Datsun 510 do-over

[jackedaw11]

Here's my car a 1970 2-door, I got it about 5 years ago as a rolling shell.

Since then I've swapped in an sr20det, and a whole bucketload of other mods.

 

 

 

 

There are a lot of quirky things with this car, some from the previous owner and some from me. This was the first real car project I ever worked on, and in the process I learned a lot. One of the biggest things I've come to realize is that patience is key. A bunch of things on my car that really bug me are a result of my inexperience and lack of patience.

 

My goal for this project is to revisit all the things I compromised on, this time being more patient and taking the time to do things right. I'll be taking the car all the way back down to bare sheet metal and then build it back up. Hopefully I can illustrate some of my mistakes and what I've learned in the process. I still have tons to learn, so bear with me!

 

Anyways, on to the project:

 

Day 1

 

I didn't do too much today, but I got a start. I began by removing the hood, and the valance over the wiper arms. The I pulled out the radiator, the intercooler and the headlights. The radiator is a generic summit racing aluminum radiator, and the intercooler is a generic ebay ones. When I originally chose these parts I was limited by my budget and what would physically fit under the hood/behind the grill. Both parts have worked well for my application, and I'll likely keep both these parts and use them again. However, the radiator inlets/outlets are about an inch bigger than those on the car. I was making it work by using a reducer, but it was kinda hokey and was beginning to crack. I'll likely be modifying these to make them match the size on the engine. The plumbing for the intercooler was equally cluster f*cked and will need revisiting too.

 

Here are some pics of the progress

Before:

 

After:

 

[78kingcab]

nice car , looks like a good star to me

[MicroMachinery]

Way to go man. It's a nice place to start, from the looks of it.

I like the attitude of wanting to go back and revisit all the areas where you know you cut corners.

Keep up the good work.

[BACARDI_DWB]

That is an awesome mentality to have, please share your issues that you want to fix while you are going thru your project. I am in the middle of my build and it's hard to have the mentality of not cutting corners and ensuring a long lasting project. An extra hour on one piece may make your life way easier later on. I am looking forward to your progress!!

[KELMO]

Your wallet must say Bad A$$ M***er F***er on it. My hat is off to you sir, from the first pic you posted up it looked ready to roll down the road.

[yellowdatsun]

I dunno man, the car looks pretty nice just as it is. Definitely better than probably 75% of the 510's out there. Can you fix the little things without tearing the whole thing apart?

 

I did the same thing to my 510, some issues were bugging me from the PO, so I figured I'd tear mine apart. Very similar to you, but my car looked WAY worse under the hood. I *NEVER* should have taken the whole car apart, because things happen, you get discouraged, and in all it took 5 years to get mine back together. So from experience I would HIGHLY advise just doing small issues one at a time and not disassembling the entire thing.

[JDM510]

yeah no shit looked good to me cant wait to see the revised version

[jackedaw11]

Day 2

little to no progress...

 

I haven't really done anything today, but I did pick up a few parts for it. I've had the hardest time tracking down headliner bows, but I finally found some. Unfortunately they're for a wagon, and I have a two door. I'm not sure how well they will fit, anybody have any ideas?

 

I realized after I posted last time that I had posted a 'before' picture of my car before I started disassembling it. I thought it would be cool to post a 'before before' picture of my car from when I first got it to give some better perspective.

 

So here's my car when I first started:

 

and here's one of my favorite pictures of my car from a couple years ago:

 

On the surface it looks like a great car, but under if you look close enough you'll start to notice that there are a few things worth fixing. Over the next few weeks and months I'll be tackling these issues and I think it'll be clear why I felt it was worth going back to bare metal to make it right.

 

ben

[jackedaw11]

Days 3 and 4 - More Progress!

 

Man, this car is coming apart FAST! I wish it was this easy to put it together!

 

Yesterday and today I kept working on stripping stuff off the car. As of tonight the doors, fenders, valance, all the glass, the seats, the dash, and the wiring harness is all out. I'm really happy with all the progress I've been making so far.

 

Day 3

Pulling the doors was pretty easy, I learned a trick (which is probably common sense to everyone else). Putting a jack under the door to support it makes it much easier to remove the door.

 

 

Once I pulled the seats out it felt like I was making some serious progress

 

I also removed the harness bar that I had built (the rusty thing in the picture), this will get repurposed into a bench grinder stand :)

 

 

Day 4

The wiring harness was a total pain in the butt, I had soldered some connectors through the fire wall and it was a total mess. Funny thing is, I was really proud of the electricals when I first put them in. Now, I'm convinced that it needs a complete overhaul.

 

 

This picture makes me soooo happy, getting that wiring out was a huge hurdle.

 

 

Some Problems

 

Now that I've pulled a bunch of crap out of this car, some of the problems are starting to surface. One of the big issues is the way the fenders have been cut, and how the flares were attached. I need to reweld up the rear fender wells, remove the pop-rivets in the flares and glue them back on. There's also a huge hole I carved in the firewall for the harness, shortly after I cut this hole I decided to tuck the harness behind the engine instead, so I'll have to patch that up too. Here's some pics.

 

Rear fender well

 

Front fender flare, showing pop-rivets

 

The HUGE hole I cut in the firewall :(

[Mesh-71]

live and learn right? Keep up the good progress, although I wish mine looked that good to begin with :D

[jackedaw11]

Days 5 and 6 - WOOOOOO!

 

So much progress! I know this is the easy part but its still insanely exciting to see so much get done. Over the past couple of days I've completely stripped out the car, and started work on my new crossmember. Engine, transmission, fuel lines, brake lines, and the front end are all out now. I'm just about ready to start sanding the paint off and getting some bodywork done.

