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My Ratsun Datsun 521, now with L-20-B and a five speed


DanielC

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When I got Ratsun running, last August, I drove it for a few weeks before this became a problem.

HoleyMuff_zpsff2d0377.jpg

 

I repaired it by wrapping it with some thin metal from old paint thinner cans.

MuffWrapped_zps026594a7.jpg

 

This is the muffler currently.  It is getting louder again.

RatsunMufflerFront_zps0b8f8bef.jpg

 

The front of the muffler looks a little worse.

RatsunMufflerBack_zpsd76174ce.jpg

 

i have gotten a quote of around $300 to replace the exhaust system on Ratsun,  I am going to try to do it myself using mandrel bends and tube from these guys.

http://www.mandrel-bends.com/catalog/

 

My plan is to use Dragon, this truck, as a model to test fit a new exhaust system into, and then move the exhaust system to Ratsun.

http://community.ratsun.net/topic/49698-my-dragon-datsun-521/page-3

 

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I got done building an exhaust system on Dragon.  Here is most of the pieces.

ExhaustSystem_zpsc0ef9071.jpg

 

On Tuesday, March 13, 2014, in the afternoon, I took the old exhaust system off Ratsun, and then put the new system I built on Dragon, on Ratsun.

 

I am tired.  Just pictures now.  The first two pictures in this series are actually the exhaust parts on Dragon. 

 

Install1_zps5564e859.jpg

 

 

Install2_zps32705f27.jpg

 

The following pictures are on Ratsun.

Frontpipe3_zpsf60300dd.jpg

 

FrontHanger_zps3c5547cd.jpg

 

Frontpipe2_zpsd97fba8f.jpg

 

Muffler_zps300da9b6.jpg

 

MufflerHanger_zpse65a291e.jpg

 

TailHanger_zpsb155f857.jpg

 

Tailpipe_zps8c44cd40.jpg

 

 

 

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While putting the exhaust system on Ratsun, I noticed the drive line moved around a lot.  I thought the rubber for the center support bearing was bad.  It turned out, the lower bracket for the center support bearing was missing.  I had no luck, finding one in my parts stash.

Here is the picture of the drive shaft, and the bearing brackets.

BearingBrackets_zps15b013a5.jpg

 

While trying to remove the two bolts that hold the upper, and lower bracket, one broke.  I need to pull the cab to do work on the floorboards anyway.  

I then contacted Wayno, but he did not know if he had an extra lower bracket, but he said there is a 521 at Portland south Pick-n-Pull.  On Sunday, March 16, I was out in Clackamas anyway, so I made a quick trip up to P-n-P.  Sunday, I got the bracket, a right side door handle, and a steering column cover.

Monday morning back out to P-n-P, and I got these parts.

MiscParts_zpsf6d6cc29.jpg

I also got a spare tire, and wheel.  The tire is in pretty sad shape, but it is an original size 6.00-14 tire.

SpareTire_zps4e688683.jpg

Tread on the tire.

SpareTire2_zpseb6d8768.jpg

And Monday afternoon, I put the spare tire up under Ratsun's bed.

SpareTireStored_zps4dceba7a.jpg

 

The gas door on Ratsun had the spring clip broken off, so I took the door off Ratsun, because it would just flap in the breeze.

but I put the red one in the picture above, on Ratsun.

GasDoorOn_zpsf356b970.jpg

 

Later on Monday, I cleaned up the heater motor and fan, and took a closer look at the tail light.  The lenses on the tail light look good, the white plastic base is in good shape.  One bulb is corroded into the socket, but the other two bulbs are removable.

The bracket, with the license plate holder, and license plate light was only grabbed becaiue I wanted the light, and it is really hard to reach the screw for the light, so I ripped off the bracket, with the light,and plate holder from unbder the bed.  Literally ripped off.  I broke one short strut that keeps the assembly from moving, and then worked the assembly back and forth until the metal fatigued enough to literally rip it out.

 

The bottom half of the steering column cover had one screw boss break, but I got it for one of my other projects, Dragon.  The top half of the column cover was cracked.  A good top half, from P-n-P, and a good bottm half that was on Dragon, and I have a good steering column cover on Dragon.

 

I have another project, Dragon 2, and the heater motor had a broken wire NOT on the heater motor.  The heater motor makes a lot of vibration noise on high, in Ratsun. 

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A while back, I painted a left 521 door, and put some insulation on the inside of it, and new window run channel.  Today, I put that door on Ratsun.  After adjusting the door hinges, and catch, the door closes easily, witha nice sounding "thunk", and no rattles.  I cannot remember where I put the door repair info.  I will try to find it, and update when do.

RatPaintedDoor_zps90bbca19.jpg

The door that was on Ratsun has a lot of surface rust, but actually looks pretty good inside.  It has some extra mirror holes, some plugged, some are not.  The interior parts were rusty, but everything came apart without breaking any screws.

