Project FTO

[datsunrides]

How about we start a build thread for the latest acquisition. Here is the 1972 521 I just purchased yesterday from member Hurley. (Thanks to all of you that passed! ? )

 

 

In my opinion, this is a very nice, solid foundation upon which to build a truck for my wife. She's been after me to get her an old Datsun for a little while, and this will eventually fit the bill. It has (or will have) her 2 requirements, an automatic, and A/C. So, my initial accessment of the truck is,

 

Chassis - Looks straight, no ready evidence of any crash damage or rust. Plan on going disc on the front, but not sure

which route yet.

Body - Pretty damn straight. Has a little damage on the right front lower fender and on the left rear of the bed corner.

There are a few small dents on the bed sides and tailgat from shifting loads, but pretty minor. The only non

surface rust I can see so far is a little bubbling paint on the rockers, which have already passed the screwdriver

test. The seam sealer is mostly gone from the roof joints, so that will need to be addressed. All the rubber seems

to be in passable shape for now. It still wears it's original paint. The plan is to polish it out and see what the

end result is before going further. Windshield has a little chip in it. Gonna have a glass place see if they can

repair it.

Interior - The dash and glove box are in fine shape. The original radio still works! Obviously the pad needs help and the

door panels need to be redone. The floor is rusty, but I think it's mostly surface, as I have not punched thru

with my scraper yet. I would not be surprised if there ends up being a few holes, but I think overall it's

solid. Steering wheel is shot as is the bench. Probably go with buckets and see what I can scrounge up for a

wheel at the JY.

 

 

 

 

Drivetrain - Currently has a L16 w/ U67 head and 4 speed trans. Here is where I need some work. Brian told me the engine

was only running on 3 cylinders. Started diagnosis this morning with a compression test. 1-2-3 were at 150

to 160. 4 was basically dead. Pull the valve cover to check the valve clearance. It's fine, no tight valve.

As a side note, as I was told, this head has been recently rebuilt! ? Try the oil trick, no help. This

is not good. Break out the leakdown tester and all kinds of air coming from inside the engine. Figure it's

a piston problem so off with the head. Head is off in a half hour and sure enough, #4 piston is done for.

Someone has been in there before as it has flat top pistons, probably L24's as the bores are still at 83mm.

Gonna have to refresh the bottom end. As for the tranny, Brian had an automatic in his keeper 521 that

removed and put a stick into. Works out perfect for me as now I have a bolt in swap with a 1 piece

driveshaft! This is nice as I don't believe the 521 came from the factory with an auto.

 

 

 

 

That's what I got for now. Gonna work on building a bottom end, putting the automatic in, and treating the floor pans for now. Once it's running, find out what else it needs and go from there.

 

Mark

Edited December 23, 2018 by datsunrides
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[ggzilla]

Nice. Sounds like a good plan.

[RadioRedline]

I likey the White.

 

Radio

[datsunrides]

Got the engine pulled today.

 

 

Did a post mortem on the engine and it's not great. I did find out this motor was recently rebuilt as the timing set, bearings, and pistons are almost new. Teardown went well until I got to the rods. While the bearings were new, they must not have resized the rods as the caps just slid off with no effort. The rod journals on the crank have a little scoring on them. I have not mic'ed them, but visually it looks like it would need to but cut down .010. Poped the pistons out and found ALL the top compression rings were broken. Also, turns out #1 had a bad piston in addition to #4. Looks like when the ring broke, it jammed in the groove and really opened it up. The main journals on the crank look great and the thrust is within spec. So it would seem whoever "rebuilt" this engine did not check the ring end gap or the land clearance, causing the rings to break and eventually screw up a couple pistons. This kinda changes the plan a little as I was hoping to rebuild the L16 on the cheap (relatively speaking)by basically fitting new pistons and boring the cylinders. Now, in addition to that, it would seem I would need to resize the rods, fit new rod bolts (I would not trust these)and possibly grind the rod journals. Oh, and change the timing chain as this one has a master link! :blink: The additional machine work puts me into the "why not just swap a KA-E in" mode. I guess I'm on the hunt for a D21 KA-E now with the S13 injection. While this pans out, I will be sandblasting under the hood and repainting in anticipation of the new motor.

