71DIMER

Alright here is part 3 showing some more fun fun fun I've had. :) VALVE COVER With the engine bay cleaned up and painted, I figured it was time to give the tired old valve cover the same treatment...what do you guys think? I had to keep the red stripe theme going so.... Fresh off the engine. Wire Brush Wheeled Simple Green Begin the painting process ENGINE HEAD/BLOCK Head/Block Simple Greened (and lots of elbow grease). Head came out like new but the block wasn't as cooperative!! :( Relays/Brackets Before/During/After I decided to clean up these little items...here's what they looked like. So after all that elbow great here are some final engine bay pictures Engine Bay: After MISC: Here are some little things I did to catch some more details... Shift Boot: Last but not least I had to revive the red stripes that originally caught my eye: I have to clean up the overspray but here they are. Rear/Front Ok fellas that's all for now, but we all know Datsun projects are never ending so stay tunred for more. What do you guys think so far?

Ok fellas if you guys aren't bored to tears yet, here is part II (can't post more than 30 pics in one posting :P) EXTERIOR I decided I was tired of looking at all the surface rust so I got off my duff and sanded, masked, and primered away. Here you can see the progress of the top of the bed rail. It had surface rust just like the side of the bed. Bed Hooks Rusty/Sanded/Primered: Damn things took the longest to get clean because of the contours of the hooks themselves. Grille/Bezels Before/During/After: I didn't think the stock grille had a chance of looking good so I bought another one from ebay that was in great shape but decided to give it a go anyway. I think they came out pretty damn good compared to what it looked like at the beginning! Paint Chemically Stripped Primered Painted Silver Closeups of the grille and bezels painted silver...not too shabby! BEDLINER: I had a kit of Herculiner laying around for a while so I finally got busy using it. I didn't take any prep pics but here's the after...I'm real happy with it. Easy to go on and it feels hard as hell...heck I have already scraped my skin off on it! ENGINE BAY Here are a series of before/during/after of my tired old engine bay. You can see how it looked like when I first got it, and after being tired of seeing it all gross I simple greened the hell out of it, masked it all off, primered, and painted it white. Nice and clean huh? LOL! Passenger Side: Drivers Side: Engine Bay: Primered

Well after seeing everyone's project threads (and Pac Coast Datsun telling me to create my own project thread) I decided to finally post some pics of what I've done. I surely haven't been doing any major rework like some of you guys but I've been doing a little here & there trying to clean it up one small project at a time. I know how we all LOVE pictures instead of a million words so here are some pictures (sorry for it being too many) of the different things I've done so far... INTERIOR How it looked when I bought it...gotta love those Ratty seats..lol! Interior Removed Carpeting/Padding: I always hated how ugly the black paint (?) to white paint transition was... Old Front Carpet (Used it as new carpet template): I didn't have a template for the the carpet going directly under the seats so I measured and cut it carefully. Carpet Front Test Fit, you can see how I cut strips to make sure it would fit nice before cutting them to size. Here are both pieces test fit, hard to see the seam :) Rubberized Under Coating after cleaning up cabin floor: I wanted a straight clean line for the undercoating/paint transition. I decided to use outdoor carpet double sided tape cut in about 6" strips strategically placed to hold down carpet instead of spray adhesive. Easier to remove the tape than to get spray adhesive out if needed. Here is how the carpet rests over the rubberized undercoating Decided that the belt buckles also needed some attention since they were beat to hell like the rest of the interior... Seats Installed, with some new carpet floormats. I decided I like the gray contrast instead of going all black inside...what do you think? Also you'll notice my handy work on the belt buckles too :P Here you can catch a glimpse of the shift boot cover that I sprayed flat black

I liked it too until it was all over the sides of my bed...so I finally got motivated enough to sand it and primer it. Man those hooks took the longest in sanding the surface rust off. I'm glad I did it though...looks good now! :)

I've got my old 521 and just picked up a 2000 Frontier too :)

Here's my dime with Watanabe's Now here's it is with 16" Panasports

The only thing more "Ratsun" than that would have been a t-shirt with the words spray painted on it!!! LOL!

Hey Clay, I've been there. The turn out is pretty good as far as checking out cars/trucks/wagons but the vendors are pretty much the same ones you see at most/all the other Datsun events. The organizer is cool and the grub is pretty good. If you haven't been to this event I think it's worth checking out...I'd like to go out there but I think I'll be heading down South for work.

I say go for some 350Z seats...they're sweet. I love the support they offer in my 350Z and I've had 2 spare sets come and go but just never got aroung to installing them on my 510. Now I'm looking for another set and this time I will install them.

Damn...that's a collection if I ever saw one. Hope you're gonna get those all running! You're real lucky you have land to park them on!

