ace028

So after a few new tools and some garage reorganization, I finally did a little bit of work on the 510. Cutting down the intercooler with my new Swag Portaband saw table 🙂 This thing is pretty sweet. I splurged and went with Milwaukee brand saw and I got the miter saw guide, figured it would be helpful for future projects. Don't worry, I made sure to plug the insides before I cut. I did this so I could easily do a fit up. Untitled I put the radiator in there loosely to get an idea of the layout. Somehow I need to fit a a/c condenser in there. I wish I could find a long rectangular one to fit above the intercooler. Any thoughts? Another angle. I am glad I did the mock up. It really give me perspective of how it will look and work in the end and builds some motivation to see it come together. This build has been so long, but I am determined to finish. Life/work always gets in the way of these kinda projects. Still trying to decide on an exhaust manifold for it as I still have the steering gearbox. Id like a rack but I already have a complete setup with the original gear so I plan to use it as is, maybe later I can revise that. I am thinking ISR top mount, then have it re drilled to fit the T28 turbo. I really want to keep the stock turbo for now. I think it will provide more than enough fun for this little car. I still need to figure out a mounting solution for both IC and Rad that is best. I plan to likely keep copying Icehouse's layout. Makes the most sense to me, especially if there's an issue with them as they are easy to replace and mod vs. buying a custom expensive setup. Also requires me to practice with my new TIG welder 🙂

This weekend I was able to make some progress on the car. First I opened the tunnel up just enough to fit the trans mount on to the crossmember. I am using the TSR s15 mount that he supplied with his crossmember. He said the trans sits high up in the tunnel. I will have to definitely do some work on the tunnel when I pull the trans to have room to add more clearance here and there, it only needs it on the passenger side. Here you can see the mount is pretty tall. I double checked with Mario from TSR and he said it's good. Next I looked at Icehouses IC setup and made some measurements as I will be using the same Rad and IC setup. I cut and started to body work a lip into the hole to eventually match the factory one for the radiator. Here I was checking my work to see where I needed to open up a bit more. I will cut off the inlets and move them to be at 90 degrees with the intercooler, and make patch panels for the stamped holes on each side of the IC. It will look exactly like Icehouses when I am done. I will be out of town so I will have to wait a few weeks before I can finish working the IC and start to fab a mount for it. While I am here I will install some riv nuts for the front valance for easy of removal. I was also able to find why my bumper was a bit off. When I had it at a shop they welded the front bumper captive nut just a bit off, but its only 1/8 and I also noticed the bumper brackets inside the back of the bumper are a bit off and not perfectly center. I will prob have to slot the brackets a bit to compensate.

Well not a huge amount of progress, but progress nonetheless. For Black Friday I picked up an Eastwood TIG 200 AC/DC welder for when I mod my radiator, intercooler, and eventually make the charge pipes and exhaust. I started with an aluminum practice kit, definitely need more practice and learning on all the different settings and tungsten sizes and filler. I did this with 3/32 tungsten and filler. I think the welder was set too hot even though it was in the recommended range, I likely need to work on my pedal control. Then I filed the flat surfaces only and it don't look half bad. Next I traced the Datsport tunnel cover and trimmed out around it adding a 15mm space for a flange. Here I plan to use riv nuts to secure the cover for future trans removal. Likely seal with some kind of sealer. I still need to widen the tunnel a bit to clear the sensor on the side so I can put the rubber mount that Mario from TSR supplied with the trans crossmember I purchased from him. Seems like the rubber mount he gave me is a bit tall. Currently it's sitting on the member with only a thin block of wood until I widen the tunnel. Looks a bit scary but I think it was needed so I didn't install the tunnel cover and have a ledge under there from the only tunnel for any kind of debris to collect in. The cover fits great, I will flange the old tunnel to make a recess for the new one and body work it so it all fits snugly together. I had also received the engine brackets back from MadDat where they modified them to fit the OEM 510 mounts. The engine fits so much better now. I am wondering if I should use their trans mount instead of the TSR one. Any thoughts? Here it is next to its new roommate, a BMW M240i (because I love AWD). Its something fun until I eventually get the 510 running. I am hoping to push hard to make good progress this year.