This is what the outside of the door looks like.

RatLeftDoorOutside_zps9dce2681.jpg

Later, this evening, I took the old door apart.

RatLeftDoorInside_zps8e800c6d.jpg

 

In the last picture, you can see the door on an engine stand.  I took a piece of flat stock, and ground it down to fit on the hinge surface of the door.  That is bolted to a smaller piece of plate, with a piece of pipe that fits into my engine stand.  The door plate is reversible, for right and left doors.

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Yesterday, I made a trip to Portland south Pick-n-Pull, and harvested more parts off the 521 that was there. A front bumper, and brackets, exhaust pipe brackets, cab to frame bolts, and a right door.  I spent time cleaning the parts, and putting them together with some other parts I have.  I had cab mount bolts in a few different places, for different trucks, and I put them all together into one container.  I also took the guts out of the door that came off Ratsun, and the door I got at P-n-P.

 

While searching for parts, I found this. 

WindshieldSquirter_zps32e48006.jpg

A new wind shield squirter.

 

I did some welding on the door today.  With the door on a stand, I bolt a short piece of battery cable to the door, and bolt that to the ground lead of me MIG welder.  That way, I know the welder has a good ground, and the ground clamp is out of the way.

WeldGround_zps41da3b21.jpg

 

I started at the top of the door.  there were three holes here.

MirrorMountTop_zpsfa8e1546.jpg

 

There were another three holes by the vent window.

MirrorMountBottom_zpsd3d531ca.jpg

 

This crack got repaired,

VentWindowCrack_zps7cf19478.jpg

I guess I took a picture of the crack before, but not after repair.

 

There was a crack in the sheet metal behind the lock button port, and the sheet metal on the inside of the door has a gap between it and the rear window track.

LockButtonCrack_zpsb33e4c0a.jpg

 

And there were two more holes, with plugs for another mirror.

MirrorMountFront_zps42b6680c.jpg

 

Later today, I put the red door I got at Pick-n-Pull yesterday, on the stand, and this is what I need to do to that door.

Fill these holes.

RedMirrorMountTop_zps7bd4ae6b.jpg

and fill these holes.

RedMirrorMountBottom_zps283fda41.jpg

 

This crack needs repair,

RedVentWindowCrack_zps5bd5dda2.jpg

and some repairs here.

RedLockButtonCrack_zpsdb945417.jpg

 

I was tired of filling holes, and welding, so I did some sanding of paint on the red door.

RedDoorSand1_zpsd17572e6.jpg

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This is the process I used to fill the many mirror holes in the door.

I start with some plugs I made, with a Roper-Whitney punch I bought a little while ago,  The plugs i can make are 7/16, 3/8, the ugly ones are 5/16, and the small dimpled ones are 7/32. 

1Plugs_zps7fe36c16.jpg

 

For patching the mirror holes, I drilled them out with a 7/32 drill,

2Drill_zps876e48f9.jpg

and then used a tapered reamer to carefully open the hole very slightly,

3Reamer_zps91b2a4ab.jpg

so the 7/32 plug would barely fit.

4TestFit_zps26a66020.jpg

 

Then I put a small piece of copper behind the hole, to back up the plug, and help hold it in place.

5Copper_zpse53a30fe.jpg

 

I then put the plug in the hole,

6PlugPlaced_zps5cc993ea.jpg

 

and made a small tack weld.  The tack weld pulls the plug out of the hole, sometimes.  With only a small tack weld, I use a small punch to drive down the high side of the plug.

7PunchAdjust_zps85cf3e0f.jpg

 

I am not going to give much welding advise.  Many of you are much better welders than I am.

 

So the weld is done.  I use this air grinder to remove most of the proud metal from the weld.

9DiskGrind2_zps6aa133dc.jpg

More grinding,   I take my time grinding, to allow the metal to cool, and also I am careful to not get it too hot either.

8DiskGrind_zpsf33f53da.jpg

 

Then I switch to a smaller die grinder, with some thicker cutoff wheels in it to accurately grind some more.

10CutoffGrind_zps5394d809.jpg

I use the cutoff wheels until the metal is very close to flush, and then I switch to this clean and strip disk to finish the weld.

11StripDisk_zps4f1d0c8b.jpg

 

Top mirror holes, repaired.

13TopFinished_zpsf5c4cb90.jpg

 

Bottom mirror holes, repaired.

14BottomFinished_zps79eaec5b.jpg

 

This is the back side of the top mirror holes.  There are actually two plugs stacked on top of each other, so the plug you see in this picture did not show a lot of heat applied to it.

