Datsun 200B Poster!! WTF!

I just spent a couple hours working on this! Pretty cool eh? Click the pics to make them bigger.




Its 4 landscape A4 pages wide and 4 high! Makes it roughly a metre wide by 70cm high :)

Datsun 280ZX

This is Dad's new 280Z. I got to take it for a drive recently :) After a little work I think it will be damn nice to drive. Its a little like driving the 200b :) But of course way cooler. 5 speed, better handling and good sound to it.

4x4 1200!

This 1200 is bolted on top of a Suzuki Sierra chassis!! It had an A12 in it but is being swapped over with an A14. Crazy

200B's first service

The 200B got its first going over on Saturday. Had the oportunity to use a hoist so I took a couple of pics of underneath.

The things that were done:
New horn fitted (Hilux)
Brake light fixed
Oils all drained and replaced
Air and oil filter replaced
Brakes all checked
Wheel bearings tightened where needed
Rear gearbox extension seal replaced
Carby mounts tightened





All up its a very tidy machine and it good condition. Looks like I may end up keeping it :)

200B Fixed!

After hunting around a little I found some wheel studs at Metro Auto Parts in Devonport. There good there. Old school.

I forgot about taking some pics when i took the hub off so just posted some with it all fixed.

Not a hard job to do at all. The 200B is to clean! After playing with the 1200 and a couple of sets of 120Y struts I noticed the difference. The 200B wasn't caked with dirt, no rust and no oil or grease. Very nice to work on :)

I noticed some weird wiring under the dash today, I'll have to take a look at it sometime. might fix one of the things on my earlier list :)

I'll be back into the 1200 soon

Bugger!

I was at the servo this morning getting some fuel for the new beast when i thought I'd check the tires. Being new its good to give a car a good once over so you can find anything wrong. Anyway after tearing the hubcap off I noticed a nut fell out. The nut had a thread in it. I looked up and saw that 2 wheel nuts had sheared off the hub! Holy shit! I laughed a bit and drove hope a little more carefully than one normally would. I changed cars and went to work :) I didnt get home early enough to get the wheel off and see how much of the hub I'd have to take apart to get at the wheel stud, so should get there tommorrow. All going well as Dad suggested I might be able to use some of the 120Y studs out of the spare struts I have under the house :)

Damn those tires and rims look dirty. Have to clean them up after I finish with the 1200 struts :)

Strut 2

I finally got into sanding the other strut today. I used 40 Grit sand paper after steel brushing this time. It made the job longer than before but did a much better job. So I'm happy with that. I ordered some new strut inserts and picked them up on Saturday. I also got the caliper apart today after some trickiness. The pison looks good so I wont need to do anything there except clean all the weird shit out of it :)

Everything is ready for painting after a quick wipe to get rid of any grease or oil thats left on the surfaces. I want to play with the 200B but I cant be doing more than one project at a time so I'm resisting :)

Datsun 200B

Oh No. I've bought another Datsun! Its a 1980 Datsun 200B. Saw it on the road on the way back from work A couple of days ago, at first I thought it was another 1200 wagon then more a 120Y wagon then I had no idea what it was so I had to take a look :) $500 O.N.O. was the price tag. At first glance the bonnet had lots of rust at the front and a fair bit of rust around the bottom of the doors and guards bubbling through. Which is a real shame because the body is pretty damn straight! The paint work has been looked after no fade. A few scratches that have chipped off the paint but nothing major at all. Now the interior is immaculate for its age. The carpets look new, there's no marks on the upholstery and the dash has no scratches. I had a quick look around the Engine bay and I couldn't see any oil leaks! Amazing! The Lady I got it off said it didnt use any oil or water which I'll find out soon after a few trips to work. After a couple of brief drives I found a few things wrong.

The speedo is 20kms out :)
The Odometer doesnt work
The front right shock is shot
The clock doesnt work
The Horn doesnt work

RL brake light out

FL lowbeam headlight out

Thats it so far, nothing major. I haggled a little and got it for $400 which I think is cheap. It has reg till July. After that I dont know what will happen to it. I have 3 cars now! I cant keep them all registered at $600 a pop. Did I mention it has a dogleg gearbox? Its sweet. Reverse is left and up instead of the more common right and left on the gear stick :) Its extremly comfy to drive too.

