1971 Skyline 2000GT Sedan (Hakosuka)

[mlracing]

Unless they sent the wrong one by mistake, looking good, you're making progress.

Nah I'm double stupid because I had the old busted up one kicking about which I could have used for comparison, just didn't find it until it was too late lol

[mlracing]

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..

[mlracing]

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.

[brocky41]

What about other datsun wiper motors - ive got a few lying around - ill take some pics for you to have a match against

[mlracing]

What about other datsun wiper motors - ive got a few lying around - ill take some pics for you to have a match against

I was chatting to a Z guy last night and it looks like S130 could be super similar, I suspect anything of similar vintage could be similar too. What have you got around?

[mlracing]

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 here 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.

[mlracing]

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.

[Bartman]

Surely a JDM as fuck car like this needs a ten inch high perspex one?
I'd hate to think what you might pay for a genuine C10 one? Scene tax and all that.

[mlracing]

Surely a JDM as fuck car like this needs a ten inch high perspex one?
I'd hate to think what you might pay for a genuine C10 one? Scene tax and all that.

Ah not too bad, I think you can get reproduction OEM ones for like $100+shipping etc.

The annoying thing is the thread is M8x1.25 Not M12 or M10 which would make it suuuper easy to get a new shift knob.

[brocky41]

Could you use a different l series stick with a larger thread -pretty sure ive seen m10 sticks