Slow Loris

Ah that’s better I knew there had to be a stash of them somewhere!

Oh, the bed too? The front fenders definitely non matching to the rest of the truck I’m guessing from the paint underneath the black.The bed is the same color as most of the rest but I guess odds are pretty good you’d find a baby blue Datsun bed. Yeah so the cowl id plate indicates an Oct 68-Jun 69 date (J13) while the frame would be an Oct 69 to Jan 70, according to thread..somewhere. The doors also don’t match…Ha! someone tried pretty hard to keep this truck on the road! Now it’s my turn.

So when you said that’s a lot of work to replace a J13 in a ‘69 with an L series…a lot of work like you’d do a frame/body swap?? Seems extreme… I just uncovered the spot on the frame with the car number and it’s a PL…obviously non-matching to the car number on the engine bay plate. Or maybe the cab/cowl is what was swapped and most of the truck is more like PL and less like 1969? Curious.

Treasure valley. Truck came from CA. Don’t see enough Datsuns around here.

Wanna see how the carpeting situation comes out. Also, what a glorious firewall—mine is a horrorshow compared to yours. I try not to spend too much time even looking at it. I feel like there is no doubt asbestos just shagging right of it it makes me so uncomfortable. Nicely done.

Just wanna say I’m really enjoying reading the history of this project—I think I’m like 1.5 years behind you and a lot behind in mechanical skill but I see a lot similarities between what you’ve worked through and what I’ve been doing on my 521. I even dumped my battery into the engine bay the other day…luckily no fire! Also I think I put the same Volvo seats in mine! Anyway, I just bent and flared all the brake lines on my truck and it’s not intimidating…though those pre-flared lines at NAPA are nice I woulda done that too if they had real long ones.

All my side markers had been deleted. I just grabbed some from the junkyard and put them all back in…While I was doing it I was thinking “man I really wish these were turn signals too…I wonder if that would work…” Sweet!

Okay, but now I’ve got brake problems. As in, my brakes are WEAK. Not driveable. The brakes are adjusted such that it is difficult to spin the wheels in the air, and I can hear them dragging when pushing the truck out of the garage. Drums and shoes are new. Parking brake as adjusted works well. Reading an old thread about play between the pushrod to master. I’m not sure if I’m thinking about it correctly. I have a lot of play, like if I push the pedal down the pushrod moves in about 1/2” before there is resistance from the master. But how to adjust this? I can’t make my pushrod any longer, and the threads on the brake light switch are maxed out so I can’t make that any closer to the pedal arm. The bump stop above the switch does not contact the pedal arm at rest. The arm rests on the switch. I’ll adjust, bleed, readjust, bench bleed and all that again, yes. But I’ve not done anything with this pushrod adjustment since installing the new master.

Dash lights all good! I think maybe the sockets I was using were real far gone and the contacts were dirty. These ones hold nice and tight. AND I CAN SEE.

Nice yeah that’s looking shinier and gold-er back there now. I think I’ve got an annoying combination of bad bulbs, bad LEDs regardless of direction, and maybe some bad or dirty or broken bulb sockets just for good measure…not adding up to much success at the moment. Seemed like there is sort of a sweet spot of twist to get the contact right, but they don’t really hold. I’ll get all these sorted and maybe go back to the old bulbs as a proof of concept in case there’s something else amiss with the cluster. I’ve got some replacements on order from superbright and some bulb sockets too.

Ok here’s what I’ve learned: I took all the LEDs out and found a good old fashioned bulb. I popped that in the left turn slot and behold there was light! I popped that same one in the right turn socket and…nothing…a flicker…then…light! Intermittently..poorly… I think I’ve got some dirty contacts then? I put same bulb in the IGN slot and it did still seem to blink with the turn signals. It seems what I’m seeing with the flashing IGN light is it dimming every time the cluster turn arrow lights up, and with the bright-ass LED it looks really dramatic. In fact I’ve got a separate a temp and oil gauge and their backlights dim with the arrows too. Once I rule out dirty contacts I’ll try gain with the LEDs, but it does seem like some of them might just be non-functional. I will check out superbrightleds. So is it normal to see a bit of dimming in the rest of the cluster when your green arrow is flashing? Or is my cluster a bit rickety?

Ok so ign light definitely lit with key in ign position. Then actually flipping turn signal in either direction causes ign light to blink. No green arrows. If I swap back in the old flasher and switch right turn, I get a right hand arrow AND a flashing ign light. If I switch left, only flashing ign light. Both arrows come on with hazards regardless. Some kinda flasher problemo? Or still thinking cluster problemo?

They are indeed LED. With key in ign position, ign light behaves though. But now I wonder if that’s light I’m seeing bleeding from elsewhere hmmm…Anyway things only get weird when the turn signals come into play. @thisismatt Weird. Easy enough to start with fuses I guess before I create my own gremlins.

I have not taken the cluster out but I did reach my paw back there and put new lights in it. This is a new phenomenon (worked since replacing dash lights) so not sure what I did to it since. I messed with various switches recently (cleaned combination switch, cleaned hazard switch, light switch), new flashers. I did swap in new fuses and did a lot of taillight wiring and now here we are. @Crashtd420 did your green arrows work with the hazards only? I’m most confused by how they blink with hazards but not the turn switches. I can live with a blinking IGN light as a right turn indicator—that’s perfectly quirky for a 54 year old truck.

