My Dragon (2) Datsun 521

[DanielC]

On this page, or table of contents.

Using the cab off frame for setting up a drive line for a five speed transmission install on a 521.

Cleaning the bottom of the cab, in preparation for replacing the rusted floor. 

 

I want my thread back, or as a compromise one of you guys can give me either roadster.

 

This is the front half of a 1980 720 drive line sitting on a 521 frame, with the 1980 720 five speed transmission bolted to a L-18 engine, and bolted to the rear half of the original 521 drive line.  The only problem, the carrier bearing is too big to fit in the 521 carrier bearing bracket. 

 

I decided to see if there was a possibility that I could put a 521 carrier bearing on the 720 drive line.  I had to remove the carrier bearing from both the 521 front half of the driveline, and the 720 front half driveline.  On both drivelines, the nut was staked.

 

I have a 1/8 punch, that I ground a chisel end in.  The punch will fit into the key way of the shaft, and you can remove the staked dimple.

 

After a few hits on the punch with a hammer.

Ready to remove the nut.

 

Using a 1/2 inch breaker bar and a 1 1/16 socket to remove the nut.  It took a lot more effort than is apparent in this picture.  The piece of pipe on the bench below my arm was used on the breaker bar, and I had to stand on the bench.

 

Long story, shortened, the 521 bearing would not fit on the 720 drive line.  I need to get the front half of the 521 drive line shortened, and have a slip yoke for the five speed put on the shortened drive line.

 

I put the 720 drive line in the transmission, and slid it forward until it bottomed.   I then made a mark on the drive line collar, and the edge of the rear of the transmission.   I then centered the carrier bearing on the frame forward and back, and then used a tape measure to measure from the center of the front U-joint,

 

to the the rear surface of the flange that bolts to the rear half of the drive line.  Even thought this measurement looks like 18 13/16 of an inch, I measured 19 inches when I was not trying to hold a measuring tape, and a camera.  Do not use my measurement if you get your drive line shortened.  Set it up, and measure it yourself, make sure of the measurement, you do not want to pay a drive line shop twice to get our driveline the correct length.

 

This is just the gap between the drive line halves, before they were bolted together.

 

A picture of the inside of the right frame rail for future reference.  this is between the transmission and carrier bearing cross members.

 

Right frame rail again.

 

It is a week later, and here is the shortened 521 drive line.  Notice the yellow dots indicating how to bolt the two halves of the drive line together.

 

This is the fit of the slip yoke into the five speed transmission.

Edited January 16, 2019 by DanielC

[DanielC]

I decided to take a break from crawling under my 521 trucks, and since I had removed the cab from Dragon Two, I spent a little time cleaning the bottom of the cab floor of the cab for Dragon Two. 

More info on replacing a cab floor on a 521 here:

https://ratsun.net/topic/51593-floor-repair

 

This is the front left side of the floor, inside the cab.

 

And this is the bottom of the cab floor.  This is an old knife I found, i am just using it as a scraper to get the large piece of crud off the cab floor bottom.

 

This is after a fair amount of scraping with the knife.

 

That gave me this pile of crud.  There is more crud there than is apparent in the picture.  the plastic is a wood pellet sack I just cut the bottom, and one side out of, and opened up, and put on the floor.  Easier to clean up that way.   I just pull the plastic out from under the cab, and fold it, then dump in in the garbage.

 

After scraping the cab floor bottom, I put on Nitrile gloves, and then used paper towels, and paint thinner to clean the bottom of the cab some more.

 

After more cleaning with paint thinner.

Edited January 16, 2019 by DanielC

[DanielC]

After doing some work on the bottom of the cab for Dragon Two, I decided to turn it back on it's bottom, and do some work inside the cab, to see how bad the inside of the floor is.

This is drivers side, under the seat.

Passenger side, under seat.

Passenger side, in front of seat.

Drivers side, in front of seat.

 

Time for a little work with a small angle grinder, and a 4 1/2 inch wire wheel.  The grinder is a Metabo, the wire wheel came from Ace Hardware.   The dust mask, and face shield I ordered off Amazon.

 

The drivers side, under the seat, after wirebrushing.

 

The passenger side, under the seat, after wirebrushing.

 

Earlier in this thread, on page 3, I took the cab off the frame of Dragon Two. 

I have a small garage, barely large enough for two Datsun 521 trucks, and some benches, benches with way too much 521 parts on them.  With the cab off Dragon Two, I could not even get a second 521 in the garage, and close the garage door.

I took the dogleg transmission off the L-18 engine, bolted to D2 frame, and unbolted and then lifted the engine, and lowered the cab to the floor.  then I put the cab back on the frame, but did not bolt the cab to the frame.

Next, I slid the dogleg transmission under the cab, and moved the transmission as far back as I could.  Then the engine was lowered, and the engine mounts bolted to the frame.  Next I bolted the transmission to the engine, and put the transmission mount on the frame, under the transmission.

 

 

 

After that, I started to remove some of the rust on the right side floor of Dragon Two.

 

This is a view looking in the garage, with an open place for working on Ratsun, or other stuff.  This picture was taken at night, garage lights on, with flash, and it was raining.  The rain caused the dots in the picture.

 

Edited January 25, 2019 by DanielC

[DanielC]

More work on Dragon Two cab floor.   This is a phosphoric acid solution.  Phosphoric acid is used in many steel and metal cleaners to remove and neutralize rust.  This is made by PPG, there are many other similar products available.

