A 510 goon named Cactus Peel

[Greaser2]

I know things can be lost in pics, is leaf green "green".  Looks more a grey blue to my old eyes.  

[Anonymous Waffle]

8 hours ago, Greaser2 said:

I know things can be lost in pics, is leaf green "green".  Looks more a grey blue to my old eyes.  

 

I would say its a green with a tint of blue, more blue-green ish than yellow-green like the other datsun colors. It's definitely a weird color lol

 

[Anonymous Waffle]

Speaking of paint, I did more painting. Since I liked the green on the bumper valence thing, I painted the hatch. Quick scotch-brite, masked off, and gave it a few coats of rust-oxide red primer, and then the whole small can of paint. Came out pretty good for a can, and my first time painting a large panel. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The color match is really good honestly for the price of the paint. I wish I bought more to paint the hood and cowl, but that'll be another time. I finally installed my hatch handle, which needed a stud fixed, but that was simple enough. 

 

 

 

 

Since the painted hatch looked too "pretty" compared to the rest of the car, I gave it a light "faux-tina" by haphazardly scratching it, and popping the rust bubbles underneath the paint. Very light sanding in a few spots, and I popped the scratches that were below the new paint out. 

 

 

 

 

This isn't a perfect hatch, what so ever, its full of rust holes, so this isn't permanent, but is so much better than the mis-matched kasumi green that it was. 

 

 

Edited February 2, 2023 by Anonymous Waffle

[Anonymous Waffle]

More work on the goon again! I made a cheap and small bluetooth audio system for the goon. 

 

 

I borrowed a t3 kick panel, remade it with 1/8" MDF, made some speaker holes, and mounted these 3.5" 450w Pioneer speakers on it. They just barely fit into the hole on the kick panel, but these were the shallowest height that I could find online that weren't crap. So I 3d printed a .2" spacer to space out the speaker just enough so the magnet isnt magnetizing to the body, but isn't sticking out like a sore thumb.

 

Just my two cents but there are two things that I hate when it comes to the automotive audio world, and those are:

1. Cutting good sheet metal for over-sized speakers

2. Having speakers poke into the leg room. 

 

So this is the reason why I made this very small setup. Its better than a small JBL speaker, and I don't have to charge it before I go for a drive lol. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's not perfect, but its my first time making mdf panels, and my first time ever making any kind of audio system. Maybe a hidden amp would be the next step, but I'm not sure where I'll put it in the goon. And Ill have to upgrade to a bigger amp, since the bluetooth module I bought only has 2 channels. 

 

[WAGON JON]

Looks fantastic! I personally use oil base paint. It lasts forever. Any paint shop can make the same green in oil based and you could go to harbor freight to get a cheap air gun and paint the entire car one color. Simple enough. The oil based paint needs acetone to thin it out a bit. Otherwise, the paint is fantastic. 

[KELMO]

I did kick panels the same way on my 1200. Was also my first time doing that.

Yours look a whole lot better than what I ended up with.

[Stoffregen Motorsports]

10 hours ago, WAGON JON said:

Looks fantastic! I personally use oil base paint. It lasts forever. Any paint shop can make the same green in oil based and you could go to harbor freight to get a cheap air gun and paint the entire car one color. Simple enough. The oil based paint needs acetone to thin it out a bit. Otherwise, the paint is fantastic. 

Here in CA, we are at the mercy of the EPA. We can get the good stuff in Reno, but in the Sac area, all bets are off.

[five1oh]

Looking good! For my skyline I put the amp under the passenger seat.  This is my second infinity bluetooth amp.  I loved it so much in my cactus green 510 I bought another.  I really need to buy like 4 more lol.  Anyways, out of sight and works perfectly.

 

In the 510 I ran it on the gas tank tray in the trunk (obviously wagon doesn't have one lol)

 

Untitled by five1oh2010, on Flickr

 

Untitled by five1oh2010, on Flickr

[Anonymous Waffle]

Just wanted to post a update, this page and my account will be quiet for a while. I ship out for the Air Force on the 7th, so not much datsun stuff for a while!

