Got me a 521

[BACARDI_DWB]

I ended up trading in my 510 for a 521!!. I really needed a truck and it makes more sense for me than having a car. It has a L20B and a 32/36 webber. its a good little runner and will be fun to play around with.

 

It has some minor issues that i need to take care of first. the ignition tumbler is a little sticky, the locks need some help, some small electrical problems. but all in all its a good little truck. tomorrow I am going to go and change the oil and give it a full inspection with a notepad of all the minor stuff i need to fix. safety hits are getting fixed immediately. (the steering wheel only has 2 of 12 bolts holding it in :eek:)

 

Right now i am going to keep the L20 in there, but the guy that traded with me made me a deal to build me a Z22 with a peanut L series head. then it should really scream.

 

eventually after i get most of the small stuff fixed i am going to work towards the KA going in, but BRAKES are first.....big time.

 

so here are some pics:

 

 

[Cruzn620]

that thing is STRAIGHT!!! nice buy!!!

[BACARDI_DWB]

well its not completely straight. the passenger side door has a dent in it. but i can get a new door pretty easily.

 

also the front valence (not on the truck) is pretty roughed up. its going to take a few wacks of the body hammer to straighten that thing out. but yeah over all its really nice

 

p.s. i just bought my brackets for the front disk brakes

[mklotz70]

Very nice. Congrats!

[]2eDeYe]

Nice truck...we need some overall shots :D

[521Lvr]

Sweet! I like the color

[banzai510(hainz)]

Right now i am going to keep the L20 in there, but the guy that traded with me made me a deal to build me a Z22 with a peanut L series head. then it should really scream.

 

eventually after i get most of the small stuff fixed i am going to work towards the KA going in, but BRAKES are first.....big time.

 

 

 

I have heard all this before w/the(510)

 

 

 

but really 510s are worth alot more, WHY loose the 510????????

keep both!!!!!!!!!!

If you didnt have the money for the 510 what makes the 521 any ezer?

 

PS I like YOUR truck and every Datsun owner should have a truck hopefully a Datsun truck as a spare parts hauler

[Guest DatsuNoob]

she's mint! Sweet deal, I've always liked those more than my 620. Hope it all works out.

[BACARDI_DWB]

I will get some new pics up tomarrow hopefully.

 

now about the 510. i can not afford the space. i can only have 2 vehicles and one of them needed to be a truck. yes i lost on the deal but i am happier. so i guess if i am happy then that is all that should matter.

 

(and hainz, I was working on the 510, but i was forced by my inlaws to get rid of it cause they had to store it for 8 months while i was out to sea. so yes you heard this from the 510, and it was going to be a reality but things changed, specially when they said that they will pay the down payment on my house if I got rid of the 510 and get a truck since its more practical. hard offer to turn down.)

 

well some painful news turned out to be a very good lesson. the truck blew a head gasket, a trip to autozone, a few buddies, $12, and one hour later the truck is running better than it did. the guy that sold it to me even came out to help cause he felt bad that he sold me a truck that was not up to specs like he said it was. (he even got a speeding ticket trying to get over to my place to help)

 

well the truck is running good and i will clean it up tomarrow and get some pics.

 

 

BTW its going to get painted flat black. sorry i am a sucker for flat black.

[Voleurz]

I will get some new pics up tomarrow hopefully.

 

now about the 510. i can not afford the space. i can only have 2 vehicles and one of them needed to be a truck. yes i lost on the deal but i am happier. so i guess if i am happy then that is all that should matter.

 

(and hainz, I was working on the 510, but i was forced by my inlaws to get rid of it cause they had to store it for 8 months while i was out to sea. so yes you heard this from the 510, and it was going to be a reality but things changed, specially when they said that they will pay the down payment on my house if I got rid of the 510 and get a truck since its more practical. hard offer to turn down.)

 

well some painful news turned out to be a very good lesson. the truck blew a head gasket, a trip to autozone, a few buddies, $12, and one hour later the truck is running better than it did. the guy that sold it to me even came out to help cause he felt bad that he sold me a truck that was not up to specs like he said it was. (he even got a speeding ticket trying to get over to my place to help)

 

well the truck is running good and i will clean it up tomarrow and get some pics.

 

 

BTW its going to get painted flat black. sorry i am a sucker for flat black.

 

makes me happy to know theres still some good people in the world.

 

nice looking truck man always had a thing for the 520/521

[BACARDI_DWB]

while i am waiting for my pics to upload i will tell you about my issue today. well i got some fuel cleaner and well it was "Lucas fuel treatment" and well i accidently let it drop into the tank. yeah that was a fun little project. at least i was able to get rid of the old fuel lines that were really rotted. (the evap lines and such), but yeah that kinda sucked.

