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Datsun Cabstar 1980


howe

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  • 1 month later...

Progress is coming along, a bit...

I went to have some new tyres fitted only to find the other ones are shagged and very rusty inside, and a PO drilled them out to fit inner tubes with a fat valve stem so it's a pain getting new ones in.
I'm going to be buying new wheels to replace these, any suggestions on suitable 6x5.5 steels?

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I picked up some replacement rear lights and a battery that I now realize may be too large... Doesn't fit in my battery tray

Distributor is also out of the engine for a full refurb + electronic ignition fitment.

On the carb front the big solex is coming off and being replaced with the 32/34 Weber DMTL that I had on my Samara - rejetting and setup will be done by Dennis Vessey once I've made an adapter.

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  • 1 month later...

Small joy and small progress later the Cabstar is on a new set of tyres and wheels.

Not the first choice I would have gone with but the original wheels are totally fucked and it was a pain finding someone to replace the barrels, these came off a blokes Chevy C10. Apparently steels in this pcd and size are more expensive because of freight delays, or something.

Distributor is also finished and refurbed, that's been put back on now.
I'm taking it to have the brakes overhauled soon, and after that the Weber will be put on!

I'm no longer in a mad rush for this at the moment as the worsened covid situation has made it prohibitively expensive to get over to Morocco until later in the year, the plan still is and will remain to drive down for full restoration in Africa. It'll be returned to mechanical tidiness here of course.

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  • 3 months later...

Back at it again with this.

I've been out the country for a while so it sat about, as of today it's in the process of being set up with a Weber 32/34 and a new EI dizzy by a bloke just outside Carlisle, tuned on a rolling road.
Also looking to swap out for discs all round, likely need to get ordering from the US soon for Shiny New Bits.

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Nice, my dad had a green Cabstar for years he used for work. It had those mudflaps with the zig zag cut on the bottom. He used to pick us up from school and we would ride in the pick up. I saw a few of these in Thailand, they’re still in use over there.

 

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I remember that dashboard so vividly as well!!

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17 hours ago, mitsisigma01 said:

Can you tell me what the pcd, offset and c/bore is... I might ha... 

But I'll have to check first 🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞

17 hours ago, Lacquer Peel said:

Are the wheels 6x5.5" PCD? Very common to Asian 4x4s. 

The Cabstar is amazing, I can't wait to see what you do with it. 

They are 6x5.5 yeah, I'm very happy with the choice of wheels I've now put on the truck - I'll be keeping hold of the original steels with the intention to refurb them with new barrels further down the line.

Very excited for this project coming together 😁

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49 minutes ago, MJK 24 said:

That’s gotta be a strong possibility!  I couldn’t fathom how on earth it would know when it’s next oil change was due!

It probably doesn't. When you change the oil you press a reset button and after 6000 miles or whatever the interval is some mechanism on the odometer switches the light on. 90 Series Land Cruisers have one for the timing belt.

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On 5/18/2021 at 6:37 PM, howe said:

 

I'm going to be buying new wheels to replace these, any suggestions on suitable 6x5.5 steels?

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From memory (way back when I was a fitter) these rims had a big valve hole, the same as the old Austin FX4 Black Taxi. I don’t believe they have been drilled out. The valves are still available online.D1A47D9E-2CF4-4177-9EF8-CB43B43A9C91.thumb.jpeg.0082ed75121bb3bb9f0d238f2ca13d26.jpegA37EB37C-97AB-435F-939C-51DFAA8AAE63.thumb.jpeg.d8d0805b061e0066b42f60157401fe68.jpeg

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  • 8 months later...

Whatever happened to this, did you get any further?

Looking at this photo, it looks like the chassis had been shortened by a few feet, which would look quite nice!

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I found that photo of the one I saw in Thailand - I was sure it was a Cabstar but I think it's an Isuzu Elf, it's amazingly knackered though.

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 19/06/2022 at 20:46, DavidB said:

Whatever happened to this, did you get any further?

Looking at this photo, it looks like the chassis had been shortened by a few feet, which would look quite nice!

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I found that photo of the one I saw in Thailand - I was sure it was a Cabstar but I think it's an Isuzu Elf, it's amazingly knackered though.

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I ended up working in Belgium for a bit and having a massive life shake up living/work/career wise so this stalled for a while but it's still 100% ongoing, just after a brief hiatus. I'm moving down south shortly and will be taking this down with me a short while after to start work on welding up the cab.

