DeltaFox's Parts Car...

[///FiveOneOh]

A while back this wagon popped on Facebook market place and my inbox was suddenly flooded with messages from friends who seem to think that I will buy any datsun that comes up for sale for under a grand... well.. they were right and within 2 hours the Wagon was loaded onto a flat deck trailer, and the box and cab of my Titan were stuffed full of spare bits and pieces. As the story goes this car has been sitting for over 15 years still owned by the second owner who bought it used back in the 70s. The plan was was the owner and his son would fix it together one day... but that never seemed to come and the father had moved away leaving the car to sit in the sons garage. With a the wife wanting a new car space had to be made... and it was either sell the daily driver.. or the clapped out wagon with a seized motor. The fact I now have the car should be a pretty clear picture of which direction that went.

So at about 10 at night the car arrived home and we rolled it off the trailer straight into the garage. The valve cover was popped off and we found a snapped timing chain. The next day I yanked the bad motor and dropped in the spare L20B that the previous had sitting in his shed for 20 years... it was a complete unknown... but with a bit a whole bunch of WD40 I managed to free up at least one of the barrels on the old Hitchi carb and got it fired up connected to a jerry can.




At this point I had no direction with the car.. or even any clue as to why I had even bought it... so... I decided to offer it up for sale because I already about 50000 unfinished projects. Of course that meant it needed to leave the garage... so I asked Susan if she wanted to move it out.




Next thing I know she's under the hood asking "Whats this thing.. and what's that do... so now the gears are turnign and I see a direction for the car... "Susan... Do you want the car? to which she looks away... and asks me back... "Noooooo?"






So.. now my wagon.. had become Susan's wagon and the path to turning it into a usable car again was about to begin...

[///FiveOneOh]

So with the car running from the Jerry can.. albeit it not very well... we drained the tank, filled it up with some fresh fuel and took the car for a boot around the bock... ok we took the the car half way around the block then pushed it home... The tank was full of crap...

So out comes the fuel.. into the tank goes a bottle of acid, and out comes a bunch of junk. Awsome looks clean now! Unfortunately the Hitachi was still not running great so Susan set about rebuilding a set of SUs which had come with the car. Now keep in mind shes never touched a car before in her life other then learning to change a tire... so its all new to her. I loaded her up with Datsun books and let her go at it.







With the new carbs in place.. the "Cleaned tank" we were feeling pretty good.. car was idling nice and smooth so we figured hell its sunny... lets take it for a spin.


6 blocks later we pushing it home....

[///FiveOneOh]

Now... I hate pulling wagon fuel tanks.. stupid breather hose... so I suggested Susan try it.. as a "Right of passage"... after I had fought with it for 30 minutes and given up in frustration.... not 5 minutes later she is standing beside me with the fuel tank in hand asking "Did I do I right?" Clearly not because it should have taken an hour and involved lots of swearing.. put it back and try again!



A quick look inside made it clear what the issue was...




The rest of the fuel system didn't fare any better.





So into the sonic cleaner went the carbs, into the electrolisis bath went the sender units, and into the fuel tank went the bolts!



Note that this image of in the tank.. was AFTER we had already flushed it with the bolts 4 times... it took three more tries to get rid of the solids... then the tank was hooked to a battery chargers and filled with water, baking powder, and oxy clean for 1 week to remove the rest of the crap inside. Once completed we filled it with phosphoric acid to et anything that was was left.

In sticking with doing everything the hardest way possible.. we mounted some tires on my SpeedStars.... with pry bars.. and dish soap... never do this... this is stupid... for multiple reasons... this is stupid....


So now we have cleaned carbs... cleaned fuel tank, new rims... its running great.. time to take it for a spin!!!!

10 blocks later we were pushing it home.... but hey! 10 blocks we are makin progress!

[///FiveOneOh]

Well after a bunch of screwing around I was at a loss.. I have not had an L series car in a very very long time but this just didn't seem right... the car made no power. I remember being able to chirp second gear, this car wouldn't even get up our driveway without a 6000RPM clutch dump... So it was time call in the big guns. I also don't have a timing light anymore... somebody "borrowed it" and I can't remember who... At this point I had running well enough that I could keep it alive so we headed off to Byron's house with me behind the wheel. My years of driving semi working piles of junk Datsuns had rewarded me with the ability start, stop, and sit at intersections heal toeing at all times...





So we spend a bunch of time messing around with the timing and it just didn't seem to make sense. We reclocked the drive 3 or 4 times, checked and doubled checked the mechanical timing... yet the car wouldnt; run unless the dizzy was cranked to 20+ ° of timing! Eventually we had to throw our hands up and call it a night. As we were about to leave Byron commented "I smell fuel". "Ya it's probably just out of tune and dumping fuel... we'll deal with it later" I responded and we head on our way.

Just in time for the torrential downpour of rain to start! Guess what doesn't work... the wipers!! So with head out the window we mange to make our way to an on the run and grab some rain X to drive home and park in the garage... soaking wet I am ready to go to bed.

Next morning we awake to the pungent stench of fuel... I was to pissed off to take any photos but needless to say 40L of fuel had spilled out of the tank and onto the garage floor over night... it would seem the only thing sealing the fuel tank was the copious amount of scunge sitting at the bottom...

[///FiveOneOh]

Ok now the real fun... The car visually looked pretty decent.. I knew there was some hidden rust but honestly I didn't do my due diligence with the magnets and pokey stick...





Car clearly had a roof rack... this is why roof racks suck!!! 4 of these on the roof...



The chunk on the floor is the fiberglass that as covering the hole







Enough for now....

[bertvorgon]

Pictures not showing up on my computer. Only the one.

[///FiveOneOh]

uhg... well that was a waste of time... to hard to post photos on the realm...

[Fred_L-P]

I use IMGUR