🔧 BUILD Intel's Datsun 510

[Intel]

Pulled the seats out of the car so I can sell the wrx mounts that barely worked.

Ground down and primed the driver side of the car tonight.

Bent this up as a template out of some aluminum tube, won't get to bending up the real stainless line until tuesday as I am out of town this weekend.

 

[IDAFC21]

Kitty wants to race

 

[Intel]

Finished up grinding the BMW E30 Ellipsoid headlights to fit my headlight buckets. Had to cut quite a bit out of the brackets to make them fit. Luckily because I shortened them when I retrofitted Morimoto Mini D2S Hid headlights into them so I didn't have to take a hammer to the fender wells.

First 2 photos show the cuts I had to make. I will have to re-fiberglass the headlights one last time and do a wax layer so I can sand and paint them to be all pretty. Will get more photos then of the final product.

Got them mounted in the car and hacked together a harness so I can see how they look. Just running off a PC power supply for now as I was lazy.










So these do both low and high beam so I am really unsure what to do. Currently I have the one high beam in. The other one I am waiting on hardware as the stuff that came with the car was junk for it. Could leave it open and put some mesh across it as the air filter will be right behind it.

Or put yellow high beams in

 

[RICH17]

I like the clean of the non yellow

 

[Intel]

So after about 1-2 nights of figuring out the wiring, making diagrams, lists and lots of other boring stuff so I can make my dash and engine bay harness the work has begun.

I am using 2 Bussman Relay/fuse panels. 1 for car related items (wipers/horn/headlights etc etc) 2nd for Engine running related items like (Megasquirt, Injector power, IGN power, Fuel Pump 1, Fuel Pump 2, etc), Techflex/shrink wrap for the harness protection, and mostly OEM connectors if I can source them. With some deutsch connectors as needed.

Dash_Wire_MTO_1_20171024_163537 by Mark Olsen, on Flickr


I also managed to find a place that sells striped wire in small quantities so I can have some chance of troubleshooting this in the future using a normal Datsun 510 wiring diagram. My only big changes are adding redoing the headlights so that the Headlight switch doesn't have 20 amps running through it, and the IGN switch so it doesn't have almost 80 amps running through it. With that my gauges of wire could be a lot smaller as the IGN switch will simply flip the relays on vs the stock setup.

I just got done running about 90 percent of the wires in the dash at least to rough length, bundled by connectors, next up is splicing in the turn signals in multiple places, illumination wires, grounds, and making a small sub harness for the speedhut gauges. Hoping to get it done this weekend before the wife gets pissed at setting up shop in the family room.

Overall View
Dash_Wire_MTO_3 by Mark Olsen, on Flickr

Most of the switches, Radio, Gauges, etc are here.
Dash_Wire_MTO_2 by Mark Olsen, on Flickr

All the wires terminating where the 2 fuse panels will be.
Dash_Wire_MTO_1 by Mark Olsen, on Flickr

Hoping for more exciting updates of the car running again once this is done and the dash can be put into the car.

 

[IDAFC21]

God all those wires give me such an anxiety attack

 

[cap42]

God all those wires give me such an anxiety attack

Ditto!

 

[EmersonHart13]

 

[RICH17]

The misses must be pretty understanding

 

[Mook]

It looks like you're building a series of bombs

 

[Intel]

God all those wires give me such an anxiety attack

The striping helps a lot, on top of that I have temporary labels on them until they get bundled and then they get shrink wrapped labels so I know what each connector goes to. I splurged a while ago on a brothers labeler that can print on heat shrink labels. It made my life a lot easier for making harnesses for our lemons/chump cars as I wasn't the only person who knew where everything went.

Dash_Wire_MTO_1_20171025_142137 by Mark Olsen, on Flickr

The misses must be pretty understanding

She told me I had until this weekend to finish. Deadlines always help.

It looks like you're building a series of bombs

Cut the Green-Red wire! Thanks, now the NSA is after my shit.

 

[Thirdgen89GTA]

The striping helps a lot, on top of that I have temporary labels on them until they get bundled and then they get shrink wrapped labels so I know what each connector goes to. I splurged a while ago on a brothers labeler that can print on heat shrink labels. It made my life a lot easier for making harnesses for our lemons/chump cars as I wasn't the only person who knew where everything went.

Dash_Wire_MTO_1_20171025_142137 by Mark Olsen, on Flickr


She told me I had until this weekend to finish. Deadlines always help.