 

 

in about 5 min more pics will be posted if my image hosts works

[BACARDI_DWB]

Finally all the pictures loaded up. well here it is guys. there is ALOT of electrical to fix on this car. i actually went to the junk yard and pulled a fuse box out of a 1992 saturn and i am going to make my own wiring harness with that for the truck. how the wiring is set up now i am surprised it has not caught on fire yet, i also have all the interior pieces and i have a new dashpad, i am only going to use the interior pieces for patterns cause the ones that came with it are old and fallin apart. Bucket seats are going in soon too, once the bucket seats are fabricated in there then the new carpet goes in. (which also means i need to paint the interior of the truck). you also got a pic in there with both of my vehicles. the SRT is almost done, by march it should have a good 375hp to the wheels and easily daily drivable, right now its at 317 but its a pain in the ass to drive. the turbo is WAY to peaky and its hard to keep tame on the street. enough about the SRT...

 

well anyways here are the pics

 

[BACARDI_DWB]

I cheated.

 

i am in the middle of doing the wiring diagram out of the satun's fuse block. i got almost all the pinouts done.... then... i got frustrated and calculated my time and effort with cost of materials and well i just ordered the painless wiring kit. you can't go wrong i guess. it feels like i have wasted the last 2 days on this wiring deal and its costing me time that can be spent elsewhere. so my kit ships out tomorrow :D

[Cruzn620]

start a project thread for this truck, i am interested! i have a rats nest under my 620's dash too!!!

[irsa76]

Funny, my 720 has a rats nest under the dash as well, must be a datto truck "feature".

I love the wheels.

[fisch]

I had chipmonks. They ate the box of my glovebox. Looks like they chewed the antenna wire too, ate a hole in the middle of an otherwise nice bench seat. But other than that I think I got off lucky!

[DanielC]

Bacardi, More info. Please!

What Painless harness did you use?

Are you going to replace the wires, or just the fuse box?

I have found the wiring on the PL-521 is pretty good, with the exception of the fuse box pretty much exposed to the weather, and after 3 or so decades does not always make good contact.

I am curious, what schematic are you using for your PL-521? I have a couple from Factory service manuals, 1970-1971, but there are a few differences. I also have two PL-521 trucks, and I noticed some differences between the two, the colors around the fuse box, and one of the trucks has the engine room harness for the factory fog lights, but not the light switch for the factory fog lights. I think the truck with the fog light harness might have had the wiring harness replaced with a new engine room harness, after the original one burned up. I believe the problem was a lost ground from the engine to the frame.

I have not personally had a problem with a bad ground, but I have not found exactly where the frame is grounded to the cab. On my truck, the battery ground cable goes to the cylinder head. I have ran an extra wire from that bolt down to the frame of the alternator. There is a factory wire that goes from the alternator to one of the bolts that hold the voltage regulator to the fenderwell, and there is another black wire that goes forward and grounds the headlights, and side marker lights. For some reason, the front marker, turn signal combination just grounds through the cab. Now, I just had a thought. The side marker lights have a wired ground because they are attached to a bolted on part, where as the front marker lights are attached to a part that has welds all the way back to the ground wire on the voltage regulator.

I have not found a ground wire between the frame of the truck, and I know that the taillights, and the fuel guage sender have wires going to the frame of the truck.

[LeDevil]

I like the truck nice and clean what size tires you running?

[BACARDI_DWB]

Bacardi, More info. Please!

What Painless harness did you use?

Are you going to replace the wires, or just the fuse box?

I have found the wiring on the PL-521 is pretty good, with the exception of the fuse box pretty much exposed to the weather, and after 3 or so decades does not always make good contact.

I am curious, what schematic are you using for your PL-521? I have a couple from Factory service manuals, 1970-1971, but there are a few differences. I also have two PL-521 trucks, and I noticed some differences between the two, the colors around the fuse box, and one of the trucks has the engine room harness for the factory fog lights, but not the light switch for the factory fog lights. I think the truck with the fog light harness might have had the wiring harness replaced with a new engine room harness, after the original one burned up. I believe the problem was a lost ground from the engine to the frame.

I have not personally had a problem with a bad ground, but I have not found exactly where the frame is grounded to the cab. On my truck, the battery ground cable goes to the cylinder head. I have ran an extra wire from that bolt down to the frame of the alternator. There is a factory wire that goes from the alternator to one of the bolts that hold the voltage regulator to the fenderwell, and there is another black wire that goes forward and grounds the headlights, and side marker lights. For some reason, the front marker, turn signal combination just grounds through the cab. Now, I just had a thought. The side marker lights have a wired ground because they are attached to a bolted on part, where as the front marker lights are attached to a part that has welds all the way back to the ground wire on the voltage regulator.

I have not found a ground wire between the frame of the truck, and I know that the taillights, and the fuel guage sender have wires going to the frame of the truck.

