A 510 goon named Cactus Peel

[Anonymous Waffle]

Got more updates, did more work. I spent a good part of the weekend cleaning and organizing the garage, so I can finally put the wagon inside. This way it's not so miserable to work on when it gets colder here in the valley. 

 

Been using my time to clean parts. These door sill panels were the start. 0000 steel wool, and a bit of a light polish made better than they were. Nowhere near perfect, but I gotta work with what I've got. 

 

 

 

With the cooler weather I've also been getting back to removing the black paint. What a pain in the ass it is to do it this way. But I don't just want to sand all of it off. So its alot of time scrubbing with 0000 steel wool and acetone/lacquer thinner. 

 

 

 

 

 

This looks much cooler imo

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another short trip. Feels good to drive a 510 again.

 

[Anonymous Waffle]

I also wanted to experiment with the grill. I didn't find anything online of something taking a 69 or newer grill and going full chrome. I like the look of a 68 grill and I'm too broke for a that, so I'm going full chrome on my grill and headlight bezels to make it "68" ish haha.

 

 

 

 

Picture doesn't do justice, but it gets better.

 

 

 

 

 

I like the look! Doesn't beat a 68 grill, but I think its pretty good for a beat up 69 grill. 

 

 

 

[Anonymous Waffle]

With the little bit of rain we've been getting here, I noticed some water coming in through the center vent. So I figured the cowl was clogged. Popped the cowl off and found plenty of debris. Basically was mulch lol.

 

 

 

I found the center drain was pretty much clogged full too. I didn't have a vacuum thin enough to fit in there, so I blew it out as much as I can in hopes to clear it out. Plenty flew out. 

 

 

This is all from blowing out the center drain. Picture doesn't do justice lol.

 

 

I also blew through the fender drains, seemed to clear those up as well. This is how much crap I sucked up with the mini vacuum I've got. 

 

 

I also pulled the plugs, after going for a very leisurely, low rpm drive. I wanted to see how the plugs looked after driving only on the progression circuit of the weber. This to me, seems like its a bit lean. Gimme yall's thoughts.

 

#1 cylinder, (Right side of the weber)

 

 

#2 cylinder, (Left side of the weber)

 

 

 

What's nice about the weber on a Lynx manifold, is that I just have to check 1 and 2 for even mixtures between both sides of the weber. 

 

[Crashtd420]

I know you have a lynx manifold with a 45dcoe but I missed what size motor.... L16/L18or L20b?

 

You are the only one I have seen lately trying to run that intake...

I have one with a 40dcoe on a L16....

[Crashtd420]

The second ones do look a little lean....

Have you ever vacuum balanced the carburetor?

[DARIN 510]

9 hours ago, Anonymous Waffle said:

Got more updates, did more work. I spent a good part of the weekend cleaning and organizing the garage, so I can finally put the wagon inside. This way it's not so miserable to work on when it gets colder here in the valley. 

 

Been using my time to clean parts. These door sill panels were the start. 0000 steel wool, and a bit of a light polish made better than they were. Nowhere near perfect, but I gotta work with what I've got. 

 

 

 

With the cooler weather I've also been getting back to removing the black paint. What a pain in the ass it is to do it this way. But I don't just want to sand all of it off. So its alot of time scrubbing with 0000 steel wool and acetone/lacquer thinner. 

 

 

 

 

 

This looks much cooler imo

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another short trip. Feels good to drive a 510 again.

 

I used graffiti remover and white scotch brite pads on mine. Worked great and didnt hurt the og paint. Would work faster than what your doing. 

[mrbigtanker]

Man you so far. lol  

[Anonymous Waffle]

2 hours ago, Crashtd420 said:

I know you have a lynx manifold with a 45dcoe but I missed what size motor.... L16/L18or L20b?

 

You are the only one I have seen lately trying to run that intake...

I have one with a 40dcoe on a L16....

 

Oh yeah my b, it's a stock l20b, w58 head. No clue if its open or closed chamber.

[Anonymous Waffle]

2 hours ago, DARIN 510 said:

I used graffiti remover and white scotch brite pads on mine. Worked great and didnt hurt the og paint. Would work faster than what your doing. 

 

That's a great idea, I'll give that a go thanks! 

 

2 hours ago, Crashtd420 said:

The second ones do look a little lean....

Have you ever vacuum balanced the carburetor?

 

I haven't done a vacuum balance. Would there be a major difference between the two sides of a weber besides a possible vacuum leak or the idle mixture screw?

[Crashtd420]

1 minute ago, Anonymous Waffle said:

 

Oh yeah my b, it's a stock l20b, w58 head. No clue if its open or closed chamber.

Thanks.... just comparing carburetor setups.... 