[WAGON JON]

10 hours ago, Stoffregen Motorsports said:

Here in CA, we are at the mercy of the EPA. We can get the good stuff in Reno, but in the Sac area, all bets are off.

You've been to Ace hardware or the like I'm sure....Go to the paint section and pick up the Rustolium oil-based paint. Really you ask?!  Yup, I works very well for painting cars too. No joke. https://www.google.com/aclk?sa=l&ai=DChcSEwiFl7OCqoL9AhW2E60GHbUZBhwYABADGgJwdg&sig=AOD64_2owDxndP0FJZaUYpaSixJPsniTmw&adurl&ctype=5&ved=2ahUKEwi_1KWCqoL9AhXfB0QIHfGOB8YQvhd6BAgBEFg

 

Super cheap too in comparison to traditional automotive paint or the good stuff in Reno. Durability and longevity including UV resistant. Don't take my word for it. Try it, then decide. 

Edited February 7, 2023 by WAGON JON

[iceman510]

14 hours ago, Anonymous Waffle said:

Just wanted to post a update, this page and my account will be quiet for a while. I ship out for the Air Force on the 7th, so not much datsun stuff for a while!

 

Going balloon hunting? 😉

[Z23T]

What bluetooth amp did you use?

[WAGON JON]

On 2/8/2023 at 7:01 PM, Z23T said:

What bluetooth amp did you use?

Looks like Infinity Kappa

[Anonymous Waffle]

I'm back, I'm still alive, and back home for a little bit before I go to my duty station. So I got right back to doin datsun stuff, which is mainly just driving the waggo.

 

Only drove about 450 miles so far, but I've been driving it around town and took it on a fun run with the Sacramento Datsun Owners Club up to Quincy and Bucks lake, and after that I went off to reno to visit some ol friends. 

 

 

 

 

I borrowed this hood since it had nice patina and seemed like a similar green, turns out its kasumi green so I gave the hood back lol.

 

 

 

So I rocked the no hood look for a day. The induction noise sounds so good without a hood on 😵

 

 

 

 

She ain't fast, but she's alotta fun. Heres a quick video of me punching through the gears. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 19, 2023 by Anonymous Waffle

[Anonymous Waffle]

Been nearly a year, but I'm finally on leave and visiting california.. Been helping out my pops with his cars and the house, and got to drive the goon once again.. Surprisingly i've missed sacramento, the ease of access is alot nicer than Missouri.. Datsun people are damn near non existent in MO lol..

 

 

My dad's latest project, a 75 Dodge W200 Adventurer Sport, super nice survivor he picked up from a neighbor of his new property.. A seriously nice truck for sitting for a long time out here in California.

 

New strays around the neighborhood

 

The goon!!

 

I've missed driving this thing..

 

So I'll be taking this goon on a road trip back to Missouri at the end of the month! Ill be driving nearly 2300 miles, going north then west, through oregon and idaho for a more scenic drive back to base in MO... Ill be keeping this updated throughout my trip later this month!

Edited June 23 by Anonymous Waffle

[Anonymous Waffle]

Been working on my pop's 260z.. The 5 speed I installed about a year ago for him turned out to be bad and the Z has basically not driven in all that time due to the blown trans.. Took out my old 620 (80' 280zx close ratio 5 speed) replaced the busted counter shaft bearing, swapped the 4 speed housing on and threw it in.. Now we've got a 260z that can be driven!!

 

 

 

Also rolled the rear fenders on the Z..

 

 

Look at the size difference here lol

 

 

 

I picked up some yakima racks in prep for the trip.. Hoping I can find a good storage box in time. They came with the old school locking mechanism, but also came with some spare Q towers. Popped the caps off, threw them on, order a set of locks, and now I've got a good set of racks on the goon.

