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So after about 5 months of not starting the car, it's time for it to wake up! I went about doing a few pre-start checks.. Oil? Black. Brake Fluid? Half missing. Clutch Fluid? Black. Water in radiator? Yep. OK good to go. With a new battery it cranked over really well, took a little while due to no gas in the float and mechanical pump but no worries. Little rough as you'd expect after not running for so long but once warmed up and the fuel was flowing it feels strong. I didn't actually take it out as there is currently too much stuff around and I couldn't be bothered moving it. Quick Instagram Vid - https://www.instagram.com/p/BJUYBs-B57z Still have a few parts to come in the next container shipment like springs, brake discs etc. I'm not in a major rush so container is all good. The current springs are very uncaptive cutties hahaha. Rides pretty well considering though, Discuss: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/49704-mlracings-hakosuka/page-8#entry1705879

Yeah tell me about it, I was this close to giving up then I found some obscure post someone made on a Z forum and it was like a night and lightswitch had been flicked. I felt like such an idiot haha

It's still a major pain in the ass but to get the bushes back in their springy home while you're fucking around with the rest, loop the wire around the little catch at the end of each bit. That probably makes no sense. Assuming that's what you're talking about.

Not too much happened recently but for the sake of documentation I'll add it here. I picked up one of those C-Tek chargers which worked wonders on one of the old batteries I had in storage but no bueno on the Skyline one so I need to buy a new battery for that. No major, they're around I just haven't got to doing it. A couple of small rubber bits did arrive though the other week so got to installing them. Nice new rubber seal around the bottom of that cowling. Can see a bit of rust on either end of it as well as perhaps some quick repair done. These are common places for rust on Hakos so I suspect when the time comes I'll have to pull all that down and repair it properly. Repair parts are available for these areas. And these little rubber caps for the wipers were busted as you can see in the top picture. Replaced as per bottom picture. Yep, thrilling stuff.. but it keeps the momentum going I guess.

It's sometimes the little things that make all the difference so I had a couple of bits I really needed to get fixed up. I purchased a new gear boot a while ago but the silver trim ring was smashed to pieces, the centre console is in poor condition with some pretty agricultural repairs so not entirely surprised. I have this one hook underneath which I've since been told isn't meant to be there, so I'm missing a bunch of clips that go underneath here which secure the shift boot onto the trim ring. Previously I purchased a replacement rubber boot for the shifter hole but I got the wrong one, now I have the correct one. After a bunch of prodding and poking, got it in there. So without all the clips in there the shift boot sits like this. Deciding whether to get some new woodgrain stickers but if I'm going to eventually replace the centre console anyway maybe there are better things to spend the money on.. really want to get a different shift knob though.

Oh definitely could, but already have some of the parts here. Anyway, story for another time

I see you're pretty handy with making coilovers, can one purchase your services?

I'm glad I don't have electric windows, just another thing to fail haha

I actually bench tested some and yeah mine wasn't great haha

So after my bust on the 180sx wiper motor I did a bit more research and found that majority of Datsuns of similar vintage shared (or 95%) the same wiper motor. There are some Honda ones you can use and various other things but mint16 on NZ Datsun had some 510 motors for sale so I contacted him and picked up two of those. You can see they're almost identical except the centre linkage shaft is longer on the Hakosuka one. I took apart/cut the plugs off and ran some quick bench testing. With old cars it's always better to have more spares than less and it's a good thing too as one of the motors was not as good as the other. One was better than my current one though so I used the not so good one as a sacrifice so I could take it apart without concern and learn about how it all works. What I learnt initially was how much of a huge pain in the ass these bushes can be, and how much of an idiot they make you feel like.. that is until you work out/research how to get them to stay in their sprung houses. Then you feel like an even bigger idiot, albeit an enlightened one. This motor (which was the best of the lot) looked like it had some moisture inside it sometime in the past. Nonetheless it worked OK so after giving it a little clean up I re-used that part. My main quandry was how to get the linkage shaft out and move it from the hako motor to the 510 one. I tried for ages to remove a washer on the outside to pull it out but then thought I'd see if it were possible to remove it from the inside, jackpot! Once this cover is removed you're faced with this. Pretty straight forward system. Simply remove that nut, couple of washers and the park position thing and a circlip then you can see this. Just lightly knock out the centre shaft and it pops out the other side. Easily enough to reverse the procedure with the hako shaft. Better look at the size difference. Bigger is better huehuehuehue Taking the advice of many, I also tried to lube up this linkage area. I couldn't for the life of me get the washer clip thing off the top but it was quite stiff to move around. I did clean it up and gunked it as best as possible and it definitely made it move more freely. So after putting it all back together it's not a major improvement but definitely an improvement. Also for some reason the park no longer works despite wiring being the same, the motor just seems to run continually so perhaps something isn't quite exactly the same. Anyway, don't need that so I've not plugged that in for now. I think definitely for a proper decent upgrade the Honda motor could be the way to go, but I learnt a bunch from this so I consider it a win win. I also learnt that I need a new battery and a trickle charger.