The 200B was made between 1977 and 1981 and replaced the Datsun 180B. It was replaced In 1981 by the Nissan Bluebird. It has a L20B motor which has a 2 litre capacity and around 72kW of power.

Strut Shananigans

There was a 120Y in Dad's Datsun graveyard that had been rolled pretty badly the upside being that it had new strut inserts! After getting them out and taking them apart some it seems that the accident bungled one and they're no good! Bugger. I'll just have to buy some now, should have probably done that in the first place but hey, its all good. Still the bearings look OK so atleast I've got somethinig :) Below is a pic of one of the nice struts I painted and one of the struts outt of the car that was rolled. The rolled ones are in MUCH better condition than the ones I am working on :(


Started working on the other strut today. Took a small break from the datto for a few days cos I needed a spell. But back into it now. You can see the stripped strut below it looks pretty bad but hopefully not for long. You can see that I've taped up the axel down the bottom. This bit is pretty easy do damage, especially the thread on the end. Bit of tape around there though and any knocks it gets while being sanded down get padded pretty well. It also stops any paint overspray getting on there.

I also looked at taking a caliper apart today. Couldnt quite figure it out so I'll wait till my datsun workshop manual gets here and check that out. Or just ask Dad when he's around.

Togetherness

Progress is slow yes. I need bearings and Strut inserts which I should be getting tommorrow night. Heres where its at.....

Basically need those wheel bearings to get it all back together.

Brake action

Well only a little done tonight but still got the finished coats on...

Theres a big filthy mark on the disc you can see there but its ok. Your not meant to paint that bit. This looks white from the flash but its actually aluminium coloured.

Caliper is aluminium coloured aswell. Damn night time :)

Better get some bearings tommorrow so I can prepare to put it back together again. Just a few more little pieces to fix up and its set.

Other bits to the strut

After the strut was done and looking better it was time to get on to the other bits and pieces...

This is the other strut so you can get the idea. Basically followed the same process as before. Which brought me to this stage...

So thats where they are at now. Final coat should be tommorrow or maybe tonight :) I've also done the rotor and a few bolts which are not pictured. I probably should recondition the brake caliper while I'm at it but I think I'll leave it.

Datsun 1200 Strut swap

I'm swapping over my 1200 struts for some 120y ones. The 120Y having discs instead of drums being the reason why :) There pretty much a straight swap over, you need to keep your 1200 springs and strut tops to put on the 120y struts though as the 120y springs and tops sit a bit higher.

I got some discs out of the second car I ever had! A Blue 1976 120Y. Oh yeah. Now after July 1976 due to new import laws put in place, the 120y strut changed as the brakes were made locally instead of from Japan. This could cause some problems for me as these discs will increase the line pressure on my 34 year old master cylinder. Might spring some leaks so I'll have to keep an eye on it. If it does I'll can replace it with either a 1200 coupe master as they came stock with discs or get a Datsun Sunny master cylinder to replace it with. The Sunny master is a bit bigger.

Of course I'm not just swapping them over. I have to clean up the new ones first.
Heres what I'm up against:

There Dirty, very dirty. Rusty aswell.

I started out by taking the strut completely apart. I'm taking one apart at a time just in case I run in to trouble putting them back together. Once all apart I started with the main strut body. After chipping around it with a screwdriver and then using a wire brush all over it I sanded it with some 80grit sandpaper. This left it looking much like this...

The Insert needs replacing but I dont have a Spanner big enough to get it out yet :( So thats still in there for now. After all the sanding I rubbed it down with a rag to get all the dust and crap off. I then rubbed it down with some wax and grease remover ready for some paint. After spraying with some etch primer it looked like this...

Then being keen I sanded it down lightly with 400 grit sand paper. A quick wipe down again and I was ready for the final coat.....

So thats the main part done. Looks a bit better eh?