 

 

 

Caps glued down

 

 

 

 

 

Edited June 27 by Anonymous Waffle

[Anonymous Waffle]

Picked up a spare rear end to take apart and replace my worn out pinion bearing. Took this one apart to find its got a little bit of water damage, but after a thorough cleaning and deep inspection (without disassembly) it looks to be use able. Here's to hoping and praying that it lasts 2300 miles haha.

 

 

 

 

 

Looks bad, but after some clean-up it did get alot better.

 

 

 

Shop kitten has been playing around when im working on the projects lol.

 

 

 

 

Floor smackin lol. With 2 inch blocks too.. 

 

 

Threw the differential in, added some medicore diff fluid mixed with atf into it and drove it around the block a few times. Tomorrow itll be drained in the hopes that it cleaned it just a little bit more internally, and I'll add the good Redline diff oil in.

 

 

[Theharleygirl]

On 1/31/2024 at 2:18 PM, Theharleygirl said:

Hey, I hope this email finds you well. I am in need of you to send me that video that you sent me of the timing chain in the front cover being taken off for the proper timing for the 1600 engine. It only lasted till the 25th and so if you could at all send it to a different email address, I would be very grateful and that email address is going to be Shelleytheharleygirl@icloud.com I am once again very appreciative for all your help and the video is awesome. Is there a way you could send it to me to where it is send so I can forward it to my mechanic guy that may or may not do it for me because he just seems to be busy with his mom who is 88 years old needs this and needs that and she just constantly needs him, but that way he can watch it and get a idea of what it is we have to do either way or I’d be grateful just to have it again thank you so much !!!!!

 

On 1/31/2024 at 2:52 PM, banzai510(hainz) said:

 

Where in caliber?

 

[Anonymous Waffle]

I orignally wanted to post this as a day to day post, as I drove across the united states, but with every night, I was completely drained when it came from the driving, and fixing the car on the drive... I've posted this all within facebook/instagram, but now I'll update my adventure here on ratsun!

 

Day 1.

 

 

 

 

 

Drove from Sacramento, CA to Klamath Falls, the whole drive was amazing, beautiful drive, took my sweet time, but when I was just under 10 miles from my airbnb location, I took a right turn up a hill, and the engine made a terrible noise.. A loud tinking/ticking noise, sounding like it came from the top end. I immediately shut it off and coasted to the side of the road and immediately started taking off the valve cover.

 

 

Thinking I lost a rocker pad, I looked to find no issues.. Since most of my tools I owned was in Missouri, I had a very minimal set of tools, and with no choice but to push it, I started it up, idled it for a few minutes, and started to drive to the airbnb.. Running on 3 cylinders and sounding like a VW beetle, I limped it about 8 miles. Working all the way to midnight in the driveway of the airbnb, I was diagnosing to the best of my abilities.. Thinking maybe I jumped a tooth in timing (even with my new timing set), to dropping a valve seat. That night I went to bed with more questions than answers. 

 

Day 2. 

 

I woke up early to get a uber ride to the nearest autozone to pickup more tools and spare parts.. everything you can get at an autozone tear apart a l20b in a driveway lol. To include a spark plug socket, since I didnt have one. I made it back to the airbnb around 10 AM, an hour before I needed to leave and check out lmao.

 

I started pulling plugs to see if I could see a dropped valve seat, to find this on #4.

 

 

Oh boy! Something completely destroyed the #4 spark plug.. At the time I still suspected this to be a dropped valve seat, even if I couldnt see any evidence of a valve seat. Of course in my infinite wisdom I didnt pick up any spark plugs (who'd guess that I wouldve destroyed one)... So with no spare head, no time.. I bent the spark plug back to a "spark plug shape" and threw it back in.. (I did do some more diagnosis' on the engine, verifying compression with my finger) and started the engine back up.

 

 

(Even the center ceramic is gone)

 

It ran. On all 4 cylinders. That tapping noise came back for a few seconds here and there, and then disappeared.. The engine idled away, and I let it idle for 15 minutes to see if it got worse, or for any signs of failure. At this point I had no option, but to make a couple of plans, and start driving. I needed spare parts, and FAST. I called a few ratsun people, looked all over the internet, and 510bendor was the closest option that was available at such short notice.. 2 hours away, 130 miles. Fuck it, I'll drive. And drive I did.

