Hi all,
A mate of mine saw my 1600 and
instantly wanted to get rid of his tired old '82 Mazda 626.
I said I would help him get into a vintage Datsun
so we started looking through the classifieds.
He had a budget of $500 and pretty quickly we
found an ad for a 1979 Datsun Stanza GX with "minimal rust" for $350.
When I rang I found out it had just run out of licence and she would sell for
$300. We went there and saw it had a dead straight body, had
excellent bright orange paint and had obviously always been garaged.
The catch was it had an auto and wouldnt shift
into any higher gear. Maximum speed 40kmh. Also the key wouldnt start
the motor so you had to start it with an enormous screwdriver
by shorting out the starter motor solenoid terminal with the starter
motor. So I haggled over the price and got it for $180 - and she threw in the
screwdriver!
So my mate drives it 5 km home at 40 km/h and I
tell him the plan is to ditch the auto box and convert it to a manual
4-speed 510 box which I have lying around and I have no use for. I figure
it would be an easy swap considering the Stanza has a good old L16 motor. All
we need is a different pedal box (with a clutch pedal), clutch
master and slave cylinder, and hydraulic lines.
We got everything except the master cyl at the
wreckers for $90. I donated a master cylinder out of one of my 510s and
an L16 flywheel, clutch and pressure plate off an L16 I'm not
using.
I was stumped by the enlarged diameter of the end
of the crankshaft on the Stanza that was too big for my 510 flywheel. Then I
realised the auto Stanza had a tight fitting spacer cap on the end of the
crank, which I managed to prise off with a claw hammer. So it all bolts
up sweet and because the gearboxes were the same length, no tailshaft mods! I
just had to fabricate a gearbox cross-member and cut a bigger hole in
the body for the gearstick. With the gearbox supported by a jack and
everything lined up nicely I was able to bolt on the original auto crossmember
without it actually touching the manual box. I then cut the ends off the
4-speed crossmember so it almost touched the other. MIG welded a couple of
tacks to join them together and removed both for full welding using some
flat steel bars. Went to Supercheap and because they didnt stock a
fits-all rubber gear stick boot , we just bought the largest CV
joint boot we could find and combined it with the original auto
box rubber seal and modified coverplate with a bit of silicone and
we sealed the cabin from fumes and moisture.
We fixed the starter problem when I realised what
the four wires that went to the old auto box were for. Two of the wires
complete a circuit to switch on the reverse lights so I connected them to the
4-speed and the other two are only switched when the car is in Park. I
remembered that automatics only can be started in Park for safety, so it made
sense just to permanently join these two and Hey Presto! the car starts now
with the key! We paid the licence and even though it was overdue, we were
within the 15-day grace period so no Police inspection required.
Total cost including new engine oil, new
gearbox oil, oil filter, 6 months rego, transfer fee, parts from
wrecker and original purchase price of vehicle = $550.
Parts I donated free: L16 flywheel, clutch and
pressure plate, clutch master cylinder, 4-speed gearbox and crossmember from a
510. Also an adjustable pushrod from a 1600 slave cylinder. Labour was
about 20 hours or so because it was the first time I had ever done
this.
Needless to say, it goes great and my mate is
pretty chuffed. He sold his Mazda for $500 bucks. The Stanza drives better,
stops better and came with an Alpine radio/cassette with 50W x 4 and
some nice 2-way speakers. That alone was probably worth the purchase
price.
Cheers, sorry for the long blurb,
Rob P
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