 

hello,

 

ok first of all i went with the summit kit, its like the painless kit but cheaper. i have found the summit kits are just as nice as the painless and about $100 cheaper.

 

now i am taking out all the existing wiring and starting from scratch. its going to be a week long process, I am also going to run wires for stuff i am going to get set up later (gauges and other lighting, plus i am going to get most of the wiring set up for the KA24). Now in referance to grounding. I have learned that you can never have too many GOOD grounds. I run a grounding kit (made by myself) in EVERY car I own. You link all your grounds and you connect to the frame, body, engine, tranny and inside the cab. This will allow for one GOOD common ground.

 

I have not completely set out with my game plan yet, (i am still waiting on the part to get to my house) but when i do i am going to take LOTS of pictures and do a complete write up on it.

 

the reason i am not going to use any of the wiring that is in the truck right now is that i can not trust it. Example: i have one wire running to the stock tach, and well its 3 different color wires connected as one (engine bay is red, under the dash is blue, and to connect up to the tach is green). and the wires are all connected with home wiring connectors. :eek:

 

The truck still runs but not all the lights work, and some of the minor stuff like the heater does not run right.

 

I use relays for everything, and I like switches too. I would rather flip a switch and turn the fan on and off rather than have a sensor do it for me.

 

I will most likely start this conquest in feb. It really depends on when i get the parts for my daily driver which is down right now for some upgrades. when that is up and running then i will take down the 521 for the wiring expedition.

 

oh yeah and I am getting a new battery and mounting it in a sealed box under the bed across from the gas tank, I am going to run a disconnect switch on the back of the truck and remote mounts in the engine bay on the fire wall just in case i end up needing a jump for whatever reason.

 

Hope this answers some questions

[BACARDI_DWB]

I like the truck nice and clean what size tires you running?

 

they are 17" and the tire size is 225's

 

i think they are a 45 series tire but i am not sure quite yet. i think i want something with a little more height but we will see. the tires have tread so i am giong to run those down before i think about it too hard;)

[BACARDI_DWB]

http://store.summitracing.com/partdetail.asp?autofilter=1&part=SUM%2D890021&N=700+115&autoview=sku

 

this is the kit i purchased

[banzai510(hainz)]

I say keep the stock harness.

just clean up the hack jobs and work up on the fuse box area. as said before most corrosion starts

 

I have no proplems with my 30yr old truck.

excecpt for old fuses and the lights not working correctlly once.

It was the connections near the fuse box.

 

If you got the smarts to install the wire harness then fixing somone else mistakes will be no proplem and hell of alot faster as mostly everything is working right now and just fix whats not working and make it more reliable.

[BACARDI_DWB]

yes i have the know how to fix the issues and make it right. i have tons of different color wiring to do it all back to stock specs. I have looked at it and It can be done, BUT its going to be a very long process. I have done 2 kits and i have done 3 stock rewires, I am NOT a fan of stock rewires, especially when most of the wires will have to be reran anyways. This also gives me more room to work with in the fuse block if i wanted to add components.

 

Well Hainz, your idea will actually work well, But i have a pet peeve, I am a very big stickler for wiring. I wired up my freinds mustang cause he had some VERY iffy things on that ford.

 

I have no problems taking the extra time to do it right with the kit. the only thing holding me back from starting is parts and getting my Daily driver back on the road. then the 521 can sit till its done how i want.

 

BTW i am getting rid of the stock dash when i do the wiring, i am going to VDO mechanical gauges. Right now the only thing that works on the stock dash is the fuel gauge. i am sure they are just wiring issues but again its going to be easier to run my own stuff.

[DanielC]

Thanks for the info.

I ordered some relays for my headlights on my 521 from Summit. I used the KCC-3300 relay, one for low beams, one for high beams. I plan on using a third relay, to control the high beam only light. With a switch in that feed wire, you can have low beams only, or high beams on the high/low lamp, or add the two center high beams to the outside high beams.

The KCC-3300 relay has two of the #87 terminals on it, one for each side of the truck. I crimped and soldered the terminal connector for the headlight, and the relay to one piece of 12 ga wire with no splices in it anywhere from the relay to the headlight. I also ran a 12 ga ground wire from the headlight socket to the frame of the alternator, one for each side. For the grounds, I did a tap splice in the ground wire. I very carefully removed about 3/4 of an inch of insulation in the wire, about 8 inches from the headlight end, wrapped a second piece of wire around the bare wire, soldered that, and then buried the bare spot in heat shrink.

I just used the old headlight feed to the coil #86 to turn the relay on.

The parts I ordered from Summit took only two days to arrive, even though I just requested ground freight.

[BACARDI_DWB]

good to know they ship fast!!

 

any opinions on where i should mount the fuse block? thinking under the dash on the passenger side. to keep more wires out of the engine bay.