ggzilla Posted October 18, 2025 Report Share Posted October 18, 2025 (edited) What are the Akebono calipers from? Did you know that Akebono was an OEM for Datsun 1200 back in the day? They supplied some of the original 1200 parts Brembo also made Datsun 1200 parts, don't know if they were OEM or just aftermarket Edited October 18, 2025 by ggzilla Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted October 19, 2025 Report Share Posted October 19, 2025 On 10/18/2025 at 1:30 AM, ggzilla said: What are the Akebono calipers from? The rear of an Infiniti, but I'm not sure of year or model. John will know. Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted October 19, 2025 Report Share Posted October 19, 2025 (edited) After the success of installing a hood strut on the Dajiban, I decided to use the other strut from the kit on the Chickenhawk. We decided that going from the firewall here... to the hood here... should work. I cut down the bracket for the hood end... then nutserted the hood and installed it... For perspective... Then I nutserted the firewall, cut down the firewall end bracket, and installed it... Finally, I installed the rod... Yeah, I know I installed it upside down. That's... um, to... put... the weight of the cylinder... on the hood end? Yeah, yeah! That's totally why I did it that way! And a ubiquitous video of it in action... It's just a tad too strong right now, but once we add the weight of the bed liner paint job, I think we'll be golden! Edited October 19, 2025 by dimlight65 1 Quote Link to comment
EDM620 Posted October 19, 2025 Report Share Posted October 19, 2025 Auto Opening! Kinda like the doors on Star Trek, just need the noises... 2 1 Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted October 25, 2025 Report Share Posted October 25, 2025 I didn't like the cutout someone made in the lower valance back when we were still planning on being slammed in the weeds. Today I decided to do something about that. I took some malleable aluminum sheet and... Then I zooked up a different stinger... because the car used to have a Supertrapp spark arrestor and I wasn't happy with the crooked oval tip... I think it is far enough out so it won't smudge up the license plate... but only time will tell. Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted November 15, 2025 Report Share Posted November 15, 2025 We finally got around to installing the right side rear caliper today... And I was telling one of my Instagram THOTs about how this is my BIG car, but wanted to convey why a Datsun 1200 being my big car was funny... Yes, I know that's a Ute, it was the only picture I found showing a 1200 next to something to which a non-car-person could relate. I can't wait to do a side by side with the N600, Smart, and 1200 to show my Small, Medium, and Large cars. Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted November 23, 2025 Report Share Posted November 23, 2025 Around 30 odd years ago, some hillbilly* put fender flares on this car and added some ghetto-assed "tubs" to fill the gap left when the arches were opened up... Well, I decided that those gaps needed to be filled. I bought four cans of... and filled them up... I did both sides, but only took pictures of the driver's side for some reason. I'm sure John will hit them with some black paint once they are good and cured. *That might have been me. Quote Link to comment
Rustbin Posted November 24, 2025 Report Share Posted November 24, 2025 I had such a hard time trying to remove that spay shit from my buddies 71 Riv to be able to fix some rust that I cringed when I saw your pics of it. I hope you never have to try to remove it. Keep working on the revival. 1 Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted November 24, 2025 Report Share Posted November 24, 2025 20 hours ago, Rustbin said: I had such a hard time trying to remove that spay shit from my buddies 71 Riv to be able to fix some rust that I cringed when I saw your pics of it. I hope you never have to try to remove it. Keep working on the revival. Yeah, I got some on my arm and it is very tenacious. Hopefully a) I will never have to remove it and 2) if I do, the dust, dirt and schmutz I didn't clean out of the fenders will limit the tenacity. 1 Quote Link to comment
