Hey everyone. Thought I should post some pics of the build of my 1980 Stanza! I used to own a green 79 Stanza which I built up and sold a few years ago. She was a fun machine. Something you could hammer round in all day and she never died! The green on started life as a stock 4 speed, with stock 1600. By the time I finished she had a weber fed, L20b with A87 head, ported and polished (by me), cam, oversize valves. I was pretty happy when she kept up with a v6 vr commodore! Also I put a 5 speed in lowered her and gave her a fresh coat of paint. I sold her and straight away wanted another one. It took a while but the white one came up! So this will be the start of my new project!!!

Here's some pics of the motor I bought the other day. L20b, A87 head, which when we pulled it apart was in excellent condition. Barley and pitting or anything around the water galleries. Came ported and polished. The block has been balanced and blueprinted and is also in excellent condition. Myself and my mechanic (my brother) were both wrapped. Good platform to start with.

Here's a pic of the rims on. They look awesome. Was stoked when the actually fitted. Cheers Alex for all the stuffing round dropping them off at the transport depot. Just have to do some slight guard massaging when the datsport suspenssion goes in.

Some wicked looking Stanzas you have (and have had) there!

Make sure you put up some specs of the suspension you use

Well as they say its been a long time between drinks. Between having kids getting married and all the stuff that goes with it I haven't much time to spend on the dato. Recently I got a new job with a good roster which allows me a little time to do a few bits and pieces on the old girl.

A while ago I bought some tail lights from a 79ish model. I prefer these to the newer lights. So with a little bit of modification I put them in.



After getting the old girl out the shed, getting her started, and cleaning out the shed I put her in backwards to start work on the suspension.



Its amazing the tools that I've realised I need. For example a crow bar. When I was living with my parents and did my last stanza the old man had all these tools.



After getting all the suspension parts out the next bit was getting the old bushes from the front control arms. And also pulling the tie rods and the track rod apart. With some gentle pursuasion they came apart. I went a bought a bit of all thread and some nuts and with a socket and piece of pipe made a bush puller which worked a treat. I'll be interested to see if it gets the bushes out of the rear control arms. On the last one we had to use a couple hundred tonne press!





I found it easier to pull the bush out if the little lip is cut off the end your pulling through. Note just below my thumb you can see the lip cut off as aposed to the top.



While cleaning up the front suspension parts with a wire wheel on my grinder I managed to take quite a bit of skin off my left hand. So I thought I'd purchase a vice to hold the bits in. Works a lot better and saves my hands.



Had a nice warm weekend a few weeks ago so painted the parts. They came up a treat.





While the suspensions out I thought I'd give the inner body a clean up and paint on some fresh body deadiner which is where I'm up to this weekend. I've taken the guards off and degreased and also cleaned all the crap out of the water gallery that runs along the top inside the guard. So weather and time permitting this weekend hopefully I'll get the deadiner painted on and start putting the suspension back together with the new whiteline bushes, tie rods, ball joints, and track rods.

top work mate, I've got a stanza too, and i'm about to attack the rear bushes so i'll be keen to see how you get along.
cheers Gerg

Over the weekend I finished cleaning up the inner guards with the wire wheel on a grinder. And masked off what I didn't want sound deadiner on.



The stuff I used was sikaguard 551. It's about 18 bucks a litre and I had to by an applicator gun which screws straight into the top of the can.



Had to buy a compressor to spray the deadiner on. Also comes in handy for stuff like die grinding and a few other bits and pieces.



Came up a treat! This stuff is supposed to be a rust protectant type thing as well which is always good.



Installed the control arms, the radius rods, ball joints, tie rods, and track rod. Really happy how its all come up. Looks nice and neat.





That's about where she's at. Heading back to work tomorrow. Next step will be putting the struts in dropping it on the ground a tightening everything up. Then its onto the back end of the car. Hopefully I can get my datsport strut and brakes in the next few weeks funding permitting!

Comming along nicely mate, that deadener looks good i can't wait for the next installment.

So it's been a while I know. Thing's have been progressing slowly. Working FIFO and having 2 kids limits the time you can spend on these things. Figured it's time for an update anyways.

After finishing the front and spinning the car round I though I'd start on the bushes in the rear. I attempted to use the threaded rod trick to push the old bushes out of the rear control arms with no joy. On my last stanza we ended up using a 200 tonne press to get them out. I ended up having to take them to a suspension place to get the old bushes pushed out.

