Rather than cut the springs you can make a spacer block to fit between the bottom ball joint and the lower suspension arm. I made some from aluminium with just a hacksaw and drill. Mine
were about 30-35mm aproximately and they dropped the car about 60mm. You could make bigger ones if necessary. You may have to grind off the tips of the lower arm to clear the rims depending
on what you use. I have lowered both 260 C230 series) and 280C (330 series) successfully this way. My 260C had hydraulics and say with the front crossmember about 20mm off the ground :-
) Email me if you want any more info.

Eddie
eddie@ratdat.com

I can actually vouch for the excellent cooling properties of orange juice. I was once driving down the motorway (or freeway) in my old Austin A40 (now deceased) when it overheated and
dumped all it's water. As I was forty miles from the next services I used what I had...a litre of orange drink (the type you dilute with water). Although it was only a litre it kept it
cool for forty miles at 80mph and had the bonus of smelling nice when it did finally overheat again (no I'm not making it up!)

I expect Fanta's superior quality and a full cooling system would work out very well.

Eddie

Here the Rover V8 is very common and super cheap to tune. I have three engines in the shed (incidentally, I have a 4bl holley and manifold if anybody wants one) I used to have a 215 in a
Datsun in place of the original L28 and it did go well even though on paper it doesn't have much more power. The big advantage is the light weight. It's reasonably east to get 200
reliable horsepower from a Rover V8 and I have seen over 400hp from an N/A motor but that's about the limit.

I wouldn't bother with a stock one though as a Nissan VG30 is more powerfull and smaller so easier to fit. To tow a 1200 on a trailer a VG would be more than enough. I once towed a 12
foot catering trailer behind a Nissan 300C (stock 155hp VG) and inspite of the totally flat fronted trailer which was twice as tall as the car it would still top 100mph (it did drink gas
though!)

I reckon a good Datsun tow car in the states would be a 910 as they has L28E's in them so would have the power and not be too bad on fuel (not that you guys have to worry that much about
gas cost!)

Eddie

The fires look pretty bad on the news here. The said they stretch for up to 450 miles ...that's like half
the length of England!

Good luck to the firefighters and all those folks in and around Sydney.

Eddie

I'd go the 510 IRS using coilovers as it would be way easier to install and is reasonably light too. It's still a huge fabrication job though. It may be easier to use the
whole rear floorpan from a 510 or 610 (but don't use the 610 arms).

Eddie

The distributor location does not designate an A12 from an A12A...both of these engines are normal A12 with the same 73mm x 70mm bore/stroke. The A12A is as Mareo says, a diffent motor.
The only A12A I have ever seen had a load of emmisions crap on it ( I don't believe A12A's were ever used in the UK) and did look different externally. I have no technical data on the "A"
suffix motor but have always assumed it to be a low emmisions version of the original A12.

Eddie

Hi Mareo,
The MK1 Escort came out at the end of 1967 and the MK2 in January 1975. The Capri was the next model up in the Ford range and was sold in the US as a Mercury Capri. Our market here in the
UK was full of Escort sized cars which I suppose is largely why the Datsun 510 never became popular here like it is over there.
Rest assured your fuel is still cheap At the moment we pay up to 75 pence per litre which is just over $4.00 a US gallon (just over AU$2.00 a litre). It has been as high as US$6.00 a
gallon in the last year. Good reason to own a 1200
Back in May when I was in Washington DC it cost me just over $24 to fill the tank on my Dodge hire car...here it costs nearly

In a word, yes.
I have this size on my 1200 coupe, although it is standard ride height so I'm not sure if they will work on a lowered car or not but I reckon
they would be fine.

Eddie

Jaime,
Instead of scanning a few pics I have scanned a whole section on live rear axles from a book on chassis design and uploaded it to my webspace so you can read it. You
can find it here...
http://www.ratdat.com/chassis/index.htm

Hope this helps...

Eddie

Hehehe... I know they were sold there but I doubt they were very popular A panhard rod is relatively easy to make but a watts linkage is much harder although it does the
job better than a panhard rod. I can scan some diagrams of the various set-ups if you want.

Eddie