What does it mean when the green turn indicator arrows in the gauge cluster only blink with the hazard switch and not the turn signal switch? The actual turn signals at all corners work correctly with appropriate turn signal switch position and all come on with hazard switch. Both flasher units are new. When using the right turn switch, the red ignition light blinks.

How was the front side marker lamp wiring physically routed and tied into the rest of the wiring (like with that of the the front marker as the wiring diagram seems to indicate)? My truck didn’t come with any markers—I’ve got them now but was expecting to see some dangling or cut wires or connectors where they would have spliced in. I see nothing. It doesn’t really even look like there is a channel in the backing plate to snake them from the front marker is to shoot out to the fender. There’s nothing hanging out behind the headlights either. I mean I know I could splice them in to any place I can reach but where the heck did they even go?

Sweet I’m gonna need it. I seemed to have lost my wires from reverse switch but all others accounted for and operating pending proper harness. These wires are hanging by a thread as is. If I sneeze back there I won’t have any lights at all. Is there a good replacement for the twist-lock plastic housing the taillight bulb sockets fit into? The part that locks into the housing assembly? Mine are wanting to wobble out—missing a tooth it seems. That and all the rubber boots have crumbled into dust every time I spun one to check the bulbs.

Whooooeee it’s been so cold in that there garage hence no update. Been fiddling with a few things: Found a very slight leak from brake m/c dripping into the cab so decided to convert to a dual res master cylinder. I went with a drum/drum setup I’m sure one day I may regret but it worked well. Big thanks to @mklotz70 for the pushrod! Ended up bending all new steel lines for the front half, left the rear alone. Had to use two new blocks because the original was f’ed up when I removed one of the flare nuts. All went off without a hitch. I used a m/c from Centric that rock auto says fit I think a ‘73 620 drum/drum truck. Also stripped one of my banjo bolts on the front brake but found that a ‘94(?) D21 hose fits perfectly you just don’t need the fitting anymore and matches up with the nut as is. Neat tip in case anyone else has a screwed up 521 banjo. Also widely available. put in a new clutch master too as that was REALLY leaking into the cab, and did the slave too as cobwebs and skeletons were falling out of the old one. Found some seats that work well. Volvo S40 2007(?) they re a little thick in the back but very comfy and what I really like is the spacing was perfect for the mounts I already had from PO (who also had buckets in—they were just trashed). Had a fun gremlin where only high beams were on no low beams and found that my steering column was not acting as a good ground for some reason. The spline was a really good ground, but the contact between collar of switch and column wasn’t doing it, so fixed that and now have four working lights as they should but god knows where they aiming. More floor grinding to be done working on taillight wiring now…so much good advice here I don’t even have to post questions! Thanks all! New masters test fit of Volvo bucket and shiny floor plus a much better shifter courtesy of @Crashtd420

I’ve got no clue if this site is legit, never bought from them but they do sell a lock ring for the fuel sender that looks just like what’s in my 521. http://www.new-datsun-parts.com/datsun-pickup-parts.html Also they sell the gasket.

But yeah, close the screw, lift pedal by hand, then I can pump all I want and the pedal does return no problems. Drove and shifted fine.

Yes I am pulling it up by hand to reset the stroke. it’s not like what I experienced bleeding the brakes where with the bleed screw open then your foot and pedal sink to the floor. It’s like…the clutch pedal runs away from your foot and drops to the floor without your foot on it. I’ll try to get a visual on the spring when this happens—maybe there is something going on with the linkage or spring or I dunno something that will make itself known if I have eyes on it rather than a foot on it.

Return spring is on, it only does it when bleeding (when bleed screw is open) it’s really weird— depress clutch, open bleed screw while depressed, and then the clutch pedal sucks itself down a little more to floor, close bleed screw, pedal does not return. with the screw closed, I can depress the clutch pedal over and over and it does return.

Actually drove for the first time today! Far from victory but yeah that was fun! No clue how to find 3rd gear! Fun. Despite the never ending brake job…I still hardly had brakes. Current adjustment is the wheels take some effort to spin by hand when jacked up so I figured that was the spot. Not free spinning and more than just a couple of rubs. In the driveway, it pumps up hard after two pumps. Driving, it’s all soft pedal, minimal braking power. With the adjusters “over-adjusted” so that the wheels don’t spin by hand at all in the air, pedal feel was very hard, no sponge. They are brand new shoes and drums. In that case do they need to go for a drive in the hard, over-adjusted state? I tried bench bleeding the master, but honestly I could hardly push the linkage in that far so I’m not sure I even did anything. There IS a tiny seep where the linkage enters the rubber boot in the firewall—like a drop drips every 10 pumps. other question—when bleeding the clutch, the pedal suctions itself down to the floor with the bleed screw open and won’t return unless you pry it up. What’s that about?

This worked for me just the other day when I was certain my adjusters were not recoverable but I got them free. I removed adjuster from backing plate and submerged the thing in about a 1/4 in of kroil star side down overnight with a spray on the non-star side too. And then wrenched the hell out of them the next day til I got a tiny bit of movement. After that…you’re home free. It seems hopeless. But it’s true. You will get it. I bet a vice like datzenmike say is real nice. Any just the spray of the oil didn’t do much I really had to soak it.

Gotcha I will try the screwdriver method I know I gotta dial that timing in better for sure. As for the eventual rebuild, well…my focus shifted to brakes so that I might move beyond “running” and into “driving.” Once I do that I’m sure I’ll see, hear, and smell plenty of reason to dial this in much much much better, or, you know, do the rebuild.