asphalt was damp with mist and littered intermittently with gravel, not exactly optimum conditions. Once they finish repaving, it will be 510 driving nirvana, but not today.

 

Returning to sea level at PCH, I headed back south to Encinal Canyon Road, which was thankfully relatively dry and grippy, and Zeke ate it up until we got back to Mulholland where the dreaded foggy wet mist shrouded the run from the overlook down to the Rock Store. Happy to report that the Integra wiper motor conversion performed flawlessly on this section. Yes, I had to turn on the wipers!  I stopped for gas in Agoura (my old home town) then continued east on Mulholland to Malibu Canyon Road. This section of road was dry and clear and I was able to push Zeke closer to the handling limits than ever before. Wow! I think we have a winner here! 

 

Next up was Piuma Road, one of my favorites. Unfortunately it was shrouded in dense fog and mist at the upper elevations. I had to run the wipers, and slow to 25mph so as to not outrun my visibility. After a few miles of this, I turned around and went back down the hill, caught Malibu Canyon to PCH and headed home. 

 

All in all, we racked up another 156 miles round trip and confirmed that Zeke is no slouch when the roads gets curvy.  Zeke is averaging 21.6 mpg over the last 1200 miles. 

 

Next up will be the JCCS show in Long Beach in two weeks. Then I'm planning on taking Zeke on the SoCal TT rally in October.

[datzenmike]

On 8/19/2018 at 9:59 PM, Tedman said:

From my drive today. Had I been paying closer attention, I would have snapped a pic 3 miles earlier...

 

 

Same here I was reading 33-34 MPH to go 30 MPH almost exactly 10% out. Charlie69 found me a 22 tooth Orange pinion gear and a housing for it. I had a red 20 tooth in it at the time. 22/20=1.10 or 10% reduction in speed to drop the needle down to near perfect.

 

 

It was just the plastic gear so I had to cut up an old Blue one and press it on. But it works perfectly. I also had to slide it in carefully to avoid crushing the hears together. I have done the re-cutting of the key way at 180 degrees out on a zx pinion before for the Red tooth, but this one was almost 270 degrees.

[carterb]

Thanks for sharing the Monterey pics.  Looks like it was an awesome trip!

--carter

[shacks510]

 

 

 

[Tedman]

A few screen grabs from Motor Trend TV 's live coverage of RMMR on 8/26:

 

Zeke in good company on the track during the parade laps:

 

A 510er (Ratsun member?) keeps one hand on the wheel:

 

West S.F.V. Datsun Club members representin':

 

Link to Motor Trend TV broadcast:

https://youtu.be/za56boBkV_E

 

[Tedman]

Just got back from the Japanese Classic Car Show in Long Beach. Epic show! I didn't take any pics, figured they would be plastered all over the place in the coming days. However, my  buddy Guy M. sent me this cool pic he shot of us on track in Zeke during the parade laps at Laguna Seca.

Edited September 16, 2018 by Tedman

[Tedman]

Zeke at the "JDM at the ADM" car show at the Automobile Driving Museum in El Segundo CA on Sept 29. Thanks for the pic, Reuel!

 

Signed Zeke up for the upcoming SoCal TT rally, a 2-day ~750 mile tour of SoCal back roads for pre-'75 cars. This will be the first true test of Zeke's entire performance envelope. Monterey was about the same round trip miles, but all freeway. The TT will test all aspects of Zeke's capabilities- acceleration, braking, handling and durability. I've driven my SR 510 on this rally for 10 straight years but missed last year.  Really looking forward to this event!  Plenty of pics from past events here:

https://socaltt510.shutterfly.com/

 

 

Edited October 5, 2018 by Tedman

[Tedman]

Giving Zeke the once over today in preparation for the upcoming SoCal TT run, I noticed that the steering box had been leaking slightly from the filler/breather plug. It's a new plastic plug from New Datsun Parts. Why would a new plug be leaking? I decided to remove the plug to check the oil level (still full), and the damn plug head broke off while I was removing it! WTF?  