Man we should have a NorCal get together sometime!

Hey glad you got yours Mark....here is my Ratsun decal on my dime... Here's a little more of a close up to see what I have :P

Hey while you're at it, make a second set of 'stock looking' door panels for me! :)

ggzilla: I'm not too sure that 58mpg is accurate. I've noticed that at EPA.gov they show two different EPA estimates for the CRX HF which if you know CRX's that what they were really called...Civic CRX HF, just that everyone refered to them as CRX HF and dropped the Civic all together. Anyway they're listed as 58MPG highway then in the same site, different line they're listed as what they were on the Honda window sticker 51mpg highway, 49 city...now I travel over 300 miles one way for work periodically so I keep gas logs and sure enough it's pulling a sweet 50mpg. I try to keep it straight for MPGs so I made sure it's well tuned up and check my sweet 13" light weight alloys well inflated whenever I travel long distances. City wise it gets me 40-43mpg...not bad especially when you realize Toyota's ugly little Yaris line of cars are being marketed as great gas savers and they are EPA rated for 41mpg highway...granted most of these newer cars are probably more safe then my tiny CRX...but again there's no way either of my Datsuns will get me 50mpg and give me the cargo capacity my CRX does...I've transported a few dishwashers in the back of there with no problem. I still love my Datsuns for their uniqueness but again for a fuel injected reliability factor I'm really digging my CRX! :)

You know I was going to ask if you wanted some buddy...IM me ur addy. Heck I won't even charge you the stamp! LOL

So I wanted a RATSUN decal but rather than waiting I found some avery printer labels at work so I busted these out for myself..what do you guys think? Shot with COOLPIX S200 . at 1969-12-31

I made these on the Avery sticker labels using a laser printer...but since they're paper they're not going to last in the rain...but we haven't had much rain here in the bay area! :) If you guys want one hit me up with a PM. :P

Here's a few of the small ones I cut out. I like these the best and already put a few on my coworkers cubicles...lucky for them they're Datsun enthusiast (240Z). If anyone wants one or two...PM me. Shot with COOLPIX S200 . at 1969-12-31

Ah screw it...had some time to kill at work so I made up a few simple stickers. Check it out...I found a font that looks like the old DATSUN font. :) Shot with COOLPIX S200 . at 1969-12-31

5TINGUY & INLINE4: Where do you guys live...I'd be up for getting together and checking out your rides.

Nice score Icehouse...but quit braggin and making the rest of us feel jealous! :) I wish I could get a spare set...hint hint Pac Coast! :P

Here's been my 510 cars from past to present. My first 510 was 100% stock when I bought it for $200, it was that orange-mustard color and had a vinyl roof and skinny a$$ tires. Being on a high school budget I could only afford to do cosmetic upgrades like paint, wheels, etc. But at least I had some serious beats in it! NOTICE the stock trunk color here and shaved C pillar vents (big mistake with the rear windshield fogging up). Also drool over my 'custom' 4x2 trunk support! So when heading to college I had to sell it and got (embarrased to say it) a Hyundai Scoupe...but enough laughing at me. After graduating and getting a 'real' job I decided to get another 510. It was about 3 years ago that I bought this one from some 16 year old kid with BIG dreams but SMALL budget. But after owning it for about a year and not having any time to do a damn thing to it (literally)...I responded to a WTB car ad on dimequarterly and it ended up being a guy from Austraila who wanted a LHD 2 door...long story short, he paid me handsomely (i.e. more than I paid) then one of his local buddies came and picked it up for him and took it to the shipping yard...now I keep in touch with that local buddy of his but never heard back from the Aussie. I wanted to see what he was planning for it. I did hear back when he first got it, there was some minimal damage to it during the shipping process. Here's my current dime... As it looked when I picked it up in San Diego (with the heavy and IMO ugly MOMO wheels, not to mention the illegal window tint) But this is why I loved it... Near perfect stock black interior with full 6-pt roll cage Soon after I bought some 15" Watanbe RS-8 wheels from Japan Here it is with the Watanabes on and the tint off So then I slapped on some new H4 lights And just last week I finally got my new 16" Panasports on my ride to fill up the tire wells/fenders a little better. Check out my plates! Here's the paint scheme I plan to do.

Cool...looks ok in the pics but who knows. My first 510 was a 2 door so I'm sticking to them! :P Hopefully he'll get on here and post pics!!!! Love 510 pics!

Icehouse: I was thinking about putting them on but I need to concentrate on my 510 cause I have to many cars (4) and I wouldn't wince in getting rid of my 521 parts as much as my 510 parts. Man I sure wish you guys lived closer, someone with body work skills and welding skills are good friends to have!