 

First things first, I drove to autozone to test if it would even make it 10 miles.. 10 miles later, it drove perfectly fine. Got a compression tester and tested #4. 

130 pounds, with all 3 other spark plugs in. Not bad at all. Testing #3 tested at 145 with 2 spark plugs in. (I was just not in the mood to do a proper compression test) With this, I called it more than good enough to drive.

 

 

 

New #4 spark plug after a new plug was installed, and driving it around town. Nothing new..

 

 

60 miles into the drive up north, no problems to note, no smoking, no major oil consumption, no new noises.. Just driving along like it did before.. The closer and closer I got to Aaron's place, the more I got to thinking, and seeing how the engine just kept running perfectly fine, it really made me think it wasnt a valve seat.. but as if the engine ate something it shouldnt have.. I got to inspecting the carburetor, and I noticed that I am missing a small 8mm nut and washer that is used to hold the air horns to the carburetor.. I wonder if it vibrated loose, fell inside of the air filter, and the perfect turn and WOT up the hill caused it to suck both those parts into the #4 cylinder... Crazy, I know, but very possible. Or the #4 cylinder's spark plug dropped the ceramic center and it destroyed everything internally.. I've never heard of that, but who knows?

 

120 miles later..

 

 

I made it to 510bendor's abode.. Sadly he didnt have a good spare l20b head, u67/w58 that would be a good spare, but it was a good opportunity to borrow his bore-scope. Doing our best to take a look inside, and we couldnt see any MAJOR damage.. The cylinder walls looked perfectly okay from what we could see, and the piston looked a little dinged up, but nothing crazy. And no signs of a dropped valve seat. Seeing how I still had mediocre compression, probably means it wasnt a valve seat..

 

Fuck it, i'll just keep driving. I've got no other choice, im on a sort of time crunch, and I've got more than 2000 miles to cover. So I kept driving, and drove through the evening to Nampa, Idaho. Making it there late at night, absolutely tired.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited July 5 by Anonymous Waffle

[Anonymous Waffle]

Day 3

 

900 miles into the adventure, 450 miles into driving with a damaged l20b. No issues what-so-ever. Everythings been going well.. Im getting 25 mpg, driving 75-80 mph to stay with traffic. The car is loud inside for sure, but manageable. 

 

About 150 miles into the drive of day three, just short of Glenn's ferry, Idaho, my throttle stopped working.. oh great! Turns out that my throttle arm snapped.. Not fully, but on the load side of the arm. Fuck.

 

 

 

 

There I am, about 2 miles away from a TINY town, and 10 miles away from a slightly bigger town.. but a town with a napa nonetheless.. Now I figure if a town has a napa, it must have a shop, or maybe even a fab shop.. SO, ive got a goal in mind. About 30 minutes of sitting around, thinking of how to get there, I figured, fuck it, I don't want to wait for jb weld to set, I'll just vice grip it back together and send it. 

 

 

I flipped the arm and threw my tiny vice grips on it and drove off.. And I fucking made it. Amazingly.. I talked to the cashier in the Napa to see if theres a shop around, and he told me that Preferred Fabrication down the street may be able to help. This place isnt even on google maps! The nicest guy runs this shop and used to hot rod datsuns as a kid! He welded the bracket up and was good conversation for a good hour. He stopped what he was doing just to help out a stranger, and didnt even charge me! An absolute saint.

 

 

 

And with that, I was back on the road again.. If youre ever in Glenn's Ferry, Idaho, please stop by Preferred Fabrication, you won't regret it.

 

 

 

At the end of day 3 I made it all the way to Salt Lake City, Utah, to meet a guy who was parting with some parts from his 620 project, and gave away some parts that he didnt want, which included a w58 head.. Now I had a spare head! Hell yes, I love datsun peeps!

