Rally style A10 STANZA in Australia.

[LTJ]

Been a bit slack in getting work done on the little Stanza, but I picked up a motor over the weekend, I was planning on just keeping the original low mile L16, and just swap to a 5 speed, but when you see a post for a cammed L20b going cheap on FaceBook, plans can change fairly rapidly...

 

 

 

So anyway, I also picked up the spec tag for the cam of him while I was there, when I get home I do some GoogleJitsu and find it is roughly the equivalent of a Stage 3 70/72 degree Works cam.

Intake 35-65 degrees, Exhaust 74-34 degrees, .330" lift (.490 at valve)

 

Looks like the recommended powerband is 4,000 to 8,000rpm.

 

Probably way too big to run on the street, but too bad, I'm going to give it a try!  :w00t:

 

I need to stay away from the FaceBook Datsun Classifieds pages, I also have a SSS six gauge dash insert:

 

 

 

 

 

There goes the car budget for a while, but I have enough stuff here to keep me occupied for a fair bit!

[LTJ]

Wow! Another 3 months gone!

 

Did another build off over on ratrodbikes.com, came away with a win:

 

 

 

and a 6th:

 

 

 

Finally welded up the cowl area on the Datsun and hit it with some paint:

 

 

Pulled the manual pedal box from the donor Datsun, ready to clean it up and install in the driver:

 

 

Tested out something I had seen pics of but never actually read what was involved, but it is possible to fit Australian Falcon hubs and discs onto the late Australian delivered Stanza front stubs, just need a 8mm spacer behind the rear bearing as the Stanza stub is longer, so that gives me plenty of options for bigger, beefier front brakes, along with giving me the Ford 5 stud pattern to match the RN20 Hilux diff I have!

 

 

Started work on getting the L20b ready for installation, new rear main seal and brass pinion bush:

 

 

Flywheel back on with blue Locktite on the threads:

 

 

 

Pulled the front housing off the 910 5 speed I had ready and waiting to replace the front input seal as it looked to have been leaking:

 

 

 

Cleaned up and back on with a new seal and throwout bearing:

 

 

New clutch and pressure plate:

 

 

 

And bolted them together!

 

 

Which meant I could test run this motor, which I have only seen run in videos:

 

 

Pretty happy with that!

Built oil pressure quick and sucked fuel well through the pump too, so all looking good for installation into the daily!

[LTJ]

Picked up another piece of the puzzle this evening:

 

 

4.3:1 limited slip centre for the Toyota RN20 diff I have stored under my workbench.

Looking forward to building a jig and welding on the Stanza suspension mounts!

[Charlie69]

Looking good!!!  Are you daily driving it?

[LTJ]

Looking good!!!  Are you daily driving it?

It is my only car, but if I am heading out with the wife, we take hers... I guess it gets used 2-4 times a week.

 

Trying to decide now how far to go on this first incarnation, dropping in the new motor with the long tail gearbox means shortening the tailshaft.

Which means I may as well do the diff so that the tailshaft only needs to be modified once.

If I am doing the diff will I be re-drilling to 4 stud to run standard brakes or doing the Falcon/Skyline swap?

If I am doing the brake swap in the rear, I need to do it on the front at the same time...

 

If I try to do it all at once I am worried it will end up being a project with no end in sight and might stall out...

 

Will probably redrill the axles and run standard brakes for a while, the late Stanzas in Australia came out with (bigger) Aussie 200B brakes anyway, so pulling up the L20b should not be an issue, would love to do the whole lot at once though, what a transformation it would be!

[LTJ]

Turns out the diff centre I picked up was a fairly rare 4 pinion open diff, not an lsd, they look almost identical, until you grab a flashlight and look inside and realise there are no clutch packs!  :wacko: Should have tested it when I picked it up!

Pretty sure the guy that sold it to me was fooled too, he was very open and honest, even gave me his business card and email to stay in touch, so I will just take the hit and move on... Thankfully it was pretty cheap.

 

Managed to find an LSD carrier in Melbourne that I will drive down and pick up tomorrow, then I can fit the 4:3 gears from the open diff, put all that back into the new centre and then install it into my RN20 housing... Going to put in new bearings and shim the clutches while I am at it too, may as well while I am in there... 

 

Aside from the extra 4 hours drive time, I will still be ahead on cost to buy a 4.3 lsd otherwise, so no huge loss, and I am pretty sure I will enjoy stripping down and rebuilding the centre section.

[LTJ]

Spent some time shimming up the Toyota G series LSD today.

 

Measured up the clutch plates and found they had .15mm of wear on each of them, so with 4 discs per side that meant .6mm shims were needed to get it back to stock, I want a little better than stock though so made some .8mm ones from Datsun steel:

 

 

Closest holesaw I had was 38mm, so just clamped them in the vice with a clutch disc and went to town with a file:

 

 

Stamped them 0.8mm:

 

 

Can even see them through the holes in the side of the carrier:

 

 

Then just reassembled it and torqued it down, went together nicely!

