motorman7

This is what the 2 decals on the radiator should look like. Ignore the radiator cap.

The first picture is correct. If you look at my 'refresh' thread, one of the early pictures shows that decal. It is original on my 3/70 build. I think I have some better pics at home. Had to make sure I mounted the new one from Banzai correctly.

I think it's about 80 hours of labor total: 56 hours of my time and 24 from my son.

Well, got her all back together and it looks good; much better than the before pics. I have a small problem though, there is an exhaust manifold leak on the the number 5 cylinder. I will need to pull the carbs/ intake and exhuast manifold and re-do the gasket. I ran out of copper gasket and didn't put much on. That is part of the problem. The other is that the headers did not seem so align well on the head during installation. They are the MSA 6 into 1 headers and they seem to sit a bit low on the head. Will re-check the fit when I pull everything off and see if I need to grind the attach tabs a bit so it rides higher. Total cost for the refresh was just under $500. Below are some before and after pics.

The BRG looks great. Maybe I will get one that color some day. Make sure you clean up the overspray there before you put too much in the engine bay. It's easiest to clean when it's empty. Lookin' good, keep it up!

Love the 510! When I met my wife, she was driving a tan 510 and I had a 1600 roadster. Was surprised to see that we had the same engine in the cars. So obviously, it was love at first site....my wife I mean, not the car

I have finally come to resolution on the Air Galley. I ordered a new one from MSA and replaced the discolored one (which also had a small dent/fold in it because I tried to remove the smog checkvalve(?) without putting a wrench on the air galley flats. This was a tough decision as it is the only non-original part on the car that has been replaced that is not rubber). I also decided to run my smog pump in order to keep the tubes cooler. I know it is a sacrifice to the perfomance, but I have a suped up '71Z to fill that void. I ran the motor for 5 minutes with no noticeable discoloration. This was a really good sign. So, the plan is to keep it this way as I like the results. So, the engine refresh is now complete. Next Item on the agenda is to restore the steering wheel.

$135 plus $10 shipping; $145 total.

Took the day off and had an enjoyable time putting parts on the motor. I should be able to drop it in tomorrow, maybe have it running by the end of the day if there are not too many interruptions. Here is a picture of the Bolt Kit from Eiji at Datsun Spirit. This made putting things together pretty easy. Also got my zinc parts back from Les at Classic Datsun Motorsports. They look great. It was actually cheaper to zinc all of the parts than order the bolt set. If the bolts weren't in such bad shape, that is all I would have done. Got the valve cover bead blasted. That is also worth it for the looks. The black was horrid. This looks pretty clean. Not bad for $40. Not sure if I like the oil cap, but my son likes it so I will leave it for now. Still have the original. Here's some pics of the motor. Hopefully will have this baby installed and running tomorrow...Monday at the latest.

Looks like a good start! I went through a whole role of tape and it probably took me 4 hours of taping for my bay. Seemed like forever. I love Lacquer Thinner and Steel wool for cleaning things, it works great. It tore through the old paint pretty fast. Just make sure to vacuum and clean well before painting or you will get the steel wool hairs in there. Looking forward to seeing the finished product. The BRG color is very nice. My son wanted me to paint the silver car Yellow. I love the color but figured that silver would be a little more stealth and result in fewer speeding tickets. Now he's trying to talk me into black racing stripes for the silver car. We'll see.....that's too far in the future to think about now

Yes, hopefully it's just a gasket. I like using plenty of the spray copper coat on the head gasket. Worked well on my 70; no problems.

Congrats! I knew you were close since you had a couple pops. Have fun driving it. Rich

Unfortunately I am running out or garage space Don't think my wife would be too happy if I kicked her car out of the third space. I do love the White color. Was hoping to get white or silver when the silver came up. It will be a while before I finish with that one. With both kids in college now my hobby funds have been reduced. Funny, now that I am about done with the gold Z, I was thinking of storing it in my folks barn (It's a NICE barn) to make space for another. However, I enjoy looking at it so much every morning that I don't see it going anywhere. Rich

Hi David, Have not received the bolt kit yet, but will let you know when I get it. Guy (Diseazd) says it is great and his pics look super. I didn't really want to put that much money into it, but I was not happy with the bolts at all. Every manifold bolt was bent and I think only two were the original parts, maybe. I do not think that the HD bolts are of the same quality. On my 70, I just had the bolts re-zinced. They were all in good shape, so no need for new ones. I have a long weekend coming up, so hope to have it up and running by then. I need to drive:classic: . It is really a fun car.

Started putting some parts back on. Also got the elec harness cleaned up and re-wrapped. Cleaned and routed the fuel lines. They should look nice when I get the newly zinced clamp tabs from CDM. I also put on a new engine bay light that I got from Banzai motorworks. Was on sale for $25; such a deal. Now waiting on the engine bolt kit from Eiji at Datsunspirit.com. Seems half the bolts on this L26 engine were either bent, missing or from Home Depot.

Contact Eiji at Datsunspirit.com (see below). He will set you up with the engine bolts, nicely zinc plated and labeled. $135 plus shipping. Not sure about the tranny bolts. Rich sales@datsunspirit.com

The problem is that I might take you up on that. I enjoy this far more than is normal. Probably need a vacation or something.

Wow, that really is sad. Sorry to hear about your loss. Not sure I would want to take pictures if I ever sold one of mine. Would be very depressing. Best wishes on your future endeavors. Rich

Got the engine bay cleaned and painted. The taping took forever. Probably would have been faster to have stripped everything. Now that this is done, I can start assembling. That's the fun part. It's not perfect but it only cost $60, so I think it's a good return on investment. The satisfaction of the bay looking nice is worth more than $60.

Those look great! Love that color. Where have I seen that before?

Possible. Did you check the pictures that I posted on cam and crank timing? Those are fairly clear. If you set the crank and cam that way, you should be fine for cam crank timing.

Hi Frankie, Just finished doing the timing chain, crank and cam, on my L26 and posted them on this thread with a number of pics. http://www.classiczcars.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=35670 Hopefully that helps a bit. The fact that you got a couple pops seems somewhat promising. I am wondering if your oil pump/distributor timing was 180 out. As the slotted tab is offset, at 11:25, the key needs to be more on the 7 to 8 o'clock side than the 2 to 3 o'clock side. I hope that makes sense. see pic. Be careful moving a couple links. If you are off, you can bend valves.

I got the block cleaned up and now need to attack the engine bay as you can see in the background. This is really a challenge. I have been using steel wool and laquer thinner for most of the clean. The plan here is to keep this low budget as this is not truly an original car. After engine bay clean-up, I will tape off the exposed parts and paint the engine bay with the 901 silver paint. I plan to eventually do some of the body work and repaint the exterior in the next year of two. That is about the extent of what I plan to do on this car

Step 5: Align 2nd shiney link with mark on crankshaft as shown in pic. This should align fairly easily if the first steps will follow. Make minor adjustments if needed. Next, install the chain tensioner. Step 6: While pressing in chain tensioner, reinstall cam sprocket with hole one on the cam alignment key. Install cam bolt and torque per spec.