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This is in the bay area and the guy was going to do a swap, but he gave up and is going with a 2.xL something, so is selling the motor. Are they magic in some way or just cool because they are fairly obscure?

In the past ~3 months: A12 to A14 swap. Auto to manual swap. Alternator swap. Worley radiator. Changed to slot-mags, 12" in front, 13" in back. running some used 155/80s in front and new 175/70s in back. New carpet, new back quarter window seals, B210 seats installed and reupholstered. New locks in doors, ignition and trunk. Factory(ish) radio install. Straighten and paint driver door. Some other stuff. Every time I turn around I'm getting another box of parts and tearing apart some chunk of the car.

I went with stockinteriors because it was three pieces up front and I've made a custom transmission tunnel to give some foot-space as part of my automatic to manual swap. It's fine but short of amazing. My car has fixing studs to attach carpet or whatever to and the carpet isn't set up for that. It was a drop-in fit and made the interior so much nicer I had to have the seats done. 🙂

Having driven my 1200 for a little bit now I have the following observations: The car is SO light in the back, fancy brakes in back are pretty pointless and would just be cosmetic unless you plan to carry a couple large adults in the back seat or a box of bricks in the trunk. A bigger engine could actually make this worse. Of course you need a different differential than the factory one, but just the pumpkin swap gives you a much stouter setup. The light weight of the car is a huge part of it's charm, adding a heavy motor is going to detract from that and negatively affect the suspension. Consider a turbo, minimal weight and it will get you a pretty fast car with a minimum of fuss. I did an A14 swap since I had one sitting around and I'm planning to do the turbo thing when I get a minute, but even just going from the A12 w/slushbox to A14 w/5-speed is such a huge step I haven't gotten tired of the car in its present trim yet.

The Michelin defender-X is extinct with almost no NOS left out there and folks weren't wildly excited about them anyway. The BFG Premier was a well regarded tire that is gone with almost no old stock out there. More bad news for those of us running 13" tires. I reached out to see what options I had and got the following reply: Thank you for contacting Toyo Tires USA. Currenty Toyo only offers our Extensa A/S tire in size P175/70R13. You can view the Extensa A/S at https://www.toyotires.com/product/extensa-as The Eclipse and Spectrum have both been discontinued and the Extensa A/S is starting to phase out but, may still be available at your local retailers.

Many rust converters are known to have poor adhesion qualities, make sure you scuff it well at a minimum and check to see if there is an adhesion-promoter/tie-coat. I know for instance POR-15 sells a tie-coating if you are planning to paint over it. Omni is the cheap-seats PPG line but I've heard it's not too bad for older formulations like ours. That is one you should plan on clearcoating over though. If your shop mixed it in Concept you would have needed a hardener but no clearcoat.

To get an even gloss, it really helps to apply the paint evenly and quickly. This is where a spray gun really helps, the spray cans don't have enough paint in them, enough propellant to get the paint out quickly, a large enough spray pattern, or big enough nozzle to get the paint on the surface quickly enough and evenly enough to do the job in an efficient manner. Blotching, uneven gloss, and tiger-stripes are common issues. You can fix a lot of that by color-sanding the basecoat but it's a lot of work compared to doing it right from the gun.

There's a lot of territory between a rack full of guns and boxes of spare tips... and a rattle can. If you bought just one gun you'd still have more ability to control the finished product than a rattle can as it would pay for itself really quickly vs. custom-filled cans. Do you have an air compressor at least? One gun: go for the HF 20OZ HVLP gravity feed gun as a mid size gun. Any tip size between .8 and 1.4 will work better than a can. No, the original wasn't cleared but that was a solvent-based factory-applied (likely baked) paint. I don't know what you really got pumped into your cans, but there is a good chance it needs the clear because your base doesn't have UV inhibitors and would fade and chalk without something over it. I prefer a single-stage (no clear) look for old cars, but to each their own. You can buy single-stage paints with outstanding UV resistance, but the decent ones aren't cheap. I'm paying over $75/pint for PPG Concept but you can get pretty good stuff for half that, ore even less with some careful Ebay and CL shopping. Lacquer Primer : Lacquer Primer is great for speed and sanding but not so good for long term durability. Shrinkage, cracking, and bubbling are common long term problems. Enamel Primers/Sealers : Enamel primers are economical and provide fair sealing/corrosion resistance but can be susceptible to lifting/wrinkling. Did you put and epoxy primer base down, or at least an etch prime to help with corrosion resistance and improve bonding? Yes, if it's activated paint you have to use it all at once. You will also do serious harm to your body if you use that stuff without proper gear, at an absolute minimum an organic-vapor respirator, gloves, spray hood, and long sleeves. A full mask is really better but at least put on some goggles or safety glasses so you don't absorb it through your eyes. It's true, by the time you get a mixing cup, stirrers, strainers, thinner, hardener, reducer, and all the other stuff you really should have it can add up. I would like to suggest however that if you have a failure in your paint job you could have a return of rust and have to do all the sanding and prep work all over again as well as pay for materials for another paint job. So sit down for a minute and think about what your time is worth. Also figure out how much one of your cans covers, what it costs, and how many of them you'll actually need to finish the job. It can really add up is all and to spend that much for a paint job that might not last seems unwise.

