I arrived home from vacation yesterday (apologies for the lack of posts) to find a nice surprise waiting for me. Late last year I was contacted by Fast Fours magazine in the form of a feature offer, which I excitedly agreed to, and the finished product is now in my hands…

To say I am ecstatic would be an understatement. It was this very same magazine that made me fall in love with Datsun 1600s at the tender age of 12 years old, so to have my own car featuring in the same publication is a dream come true. Maybe there’s another 12 year old out there who will read this issue and decide a 1600 is the car of his dreams, too?

This issue hits the shelves on February 8th, so be sure to pick up a copy. You can also order it online via http://shop.magstore.com.au/product-p/ff61.htm

For a long, long time, I’ve wanted to clean up the Datsun’s engine bay. It definitely isn’t up to par in the aesthetics department compared to the rest of the car, and makes me hesitate to open the bonnet when people ask to take a look. I’ve always had specific plans for the look I want to achieve, but it would require removing the engine for a full do-over, hence the task being constantly shifted to the “too hard basket”. But the longer I left it, the longer it irritated me, so I came to a compromise; do a quick refresh with the engine still in place, removing all the parts that are easy to detach. Here’s how it went…

99% of the work was completed in one very tiring week after work hours, apart from a few things I did a long time ago, around when the Microtech was installed. Those few things included removing the airbox bracket, the original bonnet stay bracket, and moving the boost controller solenoid out of sight.

To the left of the image is the original and unused bonnet stay, 4 bolts and it’s off.

This image shows both the airbox bracket and the boost solenoid below it.

I found a couple of unused threaded holes behind the strut tower and bolted the bracket there, nice and discreet, and now there’s no wiring conduit snaking around the strut tower from the firewall.

With the two brackets removed and the solenoid banished to it’s hiding spot, we’re now up to date with how things started before the recent revamp.

My game-plan was to remove the intake piping, top radiator brackets, wiper motor, radiator overflow bottle, wiper water bottle, and rocker cover, then scuff up the paint, mask everything up, paint the bay, then paint and clean all the accessories as I re-fit them, and fit new plastic hosing for the radiator and wipers.

Here’s some detail pics of how things started out…

So with that, I started removing parts…

For the parts that I couldn’t remove entirely, such as wiring looms and the brake fluid reservoir, I utilised a handy trick I learnt from another build thread…

Aluminium foil makes a great masking material, then some string to hoist the item off the surface you want to paint.

I bought some scouring pads from an auto paint supplier to rub back the paint to a dull finish, ready to accept fresh paint. Rub/vacuum/wipe, rub/vacuum/wipe, etc, it was a tedious task but it had to be done, the better the prep, the better the finish will be.
New tubing for the radiator overflow and wiper fluid.

I started cleaning up the wiper motor and planned to mask it up and paint certain sections, but one thing lead to another and it ended up looking like this.

No, I’m not trying to protect myself from an alien invasion. It looks a bit funny, but it took a lot of time and proved to be very effective.

Seeing as I was doing all of this during winter in the evenings, I needed some assistance in the form of heat to help with the paint adhesion. This old girl really had some punch.

Fresh paint

After leaving it to set for a couple of days I began to unwrap my present.

Next up was the rocker cover, the central piece of the bay, the first thing you see.

Rubbed-back, masked up, and ready for paint.

I used the same painting technique as I did in the DIY I wrote up.

Again, the heater got put to good use.

While the paint dried, I went to polish up the bolts. To my surprise under all the dirt they were actually stainless, and all they needed was a wipe with prepsol to bring their shine back.

Once bolted back down, I gave the spark plug leads a clean, the above pic shows just the closest one done, you can see the slight difference.

I took the opportunity to clean and re-oil the pod filter while it was off the car.

The original 90 degree joiner on the throttle body was made of rubber and had the evidence of a slight split, so I replaced it with a more modern silicone item.

The exhaust manifold heat shield was looking very tatty, so I wire-wheeled all of the surface rust off it, then painted it.

I also cleaned up the bolt threads with a wire toothbush so they’ll be easier to bolt back in and remove at a later date, as we all know how often they can snap.

I etch-primed it, painted with wrinkle-black, and then used a high-temp clear coat in the hope of maintaining it’s appearance. I’m not holding my breath though, I expect it won’t look like this for very long. In hindsight I should have polished it.

On to the intake cross-over pipe, I always had this idea in my head that it would look good with black exhaust wrap, so I went ahead and did it.

