Electric Steering Assist Datsun 620
I put this in the How-to section, but it's not much of a one. It's a big pic dump Dennis Animalden. He sent me these pics a couple of years ago so I could post them on my site. I really dropped the ball on that one! Hopefully, this page will help some people. The following is info he sent me in an email. I haven't read it since I got it, so I can't answer any questions about it or the pictures. Good luck.
So here is a picture of the complete assembly I ordered on eBay, I got the steering wheel so I could move it around and maybe fab something up and the power assist unit with the upper and lower knuckle. As it turned out I only used the unit and the upper knuckle. I looked at as many units on iTunes as I could find but ended getting the 04-09 Prius unit it looked closest to make work . I also found out only the Toyota units had manual steering as a fail safe (Toyota puts these in several different cars)
So the inner housing on the unit is the OD as the Datsun 620 housing but I had to leave some of the outer housing on so I kept the top 21/2” ,I measure down 21/2” marked it and cut threw with a large tubing cutter then put a cutoff wheel on my 41/2” grinder and sliced it off the only thing holding it on are three spots it pressed in I positioned the top 21/2” piece as close to the end as I could and tack welded it in three places
Then I took the upper knuckle piece and noticed the spline coming out was pressed in , I clamped the spline in a vise righted a crescent wrench around it and tapped down on the outside housing and tapped right off.then I got a 11/16 drill (what size my Datsun steering shaft was) and drilled out the splines , the bit just drilled the splines but didn’t get into the meat it work perfect then all I had to do is drill the side with a 1/2” but so I could plug weld it
So it’s pucker timeIt’s time to cut the housing and the shaft the first step is I have to pull the Steering box housing out of the truck the first thing I did was measure from the firewall to the tip of my steering shaft to make sure when I put it back and it was in the same place. After doing this next thing I did was unbolt the steering box you have to pull the front seat out and go over the top of the radiator support to get it out then once you unbolt the three bolts you have to clock it all the way to One Direction loosen the three bolts out tip the shaft a little bit one side to get it out there is a real good YouTube video that shows you how to do this function Datsun steering shaft is all you type in. Then using the measurements of the Prius shaft takeoff I was ready to cut( pucker , will this work ? Oh well I am going to go for it) I cut the shaft then the housing cleaned the inside of the steering box and then put it back together painted it and decided to put it all back in and mock it up before I welded anything up.
So I put it back in to mock it up and everything goes in quick and I am glad I did because there was a few things to see , all my cuts were fine but there were a few small changes to positioning note picture of two hole strap holding column under dash you want to bring the Prius housing as close to the back side of the clamp as possible this will make your steering wheel 11/2” closer to the dash than stock but as you get closer to the dash the leg clearance under the wheel decreases.next you want to clock the motor on the Prius unit so it rest on top of the parking brake bracket. The ECM unit bolted right onto the clutch pedal stop bolt so I didn’t even have to find a mounting spot. I drilled a 1/2” hole thru the knuckle yoke the cut off steering shaft fits into ( if I forgot to mention I drilled the splines with a 11/16” drill bit out of this and test fit the shaft before installing). Once I had this all bolted in motor on top of the parking lever bracket and made sure Prius unit was as far up against the back of the half strap I tighten all the bolts up and with a sharply filled in my 1/2” holes I had drilled in yoke. Also at this point I mocked up a small bracket on the firewall side of the Prius unit. I used some gasket paper because it folded well and was to thin . I unbolted all the brackets that came on the unit and made a beaker that would bolt to the back of the unit to the sheetmetal support for the colunm
So I pulled everything back out and got ready to weld,I made sure that I had the rubber bushing support in and that I had 1” clearance between the housing and the yoke so if I had to take the shaft out of the box at some point later I could tilt it to remove it. Then I lined yoke up with my sharply marks and plug welded the 1/2” holes in the yoke I had drilled then I drilled a 1/4” hole above that and drove in a 1/4” steel pin and welded the ends of that to, bow it was time to reinstall everything and bolt it all up
Once everything was bolted up time to wire it up, this picture of the wire I pulled off the internet worked for me. It shows using # 8 wire for the hot and the ground with a 50 amp maxi fuse going straight to the battery and a small wire to ignition with a 10 amp fuse once it was wired it was time to drive WOW!