[Crashtd420]

12 minutes ago, Anonymous Waffle said:

 

That's a great idea, I'll give that a go thanks! 

 

 

I haven't done a vacuum balance. Would there be a major difference between the two sides of a weber besides a possible vacuum leak or the idle mixture screw?

On mine there was a difference... 

I wouldnt say major but they definitely were not balanced.....

I dont believe your idle or mixture screw matter.... this is purely balancing the vacuum...

I'm sure a vacuum leak would make a difference 

 

On each side of the Weber there should be a little screw and locknut... there is a vacuum port you can connect to I'd have to take a picture and point to it.....

I used a motorcycle one and just connected 2 cylinders....

All the one I see right now have gauges, mine was 4 tubes with mercury or something in it....

 

The other way is a device like this...

 

It goes right in the end of the carburetor,  some don't like it some do... I though I read it chokes the barrel so I think it has to be done quickly to get the reading... not 100% sure....

[benzo]

Like the work you are doing to your wagon. 

[datzenmike]

They both look slightly rich as shown by the soot on the base ring. If the heat range is correct the porcelain is self cleaning.

 

 

The color change on the ground strap indicates the correct heat range of the plug. On this one, any closer to the tip would be too cold a range. Half way along is perfect. This could go slightly warmer. Leaning the mixture to get rid of that soot might warm the plug, do that first.

 

 

If that's the color change about half way it's fine.

 

 

Driving as described only indicates the mixture at that throttle position and at that time. To do this properly you have to take a wrench with you and do on the side of the road or the plugs can self clean or even carbon up more on the drive home.

 

Next time try a full throttle run as long as you dare but a mile or more should be enough. Get out of gear and turn the engine off and coast to a stop safely. Now read the plugs.

 

[Crashtd420]

Learned something new I guess, I was always told to just check the porcelain color....

This is making me wanna pull a plug and have a look at what mine looks like...... 

[datzenmike]

Porcelain color would be close but like I said the proper plug will be self cleaning and many plugs are pulled at home after driving in traffic or in town and are going to be slightly dirty. In addition carburetors tend to go rich when the engine is working hard. EFI plugs are likely the cleanest as the mixture is closely kept at or near stochiometric. 

 

Make sure that when driving HARD that the plugs show at least slightly rich.

 

 

For a few hundred bux get a wide band air/fuel gauge and O² sensor. Take the guesswork out of the equation. Next best thing to a vacuum gauge to tell you you are stepping on the gas too hard and will save you money in gas.

[Anonymous Waffle]

Appreciate the information @datzenmike, the next test is a full throttle check. I just wanted to confirm how the idle circuit/progression circuit is running. And it does drive like it its a touch too rich in that circuit, especially with the over-rich pop that will occasionally occur when taking off from a stop. 

 

These small tests are just for a baseline tune, and once I get a o2 wide band I can tune even better. 

 

But so far I'm liking the lynx manifold and single 45. It's fun!

[datzenmike]

The pop back through the Weber could be a lean backfire.  I don't know much about side drafts but it has an accelerator pump??? Maybe not enough gas squirting in or only one side??

 

 

[Anonymous Waffle]

1 hour ago, datzenmike said:

The pop back through the Weber could be a lean backfire.  I don't know much about side drafts but it has an accelerator pump??? Maybe not enough gas squirting in or only one side??

 

 

 

Before i did the progressive circuit mod, I had a definite lean condition. Major popping, hesitation and bucking. 

 

This occasional popping is a little tough to feel out, since it only happens once in a while. I really need a o2 to figure it out definitively. It'll basically just pop through the carb once, and Rev fine. It doesn't really feel like the hesitation you get with a lean condition.

 

I haven't driven it enough to determine if the accelerator pump doesn't provide enough fuel or not. Or too much fuel.

 

I've also got a mean exhaust leak, I think by the downpipe flange, and ive heard that being a little rich and getting that header hot can cause a pop when the exhaust leak sucks in air. But I think this is in reference to decel popping. 

[Anonymous Waffle]

@datzenmike I do have to buy more accelerator pump parts to play with. I don't have different springs or different length arms to tune the accelerator pump rate. I just don't want to dump a bunch of moolah into a box of jets and extra spares. 

 

It would be great to find someone local to me that has some experience tuning weber dcoes too. Surprisingly tough in sacramento.

[datzenmike]

Look down the carburetor and work the throttle. If like a down draft you should still see a squirt of fuel into each side. Maybe only one side working? Easy fix.

[Anonymous Waffle]

11 hours ago, datzenmike said:

Look down the carburetor and work the throttle. If like a down draft you should still see a squirt of fuel into each side. Maybe only one side working? Easy fix.