While this was going on I sold my old turbo setup to a local bloke.



I had been thinking about the rear brake setup and my brother convinced me instead of just doing an rear disc conversion to put a complete diff with brakes in. So I started searching for a complete R31 skyline diff. Now as it happened in conversation while selling my turbo setup. The local bloke aka skitzone aka Hayden mentioned he'd picked up an LSD diff to put into his non LSD R31. So after spending an arvo helping him put the LSD into his skyline I picked up a complete diff for $100 bucks.



After getting it home and stripping the mounts off the skyline and stanza diffs I set about shortening the skyline diff. I'm going to be running 15 * 8's with 0 offset, and getting these to sit neatly inside the original guards without too much work was my goal.



After some careful measurements I figured cutting 50mm off each side would get the diff down to 10mm below the original lenth of the stanza diff and hopefully get rims to fit inside the guards. It took me quite a while to get the mounts in the right spot as I used measurements and marks to get the mounts right. If I had to do it again I'd build myself a jig off the original stanza diff. To get the ends back on I bought a piece of 24mm round bar, got some bushes turned up at a local machine shop and used that to make sure everything was straight. Here's the diff fully welded and cleaned up. I'm going to get it blasted and either painted or powder coated. I've still got to drill and tap the breather in. I'll get the blasting and painting done after sorting out all the mounts for the hand brake and brake lines.



I purchased a R31 handbrake setup off ebay. The stanza handbrake come's out the handbrake and goes through the floor at the back right hand side of the tailshaft tunnel where the skyline one goes through the floor in the centre and into a Y piece to a couple of cables out to the brakes on the diff. Like this.



What I'm going to do is use the stanza hand brake lever. With the skyline cable through the floor into the skyline Y piece and then get shortened cables from the skyline Y piece out to each brake caliper. Here's the skyline hand brake cable mounted in the floor of the stanza. It actually fit extremely well. Just reqired an elongated hole and a couple bolts. It fits straight into the stanza hand brake lever. Just needs a couple bolts and it'll be in. Then to mount the Y piece under the car!



So that's where I'm up to at the moment. I need to source a pair of 28 spline R31 skyline axels. If anyone in perth has a pair I'd be glad to take them off your hands. Then I can get them shortened and start reassembly. I've got to get the calipers rebuilt as well but that will happen soon too. I'll leave you with a couple of pics of how the rims sit on the shortened diff. Will still need to roll the guards but the sit in a hell of a lot better.

awesome work! im also looking at a r31 conversion

Small update been working on the underside of the car this week and weekend. I've been waiting on a bloke that wants to swap my 25 spline axles for his 28 spline. Works for me! So in the mean time thought I'd get stuck into a job I've been putting off. Started by degreasing and washing the under side of the car. Then go stuck into all the loose old body deadner and any crappy looking bits. I didn't remove all the old deadner as I said just the crappy bits.



All taped up ready to go.



And the finished result.







Real happy with the finish. Looks heaps neater and will hopefully stop and rust that's thinking about starting anywhere. That's pretty well it for now. The rest of the weekend will be mounting the split hand brake cables ready for when the diff is finished.

Looks good. Very smart idea to protect it.

Well it's been a very long time. Finally got the cash and motivation together to get things moving again. Got all the suspension part sorted now. Most of which from Datsport. Awesome quality and service. The absolute best!

Shortened R31 adjustable struts, camber tops, vented rotors, new calipers.



Jap spec stanza brake booster rebuiltand Datsport 7/8 master





Fully rebuilt R31 diff. Brand new bearings, Datsport rotors, and calipers.



Bolted up in the car.



And finally after a year and a half of being on stands, back on solid ground again.



I've just fitted a pair of Lancer Evo 8 Recaro front seats. Once I put the passenger in tomorrow I'll put up pics of that.
One Wednesday I pick up the NA S15 SR20 to go into it. So I've got a bucket load of L series parts to sell if anyones interested!

Looking forward to the weeks to come.

Just a cheeky arse end shot.

Some very nice work there. I see a couple of issues with the rear end. Nothing too major.
I will give you a call.

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"R.I.P. Baz. 29 April 2022. Thank you for all your contributions to the Datsun community over the years. You will be missed." - OZDAT