New 510 owner here

[A-ko]

Hi all, been years since I posted on the forums, but I just got a project I'm pretty excited about and am preparing to put together an L16 for it as we speak. I've been grabbing any cheap or free 510 I can find for a while now, hoping to build one good one out of a bunch of trashed ones, but one I deemed worthy of actually building popped up so now I'm finally ready to make some progress.

 

This 1972 510 popped up 45 minutes away from me here in the midwest for what I considered waaaay too much money. I went and looked at it, and was pleasantly surprised with how mostly solid the car was for Iowa. The rear quarters and rockers aren't great, but the inner rockers, 95% of the floor, and pretty much all of the crucial structure of the car is rock solid, it has beautiful, original Hakone/Leaf/whatever green paint (code 546), the interior is ALL there and mostly in amazing original shape, and I believe I'm basically the third owner of the car. It seems to have been off the road since the mid-80s, although I do see some evidence it may have been being used into the '90s, and the kid I bought it from claimed the previous owner said they had it running in 2005. I offered him basically half of his asking price, which seemed more than fair to me given how much of a project the car realistically is, and now it's mine.

 

The "bad" news was the engine is locked up solid. I almost always end up pulling engines out of any old car I get and refreshing them as needed anyway, so no big loss. I have three 510s in my backyard for parts (two 1969s and a 1971 which collectively I have $66 into) and one of the '69s I had running pretty well, so there was my engine to put together, already at my house. Just pulled it out of the car this past weekend and tore it down to the block to inspect it and determine the gameplan.

 

My goal for the car was to have original paint and decent interior that hadn't been destroyed by rodents, rust I could actually deal with, clean paperwork, and be a sedan (I prefer wagons, but I wanted to experience a "pure" 510 with IRS), so mission accomplished. I want the car to feel like an honest survivor, I want to experience a true, unmolested 510. The engine is going to be an L16. If I get bored, period mods may occur as I go, but as I'm a person who almost exclusively drives and absolutely loves old Japanese cars with under 100hp, I'm sure I'll enjoy it. It seems every 510 I see is modified somewhat significantly. If that's your thing, cool, but I've NEVER seen a bone-stock original 510 in person, so I'm excited to have one for myself. If I require speed and sheer excitement, I'll just go ride my motorcycles instead anyway. 

 

I think the 510 is the best-looking sedan ever made, and it's been pretty much the top slot in my attainable dream car list for years now, so having one with the potential to be roadworthy sooner than later is extremely exciting.

 

So anyway, I'll most likely be checking in here and there as I go. I've put power to the car and basically everything works minus the turn signal switch and the horn. The Appliance chrome slots that were on it had bad tires so I threw on some 14" 280ZX steelies I had with good rubber and a set of early '80s Cressida hubcaps that look pretty period correct. So much better of a starting point than my rusted out parts cars with etched glass that have been open to the elements for decades. These forums have already been a good source of info as I've been researching so I'll keep updating with the project as I go. Thanks!

 

[datzenmike]

Probably rings rusted to the cylinders but as it should be rebuilt anyway that doesn't really matter. L18 and L20B are also under 100hp and visually look the same. That's about 20 more hp than the L16. 

 

I had a Canadian '68 that was in about the same condition but the engine was tired.

 

Looks really good. 

[A-ko]

Thanks! I am considering going the L20B route if I can find one locally for cheap and using my early 1600 valve cover for the look. would running an L16 210 open chamber head on the L20B be advisable? Higher compression I'm guessing? 

 

I do have an L18 in one of my parts cars but unfortunately mice lived in it and destroyed the block. has an A87 head with the 42mm valves but I'm guessing that would actually be a downgrade on an L16. I really would like to just put together the best hybrid motor possible out of what I have laying around. I guess I'm not totally married to the idea of specifically an L16, but an L series motor, whether 16, 18 or 20B is a must for this car.

[datzenmike]

Exactly what I did on my '71 521. Put a car L20B in with the L16 valve cover! The early L16 valve cover had the fins on top extend up and over the bulge for the timing chain. The L20B had a good torque increase at all speeds. This equated to less down shifting and revving, passing or climbing hills.