A lifetime ago I had a almost-free 210 wagon I thrashed on and off road, they are pretty sturdy really. Pretty decent ground clearance for a 2WD car which is a help. I'd keep the 13" wheels and just use bigger rubber, 175/80 would be a starting point that would easily clear but obviously with surgery you can go bigger. There exist some old style truck tires in this general size range. The balloon tires will help with effective suspension travel and mitigate the ride harshness. Do check/replace your motor mounts since they are ancient by now and often fail on hard landings if old. In front change out your strut oil at least and in back you will want some longer springs and shocks (don't forget the longer brake line) I've managed to distort the under-bumper valence and have it get hung-up on stuff in really aggressive terrain so take that off but make sure to leave the air flow plate in front of the motor as it helps cooling greatly. The wagon has longer and heavier springs so if yours isn't a wagon, that would help. If you have a manual car, go ahead and put an automatic pumpkin in there for the torque to help offset the bigger tires. If you relocate the exhaust I think you can remove the bump-stop in the center of the back axle. The unibody will slide over some terrain so mostly just protect your oil pan, suspension, and whatever else might snag. To that end it's also good to grind down any bolts that hang down. Rerouting the exhaust system outside of the car will help with power and clearance as well as adding markedly to the Mad Max of the whole thing. Keep in mind the light weight of the car is your single biggest asset, less is more is your mantra here, anything not absolutely essential should go and that includes the weight of rhino-lining, undercoat, anything. The cooling systems are pretty well sized to keep up with hot weather, particularly if you aren't suffering a slushbox or A/C, just stuff a big electric fan on your freshly flushed radiator add some water-wetter and the highest-pressure cap your system will support and odds are you should be fine. Buying an aluminum radiator would help of course for weight and cooling, so that if you have the time. The radiator support on the 210 will support a much wider radiator than stock. Of course you will be buying a tiny battery and relocating it, an areovoltz will cost as much as some of the cars people are running so perhaps just the motorcycle size Odyssey... Your bumpers are heavy, as are the shock absorbers they are connected to, just saying, you can at least pull them off and gut them of the reinforcement internals. Sway bar, limits both suspension travel and body roll a great deal. Keep it or toss it but if you are keeping it replace the links and washers since I've seen them tear out of the sway bar. Heh, I'd love to see a 210 on a set of these: https://www.ebay.com/itm/1-New-175-80-13-Firestone-Town-Country-Snow-Biter-White-Wall-Traction-Tire/382999329206?fits=Aspect+Ratio%3A80|Section+Width%3A175|Rim+Diameter%3A13&hash=item592c89f9b6:g:BjQAAOSwQIZc~ltF Keep in mind that the 5-speed tranny is worth upward of a grand if that's what's in your car, if if you wreck it save that part. 🙂 BTW: I have wagon/auto parts if you need stuff.

Cut new mating threads in whatever part is smaller and use the knob you like would be my vote. If the shaft is smaller than the knob then you can have a bushing made.

I'm highly amused by this, thanks for sharing.

Without internal changes to the motor or different manifolds? I'd love to know what those changes are. Of course, I'd given my Hitachi a bit of a massage so it flows a touch better than factory.