The little H20 it came with is sat a Weber 32/34 on an adapter plate and a fresh EI kit, the previous owner had slapped on a Solex carb with a crude bit of pipe that made it run like a bag of shite. I still need to shave down the inlet manifold to separate it from the section where it sits on the exhaust manifold to avoid vapour lock as it doesn't suit running modern fuel with such a hot setup, apparently.

There's also brakes to contend with still, in the short time I was looking I didnt have much luck finding disk hubs/components I could swap on, at least within Europe so it may just be a case of an overhaul and new cylinders for the time being.

The cab will be good fun to weld up and I'm blasting the frame at some point before painting, then it's ready for a demountable camper back! Once all is complete I plan on running a PD130 on a Borg Warner T5 box for a bit more comfort hauling the heavier load. I'm going to be living in this once its complete so it's being done with a lot of attention paid to minor details. The fella who's workshop it's at is also  making a new, larger aluminium fuel tank to replace the old one as we speak.

Cracking pic of the Isuzu, I love these small jap trucks. There are some excellent photos of these Cabstars falling to pieces while still in use on Flickr etc.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Updates!

During the time it sat it's acted as a home for some birds who've since grown up and flown off:

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After a long time searching for replacement brake/suspension bits, I popped round one day to find that another bloke had brought in a Datsun truck with disk brake hubs, a reasonable master cyl and some other bits I can pilfer - that he's getting rid of entirely! He's going with S15 running gear and suspension on his so I now have a reasonable option after thinking I'd be out of luck.

Carb wise we stole some bits from the old Samara carb and adapted them to sort the linkage for the new 32/34 that allowed it to be fitted well enough - along with the previous adapter plate.
Set up all the kit and after some fiddling about, it now runs and drives!!
First ever drive after being sat for many years below:

Next will be brakes and aluminium tank, then onto bodywork and the engine etc in time.
After more reading on my options and ratios, I've settled on going with a PD130 mated with a Toyota W58 box using an adapter, into a Chevy C10/Blazer rear axle (same PCD)
This will be something that takes a little to get going through through the next few months, given I'm moving about and such but it won't be a particularly long time till it's driving about on the road!

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New gasket popped on as the old one was gimped, found one of the manifold bolts was already snapped on the left hand side in the head, will be fun getting that out...

All that's left to do as it sits is sand back some top layer corrosion on the roof and coat to prevent any futher deterioration, along with ordering all the bits I need from the US and elsewhere.
Found a reasonably straightforward way to beef up the front brakes on the hubs I'll be getting, so it'll hopefully have some D21 V6 front brakes on in time to deal with the more powerful setup it's getting.

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8 hours ago, Lacquer Peel said:

Is there an off the shelf kit you can use to adapt the VW TDI to a Toyota box? I think it's a reasonably popular conversion in the US. 

If you don't have the gearbox already there are RWD Volvos that use VW diesels and a TDI will bolt right on to their gearboxes I believe. 

I found an off the shelf kit made by ACME in the US that comes with the flywheel, plate etc. Their kit allows it to bolt up to a G, L or W series gearbox as long as I have the bellhousing for the 22R engine, they also have adapters for a few Suzukis but the W58 fits my application better. I'll be ordering it along with the other parts parts through a company I've used before called Stackry that repackage the items and send it all in one shipment to reduce costs a little.

Interesting about the Volvos, which particular models?

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8 minutes ago, howe said:

I found an off the shelf kit made by ACME in the US that comes with the flywheel, plate etc. Their kit allows it to bolt up to a G, L or W series gearbox as long as I have the bellhousing for the 22R engine, they also have adapters for a few Suzukis but the W58 fits my application better. I'll be ordering it along with the other parts parts through a company I've used before called Stackry that repackage the items and send it all in one shipment to reduce costs a little.

Interesting about the Volvos, which particular models?

740, 760 and 940 diesels, also 240 diesels but they weren't sold in RHD. 

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  • 1 year later...

 

30 minutes ago, grogee said:

If anyone is looking for HOT 80s JAPANESE VAN ACTION I will be inspecting this one's bottom soon. Keep an eye out on my spannering thread. 

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I had a bid on that when it was on eBay back in November! Glad to see it's made it here

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2 minutes ago, 500tops said:

made it here

Yes and no. It actually belongs to our cleaner, Carly. She said she bought it on a bit of a punt and intends to use it for some festivals. 

She's asked me to 'look it over' so I'll be mainly just checking it's safe and not too rusty. 

It is a lovely thing though, I hope it's as good as it looks in the pictures

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