 

I was warned that this L20B had a problem with blowing the head gasket and why I got it so cheap. Sure enough it blew in a month, I changed it and it blew 3 weeks later. Then I got serious and had the head milled flat and that fixed the problem. While the head was out, I stuck my 510's '210' head on my L20B. I didn't notice any change but the compression would have been upped to 9.3. I didn't change the timing and didn't notice any pinging BUT this was the late '70s and maybe the gas was better back then. There's nothing wrong with an L16 '210' head on an L20B BUT the valves and ports are very small and will choke power. It'll work but not well. Side note: I got the head gasket at the Nissan dealer and they said that the L16 head would not fit the L20B. Once it was on I returned for another gasket so I could swap the planed L20B head back on and showed them. They called the mechanics out of the garage and oooed and aaahed at it. 

 

The A87 has a much larger combustion chamber than the '210' head and will drop the compression to around 7.69. Again it will work but there will be a power loss from the compression drop. 

[A-ko]

Yesterday I drove 560 miles round trip to pick up the new engine for the 510. Fully rebuilt L20B, $350. Came with a radiator, full wiring harness (for a 610 wagon) and a 4-speed. Have all the reciepts and everything and he had it rigged up so i could hear it run when I got there. Sounds great. Pretty lucky this popped up while I was looking for one, could have done without the distance though. Good progress!

[ggzilla]

Nice find! And the seller knows it's going to someone who will use it

[A-ko]

Definitely. He was thrilled to hear I was getting a 510 back on the road and was super excited about my truck. Super cool guy. 

[A-ko]

Progress on the 510 since my last post. Pulled all four of my 510 gas tanks out, including the one in the car. Two were rotten beyond repair, the one in the car is solid, but the vent tube to the filler neck is busted off, and the one in my red '69 parts car was pretty clean overall except a little sediment sitting in the tank and some minor surface rust. Went with that one, got it installed and ready to use. Also cleaned up the sender from the same tank and got it working.

 

Cleaned up my early L16 valve cover at work and put it on the L20B. The cap was pretty rough, but found one on one of my spare A14 valve covers.

 

The L20B intake I had with the engine had all the EGR crap on it and I hated how chunky it was, so I took my L18 intake and ported it out to 35mm to match the A87 head.

 

finally pulled the drivetrain out of the car. I need to order a handful of things before I can finally drop the new drivetrain in. The original transmission feels good, so I'm going to re-use it.

 

 

I NEED to drive this thing before the snow falls.

 

[ggzilla]

reminds of my peak car days. I see an orange B210 and a E55 Rolla

14 hours ago, A-ko said:

 

I NEED to drive this thing before the snow falls.

[datzenmike]

 I see an orange oil filter...

[A-ko]

On 9/13/2025 at 6:46 PM, datzenmike said:

 I see an orange oil filter...

maybe that's what killed the original engine, ha!

[A-ko]

Progress since my last post.

 

I did the best I could with what I had on the front brakes. Had the rotors turned, got the original calipers freed up, new pads, new hoses, one new hard line. Actually found a set of good anti-rattle plates on one of my parts cars today as well. Hopefully these work well enough, I have six more used rotors on my parts cars in case these end up being terrible. Just want to get the car stopping before I go with any sort of brake conversion down the line. Excuse the suspension components, I have new stuff ready to go, just trying to get the car running and stopping before I do any other chassis stuff.

Rear brakes were a bit of a job. The car came with nothing on the rear at all except one brake shoe, so I had to replace everything. The adjusters were there, but both very seized, which took a while to get working correctly. Once I finally had everything set up and adjusted in as far as possible, the new drums would not fit on the new shoes at all, so I actually ground some material off at the top of all the shoes where they sit in the adjuster. Now both sides are rebuilt, with just very minor rubbing, ready to go. Still need to do rear hoses and all the hard lines going to the rear, but I have the hoses and new line coming in this week to redo all the rest of the hard lines on the car. Was going to drop the subframe to make this job easier, but again, I don't want to do any major stuff to the chassis until I can move the car under its own power.

The engine and transmission are still out of the car, so I hope to do everything that's easier to do without it before I put in the "new" drivetrain. Got the new master cylinders in, and also took a factory brake booster out of my B210 parts car. I like power brakes, and the look of a brake booster. Maybe I'm weird.