I'm not sure, the Clarion RN-403 had a Datsun label on it but could have been OEM for any Datsun of the dual-knob era. I do remember there were at least two shaft sizes that were fairly common and that if one is hard-up, one may smash the larger size out of round to get enough grip to mostly work. :-] For the moment I'm pretty happy to just be able to listen to NPR or whatever, but when I get a minute I'll dig out a DIN cable end and fab the AUX-IN cable. I also need to find or fab a bezel that looks right for this setup. The one advantage the Kraco had was it filled the tall space in the factory dash without an adapter. Next time I go to a wrecking yard or my storage, I'll dig for some small radio shaft nuts I suppose.

I bought a Hitachi rebuild kit for not more than $45 off Epay in the last year, here's a current listing for under $20: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Standard-1566-Carburetor-Rebuild-Kit-For-1976-1983-Datsun-Nissan-Hitachi-2-BBL/184159802445?fits=Make%3ADatsun&hash=item2ae0c7944d:g:NawAAOSwkaNeOr~E You can remove the anti-diesel solenoid and dump the plunger out, then put the body back in to cover the hole, now that's taken care of. Other parts are easy as well, I've got a box of Hitachi spares so reach out if you want to fix yours on the cheap.... main body and choke top, say $35+ship. The Webber can be cool for the increased torque mid-throttle, but with a stock motor WOT isn't any better than the Hitachi and you'll just be dumping fuel down the motor for no good reason.

Some of the factory radios has an input for an external tape deck, this can be used as an Aux-in with just a little work. That way you can have a vintage deck where all the knobs work but listen to music in the modern manner. You might see if your radio supports that, or consider getting one that does. Look for a round 5-pin DIN connector on the back, that's usually the input. http://datsun1200.com/modules/mediawiki/index.php?title=Radio If you put a modern deck in the glovebox, turning the volume up/down, etc. becomes annoying. I've had slightly better luck with an under-the-seat mounting and just learn the controls by feel.

I removed the nasty Kraco dual-knob and was working to fit a factory-correct Clairon when I found the shaft nuts were a different size. Most of the dual knob decks I have are the same size, but this is just a bit smaller...because nothing is ever easy. Anybody remember the size options or know where I might buy some?

If that 78 is a b310 (aka 210), it might have a slightly bigger motor and if you don't have a 5-speed already, you can find one there. If your car is a manual car and the 78 is a auto, the differential will get you a slightly faster launch at the expense of higher freeway RPM. not an upgrade, but go ahead and grab the ignition switch since they are the same and go bad from time to time.

I do keep seeing ads from "Aerospace Components" for racing brake setups for the 210, my factory brakes seem to work pretty well for me since I've worked to make the car lighter, or at least well enough the $800 price tag for the fancy brakes seem unnecessary, but I'd love to know what people thought of them.

3/16" lines, but with metric ends, I don't recall if they are 8 or 10MM though.

I had a 1.75" system hand-built for under $300, 2" is just silly big for an A-series motor, at least a naturally-aspirated one.

Most of the interior was missing from my coupe when I got it, I need to make a spare tire cover and rear shelf. I could template it from scratch but would just as soon not reinvent the wheel if there is already a known pattern out there. Anybody know of drawings, etc?

I'm tired of looking at my floorpan, does anybody have particularly good or bad experiences with a 1200 carpet? I'd like something that looks original but ideally might have just a bit more mass since the factory carpets for these cars were pretty thin I think? I do notice the one from stockinteriors is listed as being three pieces in front and one in back, where I think the others are one piece in front and one in back. Not sure which is correct for a US-market 1973 coupe. Some options I've found: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Moulded-Car-Carpet-Front-Rear-to-fit-Datsun-1200-1970-73/163826211339?var=463379428285 https://www.ebay.com/itm/F11-2321301-Newark-Auto-Products-Carpet-Kit-Front-Rear-New-for-Datsun-B110/193258271539 https://www.stockinteriors.com/CutSewnCarpet.asp?Itemid=6685&ModelId=530 https://www.ebay.com/itm/F11-2321807-Newark-Auto-Products-Carpet-Kit-Front-Rear-New-for-Datsun-B110/362853032815?fits=Model%3AB110|Make%3ADatsun&epid=20013681870&hash=item547bb9e36f:g:ZU0AAOSwVTpeRmbs