Edited December 23, 2018 by datsunrides
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[lil89ram50]

your sure this is not an lz motor? idk, it kinda sounds like it since you said it already has the pistons, and a master link in the timink chain.....

[datsunrides]

Not a LZ. Block is stamped L16

[datsunrides]

Alright, managed to finish pulling the dash, steering, and under hood items in preparation for sandblasting. Here are the before pics.

 

 

 

 

Front floor pans and right fenderwell blasted. No holes! ?

 

 

 

 

Still need to do the back part of the pans and finish under the hood. Ran outta sand. Here are the blasted areas in self etch primer.

 

 

 

Hopefully I can finish the floors and under hood sandblasting tomorrow and get the primer down. I'm gonna try and hit the wreckers Wednesday and hopefully find it's new engine and some buckets. I also plan on shortening the steering column about 3" while it's out to gain some room inside the truck. I'll also get the dash pad recovered while it's out.

 

Mark

Edited December 23, 2018 by datsunrides
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[datsunrides]

Finished sanblasting the floors and under hood today

 

 

 

 

 

And in the self etch primer

 

 

 

I have some leftover single stage white I plan to lay down on the floors. Under the hood, I will scuff it and shoot some sealer, then top coat it with a 2 stage paint TBD. Right now, the wife is leaning toward a pewter-ish color. The plan is to paint under the hood the final color now, then do a complete exterior repaint at a later date. Frame will be a rattle can black, probably VHT epoxy. Hopefully I can score an engine tomorrow.

 

Mark

Edited December 23, 2018 by datsunrides
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[Xander_42]

Awesome truck. Can't wait to see how it turns out.

 

On a related note: I'm planning to make my second Datto a 521... when I graduate and get a job...

[cyrusthevirus]

i loved me some 620s

 

i do not love rusty

[datsunrides]

Still plugging away. Went on a yard search for a KA, but came back empty. I did manage to find a couple 520/521's in a couple yards surprisingly. Was not a total waste as I was able to get some missing items for the truck. Then, a day later I found my engine on CL,

 

 

90' KA24E from a 240sx. Supposedly has 140K on it and is a good runner. Pulled for a SR20 swap. Got it with all the accessories and electronics for $250. Bearings look good but it does have a broken timing chain guide, so I guess I'll just put a whole new timing set in while it's on the stand. Spent a couple days degreasing the engine (it was actually pretty clean) and tidying up the harness. Now the search is on for a oil pan and flexplate. The wife and I went out Saturday to the paint shop to choose the trucks new color and to the local pick and pull for her to choose some seats for the truck. The paint color she chose is best described as a shiny grey primer color. Here are the seats she chose mounted.

 

 

Pretty nice grey leather seats from an early 90's Caravan ES. Lovin' the armrests! I also tackled the job of shortening the steering column for a little more interior room. Cut out 3"

 

 

 

 

 

Now just need to sand it down and paint it. I also managed to get the dash cleaned up and painted and dropped the pad off to get recovered.

 

 

Going to probably run around tomorrow buying some parts for the engine and maybe another yard trip for front brake conversion stuff. I hope to have the engine bay and floor painted and hopefully the engine in place by this weekend. The hope is to have it on the road before Thanksgiving.

 

Mark

Edited December 23, 2018 by datsunrides
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[merlin]

thanks for showing the driveshaft shortening job... thats one of the first "mods" i want to do.

[datsunrides]

Got the painting done I wanted. Did the floors in some leftover Centari single stage.

 

 

And under the hood in a Nason base/clear. Color is a real light grey, more like a dirty white.

 

 

 

Did not get the oil pickup tube or flexplate I need, so the engine won't be going in and I found out the u-pull-it is having a 1/2 off sale over thanksgiving, so I will wait to get the brake parts until then to save a few $$$. We'll see about putting the interior back together this weekend.