And finally, the engine is ready to go in, I changed a lot of stuff the previous owner had done, as well as swapping on the L16 oil pickup and pan. Replaced all the hoses, etc. Also did a clutch and pressure plate, since the previous owner had just slapped in whatever he had lying around. This is the original transmission to the car. Should theoretically be able to drop this in and go! Getting closer every day to driving an original 510 for the first time ever, a loooooong time dream of mine. I'm easy to please, so I'm sure I'll fall in love instantly.

 

[iceman510]

Good progress.  

[A-ko]

Plenty of progress...and undoing progress since my last post in the thread.

 

Finished up all the brake stuff, including making all new hard lines and replacing all the hoses. I still need to pull some good E-brake cables out of one of my parts cars so I can make them work. The previous owner cut the cables on this car, but they were so incredibly rusted solid they wouldn't have been savable anyway. Excuse the rust, The car is overall pretty solid and the subframe is very solid, but the scaly rust looks pretty nasty.

 

 

Once the brake stuff and a few other odds and ends were tidied up, I dropped the engine and transmission into the car as a unit, alone. Not the easiest thing I've ever done, but after figuring out that turning the drivetrain 90 degrees in the bay was possible (and necessary the way i did it), I got it. Can't believe I didn't mess anything up in the process.

 

In the meantime I fixed a few electrical issues, soaked the fusebox to fix my headlight problems, got the voltage regulator mostly working correctly, etc. The car was deafeningly loud with just an open exhaust manifold, so I actually cobbled together a decent exhaust from one of my parts cars.

 

My default victory drive is always to fill up the car at the actual gas station. This was of course after seeing the hard line coming from the tank was rusted out for a short distance and replacing that section. No leaks now.

 

I noticed after the first couple short drives, the exhaust was smoky. It smelled rich to me, and I wasn't 100% confident the stock Hitachi carb wasn't having some minor overfueling issue, so I decided to throw one of my spare Webers on just to be able to rule out some stupidity on my parts. Tuned it and definitely prefer the power delivery over the (wrong size) Hitachi off one of my L16s. My one good L20B size Hitachi has an issue with the body itself, and I've Weber swapped SO many cars and never regretted it, so most likely it will stay on the engine for the long run. I do intend to modify a stock Datsun air cleaner assembly to fit though, I hate the look of the stock Weber air filter and avoid using them whenever I can to make the engine bay look more presentable. The swap was incredibly easy, as usual, minus the zcardepot adaptor's studs not being spaced totally correctly. I actually drilled out the mounting holes on the Weber a bit to make up for it. The studs in the kit for on the engine side were also way too short, but thankfully I had some longer M8 studs on hand.

 

I also remember reading YEARS ago about people insisting that you had to modify the linkage or install a throttle cable or whatever when doing a Weber swap...but the factory Hitachi linkage happens to be a direct fit onto the throttle shaft of a Weber. This was so unbelievably easy to do that I'm wondering why the hell I was seeing so much information about putting a bunch of effort into the linkage. Maybe I am misremembering, because this is SO MUCH BETTER than messing around with all that nonsense, and it was free!

 

 

Well, I got a few good days out of driving the 510, enjoying it, and picking away at various small tasks along the way, but my smoke issue was certainly oil related, so I did the right thing and pulled the engine back out again to see what was going on. This engine has maybe 20 miles on it now, and I did not expect excessive oil burning on a basically brand new engine. Pulled the head and sure enough, cylinder four was extremely oily. I have another thread on here devoted to the issue, so hopefully we can figure it out. Gotta fix that issue...slap the engine back together and hopefully resume shaking this thing down before the snow falls. Pretty happy to take this car from an abandoned mess to something I was driving around for fun in less than two months...but I also just want it to be reliable, so time to do it right!

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 18, 2025 by A-ko

[ggzilla]

Good progress

 

That rust doesn't look too scary, it forms a protective oxide barrier to slow down further rust. On the other hand, once you start removing the rust, don't stop until you get it painted. I've had cars with undersides much more rusty than that and they lasted years

 

The rust in the body panels is another matter

[banzai510(hainz)]

i had the same set up weber w stock bar linkage. just more angle if one has the TALL carb adapter. iTs like 2.5 in or more. Which throws off the stock aircleaner esp if taller l20 installed hitting hood

[edekalil]

Congratulations and enjoy the ride