 

 

On my way to the Airbnb from the datsun guy's place, I noticed my throttle began to feel weird again.. uh oh. I gingerly drove 20 miles to the airbnb, pulled into the driveway, and inspected my throttle... And it broke, again.. IN TWO SPOTS. It cracked under the weld, and the other side now... Well this is fucked. And its 10 PM at night, places are closed.. I called a few places up, and found a mobile welder who would be able to help me out in the morning, just in time for me to check out, yet again, from the airbnb lmao.

 

 

At the end of the day, I yet again had a broken 510, in someone elses driveway, with me panicking on finding a place to find a replacement weber linkage arm, or find a place that could fix/modify me a throttle arm. Definitely took me a while to fall asleep, even as tired as I was.

 

 

 

[Anonymous Waffle]

Day 4

 

I got up in the morin, got the arm welded up AGAIN, to get it good enough to get me on the road, and start running up shops in hope to find someone who could help me out.. First place I tried to hit up was JDM Legends.. I am in Salt Lake city afterall.

 

Unfortunately they were closed, as I learned later that they were away buying Z restoration parts.. oof.

 

 

Next up I tried BOB's Volkswagen, a shop that specializes in ol bugs, in hopes that maybe they would have some spare weber parts that I could make use, or even find a good replacement for my broken one.. Nope. VW webers, dcoe or idf, are different when it comes to throttle linkage. Large, hex'd linkage, vs our small 8mm bar style linkage. Shoot. But the guy running the shop recommended a shop that could help me out. PMB performance.

 

Well, turns out this shop is VERY nice, and widely renowed as a Porsche 914 restoration shop, and had some seriously skilled fabricators and mechanics, and had a wickedly huge selection of Porsches in their shop. And for some reason, they squeezed me and my datsun in, to help brace up my throttle arm since a replacement couldnt be found. We thought up some ideas, and they got to workin right away. They even just let me roam around the shop to look at all their nice porsches. A total stranger, who drove a datsun nonetheless lol. All the shop guys told me they havent seen a 510 wagon in years..

 

 

 

30 minutes later, and weve got a braced and welded up throttle arm, in hopes that itll last the next 1500 miles of driving that I had to do.. Heres to hoping for the best!

 

 

I picked up more parts in preparation for crossing Wyoming.. My biggest fear in my drive, since I-80 through wyoming is very.. very.. dead. Nothing for miles, small towns, where getting stranded will NOT be good for me lol. And I took off.

 

 

 

Somehow, I made it through the entirety of Wyoming with ZERO issues, and I even pushed it through the night, to make up some miles, into a cute town called Ogallala, Nebraska.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Anonymous Waffle]

Day 5

 

Ive driven many hours and many miles up to this day. And my plan for that day was to make it to Omaha Nebraska, about 4 hours from ogallala, to visit the Strategic Air Command & Aerospace museum, and then head south to go back home to Whiteman AFB, Missouri.. First stop, Omaha.

 

 

 

 

And 4 hours later, driving a little too fast through some rain in Missouri.. I somehow, on basically 3.5 cylinders, made it back to Missouri.. 

 

2961 total miles, a highest recorded elevation of 8640 feet... 112 gallons of gas. And I made it back to base. With time to spare. I couldnt have made it without the help of people I knew, old friends, strangers, and lady luck. Somehow this poor l20b made it back. It burns a little oil, but not as much as expected with what it did to #4... Datsuns. They just fucking survive. 

 

[Icehouse]

Such a rad trip!  I Didn't realize you lived in Vermont.  That's one hell of a drive! 

[iceman510]

Nice trip.  Cross country drives and meeting cool helpful people are some great adventures.  I'll have to put that SAC museum on my list.

 

He's not from Vermont Jeff, just his plates.  😉  That loophole is mostly closed now I hear.

[demo243]

Props on doing that road trip solo! Amazing how many good people are out there and how an old Datsun can bring them together. 
 

Gotta ask about rolling those 260z fender- how? I tried with a roller on my 240z with no luck! Rear fenders are so thick it wasn’t making a dent - quite literally! Ended up stripping out the adjustment screw on the roller