Trophy24

Yes it is a JDM spec car built in 67.

Here is the location of the light on my Bluebird

Nice use of the oval tubing for clearance. It has come a long way since I saw it at Canby

I want in on the fun

Thanks for documenting the rebuild so well Carter! We are rooting for you guys for sure. I have not seen the actual movie, but this feels like "Return of Swamp Thing" to me. Keep it up!

Hmm?

Only ones I have seen have the raised D

Where is the race being held? Might want to check it out!

While the engine is out... That's how it starts sometimes. I am attempting to keep this from being a restoration for now. I already have one of those going that I have never driven in all the years of ownership. Having said that off we go in the list of things to do. Going back in time to my initial attempts to get this car on the road, I was replacing the clutch hydraulics. The tube nut for the slave cylinder hose did not want to budge. Progression from a standard wrench to a line wrench made no difference. I ended up heating it with a torch and using vice grip pliers. Time to replace the rusted up hard line. Much better On to other things... The new engine will have a little more power than the L13. Plans also include a 5 speed. This made the gearing in the rear differential incompatible for sure. I have no desire to wind the new engine up on the freeway the way the old set up did. My solution was to use the Subaru STI R180 with 3.90 gears I had stashed away for my 2 door. I picked it up with the understanding that it needed some refreshing, so off we go down that rabbit hole. New bearings going in The only way I found to remove the assembly from the case without grinding something. Remove one of the ring gear bolts. That took some time to figure out. And back together. Special thanks to Keegan for hooking me up with the diff and stub axles!

Excited to see this moving forward. Hopefully some new products from JBC!

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