Here’s the wiper water jet hosing in place, nice and new, much better than before. I also polished the circular metal bracket on the firewall to the far left of the image.

Here’s a before and after of the wiring mess behind the passenger-side headlight. Not perfect, but better than before.

Freshly painted radiator support, wrinkle-black brackets, and new hose for the overflow.

Cleaned and painted wiper motor. I wish I never pulled this thing apart, it was a real pain to put back together, the spring-loaded brushes are a nightmare.

The finished product. Considering the conditions I worked with, the short time frame, and low cost, I’m very happy with the outcome. Apart from what I’ve shown you, there was also plenty more cleaning, scrubbing, sanding, and painting. One day I’ll do a full engine-out, bare-metal overhaul, but until that day comes I can happily live with this.

Next update: Interior.

I was standing in the garage today, looking at my car with a bunch of the engine bay torn apart, planning in my head how I was going to document the activities in my next post. Then it struck me, I still hadn’t posted about the last thing I did; retrofitting an RB20DET gearbox to the FJ20. The FJ20 uses a 5-speed gearbox which has one niggling problem, they have a tendency to crunch when changing gears in higher rpm. Apart from that, there was nothing wrong with it, no whining noises, never hard to find a gear, never popped out of gear, but that didn’t stop me from upgrading when I learnt that the RB20 gearbox bolts up with minimal mods…

Even though I’ve described the modifications as minimal, it’s still far beyond what I’m capable of doing at home, so I enlisted the help of my mechanics. Excuse the camera phone images, I didn’t have my camera with me for this.

Up on the hoist, draining the oil from the standard box. My mechanics allowed me to spend a Saturday removing everything using their tools and facilities. Sadly I couldn’t be there to assist with the modifications and re-fitting, as it was done during the week while I was at work.

Gearbox, tailshaft, and exhaust removed.

A very important part of the swap is making sure that the two locating dowels on the engine correspond to the gearbox, as they keep both items aligned with each other. This is the lower one and it lines up without modification. As you can see, the clutch and flywheel have also been removed, the reason will be explained soon.

This is the upper dowel and it does not line up.

This is why we removed the clutch and flywheel, so we could get to the engine plate.

When researching the swap, I learnt that the top two bolt holes do not line up, and neither does the upper dowel. By bolting the engine plate to the RB20 gearbox using all of the lower bolt holes (which do line up) it acts as a stencil and shows us to see exactly how much to modify these 3 holes.

Mid-way during modification. The two bolt holes can be slotted, but seeing as the dowel hole is so important to get aligned correctly it was TIG’d up and re-drilled in the exact required location.

RB on the left, and FJ on the right. Naturally an RB25 gearbox would have been stronger, but they are also larger which equals tunnel massaging. An RB20 box is more than enough for my application and driving style, I have a lot of mechanical sympathy and don’t thrash my cars. Notice how nice and clean the RB box is? If you’ve already ‘liked’ the Build Threads Facebook page you would have seen me post a picture when I degreased it (that isn’t exactly a glowing advertisement, I promise I post more interesting stuff than clean gearboxes haha).

Pile-o-parts

Sucks to roll hard? It certainly does. That right there is the calling card of many speedhumps around Victoria.

Almost everything bolted back up. The crossmember had to be modified a bit more than I anticipated. I had read numerous times that the gearbox-to-crossmember mounting points were only 25mm away from the original, however it proved to be a bit more than that. The crossmember bolted to the floor using the existing holes.

The tailshaft originally had a dust cover, since the FJ box didn’t have one. But as the RB box has it’s own cover, one of them had to go, so we trimmed the cover off the tailshaft.

Now that I had a more modern gearbox, I had my pick from a large range of gearknobs. I settled on this white no-nonsense nylon item, but had to use a cheap generic one for a couple of weeks while I waited for it to be delivered. Once fitted, the difference was night and day, definitely the icing on the cake.

I’m very happy with the swap, I can make full use of the gears now and change smoothly at higher revs, the car is much more fun and easier to drive. The new gearbox makes a fair bit more noise than my original one which is a bit disappointing, but that’s the risk you take when buying something with moving parts that you can’t test first. Next on my list is to buy new bushes for the shifter and maybe replace the rubber in the mount.

So to conclude, here is a wrap-up of what was and wasn’t required to complete the swap.

Slot top two bolt holes, fill and re-drill top dowel hole.
Modify crossmember where it bolts to the gearbox.
Remove/cut dust cover from tailshaft.
Tailshaft did not have to be shortened or lengthened.
Speedometer drive did not have to be modified.
Existing clutch and flywheel were able to be re-used.
Very light trimming of shifter hole in floor.
No body/tunnel modifications.