 

[LTJ]

Wow, I kinda left this thread in the middle of nowhere didn't I!

Sorry about that!

 

I decided to change things up a bit, keep the L16, and sell the worked L20b and Toyota diff.

 

Still went ahead with the longtail 5 speed swap though!

 

Pedalbox was a direct swap:

 

 

 

Fair bit of length difference between the auto and 5 speed:

 

 

Mount was easy enough to fab up:

 

 

Driveshaft needed shortening of course:

 

 

 

 

Used a CV boot as a shift boot, just made a plate with a piece of tube for it to clamp to:

 

 

Everything went together as expected with no issues.

 

The car always seemed a bit sluggish, I had put it down to the auto, but even after the swap it did not have the go it should have.

Ended up tracing the problem to a gummed up secondary butterfly on the carb, was probably gummed up when I bought it.

I pulled out my spare carbs and they were gummed up too, talked to some other Datsun owners and they had the same issue.

 

Decided to fix it once and for all by modifying it to progressive secondary instead of vacuum:

 

 

That made it so much better to drive!

 

Next I decided it needed a better exhaust, the one it had on it was tiny, all press bent, rusty and cracking at the mufflers...

My solution involved a few pieces of 2" tube, a couple of 180 degree mandrel bends and a chambered sports muffler:

 

 

 

That made it sound so much better, but boy did it drone around town!

Next weekend I added a straight through hotdog to the center section:

 

 

That fixed the drone, I lost some volume at full throttle, but this doesn't give me headaches now!

 

 

Edited September 24, 2018 by LTJ
Stupid pic issue!

[dukerollo]

Nice work. Glad to see an update on this. 

 

Did you give up on the 5 lug?

 

It’s interesting that your’s had a short auto transmission. As far as I understand, the US ones all had long tails, a ZX manual was a straight swap into mine. 

 

Keep the the updates coming!

[datzenmike]

All North American PL510s came with one of 3 different style short (26") autos and the manual 4 speeds.  Two were Borg Warner, and after April '71 came with the 'in house' JATCO 3N71B automatic. The only other L series short auto, was in the '73 620 truck.

[dukerollo]

39 minutes ago, datzenmike said:

All North American PL510s came with one of 3 different style short (26") autos and the manual 4 speeds.  Two were Borg Warner, and after April '71 came with the 'in house' JATCO 3N71B automatic. The only other L series short auto, was in the '73 620 truck.

I was talking A10 510s. Unless mine was an oddball, because it came with a long 3speed auto. 

[datzenmike]

 

This transmission (top) is an old column shift Borg Warmer 35 so can't have been in the A10. Those were 3N71B and yes 31.5" long.

 

The other is a mid ratio 5 speed from an '81-'84 Maxima

[LTJ]

7 hours ago, dukerollo said:

Nice work. Glad to see an update on this. 

 

Did you give up on the 5 lug?

 

It’s interesting that your’s had a short auto transmission. As far as I understand, the US ones all had long tails, a ZX manual was a straight swap into mine. 

 

Keep the the updates coming!

Yep, decided going through the legal red tape for engine swaps and diff swaps was too much effort.

3 hours ago, datzenmike said:

 

This transmission (top) is an old column shift Borg Warmer 35 so can't have been in the A10. Those were 3N71B and yes 31.5" long.

 

The other is a mid ratio 5 speed from an '81-'84 Maxima

That transmission IS the BW40 floor shift I pulled from my A10 Stanza, the box is from an '84 910 Bluebird (Maxima) that had a L20b in front of it.

[datzenmike]

Learn something every day.

 

They were never used here after '71 on anything. The BW 35 was also column shift and the linkage on the (I was going to say driver's side, ?) left! Never knew much about them because they are so old and usually replaced with 4 and 5 speeds. A little research shows the BW-40 was an upgraded box used later. What year A10? Ours were late '78-'81?

 

Well I got the Maxima (910) 5 speed right.

[LTJ]

44 minutes ago, datzenmike said:

Learn something every day.

 

They were never used here after '71 on anything. The BW 35 was also column shift and the linkage on the (I was going to say driver's side, ?) left! Never knew much about them because they are so old and usually replaced with 4 and 5 speeds. A little research shows the BW-40 was an upgraded box used later. What year A10? Ours were late '78-'81?

 

Well I got the Maxima (910) 5 speed right.

 

Yeah, they kept using them as a result of the "Australian vehicle content" laws, they got a import tax break if they used a certain percentage of Australian made parts.

 

So my '81 A10 got the BW40 trans, a BorgWarner 68 diff and Girlock brakes, opinions differ on which parts were better, I think most agree the Japanese auto was the better of the two transmissions, the BW68 diff had a slightly bigger gearset than the Hitachi (6.8" vs 6.5") but seem roughly equal strength, and the Girlock brakes are actually easier to get parts for over here than the imported ones as the exact same brakes were used on probably 50% of the cars sold around that time, whatever the brand, including Mitsubishi, Toyota etc...