datsuntech Posted November 25, 2025 Report Share Posted November 25, 2025 Just an FYI. This stuff holds moisture. If you drive in the rain or snow it will absorb moisture and rot the metal from the inside out. I filled my rockers with this stuff in my 510 many years ago and am now in the process of removing it all and the heavily rusted metal in the inner and out rockers. Not fun.. Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted November 25, 2025 Author Report Share Posted November 25, 2025 2 hours ago, datsuntech said: Just an FYI. This stuff holds moisture. If you drive in the rain or snow it will absorb moisture and rot the metal from the inside out. The current plan is to seal the tire side of this with something, then undercoat over that to keep moisture out. But also, I know it will never see snow, and only barely see rain. 👌 1 Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted November 29, 2025 Report Share Posted November 29, 2025 After a week of further expansion and curing... And proof that I got all of the holes... So, next we undercoat (or more likely bed-liner spray) to seal it up... eventually. 1 Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted March 22 Report Share Posted March 22 We were looking at the relative angles of the steering links and the lower control arms (as well as the slight positive camber it still has)... and decided that a pair of 1/2" spacers between the cross member and frame should even them out. (As an aside, we met shop stray Owen in the Dajiban thread the other day and I mentioned her Evil Twin, Edie. This is Edie)... Ok, back to the narrative. We figured 1/2" of spacer would even out the angles, so I bought some aluminum... cut it in half... and then crawled under to get bolt spacing but discovered the bolts were welded into the cross member. Crap. Well, let's hope they are going to be long enough... Whew! Looks like I planned ahead without knowing it! I measured the spacing and drilled some holes... Now our concern is header to steering rod clearance... I have some adjustment leeway at the column end... hopefully it will be enough. Since I was alone at the shop (except for the cats, and I doubt they would be calling my family if I dropped a 1200 on my head) I decided to wait for John before unbolting the cross member. 3 Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted March 28 Report Share Posted March 28 I was lamenting the "fact" that we were going to have to drop the cross member so much to get the bolts out of the frame in order to put on the spacers when John suggested... So, with the threat of dropping a Z-20 on my head removed, I set the jack... grabbed a ratchet, socket, and ludicrous number of extensions... and loosened the nuts... I lowered the jack a little and gave a bit of a pry to achieve... space for the shims... Then, with the nuts re-hunkered, I had a look at the steering clearance... And we appear to be good. YouTube video of it in action... Yes, I did edit out the phone falling off the frame at the end. Quote Link to comment
Duncan Posted March 28 Report Share Posted March 28 Looks good! Steering is over rated, anyway 🙂 Stance and "mad camber" is all you need... 1 Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted March 29 Report Share Posted March 29 (edited) Well, we didn't quite have the clearance I thought we did. The U-joint was scraping the header. We wrestled the header out of the bay... Hello, gorgeous! And we can see where it was scraping... Now, I am not proud of this solution, but it gets us the needed clearance... We did a temporary reinstall (I want to change the bolts out for ones drilled for safety wire) and gave the steering a test-tickle. Of course I didn't take any pictures of that mainly because we dented the wrong pipe and had to take it out again to redo it. NOW it works a treat. Edited March 29 by dimlight65 2 Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 I finally got around to reinstalling the master cylinders today... Wait, no. That's the villain "The Master Cylinder" from Felix the Cat. Here's what I did... I still need to install the bolt at the bottom of the heat shield, but that's a two man job. I popped a multi-hole pin in the brake clevis... which was the fucker of all mothers, or so I thought until I tried to put the pin in the clutch clevis... As you can see, I had to trim that one down to get it in, and it is still going to be a bit flollopy. Then, when I stood back to admire my work, I noticed... the clutch needs a longer rod. We will have a look at that next weekend. I was done at this point. 2 Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted April 11 Report Share Posted April 11 On 4/5/2026 at 5:16 PM, dimlight65 said: the clutch needs a longer rod. We will have a look at that next weekend. And at it we did look. We grokked an adjustable rod that John had laying around, but it was WAY too long. It was decided that we would cut the clevis off, and thread my... um, I don't want to say "rod" because we're all 12 years old here. Oh, ok. It was decided that we would cut the clevis off of my unit and... wait, that's no better. Hmm... Rather than do all of that, we're going to take an m8x1.25 button head bolt, thread the adjustable clevis onto it, and use that as our push rod. We finger the button head should mimic the mushroomed head of the stock push rod and... do all the stuff that that does... sort of thing. We also bolted down the heat shield on the brake master, but took no pictures. Quote Link to comment