 

 

By jamming a screwdriver into the remnant I was able to remove the broken off piece from the steering box cover. Since there wasn't going to be enough time to get a replacement before the TT run, I pulled the factory steel/plastic plug from my other car and installed it. The odd thing is that it would only thread in so far before getting really tight. Normally the plug should thread in all the way and bottom against the top of the steering box cover. This is as far as I felt comfortable threading it in. You can see that there's still a few exposed threads:

 

Looks like I'll be removing the steering box brace and cover,  and chasing the threads with a tap. Galled threads are the likely the root cause of the leaking and broken plastic plug. I'll run it like this for now though, so I marked the plug head so I can tell if it starts to back off during the run.  Too bad the steel/plastic breather plugs are NLA. 

[datsunwizard]

I seem to remember the McMaster-Carr had a brass breather plug that would work.

[datsun510]

Quote

I have a new plastic breather plug I can bring tomorrow.  Let me know.

 

[Duke]

This car is the epitome of a tastefully modified 510.  I really like all of the attention to detail on the car.

 

As far as the steering box breather goes, I seem to recall that the threads were tapered pipe threads.  When I had a steering box in my car, I used a NPT to AN threaded adapter with a short pigtail of stainless tubing on the end to allow the fluid to expand without spilling.  With the stock breather in place I found that there was always a bit of fluid weeping out.  This also won't melt like the stock plastic one when the headers get hot!

[Tedman]

Looking at the factory steel plug, the threads do look slightly tapered like pipe thread. A while ago I ordered this one from McMaster Carr:

9847K13 Breather Vent, Zinc-Plated Steel, 3/8 BSPT Male $2.59 ea

 

 

The shank is ~5mm longer than the stock plug, and it looks like it will interfere with the steering box internals if threaded in all the way.  I might try to cut it down to fit. I haven't looked to see if there's a shorter version.  At any rate, I tried threading it in, but it hangs up at about the same depth as the stock metal one. My conclusion is that the last few threads in the cover are probably jacked up.  

 

 

[Tedman]

Happy to report that Zeke not only survived but performed flawlessly on the SoCal TT run through the San Gabriel, San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountains last weekend. We haven't had significant rain in SoCal for 6 months but thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Sergio, we got doused all day on day 1. On top of the wet weather, we also had to deal with mud, rocks and dirt washed across the roads in many sections from the thunderstorms that passed through the night before. We had to use the wipers and defroster often, and the heater helped keep our thin So Cal blood warm in the cold mountain air. Fortunately the weather cleared out and day 2 was sunny blue skies and dry roads. 

 

Meetup at a coffee shop in Silverlake to start the rally under gray clouds and drizzle. Quite a variety of cars on this run. Kudos to the open top cars that made the run!

 

 

 

 

 

Over the course of the day Zeke took a rock to the windshield and it left a mark. We had already dodged a cooler that slid off a pickup truck on the way to the meetup, and a deer that darted across the road on Angeles Crest.  

 

Parking lot of the hotel in Desert Hot Springs, morning of day 2. We had a fantastic meal at the Mexican restaurant nearby the hotel to celebrate surviving day 1, and this was the scene of much bench racing as the night progressed, complete with fireworks and burnouts. 'Nuff said.

 

 

The town of Desert Hot Springs has seen better days. So had our hotel. It was run down, but rooms were cheap and no one hassled our group despite the alleged shenanigans of the previous night. I mean, when is the last time you stayed in a hotel room with tagged furniture?

 

As I mentioned, day 2 dawned warm and clear. We made our way down through Palm Springs and back up into the San Jacinto mountains to Idyllwild. Here's Zeke with Shack's 510 off Highway 243 on the descent to Banning.

 

Lunch stop off Hwy 38 on the way to Big Bear on day 2 before cresting Onyx Summit, elevation 8400' above sea level.  Video exists of the black Miata doing donuts  in the mud on Day 1.

 

 

911E for breakfast, 911T for lunch...911S for dinner? 

 

 

This guy in the Triumph TR6 gets the Lucky Dog award. He ran out of gas about 500 yards down the road and got pushed to the gas pump by some guys in a jeep that stopped to check out the nice Triumph on the side of the road. The devilish gas price turned out to be downright evil as the pumps were locked and there was no gas to be had. He managed to find a jug and a few fellow rallyists filled it from their tanks with electric fuel pumps and he got enough to make it into a filling station in Big Bear. 

 

The run from Big Bear back over highways 18 (aptly named "Rim of The World"), 138 and Angeles Forest Hwy were some of the best of the rally with little traffic and clear, dry, debris free pavement. I pushed Zeke to the limit on this stage and had a blast! Here we are at the intersection of Mt. Emma and Angeles Forest, wearing a lot more dirt than shows up in the photos.  