Wow, I’ve just had a look through the archives and it’s been over 6 months since I posted an update on the Datsun, and over 12 months since the last real modification! See what having a mortgage does to you? Sad times indeed! Yesterday I made a post on the Build Threads Facebook page about the car, and it made me realise I was well overdue to put together an update. Well, a few things have been happened in the past few months, so let’s start from the top.

Earlier in the year I started to notice some veering issues in the steering. The car would pull to the right under acceleration, and then pull back to the left on deceleration. It was only subtle but far from confidence inspiring, especially at higher speeds, and it was always in the back of my head, preventing me from enjoying a good drive. Naturally, I started to search around the car for answers…

Poking my head underneath the front-end, the first thing I noticed was a split caster arm bush (and dirty chassis-rails, arrghh!), so that was the first thing to be rectified.

New bushes, noticeable lack of splits.

Old bushes, split-o-liscious.

Caster arm removed. I wrapped some tape around the thread to remind me where the rear adjustment nut was placed, in an attempt to maintain the alignment somewhat.

Greased up and reinstalled. Yes I cleaned the rails afterwards.

While the front end was up in the air, I wanted to attend to another issue that could have been affecting the behaviour of the car, a slightly loose wheel bearing.

First step is to admire your ugly rotors and slot a flat-head screwdriver between the dust cap, then pry it off.

Move some grease out of the way and you’ll find a split-pin holding a bottle-cap looking device in place, remove them both.

It always pays to have new split-pins on hand for reassembly, as they tend to break when you bend them back to remove them.

The nut is now accessible and ready for some tightening.

Always use a torque wrench and consult your cars workshop manual for tightening specs, or ask on a model-specific forum.

Did this fix my veering issues? Well, no, it didn’t, but upon taking the car for a test drive, a new problem kindly reared it’s head. The steering was now failing to re-center itself after turning a corner, I’d have to manually bring the steering wheel back to the middle position. Being an older car with a steering box, it never had the same amount of re-centering a rack & pinion equipped car, but now it wasn’t doing it at all. Asking for advice on forums, most fingers pointed to one of two suspects; either my idler arm bushes were shot, or my steering box was ready for the bin. The natural way to attack this was to try the cheapest fix first, the idler arm bushes.

Idler arm. If the bushes were old rubber items, there’s a good chance they’re due for replacement.

New poly bushes.

Idler arm unbolted and pushed down, revealing the bushes. They ended up already being poly items and in good condition, so the chances of them being the cause of the problem were instantly reduced. This is where I hit a speedbump; no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t get the damn things out, so I swallowed my pride, buttoned the car back up and carefully drove it down to my mechanic/tuner to complete the job. This ended up being a necessary move, as the new bushes didn’t make any difference and it was indeed my steering box that needed replacement. A refurbished item was sourced from the always helpful Datsport and installed by people with more skills than me.

The new steering box indeed rectified the re-centering, but my earlier veering issue was still apparent, definitely a bittersweet moment.

While I kept thinking of different reasons for the veering issue, (CV’s, bad alignment, diff, dud rear coilover?) I decided to pull apart my new pair of rims in preparation for their refurbishment.

I’d never disassembled a set of wheels, so I removed the bolts to make cleaning/polishing the face of the lips easier.

Thankfully, none of them snapped off. The threads are in great condition and still retain their shine, it’s just the heads that have deteriorated.

I threw them all in a tin of Coke, partially because I’ve heard it’s a good way to remove dirt, but mainly because I was bored.

A quick high-pressure wash and a scrape with some paint stripper didn’t net the results I was after. The white paint was really caked on, and the chrome plating was hard to remove. A stark contrast to the way my current wheels responded to a similar treatment.

They needed something harsher than my store-bought paint stripper, so after these pics were taken I palmed them off to a friend who let them soak in an acid bath for a while. Sadly, that still didn’t do the trick, but I haven’t bothered touching them since then, because a quick measure made me realise they’re 6.5″ wide, not the 7″ that they were advertised on Yahoo.jp as being, the risk you take when buying without being able to physically inspect. This means they’re exactly the same as my current front wheels, so I’ve shelved them for now and might use one as a full-size spare and the other as a hose reel in the future, we’ll see.