datzenmike Posted April 11 Report Share Posted April 11 Spacing the cross member down is the same as spacing the body up by 1/2". Spacing the steering knuckle down from the strut would be preferable as it levels the tie rod only. Hi Edie! This is Lea the most affectionate tortoiseshell ever. She has adorable bilateral asymmetry of facial colors. As you probably know males are extremely rare and usually sterile, many tortoiseshells inherit polydactylism. (extra digits) 1 Quote Link to comment
Duncan Posted April 11 Report Share Posted April 11 I never did it with either of my previous 1200's, but attaching the clevis pin to the brake pedal on a 510 would test the patience of the Pope himself.. I fell your pain on that one. 1 Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted April 12 Report Share Posted April 12 17 hours ago, datzenmike said: Spacing the cross member down is the same as spacing the body up by 1/2". Spacing the steering knuckle down from the strut would be preferable as it levels the tie rod only. ... and would make our angles worse. Quote Link to comment
datsunfreak Posted April 13 Author Report Share Posted April 13 (edited) On 4/11/2026 at 1:48 PM, datzenmike said: Spacing the cross member down is the same as spacing the body up by 1/2". Spacing the steering knuckle down from the strut would be preferable as it levels the tie rod only. On 4/12/2026 at 7:12 AM, dimlight65 said: ... and would make our angles worse. And would result in either an uninstallable tie rod, or a bent one on the first dip in the road. And probably result in a broken ball joint the first time we took it down a bouncy path. The other issue that needed fixing was that due to the angle of the control arm, the ball joint was acting as our droop limiter. This is not a good thing. Moving the arm angle down gave us much more leeway here, enough that the ball joint should not be the limiter of droop now. Edited April 13 by datsunfreak 1 Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted April 18 Report Share Posted April 18 On 3/29/2026 at 4:08 PM, dimlight65 said: I want to change the bolts out for ones drilled for safety wire Which finally arrived! Drilled bolts made of titan-YUM... And in the process of swapping them out... and all in... Then, I broke out the safety wire pliers and got to work... I didn't like how this turned out so I cut it off and tried again... Much better. Only three more pairs to go. Back pair of front flange... Front pair of back flange... And back pair of back flange... And a final gestalt... SON OF A... Just kidding. That's one of the old gaskets. 3 2 Quote Link to comment
bilzbobaggins Posted April 18 Report Share Posted April 18 58 minutes ago, dimlight65 said: SON OF A... Just kidding. That's one of the old gaskets. Lulz. Im working on a 07 2500hd that was owned by an animal. I got lucky and found a door that was the correct color to replace the drivers that was fubar. After getting the door from the junkyard and swapping harnesses and every little bit that needed to be, hanging it and getting it to operate correctly and getting the door panel that matches but has seen better days on right, I realized I left one bolt out of a bracket in there. I taped it to the inside of the glove box with a note. I was not pulling that apart again. I yelled son of a bitch when i found the bolt. You made me smile. Ty 2 Quote Link to comment
dimlight65 Posted April 19 Report Share Posted April 19 On 4/5/2026 at 5:16 PM, dimlight65 said: Then, when I stood back to admire my work, I noticed... the clutch needs a longer rod. On 4/11/2026 at 1:25 PM, dimlight65 said: we're going to take an m8x1.25 button head bolt, thread the adjustable clevis onto it, and use that as our push rod. We finger the button head should mimic the mushroomed head of the stock push rod and... do all the stuff that that does... sort of thing. Which is what we did. You have seen M8x1.25 button head bolts before (and I forgot to take a picture) so you will just have to be satisfied with this... And if you compare the above photo of the mismatched pedal height to this... you will see why... Oh, and the clutch master is all bolted in and plumbed again... So, we are basically back to where we were last month. 1 1 Quote Link to comment
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