 

I did confirm that the squirters work, and they shoot a steady stream for quite a long time. 

[Anonymous Waffle]

Back again. I installed a ebay cargo carpet kit I bought a while ago. The wagon came with a cargo carpet from the p.o. but it's super thin, so I got this from ebay. And this kit from ebay sucks. It's set up as a full length carpet, so I guess it goes over the rear seat if its folded down. IIRC, the rear seat of a wagon already has carpet on the back. 

 

But anyway, this ebay kit isn't cut well. It's not straight and was cut too skinny on the sides. Even if its a thicker carpet, I would have liked a little better fitment quality. 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, the wagon is finally in the garage and out of the weather. It barely fits with all the datsun shit thats in the garage, but I made it fit with about a foot of clearance. 

 

 

The wagon when I bought it had no cargo hatch seals installed. Either inner or outer seals. It did come with some kind of seal in the pile of parts, but when I tried fitting it, it fit way too big, almost 2 feet or so too long. Maybe it was a used Z hatch seal, or from some modern car, but since it was used, I chose to chop it and make it work for the time being. It's definitely not perfect, and sadly I couldn't run a seal along the bottom, as I couldn't slam the hatch closed with the seal along the bottom. 

 

Good enough for now. 

 

 

 

 

[Anonymous Waffle]

I also dove in to fix some exhaust leaks. I noticed a exhaust leak under the car, and since I had to fix that, I might as well put a new gasket on the downpipe, and I also took this moment to block off the intake coolant ports. If you're wondering why I did this, it's because it kept lightly leaking onto the exhaust manifold and burning off, every time I shut the car off. 

 

 

Something to note, is how different the colors are on 1/4 and 2/3. Makes me think that 2/3 are a touch lean, and 1/4 are a touch rich. I also found that 2/3/4 had exhaust manifold leaks on the bottom. Completely blown out. 

 

 

1/4 NPT and the brass plugs. I thankfully had a flat bottom tap that allowed me to fully tap the holes before I bottomed out inside of the head. 

 

 

Little trick I learned a while back, if you want to chase/tap something and you don't want metal shavings to go inside of said object, grease on the tap does wonders. Slows down the whole process, but makes it easier to deal with aluminum shavings that would have wanted to go into the cooling system.

 

 

 

 

I broke one stud on the header, and no matter how much heat and penetrant I put on it afterwards, was completely stuck. So I chiseled the rest off, and drilled and tapped it out. A pain, but not a terrible job. 

 

 

 

 

To clean the flange, and straighten it to the best of my ability, I used a new sanding stone that you would use for knives. Soaked it with a lil wd40 and sanded the flange flat. I don't have a thick glass plate, or a large sander, so this is the best I can do. Sanding stones are great for cleaning up gasket material from aluminum and iron by the way.

 

New gasket and studs. (This was kind of dumb to double stack nuts, as it made it a pain in the ass to tighten up the nuts after a warm up cycle) Oh well!

 

 

I used the stone to cleanup the head and the header flange and threw it all back together tonight. 

 

 

[KELMO]

" It's set up as a full length carpet, so I guess it goes over the rear seat if its folded down. IIRC, the rear seat of a wagon already has carpet on the back."

 

The wagon I currently have does not have carpet on the back of the back seat (say that 3 times fast). There is a rubber mat that covers from the tailgate opening to the top of the back seat. At least I think that is the way it works. I will check later on today. I also think my other wagon had the rubber mat set up, but I owned that in the last century and the car was less than 20 years old.

 

I have the same issue with my hatch seal. Even slamming the hatch down won't get it to close. Had the same issue with the door seals until my 300LB buddy full on slammed the doors...no issue with the doors now.

 

[Anonymous Waffle]

7 hours ago, KELMO said:

" It's set up as a full length carpet, so I guess it goes over the rear seat if its folded down. IIRC, the rear seat of a wagon already has carpet on the back."

 

The wagon I currently have does not have carpet on the back of the back seat (say that 3 times fast). There is a rubber mat that covers from the tailgate opening to the top of the back seat. At least I think that is the way it works. I will check later on today. I also think my other wagon had the rubber mat set up, but I owned that in the last century and the car was less than 20 years old.

 

I have the same issue with my hatch seal. Even slamming the hatch down won't get it to close. Had the same issue with the door seals until my 300LB buddy full on slammed the doors...no issue with the doors now.

 

 

That's right, it's supposed to be a rubber mat, not carpet. I've never owned a wagon and haven't payed enough attention to the original wagons at car shows to remember what's right or wrong haha. 

 

The back seat I have in storage, I believe has carpet on the back, so it must have been added on. 

 

So is the rubber mat attached to the back of the back seat? Or is it just draped over when it folded down?