15Topback_zpsec8db729.jpg

 

 

And later, I stripped the paint off the bottom of that door.   First, I used paint remover, scraped the paint off, then used mineral spirits to remove the traces of paint remover, and cleaned up that mess.  Then I used a metal conditioning disk, to remove traces of paint still on the door

20RedDoor_zps3c92a810.jpg

 

While making the mess with the paint remover, I also did the bottom of the door that was on Ratsun.

21RatDoor_zps790100e3.jpg

 

 

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On this page:
Snow park permit.
A little door info.
Addict Cab floor clean and primed.
Tailgate hole plugging.
Tailgate painting.
Bumperettes cleaned, chromed, brackets painted.
New door panels
Heater box painted, License plate holder painted.
Tailgate lettering painted black.
Driveline swap.
Work on right side door, inner brace securing, sound proofing, window run channel.
Painted right side dooe put on cab.
Grill, hood, and “eyebrow” headlight trim installed.
Headlight door straightening.
Info on straightening front apron (valence) and lower grill opening rail.

 

In the last few days, I have just been removing paint from both the Ratsun left door, and the red right door I got at Portland south Pick-n-Pull.

The red door is getting close to ready for paint and primer, and so is the old Ratsun left door. 

 

I updated all my pages in this thread. by putting a table of contents on the first post I made on each page.  That way, I do not have to scroll all the way through the pages to figure out what is on each page.

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  • 1 month later...

A long time since an update.  I have just been driving Ratsun, it is running good.  On April 20, I did this.

SnowPark_zps9e1e01b8.jpg

I had gotten a voucher for a lift ticket at Mount Hood Meadows, a snow ski area "close" to where I live.  That was a 138 mile round trip, the longest I have taken in Ratsun so far.  No problems, and on that tank of gas, 25.4 miles per gallon.

Yes, that was Easter Sunday.  I take care of my elderly mom at home, but have a service come in on Sundays, while I go to Church, in the winter, and waterski with a waterski show team I am on during the Summer.  With Easter, my church had a Saturday night service, freeing up that Sunday.

 

I plan on putting another cab on Ratsun.  sometime since the last post, I cleaned up the floor on that cab, and got primer on it.

AddictFloorPrimeRt_zps7c646afb.jpg

other side

AddictFloorPrimeLf_zps87cd643b.jpg

 

Just recently, I did some work on the tailgate. it used to look like this.

RatAft_zpsb07a8aa1.jpg

 

If you look just above the style line, below the latches, you can see a line of small holes.  I plugged and filled those holes.

TailGateHolesFilled_zps061d79bf.jpg

And in the last few days, I cleaned the old paint, primer, and body filler off the tailgate.  I started to do some metal finishing on the gate, at the top first, but I found some holes below the lettering, after cleaning filler off the gate.  At that point, I decided to not finish out the gate completely, that would have taken a week or longer.  So, I just cleaned up most of the rust on the outside, primered the gate, and then sprayed topcoat on it.

So this is what the tailgate looks like now.

PaintedTailgate_zpse6fefb2e.jpg

 

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  • 1 month later...

Another long time since an update.  Ratsun is running good, it has been getting 23 to 25 MPG.

I took these bumperettes apart, derusted the brackets in electrolysis, and took the rear bumpers to get rechromed.

Bumperette1_zpsae760517.jpg

 

Bumperette2_zps8d93c73d.jpg

 

Bumperette3_zpsb1956d81.jpg

 

Bumperette4_zps0b3c6d3c.jpg

 

And today, I put them back together.

BumperettesChromed_zps2d8b4dc7.jpg

 

I also got some new door panels made.

DoorPanels_zps83f91f0c.jpg

 

and I got some extra vinyl to do some kick panels in the future.

ExtraVinyl_zps9eb10a7b.jpg

 

When I mixed up paint for the bumper brackets, I also painted a heater box, and a rear license plate holder.

PaintedHeaterBox_zps67c4147b.jpg

 

LicensePlateHolder_zps18a67ac0.jpg

 

I masked off the lettering on Ratsun's tailgate, and did this.

LetteredTailgate_zpse869c6f7.jpg

 

And finally, last Monday, June 23, 2014, I swapped out the drive line in Ratsun for another one I had in my parts collection.  The old drive line had a few dents in it, and the center support bearing is also a little noisy.

Ratsun runs smoother now.

 

Currently I am still working on making new floorpans for Ratsun.

See this thread.

http://community.ratsun.net/topic/51593-floor-repair/page-2

 

 

 

 

 

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Another long time since an update.  Ratsun is running good, it has been getting 23 to 25 MPG.

I took these bumperettes apart, derusted the brackets in electrolysis, and took the rear bumpers to get rechromed.

Bumperette1_zpsae760517.jpg

 

Bumperette2_zps8d93c73d.jpg

 

Bumperette3_zpsb1956d81.jpg

 

Bumperette4_zps0b3c6d3c.jpg

 

And today, I put them back together.