So to re-cap what’s happened so far, I’ve fixed a split caster arm bush, tightened a wheel bearing, replaced idler arm bushes, replaced a busted steering box, failed to chemically strip a pair of wheels that didn’t end up being the sizes I thought they were, and took way too many pictures in the process. Now, even though I love doing any form of mechanical work because it gets me out of the office, the above mentioned activities didn’t really have me standing back and saying “yeah, I just did work, son!” What I needed was a modification, and I needed it now.

I’ve had this fire extinguisher in the car for a while, but I’ve always left it in the packaging just behind the drivers seat, not very handy in an emergency. There are a few choice places for an extinguisher that I’ve seen before, mainly just forward of the passenger seat, or in the passenger footwell, but I had something different in mind.

I always thought a good spot would be between the seats on the transmission tunnel, nice and easy to access in a hurry, so I did a quick mock-up to see how it would look. Being a weekender (barely!), I don’t really have to worry about practicality, as I don’t ever have a passenger sitting in the middle of the rear seat. Plus it looks cool, ha!

The bracket is fastened down at two points.

And the unit clips in tightly. Now as stupid as this may sound to those reading who have the skills to complete much more technically difficult jobs than myself, the simple above mod had me grinning like an idiot. It only took about 10minutes and two screws, but the simple fact that I could stand back and see something on the car that wasn’t there before I started, well I just felt satisfied. I think, at its core, that’s what modding is all about.

While the modding bug still had a hold on me, I decided to tackle something that had been missing from the car since I bought it:  tunes. I know a lot of car guys say there’s nothing better than the music of your engine at full-song, and I believe that’s true, but I also believe it’s nice when you have the choice! Sometimes I like to put some beats on, drop the revs down, slot the gearbox into 5th, and just cruise along at a leisurely pace.

Que the audio shelf of the garage, boxes of left over parts I’ve accumulated over the years. Before I sold my S15, I removed the mp3/dvd/usb head unit + 7″ fold-out monitor, and they’ve been sitting on the shelf ever since. I decided to pull the head unit out of retirement, but the monitor can stay where it is, as I have no need for it in this car (it’s for sale if any local readers want it).

Sometimes you forget how much crap you have.

Ground wires, anyone?

I chose the factory location to be the new home for the head-unit. I know a lot of people will cringe at the thought of a modern head unit in a classic car, but I went for function over form on this one. Honestly, it’s not that bad, doesn’t stand out too much, and it’s easily accessible. The previous owner had stuck a thin piece of wood neatly over the hole, covered in black vinyl to blend in with the rest of the dash.

After prying it off, I found some stereo wiring waiting for me. Honestly, I can never sing the praises of the previous owner enough, I’ve been very lucky with this car, no nasty surprises and all the work carried out was done so to a high standard. Needless to say, wiring up the unit was going to be a breeze.

To give myself more room and accessibility, I removed the glove box lid and inner structure.

Working on old cars can be extremely easy at times. This is all that holds the glove box together, no hidden clips to play hide-and-seek with, no plastic to snap off, just a few easy to reach screws.

I was pleased to see how clean everything was back there.

I was pretty stumped with trying to make something to house the unit, I thought if I stared at it long enough it would magically fit itself. Luckily my dad was hanging around, and he whipped up an aluminium housing that we slotted (jammed) into the dash, which then housed one of the factory cages I had lying around, and the unit then locked into the cage.

To pretty it up, I first created a cardboard template…

…and then transferred the size of the opening onto the original wooden piece, and trimmed it in some black leather we had lying around.

But I wasn’t happy with the result, it looked way too out of place, and the surround looked puffy.

Firstly, it needed the plastic surround that goes around the unit, this would frame it and provide a visual step between itself and the dashboard. Secondly, the thick leather had to be replaced with thinner vinyl.

Since the original wooden piece was already losing it’s structural integrity, my dad got me a piece of aluminium cut to the exact size I needed at a friends factory.

Measure twice, cut once.

Drill a hole in each corner.

Join the holes with a jigsaw until…

You have a complete cut-out.

Clean up the edges with a file. Aluminium is so soft, very easy to work with.

A quick test-fit ensured the trim piece now fit.

I’ve mentioned my dad a couple of times in this piece, he is actually an upholsterer by trade, so we have plenty of material lying around. I grabbed a roll of black vinyl…

..and trimmed up the new piece and stuck it down with spray adhesive.

Much better than before. If I had to do it again, I’d put some phone books or something else with a bit of weight on top of the piece while the glue dries to the vinyl, as it has lifted in a few spots.