 

The PPG phosphoric acid solution is diluted 2 parts water, 1 part phosphoric acid solution.  I use a small stainless steel brush to apply and scrub the rusty areas. 

 

It is OK to let the solution dry, when it is dry, it stops working on the rust.  You can rewet it,, and it will continue to remove rust.   The wet solution on steel will immediately turn any rust a dark color, and the clean steel does not really change color. 

This picture was taken after the solution had dried.

 

At this step in the floor repair, I am using the phosphoric acid to clean rust, and also to assess how bad the floor is rusted, and if I need to replace sheet metal, or if I can salvage some of the original steel.  I did not rewet the floor, I just used a small round wire brush in a drill to remove the phosphoric acid residue, and rust.  Applying the phosphoric acid weakens the remaining rust some, and makes it easier to wire brush.

Wire brush in drill.

 

For me i have found a fairly slow speed on the wire brush works better, it gives the time for the wire bristles to dig deeper into the rust pits.  I also reverse the drill often.  The bristles bend over away from the direction of rotation, and reversing the drill causes the bristled to dig into the rust pits again.

 

This is the floor after wire brushing, and also using a 3M clean and strip disk.

 

Unlike the rear half of the floor on the right side of this cab, there is no question I need to replace the front half of the floor.

 

Just a closer look at the front half of the floor.

 

The floor of the cab sits very close to the frame of the truck.  I needed to raise the cab off the frame.  I cut a 4x6 old fence post, and put it under the cab back mounts.  Note, the drive shaft is not in the truck.  This post was cut to about 52 1/2 inches long.

 

The middle can mounts are supported by shorter pieces of 4x6.  A single piece would not work here, the transmission is in the way.

 

I made the first cut, using a 3 by 1/32 cutoff disk in a die grinder.  Before you cut, look under the cab, and make sure you are not cutting any braces, or other parts of the cab.

 

I cut a second piece out of the floor.

and that is where I quit on January 25, 2019.

 

I removed a little more bad rusty metal in early February.

 

Occasionally, in a little spare time up to mid February,  I would cut some more bad metal out of the right front side of the cab for Dragon Two.  This was difficult, because rust damage hid the spot welds in the original sheet metal.   In many places, I had to drive a chisel into where I knew a spot weld was not located, and then drill, or grind the spot weld.  In a few spots, I removed the metal around the spot weld, and twisted the remaining metal off with some pliers.

 

This is the floor pan for another cab I am working on.  Just for fun, I did a quick test fit of that floor pan in to Dragon Two. 

 

This is a piece of metal I am eventually going to replace the right front floor pan with.  I made and bent this piece of metal in 2015, and it had gotten some surface rust on it.  I am cleaning it with a phosphoric acid solution.

 

The pan, cleaned.

 

 

 

Edited October 25, 2019 by DanielC
Added some more pictures.

[DanielC]

It has been a while since I did any work on this truck, moving forward.  Taking parts off the truck does not count as forward work, getting the truck closer to running.  I usually do not like to take functioning parts off my other 521 trucks to keep one that I am driving running, but sometimes you have to.

This is the space that the rear axle that was under Dragon Two was.

 

This is the axle case that was under Ratsun, my 521 that I am more or less daily driving.  The differential carrier blew up in September of 2019, but I already had a spare steel differential carrier from a junkyard 620.  It would have been nice to put pull the axles from this axle case, swap the differential carrier, and put it back together under Ratsun, but the grease seals on this case were bad, and the brakes and drum were full of oil and grease. 

 

This is just some of the parts from the rear axle that was under Ratsun, the rear axle that blew up.  Notice there is some paint filter funnels in the picture.

 

Since the axle is apart, I decided to paint the brake plate before I put it back together.  this is the inside of the brake plate.

 

This is the outside of the brake plate.

 

I cleaned the brake plate with solvent, then an abrasive Nylox brush, and finally a light sandblast.  To keep sand, and later paint out of the bearing cavity, I cut these two pieces of plywood to cover the cavity on the brake plate.

 

Tonight I put the axle case, with the 620 steel carrier under Dragon Two.  It gets it out of the way in the garage, and keeps the parts for Dragon Two together.

 

After sliding the axle case over the leaf spring, I supported the differential carrier with a floor jack.

 

There is a hard to see bolt head that fits in a hole in the bottom of the bracket on the bottom of the axle case.

 

This is the axle on that locator

 

This is a bottom view, looking up.  Notice the axle case is pretty much centered on the bolt through the leaf spring pack.

 

These parts hold the rear axle to the spring leaf pack.

 

The parts holding the axle to the spring pack.

 

More will be added as I put the axles back into the brake plates, and put the axles back in the axle case.

Edited October 25, 2019 by DanielC

[datzenmike]

 

Exact same bump stops as my 710 goon. Those backing plates look amazing.

[DanielC]

Only one backing plate so far, they are a "female dog" to get clean.

[DanielC]

Removed photobucket links from this thread, updated with picture links that work.

 

Edited January 11, 2020 by DanielC

[DanielC]

I am working on another 521, spraying primers in fenders, and I mixed too much primer.

This is a fender that I am planning on putting on Dragon Two, it got some PPG epoxy primer, DP 40 LF, and then a primer surfacer, Shopline JP 202.

 

The two fenders in the bottom of the picture are going on another 521 I have, Dragon.

Its thread is here.

https://ratsun.net/topic/49698-my-dragon-datsun-521/

 

Edited February 8, 2020 by DanielC