 

removing the tail lights and the gas tank.

 

POSIN' HARD!

 

tail lights out, getting the gas tank out

 

Pulling out the engine! IT'S A BEAST!

 

my dime all emptied out and on dollies, it's crazy light, I can pick it up by the core support and roll it around by hand.

 

I had already flipped my crossmember, so the next steps are to cut off the old motor mounts, build some new ones, and build a mount for the rack and pinion.

 

I used a die grinder and a cut off wheel to trim the mounts off as close as possible to the crossmember, and then cleaned it up using a grinder.

[dat520]

Day 2

little to no progress...

 

I haven't really done anything today, but I did pick up a few parts for it. I've had the hardest time tracking down headliner bows, but I finally found some. Unfortunately they're for a wagon, and I have a two door. I'm not sure how well they will fit, anybody have any ideas?

 

I realized after I posted last time that I had posted a 'before' picture of my car before I started disassembling it. I thought it would be cool to post a 'before before' picture of my car from when I first got it to give some better perspective.

 

So here's my car when I first started:

 

and here's one of my favorite pictures of my car from a couple years ago:

 

On the surface it looks like a great car, but under if you look close enough you'll start to notice that there are a few things worth fixing. Over the next few weeks and months I'll be tackling these issues and I think it'll be clear why I felt it was worth going back to bare metal to make it right.

 

ben

that bottom picture looks like spanish banks in vacouver b.c.

[Grey_Matter]

what needed to be redone? it looked beautiful the way it was...i can only imagine how much better its gonna look since it was your first project car and it turned out tits the first time

[Bob3]

You sir are an inspiration! Keep up the great pics and tips!

[BayArea510]

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder" hence why u must be redoing a makeover twice on your dime!

I like many others also think it looked great the first time.

However I know the feeling of disatisfaction because I am going thru it myself. Although I am not gutting out completely I am repainting and adding a turbo to my Sr20DE non turbo. Some people think I dont need a paint job but the little imperfections bug the crap out of me!

Keep it up man!

[littlekeeley]

I'm really liking this project, looking forward to following it. keep it up

[72coupe510]

wow, this thing is a beauty!! Way to bring it to life! I can only wish mine turns out looking like that someday!

[jackedaw11]

Day 7 - TIG Welding FUN!

 

I'm pretty new to TIG welding; I'm not very good, but its FUN! I've been working on the motor mounts and the mounts for the rack and pinion. I'm using the old crossmember as a template. I wanted to redo the way I did the motor mounts so I started by using cardboard to make mockups. The holes for the sr20 mounts need to be approximately 19.5 inches apart, and about 5 inches above the bottom of the crossmember (don't take my word for it, my measurements may be off...). And the faces which the motor mounts will bolt to need to be at about a 45 degree angle.

 

My trusty little harbor freight tig welder, It works really really well and I added a foot pedal to it which makes it work even better!

 

Here's what I have so far:

 

I have the uprights done, and the mounting face welded together. The upright is about 2" tall, and the mounting face is about 2.5".

 

 

I also started messing around with the mounts for the rack and pinion. I'm using .12 wall 4130 tubing, and .125 thick 1018 for the flanges. I cut the tubing in half, and welded on flanges, which I'll use to bolt the two halves together. The tubing I used is 2.00" od and I think they're too big. I'm going to try this again with some smaller tubing, for a better fit.

 

My materials, the big black rod is a 2.5" chunk of delrin which I'll be using to make bushings.

 

the tubing cut in half, I used a bandsaw

 

clamped in place for welding:

 

Tacked:

 

Welded one side:

 

Flipped and welded the other side

 

Finished product:

[HudsonMC]

Definitely gonna follow this!

 

What steering rack are you using?

[datsun 160J SSS]

welds look good to me .keep up the good work :)

[jackedaw11]

Day 8 - Machining Rack and Pinion Brackets

 

The title says day 8, but really this took several days of measuring, drawing, and machining. I had previously tried to make flanged brackets by welding tabs onto chromoly tubing. Ultimately there wasn't enough clearance under the transmission and this design didn't work. I needed to build a bracket that had a lower profile. I've completed work on the drivers side bracket, I started with a 1 inch thick piece of steel and machined it to fit over the head unit.

 

Here's the material, 1x3x7 cold rolled steel

 

The first step was to bore out a hole to fit the curved top of the rack's head (approx 1.9"). I used a boring head on my milling machine.

 

Next, I used the bandsaw to rough-cut the shape to fit down around the rack. I cleaned the dimensions up on the mill, which finished the inside shape of the bracket.

 

Now I started cutting the outside profile, again I roughed out the cuts on the bandsaw and then tuned the exact dimensions on the mill.

 

Here's the final shape of the bracket:

 

All that's left is to tap the holes, I took extra care to do this slowly. I had about 3 hours of machining into this piece so far, and I really didn't want to mess it up! Here's the bracket with the holes tapped, I also made the bottom clamp out of half inch steel.

 

 

And here's the finished product. I'm really happy with the way it turned out, it's a perfect fit, totally solid, and it'll have plenty of clearance under the engine.

Top shot

 

Bottom shot

[fisch]

Man this thread is beyond impressive! I have tool envy for sure. I also never figured the Harbor Freight Tig would be a groovy unit, nice to know! Keep it up!

[bonvo]

glad to see im not the only one who likes to make sure it wont come apart :) thats some heavy duty stuff right there

[Gary]

patience is definately definately the key! i know car people that still dont get that

 

+1 for tool envy, TIG and mill are on my list :(

 

project looks great :D

[jackedaw11]

Thanks for the compliments! I'm almost finished with the passenger-side rack bracket, I'll try to get pics up this evening.