I had been a lurker for a number of years then a registered user but then went back to lurking on an off for a few years and as such I was never anyone worth mentioning or remembering on this forum but I have noticed the steady decline in content over the years.

I hope nobody minds me saying so but I feel its partially due to the website being so outdated which makes it difficult to navigate and evidentially upload images. I wonder if there is an option to update the entire website, maybe have a 'how to' forum category that we can all submit our own little repairs complete with step by step pics and updates. I know I would have personally loved a few detailed pointers from some of the more experienced datto owners here.

There is honestly a wealth of knowledge here and I love this site but its being squandered. Another thing that would help would be Tag lines on stuff. Although Nissan did a great job of making these cars and being similar across regions they are just that... similar and not exactly the same so perhaps something like having [AUS], [US], [JPN], [EU] etc in the front of your post. A good example of that for me right now is trying to figure out the hazard light switch situation in Australia and I guess it also depends on the year and make of the car such as coupe, sedan, ute or wagon so there are lots of variables that need to be considered.

Another issue is the search on this forum is horrendous especially as a no member, its not exactly inviting to potential new members to hit up a search and find bubkes.

Does anyone have an idea what the issue is that is holding the website back from a facelift of sorts.
Xoops is wildly outdate (2009) and the weakest of all forum software packages. Whilst some software costs money there are plenty of decent free bulletin board software such as phpbb2/phpbb3 which would help this site immensely. A frontend portal could be developed for the site too which would link into the forum also to maintain the amazing collection of data wiki data we already have.
All in all though, I don't wanna rock the boat because this website has been around for such a long time and has so much value, it would be the worst if I said all this and push for too much only to have the website fall under the weight of these expectations.

I'm not particularly fond of facebook either to be honest. I'd love to see this website reclaim its place as the premiere place for all datsun needs.

Yeah: the tech wiki covers almost everything now, and this site is harder to use via phones so we're not getting new users who only use phones, and you need to have money to get into the old datsun game now.
I use the tech wiki on a nearly daily basis. It's an amazing resource, compared to just about any other engine out there.

I would LOVE a 1750cc engine. That's really cool, but I bet it was a ton of work.

The problem with the wiki and the website is that a lot of the images were hosted on photobucket which as we all know is now the scourge of the internet so we have issues of images missing, only thumbnails or images with large watermarks splashed all over them.
I have noticed that the cost of Datsun parts have gone up and in some cases quite significantly but I have also noted that there are now some local manufacturers which are reproducing parts which is great particularly if they are of a high quality but sadly some aren't.
I recall long ago someone mentioned that there was going to be some coupe and sedan tail lights and rear bumpers being manufactured in brisbane but I'm not sure if that had happened at all so some parts are few and far between or not at all.
Another factor is that its likely that a lot of datsuns are in the hands of people that have either been there or done that all before so the excitement and documentation isn't something that happens. Given the prices of things and today's issues the world is facing they may just not be working on them at this time.

Another thing that I have definitely felt here in Australia was the online tax! The government here thought they would come up with an excuse to charge and online tax for all international purchases regardless of price so we now have that added cost to the already inflating prices, topped by our weak dollar then its really not economical at all at times.
Btw the online tax did nothing for struggling Aussie businesses and some of the big retailers that actually formed this group and lobbied for this change are still doing badly but that is because they were always terrible and the bleeding obvious is that you can't always get what you are after at retailers because they just refuse to stock it. I'm getting a little sidetracked here though.

I wouldn't know where to start when it comes to instagram and I imagine its all too fragmented, perhaps if this website sets up an official facebook or instagram it might be something to bridge that gap a little but as I said, I'm honestly not a fan of such mediums. There are plenty of image hosts online that we can use also.

One thing that should happen is this website be updated to be more secure such as https rather than http because sooner or later browsers may start filtering out or placing some sort of warning prior to visiting the website that its unsafe which will definitely put people off from visiting if that happens.

I honestly don't know whats happened to this place but it used to be so popular and people were always super helpful and talkative. It would be cool if people came back but I guess people are also aging too and have other responsibilities. I'm trying to get my car project going but have a lot of issues also and given that the car has become my daily driver (long story) I can't really go all out on it and play around with it so much right now. I do have plans and hope to stay around more long term to help out with general questions also if need be though.

farcebookers that thought they were in like Flynn are now coming back which is typical as some never left loyal to this site.