What good is a head unit without speakers? I thought long and hard about what kind of speakers to fit, and where to fit them. In all my cars, I’ve always preferred a good set of front speakers, and never really bothered to pay much attention to those in the back of the car. However, with this car, there isn’t any provision for front speakers. I didn’t want to go cutting up the door trims, and I don’t really like the look of custom kick panels, so the only option I had was to fit some speakers in the rear parcel shelf. First up was removing the rear seats.

I wanted the speakers to be hidden, which ended up being done in vein as the rear window venetion blind makes them impossible to see from the outside anyway. My plan was to have the speakers sunken into the parcel shelf and then cover the whole thing in a very thin felt material. Thick enough to hide everything, but thin enough for the sound to pierce through.

To build up the layers, I used a thick underlay, and then some foam. Again, this is when it pays to have an upholsterer in the family.

Here is the foam and the underlay, cut to the same shape as the parcel shelf with holes for the speakers. The next two images will explain things more clearly.

First the foam…

Then the underlay. Make sense now? No? Okay, one more picture should do it…

The shelf with the felt draped over it, this should explain my vision.

Time to flip it over…

…and staple it up.

Neatly routing the wires was the final touch.

Turned back over, the finished product.

Back in the car, the speakers are nicely hidden.

Another image.

What other menial tasks have I completed in the past 6 months, I hear you ask. Well, one thing that always annoyed me when I saw the car from a distance was the dirty sill panels (or “rockers” to the American readers). This was never an issue when I see the car in the garage, since I can’t really stand further than a meter or two away from it, but on the rare occasions when the car is actually out in the wild, this dirt and grime would catch my eye, so it was time for a good cleanin’ with some wax & grease remover.

Left: Clean. Right: Dirty. This is that stubborn type of grime that doesn’t come off with a simple wash.

Mmmm…clean. My OCD allowed me to sleep that night.

This brings us to the end of this update (the crowd breathes a sigh of relief), and we actually come full circle to one of the problems I mentioned at the start; veering. I had posted a forum thread detailing the symptoms of my handling problems, and what I had replaced and rectified so far. One person recommended checking my bump-stops to see if they are of equal height. The theory was that if one was actually taller than the other and the suspension bottoms out, it might upset the balance of the car and cause it to drive untrue. The rear bumpstops are not built into the rear coilovers, they are actually standalone units which are bolted to the lower A-arm. So one day I lied down on the ground beside the car, drivers side first, and tried to squeeze my hand between the A-arm and said bumpstop. But before I could get my hand to that specific area, it brushed passed something and made a noise, a loose metal noise…

…you know, like the noise a loose bolt and pair of washers make, the ones that hold half of your A-arm to the crossmember! Somewhere between installing the adjustable rear crossmember 2 years ago and now, this single bolt has worked its way loose. This bolt is responsible for controlling the caster of the drivers side rear wheel, so being loose it was moving around under load and changing the alignment on the fly, hence the veering. I tightened it up, took the car for a test drive, and all my previous thoughts of complicated fixes and dollar signs were washed away in an instant. After a proper alignment, I finally had my car back, and it felt great.

.

I couldn’t help myself, a pair of cheap Ewing III’s came up on Yahoo.jp, so I went straight back to Dan to place a bid and ship these puppies over here. They’re nothing drastic, 15×7 +17, to replace the 6.5′s I currently run on the front, so I’ll have 7′s on the front & rear now. I guess it’ll give me something to do over the summer. What do you guys think of the white accents, compared to the way I have mine in black?

Chris from MyRideisMe.com decided to do an awesome write-up on my humble Datsun. Click here or click on the image to check it out. Thanks Chris! Don’t forget to browse around MyRideisMe.com while you’re over there.

Click for a bigger version. Thanks to Tony for the shot.

I wondered why I was having trouble getting the sump plug off…

In other news, my apologies for the lack of posts this past week or so but I’m off to Japan on Saturday for 2.5 weeks! Been a bit busy organising things but I’m going to get some posts ready for you guys to schedule for while I’m away, and hopefully I’ll be able to fit in a post or two from abroad.

Also I should be ready to run ads on the sidebar by the time I’m back, so if you think any businesses out there would benefit from some really good exposure, be sure to let them know.

I have a stack of builds waiting to be featured, so there’s plenty of content coming up for you guys, I really do appreciate your patience. Until then, enjoy a picture of Project 510 in all it’s filthy goodness after driving a full day on wet & twisty roads.

Thanks to Carey for taking this awesome shot, from Friday nights JDMST meet in Melbourne, peep the city in the background. (Click for larger size)