Cut the Green-Red wire! Thanks, now the NSA is after my shit.

I need that labeler in my life. Would make so many jobs easier.

 

[Intel]

Interior harness is 90 percent done, car started right up so I could get her in the garage to start welding in seat mounts.

 

[IDAFC21]

Yesssss

 

[Intel]

Not much progress but getting through the shitty work. Ground up all the surface rust and garbage old seam sealer behind the seats and prepped it for eastwood rust encapsulator. Still need to finish redoing the front where rust poked through the primer and patch 2-3 holes in the passenger side floor board. Painting the whole interior grey once all the patches are done and everything is cleaned up.

Seat mounts have to wait until next weekend.

 

[greasy]

Great progress, that dash came out awesome!

 

[1quick]

Looks great, this is one of those cars I search for on Craigslist along with grand nationals and all the other oddball stuff I wish I had lol

 

[Intel]

Looks great, this is one of those cars I search for on Craigslist along with grand nationals and all the other oddball stuff I wish I had lol

I barely find any these days in the midwest easier to find clean 240z and Roadsters. Everything is in california which is a pain in the dick when you are half tempted to put a back seat back in the car but nobody will ship them if they even have a decent set.

Like this is close to what I paid and mine was a running car.
https://detroit.craigslist.org/mcb/cto/d/1972-datsundoor-not-rusted/6488854220.html

 

[95SC]

crazy project , alot of work needed to get it completed

 

[Intel]

Scored some racecar parts on ebay. Been working my photography gigs all spring/summer to build up some cash flow for this project. Just finished our bathroom remodel so starting work on the 510 again.

Decided for sure that I want to track the 510 so grabbed a fuel cell, also got a bunch of vibrant exhaust stuff.

 

[Mook]

What is the end game for this car? Keep it a racer and not worry about the looks or eventually make it a nice looking car?

 

[Mook]

That came out sounding like me calling it a piece of shit, its not what I meant

 

[Intel]

What is the end game for this car? Keep it a racer and not worry about the looks or eventually make it a nice looking car?

That came out sounding like me calling it a piece of shit, its not what I meant

No worries. Issue I have right now is just time/money. I enjoy tracking cars a lot more. I am reaching the point where I can either put money into my mazda3 to make it more reliable at the track (bigger brakes,oil cooler, radiator, tune, exhaust) or put the same money into this and drive something a bit more fun/cool/expensive to track.

Weekend driver/car coffee/hpde and or Time attack so I only need a rollbar and not a full on cage. I am saving up to have a roll bar either made and I will weld it or have a shop weld it in. Might make it removable so if I want I can still use the backseat for kids etc.

Interior is almost sprayed/fixed. I have one seat mounted and the passenger to go. Will have a headliner/carpet put into it. Been tracking down parts to make that happen as I need headliner bows which nobody makes.

Exterior I have slowly been learning how to repair dents/rust/dings. In a perfect world I would do a carbon fiber hood, trunk, fenders, and flare the rear so I can fit bigger tires but for now I will probably just repair the rust/dings and respray it green in my garage.

Example of BRE flares. Mine would most likely be molded in vs riveted.

Something even 50 percent as nice as this car without the BRE racing livery would be amazing to me.
PROFILES: The ultimate BRE 510 tribute | Japanese Nostalgic Car

The car was built to its current level from an empty shell (so it will never be a perfect numbers matching car) and the more I go down the road I just don't see myself having the time and or money to make it one.

I basically have a list of about 10k in parts needed and just prioritizing what will get it drivable the soonest.

 

[Mook]

I would nut hard if your car looked like that...or even similar.

 

[Mr_Roboto]

The striping helps a lot, on top of that I have temporary labels on them until they get bundled and then they get shrink wrapped labels so I know what each connector goes to. I splurged a while ago on a brothers labeler that can print on heat shrink labels. It made my life a lot easier for making harnesses for our lemons/chump cars as I wasn't the only person who knew where everything went.

Dash_Wire_MTO_1_20171025_142137 by Mark Olsen, on Flickr


She told me I had until this weekend to finish. Deadlines always help.


Cut the Green-Red wire! Thanks, now the NSA is after my shit.

I need that labeler in my life. Would make so many jobs easier.

I've never heard of this. It indeed sounds awesome.

Cool to see you're still progressing with the car. Some times you've gotta move a foot at a time to get the mile done. That's a way cool car.