Datsun prices as predicted would sky rocket so thattakes the hobby aspect out of it somewhat where in the past they were easy to horde

As for the Australian Government it is not a gov but a corporation and if you knew what the wealthier ones do, then you would not pay taxes to them or the vatican as most do. These taxes dont go to help Terra Australis but a corporation registered in Washington DC as are the Policy Enforcers we thin are aussie cops.

Australia…. the lucky country?
SEC Entity Name: COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
SEC Central Index Key (CIK): 0000805157
SEC Standard Industrial Code (SIC): 8880 (UNKNOWN)
SEC Business Address: 1601 MASSACHUSETTS AVE NW WASHINGTON DC 20036
Fiscal Year End: 0630

Australian citizens only have their rights in 3 small Islands and not the mainland but most dont know how to read this fact or bother to look it up. The word include or including is the trick word that excludes all else.

...the Commonwealth of Australia and, when used in a geographical sense, includes Norfolk Island, the Territory of Christmas Island and the Territory of Cocos (Keeling) Islands, but does not include any other external Territory’

If taxes went where they should, the price of datsun would not matter like they do now for most that are struggling due the plethora of frauds.

https://www.righttoknow.org.au/request ... commonwealth_of_australia

https://wakeup-world.com/2012/11/09/ar ... australia-and-world-wide/

As for this site, there is not much wrong except for photobucket should be incriminated for destroying many websites. However this was planned as it is owned by the social media parasites of mankind a long time ago to have this result.


EDIT- 2023 - that corporation listed as the Commonwealth of Australia
takes in 500B dollars a year off shore nothing reinvested from that profit.

They registered and own the trademark known as "Australia" hence they can sue
anyone not paying rights to use it. Terra Australis is the real land but most
have been conned since birth to sign to be chattel for the fake government.

Was there some sort of event I was not aware about where people left in droves. I imagine it was less personal and more to do with the platform allowing for more efficient access and contribution methods in line with current technology such as phones.

Yeah I guess its true that at some point the prices would go up but its a shame it happened. I always thought that the Datsun community were incredibly helpful and resourceful. I totally didn't expect the community to be this barren though.

All this can be summarized basically in the rich getting richer and poor getting poorer. Or that people in the top places are usually greedy, selfish scumbags. Without getting political or anything I just say its wrong and has contributed to the downfall to not only this particular community but the entire hobby in itself. I don't see as much enthusiasm behind modding or restoring cars at all these days, its as if it reached its heights and fizzled out.

I wish I had taken more time to backup all the images here (and many other places) when I had the chance and spoke to the webmaster and had all images hosted elsewhere or locally. Truth be told they should have been hosted locally on the website itself rather than a third party host particularly the wiki images. a lot of images have been lost to the ravages of time now.

The other thing I notice is that when I first started poking around here 9 years ago, I could search ebay (US) for A-series parts and find 10 engines and twenty pages of parts, and now there's like one engine and nothing but aftermarket carbs, gasket kits, a few distributors and water pumps.
That's really depressing.

But I have a line on an A15 and an FS5W60 in a junkyard, so I'm pretty stoked. I hope they're fixable.

eBay is on the decline itself. I believe they are implementing changes next year regarding its payment scheme and are relegating paypal to a lower tier and slotting in another payment processor amongst other changes so I am not sure if its the place anymore. I hear facebook is supposed to be the way to go but I don't know where to look. I've posted a few requests here for basic items that I assumed would be easy to find since most people remove or replace them with aftermarket products but alas have not had any such luck here at all.
It's a bit disappointing but it is what it is and I will just have to wait it out and see if anything pops up over the next few months or years if I am lucky.

I've always been surprised to see any sort of following for old Japanese cars in the US considering the strong affection for old US muscle cars and the plethora of great olden day cars available there. I always felt like Datsuns got little to no love there because of that.

The 240z and 280 get a decent share of attention in comparison to say the 1200 but even so its a small niche in the grand scheme of things.