BumperettesChromed_zps2d8b4dc7.jpg

 

I also got some new door panels made.

DoorPanels_zps83f91f0c.jpg

 

and I got some extra vinyl to do some kick panels in the future.

ExtraVinyl_zps9eb10a7b.jpg

 

When I mixed up paint for the bumper brackets, I also painted a heater box, and a rear license plate holder.

PaintedHeaterBox_zps67c4147b.jpg

 

LicensePlateHolder_zps18a67ac0.jpg

 

I masked off the lettering on Ratsun's tailgate, and did this.

LetteredTailgate_zpse869c6f7.jpg

 

And finally, last Monday, June 23, 2014, I swapped out the drive line in Ratsun for another one I had in my parts collection.  The old drive line had a few dents in it, and the center support bearing is also a little noisy.

Ratsun runs smoother now.

 

Currently I am still working on making new floorpans for Ratsun.

See this thread.

http://community.ratsun.net/topic/51593-floor-repair/page-2

 

Were them your bumperettes on the counter at "Starbright finishes" in Oregon City?

I talked about them while I was there, PM me about how much you paid to have them done.

They still owe me 4 320 hubcaps that have already been paid for, I am starting to get aggravated with them, so far they have not met any deadlines.

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What a great thread.

 

"A while back, I painted a left 521 door, and put some insulation on the inside of it, and new window run channel. Today, I put that door on Ratsun. After adjusting the door hinges, and catch, the door closes easily, witha nice sounding "thunk", and no rattles. I cannot remember where I put the door repair info. I will try to find it, and update when do."

 

Did you ever find this info? It would be really helpful, as I'm looking fo install a new run channel and replace felt & weather stripping.

 

Good work!

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Sorry about the delay.  summers get really busy for me.

A quick bit of info.  The sliding window glass is the absolute last part that comes out of the door.

 

I am thinking of building a 521 door thread, and have some pictures, (somewhere) but I like to do one or two time through a procedure before I post a "how to"

 

I even have a painted right side door for Ratsun, sitting on a stand, with no parts in it, waiting for window run channel, assembly, and installing on Ratsun.

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I did some work on the right door that is going on Ratsun last night.  The door has been painted, and is mounted on my engine stand. 

There is a brace inside the door, that was glued to the outer door skin, with I do not know what Datsun used 44 years ago, but it had broken loose from the door skin.

DoorBrace_zpsd999813e.jpg

 

This is the modern sealer I used to reglue the brace to the door skin.

SeamSealer_zps91e74629.jpg

 

It just fits into a common caulk gun. 

CaulkGun_zpsfd22b737.jpg

 

By collapsing the caulk gun all the way, I was able to get the gun inside the door, and then I could open the plunger on the caulk gun, and load the seam sealer into the gun, and squirt the seam sealer under the brace, the entire length of the brace by the door skin.

No picture of that, my hands were full and has some seam sealer on them, I did not want on the camera.

 

I then used a "tongue depressor" stick to work the sealer under the brace some more.

SealerInDoor_zpsfe3be138.jpg

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After using seam sealer to glue the brace to the door skin, I put this foil insulation on the inside of the door skin.

Insulation_zps775861ac.jpg

The insulation is about the same width as the vertical height inside the door.  I cut a piece off as long as the inside of the door, and then cut it again to fit below the brace, and above the brace.  Then round the bottom two corners, on the bottom piece, and cut some holes for the door latch handle.

I used this spray contact cement to glue the insulation in.

ContactCement_zpsc2beee4a.jpg

You spray the contact cement on the insulation, and on the inside of the door skin, wait for it to dry, and then carefully slide the insulation inside of the door, without the insulation touching the door skin, until it is in place.

InsulationInDoor_zpsa2d31018.jpg

I got the insulation and contact cement at Home Depot.  you can easily cut the insulation with a pair of scissors.

 

Next, I put new window run channel in the door.  I found this new run channel, from Mygrant Glass.

RunChannel_zps038cd686.jpg

This is a better picture of the part number of the run channel.

RunChannelNumber_zps6b90fa45.jpg

This is a picture of the cross section of the run channel.

RunChannelXSection_zps14c1a488.jpg

 

This is the weatherstrip cement I used to glue the window run channel in the door.

WeatherstripAdhesive2_zps805c3bb8.jpg

The box the weather strip cement comes in.

WeatherstripAdhesive1_zpsed9b0635.jpg

Part number of the weather strip cement.

WeatherstripNumber_zps67fc8f4b.jpg

The weather strip cement also comes in a yellow color.  This stuff sticks to every thing really good, especially fingers.  You can wear latex or nitrile gloves, but it sticks to them really well, too.

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