I was researching and didn't want to spend thousands on rad and IC setup, so I saw icehouses build and thought that was way better and easier to replace if I ever damage it. Speaking of damage. The cam sensor cover thing had a part missing and was a bit gross inside. Removed the broken cover and found this nice clear one for a reasonable price. Cleaned up all the corrosion and reassembled. Next I turned my attention to the exhaust studs, I knew after removing the manifold that I would need to replace them as some of the nuts were stuck to the studs. I ordered up a set that had copper coated nuts for again a reasonable price. They even have the hex tips for easy installation these are going into the trash Nice new ones Holes thread chased and new studs put in for now. I will clean the surface later. Next I went about enlarging the trans tunnel hole to fit the 6 speed. (I will clean the surface rust later and treat it, probably means I need to hurry up and finish this car so I can have it painted) Little trim Set my Datsport cover over to see how it looks. I think I will actually cut much larger and use rivnuts to hold the Datsport cover on for easy removal of the shifter for later in its life. I will maybe make a flange so it sits nicely after a bit of body work. I still need to enlarge parts of the tunnel for clearance. Here I test fit the radiator. I used these m6 isolators that are 10mm thick. They keep the rad tight up against the core support with a few mm gap. I will prob use rivnuts in the support to mount the isolators to instead of nuts on the back side. I think it will be cleaner and easier to service later. The rad looks good in there. I need to order some more m6 bolts to hold the other corners of the rad as it's only mocked up with two bolts. Next I decided to remove my cheap knock off door locks and use some NOS 240Z ones I found and took them apart to rekey so all my locks now match with OEM locks and keys. I can now use my fancy kill switch key too 🙂 Slowly sorting through the lock wafers to find the correct ones to fit. There are 6 in each lock. Rekeyed and ready to be put back together. Don't mind the pink grease. It's my RC car grease, but it works great to rebuild these. All installed for now. I am really liking how it's all coming together finally. Still a lot to do, but the vision is coming full circle.

I have begun the mock up of the engine. I installed it from underneath by rolling it under the car and then lifting it up into position. Was actually pretty easy. a quick top view before it goes in, setting my tomei cover on for fun Side view before getting ready to put the engine in. putting the reversed crossmember on the engine with the OEM 510 mounts. And the engine is in. I need to trim the tunnel so I can get the trans mount bushing on as the trans is hitting. I have the Datsport cover. That will be this weekend likely Untitled The mounts only worked out using these bottom holes as shown below. drivers side passenger side (a bit hard to see but same lower holes as drivers side) The hood seems to close ok, but the hood prop bracket is pretty close. I think the engine can come down about 10mm as it has quite a bit of clearance from the crossmember. I see a lot of people had used truck mounts, are they shorter? I will probably send the engine brackets to MadDat to be modified for a little bit better fit. Otherwise I am very happy with seeing the engine in there. I know I have a lot of little things to buy for this now, to include turbo manifold options. I don't want to use the CX as I keep reading its trash. For rad and intercooler I am going to copy icehouse on his builds. Looks like a few modifications to the Koyo rad and the intercooler. The intercooler says it supports up to 500hp so that's about 200hp over my eventual goal of 300 but at this point I will be happy with whatever this engine puts out stock. Now its time to trim my trans tunnel and the front core support and begin to mock these things up.

Well I finally ordered the engine and it arrived while I was deployed so my friend put it in the garage for me. Today I unpacked it and put it on roller dollies for now. Next is to find a turbo manifold that will let the turbo clear the steering box. Any suggestions? Can't wait to get into it.

I need to find some. I have a NOS hood trim, but that will def wait until after paint to go on lol.

Took some time today to install my '68 grill, this is my fav grill.

