New Zealand Datsun Club

I'll combine the new 2 seater and the 2+2 into this thread for the moment while I'm kind of working on both.

Fixed up and painted the left hand side of the engine bay as there was a little spot of rust and the previous owner had hacked off most of the air flow meter mount but not all of it so I drilled out the spot welds and pulled the rest off then welded up the holes, little bit of bog to smooth it then paint that was matched up by Spray Store. I gave him the paint code but he reckons when he mixed it up off that it was way too dark, I'm beginning to think this is actually quite a rare colour for an S130, it's "510 Sky blue metallic" from what I can figure out. It's not perfect as I kind of rushed it and my welder is pretty crap especially with gasless wire (I don't use it enough to justify getting a gas bottle) but you'll never notice one the motor is in there. Painted bits of the crossmember too as the PO also decided to wire brush bits of it back to bare metal.



Drained the fluids and took the motor out of the 2 seater tonight, unfortunately it looks like this gearbox has a bearing issue as well as there were bits of bearing cage on the drain plug, not having much luck with boxes at the moment! Motor has the big Nissan rocker cover which I'll be keeping. Need to pull the box off tomorrow and take the bellhousing off, hopefully it's the front countershaft bearing which is an easy fix. Need to have a look at the clutch too as I'm not 100% sure what's actually in there, it'll be a 225mm clutch of some sort.

It's not the front bearing in original gearbox so I got another one today, pulled the drain bung out and it's got quite a bit of small material on it but nothing big, when spinning the shaft in the first box I can hear the ball bearings hitting each other, new box sounds fine so I'll chuck it all in the car tomorrow.

Motor in the hole, started pulling the wiring loom back through. Will hopefully have it running within the next couple of days, it appears to still have a bit of fuel in it so I'll have to drain that out I think, I don't actually know when the last time it was running was but it was at least a couple of years ago.

Yes, I do need to clean the other side of the engine bay but I ran out of Simple Green, will have to grab some more tomorrow.

Got this thing cranking over, looks like the fuel pump has died. I've got a spare but it sounds a bit rattly, will chuck it in and give it a go anyway. Might have to head out to Pick'a'part at some stage and grab something a bit newer.

Alright, swapped the pump for the spare, put some fresh gas in it, cycled the key a couple of times to get gas into the rail and it fired right up. Fuel pump doesn't sound very good even with fuel in it but it runs! It's got no exhaust apart from the manifold so it's really loud, seems to idle and rev okay though.

I feel pretty good, it hasn't moved since I bought it on the 25th of April 2011 and to have it running in less than a month, maybe my new years resolution is going okay? I've got no idea how long it hasn't been running for before I got it, the rego sticker in the window is from 2004.

Thought we'd try the wheels off Zac's Starion on the other 2 seater for a laugh, would need probably minimum 10mm spacers on the front to clear the strut and it would need to be lowered probably 100mm or more even at the back to make them look semi good. Front is really high as it doesn't have a motor in it.

Spent about 2 hours tonight wrestling with the rear half of the exhaust for the 2+2, managed to get it on in the end after dropping the crossmember down and lifting the body up, removing the left hand side axle and removing the drive shaft again, what a pain in the ass. Got the rear bumper on as well after having a look through all the bits from this car 3 times before I found the bumper mounts, I couldn't find them because they were attached to a tow bar that I'd forgotten had come with it!

I haven't been working on these things as much as I should have been, I bought some racking to try and tidy up the garage a bit, it's almost full and the garage is still a mess, I've got too much stuff. I need to make some progress on the 2+2 so will try and spend an hour or so on it every night after work.

Awesome - that shelving looks alot better than the piss weak stuff i brought (has the white metal shelves instead of wood - dont buy it)

You need a shiz tonne of those 60 - 80l plastic containers with lids - just takes the wheels off or they roll off the shelf haha.

It took me a month of tossing up whether to spend the money on the shelving or not before I actually did it, it was pretty expensive but it'll last the rest of my life time and I can buy more bits and reconfigure it if we move house etc etc, the picture is a bit deceiving but they are 1.8m high and 5.9m long in total. They make workbenches out of the stuff which are pretty cool but I don't have room for one at the moment. I bought a few of the lidless black fish bins that were on special at The Warehouse, they are working okay so far but don't really like having heavy stuff inside them.

Been working on the ass end of the 2+2 today trying to get it sorted and back on the ground. It looks like the previous owner took the whole left hand control arm off to get the exhaust off so all the bolts for that were loose, it also looks like he started to remove the companion flange nut for some reason as the staking had been undone.

So I tightened up all the loose bolts, swapped the rear shocks and springs for the KYBs and Cobra springs that I used to have in the black Z so that should give it a little bit of drop. Once the back is all finished I'll start tightening up all the loose stuff in the front, swap the front springs over and maybe buy a new pair of KYBs so they match the back.

I've slowly been pottering along with this, haven't been making the progess that I would have liked. Finished off the rear end pretty much, had to dig around to find a couple of the bits that were missing like the sway bar mounting brackets and the left hand brake line that runs along the control arm, no idea where that went to! Found those bits left over from the car I brought back from Oamaru that I got off Hayden.

One side of the front is back together, just need to get the strut into the other side and tighten everything up, one of the front sway bar brackets is missing which is a pain in the ass, not sure I have a spare so might have to go digging and try and find the original.

I took a cue from John and pulled the struts apart, they were original oil filled ones so I drained the nasty smelling very thin fluid out of them, cleaned them up and filled them with 32 grade hydraulic oil, I'm not baller enough to roll 46 like the Laurel. Fitted the Cobra springs to the front, didn't need spring compressors to reassemble them but they're captive. I was going to buy some new inserts but I'm going to be selling it anyway so not much point spending heaps more on it.