What would be the recommended way to test the earth/circuit? Just make sure it's getting solid 12v? Or would it be better to test for resistance? I still reckon there's a problem with the motor anyway, it looks like the original one. Also lols about the vacuum wipers, I remember my mum talking about those and said it was pretty scary when it was raining

Nah it still goes it's just got no balls. For example if the wipers are not on the windscreen then it will go but still shittily, however when the wipers are on the windscreen sometimes it can't even move them. I could take it all apart and have a poke, and it's definitely still an option. I agree, I think that S13 one is a no hoper

OK so the 180SX wiper motor arrived and after closely inspecting it I can't see any easy way to make it work. None of the brackets line up (could make custom though) and the size is a bit different. So it's definitely not quite anywhere near bolt on. Even once I remove the mounting plate on the original one there's not really any way to easily attach it to the new one. Will have to think a bit more about the strategy. I'm not sure if this will be the same for other countries or models but this one is from a 180SX Type X, so later model. Perhaps early model ones are more suitable. I'll continue to look out for something a bit older and around the same period before destroying this one.

Ever since I've had the car the wipers have not been great/hardy work at all so my mission today was to remove the wiper motor because I've been told that S13 ones can fit with some small adjustments. I was a bit worried that when I pulled off this cowling there would be epic rust underneath but actually it's very tidy. The cover has a little surface rust under it and on the car side the rust looking marks are just dirt from the seal being damaged and letting muck in. I've ordered a new seal to replace it. Also, an enterprising fellow the previous owner must have been as the rubber cover you see there above the access hole is actually the sole of a shoe. It worked well so can't complain. I had to cut it up to get in there though so I've also ordered the correct replacement rubber part for when it goes back together. The wiper motor is actually inside the car behind the glove box. Initially I couldn't work out how I would get to it but ended up quite easy once I actually had a proper look at it. That's the thing with these cars, once you slow down and have a bit of a snoop around it's pretty straight forward how things go together. Because of this you can get quite a bit of satisfaction from just doing simple tasks because you can actually do them! Also fun note, the glove box is made of cardboard material. As you can see it's pretty weathered and you can get new ones but at this stage it's not super high on the priorities. I could unstaple it and even make my own one using the original as a template if I really wanted. Got em! The S13 one should be here sometime earlyish next week so it will be interesting to compare the parts and see what I need to change. I've read that the shaft that connects the linkage to the motor needs to be swapped and maybe some wiring needs to be tickled but as I've not actually seen a proper write up on the process (in English anyway) I figured I'd give it a shot and see what happens. Can't get any worse.. Discuss: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/49704-mlracings-hakosuka/page-7#entry1661447

Turns out I'm just a retard and somehow got the wrong one despite the listing saying for my year of car grr >_< Oh well, just ordered a bunch of other stuff too..

Parts parts parts parts Slowly I pick away and find things to buy to fix up the car, this morning a package arrived with Nissan OEM brake lines (seems like clutch lines are the same), Nissan OEM shift boot and also a rubber boot to go under it all as mine didn't really have one. Immediately run into an interesting problem. There are two types of these rubber boots listed for Hakosuka depending on the year, I picked up the one which was suitable to my year but it seems like the shifter itself is in the wrong place. So that makes me wonder if the gearbox is not a Hako gearbox, could be from any number of Datsuns of similar vintage. Regardless I put the boot there and it's kind of just sitting as it is better than nothing. This waas what was there before.. The shift boot looks cool! I just need to get a new chrome trim ring around the plastic where the shifter goes through. It looks like to get the boot to stay up it folds around that trim ring then the trim ring is screwed from below. I'm actually looking for a full new console as this one has cracks and various repairs etc out of it so not that great. Discuss: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/49704-mlracings-hakosuka/page-7#entry1661447

Classic car Nagoya is sweet, I went there a few years ago. Saw my first Z432 there.