I was lucky to get in on datsunrestomods recent axle production run. They fit perfectly in here. Underneath is starting to look amazingly nice, too bad it will not be seen. It will look even better after I undercoat the car. Forgive the messy garage, I am remodeling my house to be a rental and will move again in a few months (hopefully I will be there longer than a year) Next I have test fitted the freshly powder coated OEM headlight buckets with new plastic adjuster pieces. The headlights are from Dapper, I think they look amazing. Next I finally received new FutoFab bumpers, I didn't install the rear one yet. I will need to do some adjusting on the front to get it to sit perfectly level, and allow me to use my machined speed tow hook, which I will use later when I move to pull the car onto my trailer. If you haven't purchased from futofab, they are excellent and provided me with some good info and is very communicative. I will definitely purchase more items 🙂 !!! I also need to see how to move the bumper closer to the car as it needs to come back about 1".

I finally got some seats and had the original seat brackets modified to accept the narrower Sparco mounting pattern. I installed the seats and mounted my Momo heritage steering wheel. The passenger seat appears that the floor isn't as level as the driver side so I might need to shim the seat brackets to make the seat sit more level. The seats are Sparco R333. They are pretty comfortable, I am 5'8". I will have to see if a helmet will clear with them in the current position, I may need to somehow lower the seat or lean it back, but so far I think it will work perfectly.

I have contacted them, but of course denied it. There wasn't any floor or seat pan repair before. The floor pan repair is welded good, however I don't understand why where the pan meets the door sill instead of drilling the spot welds where it does a 90 and replace that part, instead they cut it butt welded. Seems ok, but likely many hours to weld that instead of a few spot welds aka more billable hours to charge me. You can sort of see what I mean here: http://i230.photobucket.com/albums/ee192/ace028/Datsun 510/15170947_1541264885890652_4476931139725864941_n.jpg

Thanks man. I am trying to get some progress on it. I hope to at least get it driving before I take it all apart to address all the little details before final assembly. I expect it will take me a couple years more with all the moving around and having available space to work on it.

It’s over the passenger rear seat pan. So from top it looks ok, but from below you can see they didn’t cut out the rust and just welded over the top. So now I have to find a seat pan or make my own and cut out the patch and weld a new one in. I won’t get to this for at least a year as I am going to go to more training and move again.

I just checked the box and unfortunately the guy that sold them to me off eBay cut off the part number on the box and wrote LH and RH in its place, SMH. I have aftermarket locks and it seems to be the Z design for some reason on the doors and trunk. I don't plan on using the lock for the ignition at this time, but to use a push button start in its place.

We'll I finally got around to doing just a small amount of work on the car. Since I was gone from the US for a while, I had the car in storage, I picked it up where I had it in Texas and brought it home to Arizona. This little car has been all over the US, sadly on a trailer. Hopefully one day it will have a journey under its own power. She will have another journey in about 6 months again across the US lol. Seat brackets back from powder coating along with the trunk springs. Question, I have read the posts about installing the springs, but maybe since I have a fiberglass trunk, its way too powerful and lifts the corner up while closed. Or I can install them where it just barely lifts it after unlatching it but won't hold it up. Any advice? Mocking up my side vents, just need to find some decent flaps from the original ones to transfer to these ones. I installed the beautiful diff cover on to my R180 LSD along with some ARP bolts. I repainted the diff with wrinkle black and it turned out better than I thought. Don't mind the overspray, I cleaned that of later. Cover installed with new bolts and torqued to spec Mocking up the billet mustache bar And installed into the car. I mocked up my trans mount from TSR. ********* So I also found a few things that I am really disappointed to find, check it out: A not so bad patch right? Look at this! I really wish I had inspected the car better before I picked it up, but as its on the bottom, it wouldn't have been easy to spot this. I can't believe I paid thousands for all the work done on this car and to find this kind of work. Makes me sick. Further, I find out the rear crosmember has the poly bushings installed, but no metal sleeve that goes in the middle, so when I try to torque the nuts, it just bends the large washer. I don't even thing this is the correct washer. Can anyone provide some advice to remedy this? Do I order new and what washer do I get? I have seen some poly bushings that have the recess for the stock style, while these bushings are flat, well bent because they can't seat against the metal sleeve because its not there. Thanks