 

 

After descending back into LA on Angeles Crest Hwy everyone met up again at Purgatory Pizza in East LA for a final farewell meal hosted by the event organizers. Already looking forward to next year!

 

Edited October 16, 2018 by Tedman

[shacks510]

Here’s another photo on the ascend Angeles Crest, when the cars were still somewhat clean.

[edekalil]

Digging the oics and info. Thanks and very very nice 2 door 510. My favorite.

Edited October 20, 2018 by edekalil

[Tedman]

That's a nice shot, Shack.  Thanks for posting.

[Tedman]

I've had this Nissan Motorsports strut brace hanging on my garage wall for many years since it didn't fit in my SR 510. I didn't think it would fit with the L20b in Zeke, either, since it was designed to fit in 510s equipped with the shorter L16/18 engines. Turns out I was able to make it work by shimming it with a few washers. I stacked two 10mm washers under the strut brace on the inner strut mounting studs, and single washers on the outer studs.  There's now ~1/8" clearance at the cam cover, and no interference with the hood which I verified with some strategically placed gobs of clay.  It kind of puts a finishing touch on the engine bay. Stoked! 

 

 

[Tedman]

I've had this BRE remote filter block adapter and Traco remote filter mount sitting on my shelf for too long, so in keeping with Zeke's subtle BRE-style theme, I decided to go ahead and install them. 

 

The adapter block is actually a re-issue commissioned by Don Oldenburg at Design Products (DP Racing). Don had made a batch of these re-issues back in the late '90s. BRE has since made him remove their logo, but you can still get the same style without BRE logo from DP Racing. You can tell the difference between the re-issues and originals by the orientation of the cast BRE logo, which faces the opposite direction on the originals.  As for the filter mount, I bought it from Nissan Motorsports about 15 years ago, but it is the same Traco part as used on the original BRE team cars back in the day. In fact, you can still buy them from Aviaid:

https://aviaid.com/shopsite_sc/store/html/traco-remot-fil-mnts.htm

 

Here's the inspiration, the BRE #46 510 at Monterey last summer:

 

I've opted to go with all black anodized hose fittings under Zeke's hood because, although not period correct, I just think they look better.  Here's most of my parts getting ready to  install. Still waiting for the rest of the hose ends and the hose to be delivered from Summit, but thought I'd get started with the install. The blue  -8  to 1/2NPT nipples installed in the BRE adapter block are remnants from a previous setup and will be replaced with the black -10 Aeroquip nipples.  The Fram Racing HP4 filter fits the 13/16"-16 thread (Chevy app) on the Traco  mount. The HP4 filter feels like it's about 50% heavier than a stock Nissan filter of the same size, thanks to heavier steel construction giving improved anti-burst properties.   

 

The BRE adapter block with the new -10 nipples installed and a 90 degree swivel hose end temp installed on the output. 

 

I drilled the Traco mount Flange for mounting to the inner strut tower, and positioned it to allow enough room below to unscrew and change the filter.  I have an oil temp gauge to fit in the top port, but not quite ready to mount another gauge in the dash so it will be plugged for now. Test fitting the filter mount:

 

That's as far as I got today. Once I receive the hose and fittings I look forward to finishing up this install!

Edited January 5, 2019 by Tedman

[Tedman]

Well, this little project is taking way longer than I had expected.  First of all, I accidentally ordered the wrong hose ends.  I realized this when I opened one up and it had an extra part- an "olive". Good thing it was packaged with instructions.  It soon became clear I wasn't dealing with your typical Earls hose end that I'm used to. Nope. This was an UltraPro hose end. After reviewing an assembly video on You Tube, I confirmed that it requires the use of UltraPro hose.  At ~ $25/ft vs. the standard $10/ft Perform-o-flex hose, I wasn't willing to step up to the UltraPro (which comes in minimum 6' lengths), so I had to order all new hose ends and will be returning the UltraPro stuff. Oddly enough, they are about the same price as the regular ones. Go figure. Anyway, here's a pic comparing an UltraPro hose end with the "olive" versus the regular hose end below.