 

Mark

Edited December 23, 2018 by datsunrides
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[Hurley]

Looks like the project is moving along, and is looking good. I see the floors were not too bad. I like the seats. I'm looking for some buckets right now. Do you think I would have to do many mods to fit some wrx seats in my 521? Looking forward to seeing more progress.

[Braden]

thanks for showing the driveshaft shortening job... thats one of the first "mods" i want to do.

he shortened the steering column shaft. shortening the driveline would effectively seperate it from the differential. sweet welding jig though!!!! nice truck man what is that guys like you do for a living???? i cant even seem to find a pee on job.

[datsunrides]

Looks like the project is moving along, and is looking good. I see the floors were not too bad. I like the seats. I'm looking for some buckets right now. Do you think I would have to do many mods to fit some wrx seats in my 521? Looking forward to seeing more progress.

 

Yah, floors turned out OK. My experience is that passenger car seats are harder to adapt. Usually the highback car design makes you either have to sit bolt upright or sit closer to the steering wheel and the mounting design makes them harder to mount as they usually are not made to sit flat. Anything can be made to fit, so it just comes down to personal choice.

 

 

nice truck man what is that guys like you do for a living???? i cant even seem to find a pee on job.

 

Thanks. I started out as an auto technician as my first vocation. Did that for about 10 years and circumstances led me to become a steamfitter/pipefitter. I have been doing that for almost 15 years now. Much cleaner and much better pay. Don't feel too bad, I'm not working myself right now. How ya think I'm able to get all this work done? :lol: :blink:

 

Mark

[Hurley]

Any new progress?

[WAGON JON]

Oics please. Lovin the build!

[datsunrides]

Guess it's been a while since the last update. I have been making progress, but went back to work :thumbup: 3 weeks ago, so progress is a little slower. So, here is where it stands.

 

Engine installed. Went with the S13 rubber mounts and slightly modified the engine mounts. The extra height of the S13 mounts gave me the clearence I needed for the center link. The engine mounts were sectioned to correct for the mounting angle. I'm using the S13 front sump pan.

 

 

 

 

Driveshaft rebuilt/balanced

 

 

Wiper motor and fuse block cleaned up. You can also see where the EFI wiring enters the cab.

 

 

New custom steering column seal

 

 

7/8" Master for disc brakes installed. I have almost everything I need to do the ball joint disc brake swap with vented 720 brakes. You can also see my new rubber fenderwell flaps I made.

 

 

Temp fuel pump mounted and plumbed. New hard line to feed the motor. Still need to finish the return.

 

 

 

Scirocco radiator

 

 

Firewall insulated and carpeted.

 

 

Dash and recovered dash pad installed. Kenwood head unit. You can see where I had to cut the tunnel for trans clearance. Still need to patch it up.

 

 

Computer mounted. Making custom kick panels to cover.

 

 

Fuse/relay panel for the EFI and electric fan. Also will have a custom kick panel.

 

 

Getting closer! ?

 

Mark

Edited December 23, 2018 by datsunrides
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[TrevDaddy]

Wow dude beautiful work. I wish I had the resources available for such a build!

[Josh K.]

Nice job on the build!

[merlin]

loove it! can't wait to do mine...

[fisch]

Wow great Job on this!! I am loving it. Such clean work. Can you elaborate on what you had to do to the motormounts?

[datsunrides]

Thanks for the positive comments! It is really appreciated. :D Fisch, I basically did a vertical cut on them, then did a small "pie cut" to adjust to the different mount angle of the truck vs. the S13. I also had to drop the engine a small amount since the S13 mounts are quite a bit thicker than stock 521 mounts. I could have used the 521 frame mounts, but it ended up working better with the S13 mounts. Plus, when these break 10 years from now (I hope), I would guess they would be easier to find than the 521 ones!

 

Mark

[raggmann]

I'm curious about the steering column/fire wall seal.

Donor, N.O.S., home built?