Epic super charge!

I'll just clean them up and jam them on the L28 see how it goes. No major (except for the cost) if I need to take them off and replace them with something bigger. Also did play with the idea of putting them on the current L20..

Haha that kit costs at least double what I paid for the car T_T

Latest parts container has arrived so I went down for a nosey before the stuff gets delivered to our dispatch facility. Picked up a few things (Heaps of Boss coffee in stock now for anyone that's interested). There was a nice box that said my name on it and look what's inside! Ohhh, ahhh. Mikuni Solex 40s. Come off the L28 that is also in the container. I'm told explicitly not to open them up as they're setup and run perfectly for L28 with big cam on stock bottom end. Super happy the throttle linkage has the adapter on it for cable too, makes life so much easier as mine uses cable not linkages like the twin carb ones. Also these came in the box, some ancient MSD system. Looks pretty full on, not exactly sure how this would be set up or if I'll use it but will investigate that further down the line. Also these old as electric fuel pumps, neat! They look well used that's for sure. Shit yarns: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/49704-mlracings-hakosuka/page-7#entry1660864

AE86 is on my garage wish list buttttt... I'll stick to the Hako for now haha

Did a couple of small bits the other day, decided to see why my wiper motor was not really doing a good job and install the rear emblem as well as finally put on the hood latch handle thing. So basically when I got the car it didn't have a proper handle connected to the wire to pull the bonnet latch so what I ended up doing is getting this washed and knob setup there which was ok but still difficult. Most excellently I found a whole wire on Yahoo but as it turned out I could just unscrew the handle bit and screw it onto my current wire which was great because it looked quite difficult to get the other one out. Next up I attached the emblem that I sort of reburbished just using some double sided tape (the kind used to attach wings and such) so that isn't going anywhere. Looks sweet! Also mocked up the black bit there but I still need the trims that go along the top and bottom then I can attach it on there properly. Still debating whether or not to get a badge for it, probably will. Next step rip into the wiper motor.. so what happens is when the wipers are on the windscreen it has one speed, slow. Despite having multiple actual speeds available (slow and slightly less slow). My first port of call, the switch. Sometimes people jump the switch if there's a problem or do some different wiring or wahtever. Definately some.. typical wiring jobs under here.. This one, twist and taped (and a gear boot which is broken that I have another one on the way). This one, casual wire just hanging around. This one, some kind of twist and tape splice method, appears regularly. Old mate twist (no tape even on this one). This is what I mean about the twist and tape splice method.. sans tape. Anyway after all that I did another test with the wipers not on the windscreen and it does change speed so I think the motor is just old and worn out and can't put through the power it needs. So I've got a couple of choices here.. I can take it out and see if it can be revamped somewhere or get a different one. I've been told that S13 ones may be able to work so I'll investigate both options. Also I got rid of a bunch of redundant wiring that I suspect was for the head unit/navi that was probably there before. Also I thought the car may have been red before and repainted to silver.. now I wonder if it's always silver and the floor was just red? No idea really.. probably had some shitty rust repair done on the floor before and maybe it's a coating or something. Yarns: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/49704-mlracings-hakosuka/page-7#entry1646412

Gave the badge restoration a go. Restoration is probably a pretty loose way to describe it but I gave them a recolour. For the GT badges just used a blue Vivid, probably didn't quite turn out as I'd like, not really dark enough so I might get some blue model paint to do those at some stage. For the SKYLINE badge I used some model paint and tried to use a while paint pen to get the white bits but I think it was almost drying before it even got out of the nozzle so that didn't quite work out. May get some white model paint at some stage too but probably will be OK for now.

So previous owner debadged the lot and removed a bunch of trim. This is common as GT-R doesn't have the same kind of trim as the lower models and people try to go for this look. Being that mine is not a GT-R and not trying to be, I want to put the trim and badges back. Only problem is the previous owner covered over the holes which are typically used to hold on the badges etc Deciding what to do but I may just use tape to hold most of them on as a few of the mounting prongs are damaged anyway. Still deciding.. Also my bonnet cable is missing the handle so picked up another one of those to fit! The badges will need some restoration anyway so will need to research the best way to go about doing that. Discuss: //oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/49704-mlracings-hakosuka/page-7#entry1646412