 

 

The next thing that held me up was the o-ring that seals the BRE block adapter to the block. The old one was still pliable but had gone square, so I figured it would be best to replace it.  Unfortunately Don at DP Racing initially gave me the wrong part number, which I ordered from McMaster Carr. Turns out I needed a 3/32" -147 (below at right), not the 1/8" -231 (at left), thus I had to reorder. I should have just driven down to DP Racing  (~25 min) and got the right one from Don, but I was too lazy. I now have a 10-pack of 1/8" -231 O-rings, and 9 spare 3/32 -147s on my shelf.

 

 

The balance of my hose ends arrived yesterday, so with all the necessary parts finally on hand, I thought I could bang this out this afternoon, no sweat, right?  Uh, no. First order of business was to replace the oil filter with the BRE remote block adapter. What should've been a 15 minute task turned into a real head scratcher. For some reason the BRE adapter would not seal to the oil filter boss. When fully threaded onto the stock oil filter nipple, the steel inner sleeve (shown below the BRE casting in the pic below) was not allowing the casting to fully compress the o-ring and seal to the filter boss. I tried it on another L20b block and it fits fine, so not sure what's the problem on this one. It's like the oil filter nipple is too long or not fully threaded into the block. I'm pretty sure it's threaded all the way as there's no threads exposed on the block side of the nipple, and if it could thread in farther I would have expected it to turn when I torqued the hell out of the steel BRE adapter thinking it was not threaded on all the way.  I'm thinking I may need to remove the oil filter nipple and grind off about 1 thread. Gonna have to sleep on this one.

 

 

It was getting towards dinner time, but I decided to temp install the BRE block adapter and get on with making hoses. Got one done, but not sure I'm happy with it. Might need to remake it a little longer as the bend going into the straight fitting a the BRE block looks like it might be smaller than the minimum bend radius of 4".  It looks better in person, though. The nipple on the BRE block is offset forward from the 90 at the filter mount by about 1", so that little S-bend, which you can see in the second pic, tends to exaggerate the apparent curve in the first pic. I might try rotating the BRE block CW which would tend to bring the fittings more in line.

 

 

 

So, I have also realized that I need a couple of new tools to finish this little project:

1. A new fine tooth hack saw blade for cutting hose 

2. A sharper pair of diagonal cutting pliers (dykes) to clip the small frays in the stainless steel hose sheath after sawing (finger piercing wires of bloody pain!)

 

Stay tuned...

Edited January 13, 2019 by Tedman

[Tedman]

Got my hoses finished.  Remade the forward (block inlet) hose 1/2" longer and now it's a nice smooth curve. The front hose length ended up being 7 1/2" and the rear 10". That is the raw cut to length hose before installing the hose ends.

 

 

Rather than use a hacksaw to cut the hose, I tried my Dremel Saw Max cutoff wheel and that worked bitchen. I had previously purchased a hose cutting plier figuring that would be the easiest, but I wasn't happy with how it deformed the hose and how much force it took to make the cut. The -10 hose barely fit through the fully open jaws, and now with the lever arms so far apart I had to put one handle on the ground and lean on the other to get enough leverage to make the cut.  It made less fraying than the hacksaw but crushed the hose down too much for my taste.  The Dremel cutoff wheel took about 2 seconds and made a nice clean cut. Here you can see the tools, and then a closeup of the test cuts by method from L to R: cutting pliers,  hacksaw and cutoff wheel. 

 

 

Now I need to deal with the oil filter nipple on the engine block, which is sticking out too far by about 1 thread and preventing the BRE adapter from sealing to the oil filter boss on the engine block. Figuring I'll have to remove the nipple from the block and grind it down so I purchased a couple of 3/4-16 jam nuts at the hardware store. Now I can remove and reinstall the nipple without messing up the threads with vice grips.  Here's an old nipple with the jam nuts threaded on. This one's obviously been abused.   

 

Once I fix that, I can clean everything up and install it all for real with a full oil filter, and then pray that nothing leaks when I fire up the engine.  

[DARIN 510]

Hey what spark plug wires are those ? 

[Tedman]

13 minutes ago, DARIN 510 said:

Hey what spark plug wires are those ? 

NGK. Not sure where you can get the translucent blue ones like these anymore. 

[datsunfreak]

13 hours ago, Tedman said:

NGK. Not sure where you can get the translucent blue ones like these anymore. 

 

Sadly, they quit making them about 10 years ago. They only offer the blue silicone version now. Gonna have to find an NOS set if you want the semi-transparent version.

 

Still looking for a set myself...