Rat Van

I am hanging onto most of my stuff at the moment as you neer know when you'll need another grille. But I will keep a lookout. A grille will set you back around the $50 mark but it's the postage that will eat you up. At Holinger we send gearboxes to USA and Europe frequently so I may be able to get a reasonable price on freight. I'll look into postage this week.

THeres not too much to add at the mo as I have been cleaning like a coke mad house cleaner. Not that you would ever notice in my garage. It's an absolute dogs breakfast at the moment. I've removed most of the dangerous sh1t and expensive to break stuff also and took some pics of the collection. I thought you guys might enjoy as some of the stuff between countries is so different. My carby collection. It looks a bit like an evolutuin! My spare gearboxs My steering wheel collection. And finally the grille collection. I am still on the crossmember mods so I will do a little photo shoot as the progress goes so everyone can see what goes on.

The 180B has long since perished. It was flogged out with rust. A dodgey patch on an old vinyl roof. It generously donated an engine and lots of return dosh $$$ for the blue 120Y daily to get going. Now however I just got rid of another stanza which has generously donated a whole driveline consisting of a warmed over L20 with 45dcoe weber and R30 stumpy 5 speed and 3.7:1 diff centre amongst other things. There are currently2 and a half 120Y panelvans in the backyard at the moment, about 30 wheels of various types, 2 x L20's, L18 W block, A87 heads, Offenhauser 4bbl intake, 45dcoe weber setup, stanza strut setups x 2, more and more car parts, my box trailer and a tanderm car trailer and one Seriously Pissed Off Wife. I am not sure if I posted this one already but I'll put it up again anyway. The green van is the 2nd one I got, mainly for the doors and van inserts. Now it is in 2 parts. The front got dragged to the tip. Sorry about the murdered datsun.

The MPG at the moment is rubbish. I have to change a few things to make the engine more suited to lpg. I get around 17 litres to 100km with a little less power than when I had a 32/36 weber with the same engine and got approx 12 litres to 100km with at least another 10Kw. It has approx 55Hp at the treads. LPG in its natural state blends poorly with air so I need to modify my head ( I have another ported A87 in the shed) and a LPG specific cam and possibly a turbo setup if the $$$ allows. I should be able to tune it to get approx 15 litres to 100km but with near double the power by forcing the lpg to blend with the air and with only low boost. (around 8 psi) The engine conversion is legal as it meets all emission requirements being straight lpg and all the brakes come from a stanza so from the conversion point of view it is a stanza in a 120Y body. A bit like a transvestite but with more balls! The cross member is from a stanza and 120Y combined. I grind the mounts from the 120Y and drill the mounts of the stanza and re jig it up. With the new member I am going to drop the mounts bu 20mm so I have better bonnet clearance as well as nicer trans tunnell clearance. This is the crossmember from my sedan. I made it about 4 years ago in the old shed I had with lots more room. After I do the next one I think that engine mounts might become a problem to change. This is the lpg tank in the daily. 44 usable litres until I have to get out and push. The filler is in the origional position to neaten things up.

The little white looking job with the right angle outlet is the fuel filter.

I finally got around to getting some photo's. It's early stages yet and I am working on for a turbo setup for the daily . Trying to get parts together everywhere. I stripped out the engine bay and I have started on the crossmember for the L series in the van. And a shot of the shed. Stuff everywhere. What do you guys think?

I just realised i put up the wrong engine shot. The twin su's was the first setup I had. Then I went to a 32/36 weber setup. Then to LPG with a 55mm throttle body,. Now it runs a standard carby base with a impco 125 mixer. This is it's current motor. It's an L18 with a mild cam, A87 head, electronic dizzy, extractors, skyline stumpy 5 speed, 720 flywheel, h/d clutch etc etc. Thanks for the welcome guys.

Yeah, my missus is always telling me that the slang words I use confuse people sometimes. One of my favorite is the old classic 'Chuck a U'ey' Refering to a U turn. When typing for this forum I have to look back and make sure what I have typed makes sense. I have this old saying. "Never knock back a datsun." The memory will usually haunt you. Ironically, so will the missus for bringing home another bloody datsun!

To be honest I don't know how many were imported into Australia. They are a full import as they have no intrusion bars fitted to the doors saving abbout 25kg per door. All I have are rumours about numbers imported. Most people I have told about it haven't seen one or have seen one but it was 20 years ago. England got a few being a small van loving nation. No I didn't make the 'panels'. They are all ridgy didge. Straight from the factory. The bare metal van has trademark section cutouts for side glass for grandpa's who are scared of reversing with no vision. If you can't see it it won't hurt you I say. The panel van shares the same platform as the 2 door wagon but the window panles are not fitted and instead they have these flimsey thin panels welded in place. It's all a bit rough from the factory but it's light and cammercial only so good looks wern't an issue. The mags are my Achille's Heel. They are basically the same as your US Racing Rims. Only the dish isn't a deep, although you can get them fairly deep here for older cars. We call them Jelly Beans, like the lollies. Depending on the amount of holes we also refer to them as 'slotters'. I have the 6 slotters on the sedan in 14"x6" and I have a full compliment of 5 slotters for the Rat Van. 14'x7" for the rear and 14"x6" for the front and spare. Over here they were available in 4, 5, 6 and 8 slots. 5 being the most common and 6 beign the hardest to find. I'll attempt to take a few happy snaps of the bits and pieces I have laying around and a few before shots and post them up shortly. I see you gents have an ongoing love affair with the 620's and 720's. My dad had a 720 twin cab years ago when I had my first 510. On night we flat towed his mates F100 about 100km. When we turned up he said "What the fcuk are you going to do with that!" After we towed his truck home he couldn't live down the ribbing we gave him for his comments. This is the engine bay of the daily when I first put it together. Before I converted it to lpg. This is it's current setup which won't be there much longer. I am working on a twin su manifold converted to a plenum with a R31 skyline throttle body and lpg mixer. To go with some more port work and a bigger cam. This is a spare parts panel van which is now missing the bent front.

Hello guys. I'm the proud owner of several 120Y's, 1 sedan and 2 1/2 VB210 Panelvans. I have pretty much owned datsuns since 1990. My first datsun was a 510 and several 1200's over the years and after 10 years of searching I found a panelvan. It was the first one for sale in Melbourne since I started looking and I scoured the wrecking yards with no luck but since 2003 I've had panelvan #1 in the shed but it is a bit flogged. I have since found another 2. The orange van is the Ratvan and is starting construction at the moment. Lots of gathering old school bits. I am mad on L series and into different stuff. I like doing things old school. Not rough, just different. The daily is powered by a mild L18 on LPG. It's fairly neat and I haven't been pulled over ever in it. The bare metal van is the first one I found. The orange van is Ratvan. On the trailer coming home after I quit the Nissan dealership. If you guys are interested I'll keep you informed on the project. It's finally starting to make forward progress.

G'day. In Australia we have been setting up a simple lpg mixer setup for turbo diesels that only applies the lpg under boost. It dramatically increases power and you only have to run a small scuba style tank for it and you turn it in when you need it. It's mainly for towing purposes with heavy loads but even with a D40 Navara twin cab and no load it makes a considerable difference.

That reminds me of the movie 'Ford Fairlane' I love that movie. "Talking to Zoo Zoo Petals is like Masturbating with a cheese grater. Amusing but mostly painfull." G'day by the way. Another Aussie Datsun freak.