Trophy24

Installed the new Futofab rear bumper while this was all going on. It fit really well and did a lot to help the overall look of the car. Stopped by Dillon's place to pick up the sway bar I bought from him at the Powerland show. I was hitching a ride and was unable to bring it home myself. And installed. What a difference! Way more fun to drive. Had to fix an oil leak at the filler cap anyway so I picked this up. So I spent some of the summer driving it around close to home. It smoked a bit out the tail pipe, but hey its the original 67 engine right?. Super fun to drive, but wow is it slow. I prefer to keep up with traffic, not be the one that everyone goes around. This influenced my thinking more than I knew. With enough confidence in the car, I decided to team up with Frank and head down to the Blue Lake show in Portland. What could go Wrong? Waiting to meet up for the morning drive down. Made it to within 1/2 hour of the show and the engine overheated. After letting it cool, and filling it up with coolant (I had some with me for some reason) we made it the rest of the way to the show with normal engine temperatures. The return trip was a struggle for sure. Drive 20 minutes, cool down and repeat. Thermostat was working and I had a new water pump. Bubbles coming out the top of the radiator told me the sad truth. Head gasket. Add to this the engine was burning a quart of oil every 100 miles. When I realized I was on the verge of overheat at 60, I decided the engine was a loss anyway and drove it home HOT. Made it, but the L13 was no more. I saved the valve cover. Bye L13!

Well this is what your view looks like when you drive an old car sometimes. The left rear brake was dragging enough to cause me to stop at wide open throttle. That one got me a ride of shame in the tow truck ha ha. The guys who came and got me asked who the mechanic was... you? We all had a laugh at that. Yes, yes I am LOL. I found pressure in the LH rear wheel cylinder when I opened the bleeder. Since I already replaced all the rubber hoses, it was time to replace the hard line from the rear T junction to the LH side. Aaaand since I am in there, lets do the exhaust for real this time. This 4" pipe will just fit in there. With a little help. Used the pipe to scribe placement of the new hole. That is about as big as you can go here. Should be plenty of room for the exhaust now. Went with a smaller diameter resonator this time. Salvaged from a Hyundai Genesis I believe. Turned out pretty good I think. Sounded way better than before.

This next project came about by accident. My interior lamp was missing the lens when I got the car. I later found it under the gas tank in the trunk of all places. Maybe it was placed on the storage shelf and bounced off on the road somewhere in Japan. Unfortunately it had some broken mounting tabs so I started casually seeking a replacement, following leads about what might be compatible. It is different than the US 510 in location and design. After some searching, I had low expectations that I would find a suitable replacement. I then saw a post on Instagram from Nissanparts in Olympia about an interior lamp for the 520 pickup i believe. Looks a lot like my Bluebird light. Hmmm. I decided to gamble on it as it was cheap enough in my mind to take the chance. When I removed the "original" light I found it had been replaced already with something else anyway. The imprint on the interior material did not line up and they only used one mounting screw. No way for me to tell if the new one was the "same". That wiring job was pretty shaky. Sheesh That's right, your eyes are not deceiving you. The power wire is twisted together and was tucked back into the B pillar without any tape to prevent a short circuit! I wonder if it had anything to do with this almost disaster I found in the fuse box? I am going to go with "plausible" explanation for almost burning down the car at some time in the past. So it looks like the holes line up perfectly here. Time to add some bullet connectors to the harness and install this thing. I have no idea if this is the "correct" interior lamp for this car. Since it looks like it is I am going to be happy with it and cross it off the list of things to do. That was a bright idea!

So since we are all social distancing these days I decided to spend some time on the build thread. Lots to tell so here we go with the first update: Since the heater was sorted out, it was time to clean up the mess inside the car. While rinsing off the original carpet, I realized it had to go. Fading red carpet with giant holes was pretty sorry to look at, so I spent some time inside cleaning the floor. Found a bunch more Japanese coins to give to my buddies and some old toothpicks. Cleaned up pretty good! New carpet kit from Stock Interiors The front seats are not original and have been transplanted from some other Nissan with a brown cloth interior. Pretty ugly and uncomfortable. I picked up these Subaru WRX seats for a good price. Will have to figure out how I want to mount them. That project will have to wait. The car came with these front mud flaps that sort of went with the rally ride height look it had. I wanted to keep them as they were almost touching the ground with the suspension upgrades I installed. Problem was, they were too stiff to deflect when I hit bumps and made an awful sound. I thought my tires were rubbing. Had to go!

Always good to have a machinist friend. Excited to see how this turns out

Nice progress on the truck!

Score!

Success!

Thanks for putting on this fun event. It was with the trip from Seattle to see all the cars and people who turned out. I appreciate all the work that went into this!

Always exciting to see fresh paint

Man yes that is a good idea. I will need to do this for my 510 so thanks!

Aaaand... back to the heater core repair. Man am I over due for updates. Yeah you could say the heater core had a leak. Fails the dunk tank test at 5psi I am super lucky to have such good friends in this community. Jeff came through with a very slightly used to be NOS heater core from his 68 2 door On to the heater control valve So I cut the 240Z heater core apart to come up with this as a mounting bracket And then cut the end off of the part that was too short to go through the firewall and connect with the heater hose New hose found using Google images for the shape And a pic of the valve with extension, hose and core assembled together I found the control cable (wire) for the valve was stuck in the plastic sleeve making operation impossible. Here is what I came up with: Bicycle brake cable housing (cut to fit) Hardware store "music wire" for the control cable I think the sizing is just about right old new all put together and ready for action New heater hose still available from Nissan to top it off I was glad to be done with that one for sure

I am interrupted at work on a regular basis and have done this very thing because of it. To help prevent it I had to be willing to give up some productivity and really think about where I left off when I get back to things. It’s not always possible to prevent

Sometimes you have to look closely to figure it out. Nice find 👍

Sorry to see that. I was enjoying your posting until that last picture. So close too. Hope the damage is not too extensive!