Hello all,

I am new to this forum and am now the proud owner of a 1200 Ute. (Had it for a week).

I had read all the stuff about the Stanza front strut swaps but not much was said about the springs.

Do you have to put lower springs in? How high does it sit if you don't?

I have been able to source some stanza front ends but I just want to go into it with my eyes open

Any replies would be greatly appreciated.

you need struts from a square headlight stanza, as far as springs, u cant use either of the standard (1200 or stanza) as they leave you pointing skyward by roughly 1.5-2inches,

you need lowered either, the stanza lowered ones are probably better as these will be stiffer due to the stanza having a greater weight,

you also need 120y castor rods for the conversion, and if you havent already read it the 120y swaybar is a good upgrade too (3mm thicker than 1200)

oh yeah, and while your putting em in undo the top of the strut and tip out the oil, replacing with 20W/50 engine oil, makes for a great shocker upgrade if you dont want to fork out for inserts, i think it will take 250ml of oil in each strut, but just measure how much oil comes out and replace that amount

the springs need a lowering by exactly 43mm.
and yes, 20W/50 oil is a neat little upgrade - IF you have shocks that are rebuildable. no point trying to oil fill Monroe Gas shockies is there....?

btw, i recommend Monroe Gas for this conversion.

i used 1200 lowered springs from King springs the were perfect.

Thanks for the replies, I'll get my hands on some King springs before I do the swap. I also plan on redoing the bushes while I'm at it.

I have noticed a rear lowering block mentioned on a few pages, can someone please explain what they are?

Just a little bit of history on the Ute that I got, 9/1984 1200 Ute, I am the second owner with 86,000 original km's there are 3 bits of rust in it but apart from that it is pretty straight. With the log books. I got it at what I would consider a very good price and it's yellow.

So I was sniffin around a wrecker yesterday and the Stanza's I saw were front wheel drive cars. Do you use those struts? Would struts out of a 200sx work, they are rear wheel drive and have similar size?

thankx

SaltwaterCowboy, the "Stanza" they are talking about is the A10, which is most similar to the North American HL510 (1978-1982 Datsun 510). These are rear-wheel-drive cars. I'm not sure if our "new" 510 has the same struts as the Aussie Stanza.

In North America, people have often used Z-car struts on 1200s.

i dont think u will get the same strut in US sorry,

i forgot to say welcome to the club abyss!!

new notelthane/urethane bushes do wonders also, good time to swap them in aswell (a front set is around $70 for all of them)

SaltwaterCowboy: I've used the struts from a 1980 310. Fit right in. Used the 1200 springs and top plates, the 310 control arms(and ball joints) and castor rods. The benefits are bigger brakes. The only set back is that the hubs are wider. They will position the wheel outwards about 3/4", so wheel offset may be a factor. Hey, you're in Canada eh? Where?
-Donnie