 

I have been told the Girlock brakes have a bigger pad/shoe friction area, but I have not compared them myself.

 

Interestingly the BorgWarner trans kept getting used in it's various incarnations over here until around 1990, when the local 6 cylinder Ford Falcons switched to a BTR 4 speed, before that they were running a BW51. 3.5L V8 Rovers back in the '70's ran a BW65...

 

Did your 910's over there still run an L series?

I thought you guys were usually a step up capacity wise compared to us usually, so would have expected a Z22 or something.

For instance we got the A10 only with the L16, our 720 trucks were L18 before roughly '84, then switched to Z22, whereas I think you guys got the bigger motors right from the start of the 720's?

Edited September 25, 2018 by LTJ
Put BW65 instead of BW51.

[LTJ]

Still updating this thread from where I left off:

 

The Datsun A10/Stanza/160J/Violet is of course a hugely successful rally car and pictures like these popping up in my Facebook feed were starting rub off on me:

 

 

 

 

It seemed the obvious place to start if you want that look is the wheels, but people want $1,000+ for those cool original 6 spoke 14x6" Enkies and that is just not in my budget!

 

 

Of course the non factory teams back in the day used various other wheels, but I wasn't liking any I found within my desired budget.

That is until the day I was browsing the Datsun Facebook groups and someone had posted a set of 5 vintage Globe rally wheels in 14x6", they were of course rather rough as they has seen many rallies over the years:

 

 

 

After they arrived at my place, a reasonable amount of paint stripper, some work with a scraper and wire brush got them a bit better:

 

 

Some more work with a light file and a nylon brush on a drill got them prepped for a repaint:

 

 

Cleaned them with Prepsol and hit them with epoxy etch primer, while doing this I struggled to get an even coverage between the spokes without spraying too much on the face of the spokes, so when it came time for the white I went in with a 1" brush first:

 

 

Two coats of 2 pack white later:

 

 

Followed by 2 coats of clear:

 

 

Got tires fitted up and put them on the car, I was slightly worried they may not balance up well or be bent, but they were all very good and straight, very pleased!

 

 

Looking much better than the original 13x5" steelies!

Edited September 26, 2018 by LTJ
Flickr issue.

[dukerollo]

I like it. Now you can put your spare on the roof rack like a cool kid. 

[LTJ]

On 9/27/2018 at 6:19 AM, dukerollo said:

I like it. Now you can put your spare on the roof rack like a cool kid. 

I thought I was already a cool kid just by driving a Datsun?

 

Vintage Cibie Super Oscars turned up on FB Marketplace for the right price, so I snapped them up quick!
The guy originally bought them new to run on his rally car in 1973, so there is some pedigree with them too...

 

 

 

I just have to build the front bar to mount them on!

Edited October 27, 2018 by LTJ

[LTJ]

Now I had the wheels on, I decided to adjust the ride height, the rear was easy, I just swapped the lowered Kings springs I currently had for 910 rear springs:

 

 

Longer but slightly softer, end result was great.

 

Front required a bit more work:

 

 

 

 

Here is the end result:

 

 

Running roughly 1 1/4" higher than standard and about 2 1/2" higher than what I had.

The balance of the car is better now too, the old rear springs were a bit too hard with no weight in the back, the new ones match better with the fronts.

[LTJ]

You may notice in that last photo a big chunk of filler fell off the back door, so I went searching to see what it was covering:

 

 

Turned out to be a decent crease that someone had tried to pull and repair years ago, I knew there was something there and a matching one on the front door when I bought it, but figured it was unlikely to be rust that high up, so I didn't worry about it.

 

The time had come to do something about it now though, I figured just replacing the door would be the easiest and probably best result, but any doors within two hours or so of me were rusty in the bottom, so it seemed like I would be only making things worse, so while I wait to get a decent door I decided to make these ones a bit better.

 

 

Donor 910 trunklid from the same wreck I stripped for the gearbox and other parts:

 

 

Bent some returns down the long sides to help prevent warping:

 

 

Fitted up:

 

 

Tacked up:

 

 

More welding with lots of cooling using a wet rag and then sanded and refitted:

 

 

Result was not too bad, definitely not perfect but good enough until I find a better door, still have to do the front door too...

 

 

 

[]2eDeYe]

Heck yeah, love me some rally car. B)

[LTJ]

On 10/28/2018 at 5:43 AM, ]2eDeYe said:

Heck yeah, love me some rally car. B)

 

You are going to like what I am working on at the moment then!

All steel rally flares! Update coming soon...

[banzai510(hainz)]

Exhaust sounds great not too loud.

[LTJ]

Amazing what you stumble on in the middle of the night watching YouTube:

 

 

 

Some great A10 Datsun footage in there!

[datzenmike]

Our 810s and Maximas (910) were both L24 six cylinders. Both had a longer front end to accommodate the two extra cylinders. The L28 from the 280z and zx doesn't 'drop in' unfortunately. The oil pan and pick-up needs extensive modifications to fit the larger L28. Naturally they both use the 71B 5 speeds.