Lastly the column cover, now I am sure there are a million ways to do this and am looking forward to what people come up with but I didn’t want to cut up the stock plastic and I had a 2” angle dash panel I made to put my gauges in to use for my ignition switch. So what I did was to make a template with another piece of gasket paper and wrapped it around a piece of 3” ABS plumbing pipe and cut it out then used a 80 grit flapper but in my battery drill to finish shape it , once it fit good I painted it with black interior paint the last thing I did was to wrap my turn signal assembly with some doublstick tape but left the backing on one side this provided just enough sponginess to hold it on firmly but that’s just what I did
This might look kind of hard but I could have done it in a long weekend if I had a block of time but I spent about 3 weekends doing it but gave me aliitle time to think it out , good luck and have fun!
So here is a picture of the complete assembly I ordered on eBay, I got the steering wheel so I could move it around and maybe fab something up and the power assist unit with the upper and lower knuckle. As it turned out I only used the unit and the upper knuckle. I looked at as many units on iTunes as I could find but ended getting the 04-09 Prius unit it looked closest to make work . I also found out only the Toyota units had manual steering as a fail safe (Toyota puts these in several different cars)
So the inner housing on the unit is the OD as the Datsun 620 housing but I had to leave some of the outer housing on so I kept the top 21/2” ,I measure down 21/2” marked it and cut threw with a large tubing cutter then put a cutoff wheel on my 41/2” grinder and sliced it off the only thing holding it on are three spots it pressed in I positioned the top 21/2” piece as close to the end as I could and tack welded it in three places
Then I took the upper knuckle piece and noticed the spline coming out was pressed in , I clamped the spline in a vise righted a crescent wrench around it and tapped down on the outside housing and tapped right off.then I got a 11/16 drill (what size my Datsun steering shaft was) and drilled out the splines , the bit just drilled the splines but didn’t get into the meat it work perfect then all I had to do is drill the side with a 1/2” but so I could plug weld it
So it’s pucker timeIt’s time to cut the housing and the shaft the first step is I have to pull the Steering box housing out of the truck the first thing I did was measure from the firewall to the tip of my steering shaft to make sure when I put it back and it was in the same place. After doing this next thing I did was unbolt the steering box you have to pull the front seat out and go over the top of the radiator support to get it out then once you unbolt the three bolts you have to clock it all the way to One Direction loosen the three bolts out tip the shaft a little bit one side to get it out there is a real good YouTube video that shows you how to do this function Datsun steering shaft is all you type in. Then using the measurements of the Prius shaft takeoff I was ready to cut( pucker , will this work ? Oh well I am going to go for it) I cut the shaft then the housing cleaned the inside of the steering box and then put it back together painted it and decided to put it all back in and mock it up before I welded anything up.
So I put it back in to mock it up and everything goes in quick and I am glad I did because there was a few things to see , all my cuts were fine but there were a few small changes to positioning note picture of two hole strap holding column under dash you want to bring the Prius housing as close to the back side of the clamp as possible this will make your steering wheel 11/2” closer to the dash than stock but as you get closer to the dash the leg clearance under the wheel decreases.next you want to clock the motor on the Prius unit so it rest on top of the parking brake bracket. The ECM unit bolted right onto the clutch pedal stop bolt so I didn’t even have to find a mounting spot. I drilled a 1/2” hole thru the knuckle yoke the cut off steering shaft fits into ( if I forgot to mention I drilled the splines with a 11/16” drill bit out of this and test fit the shaft before installing). Once I had this all bolted in motor on top of the parking lever bracket and made sure Prius unit was as far up against the back of the half strap I tighten all the bolts up and with a sharply filled in my 1/2” holes I had drilled in yoke. Also at this point I mocked up a small bracket on the firewall side of the Prius unit. I used some gasket paper because it folded well and was to thin . I unbolted all the brackets that came on the unit and made a beaker that would bolt to the back of the unit to the sheetmetal support for the colunm
So I pulled everything back out and got ready to weld,I made sure that I had the rubber bushing support in and that I had 1” clearance between the housing and the yoke so if I had to take the shaft out of the box at some point later I could tilt it to remove it. Then I lined yoke up with my sharply marks and plug welded the 1/2” holes in the yoke I had drilled then I drilled a 1/4” hole above that and drove in a 1/4” steel pin and welded the ends of that to, bow it was time to reinstall everything and bolt it all up
Once everything was bolted up time to wire it up, this picture of the wire I pulled off the internet worked for me. It shows using # 8 wire for the hot and the ground with a 50 amp maxi fuse going straight to the battery and a small wire to ignition with a 10 amp fuse once it was wired it was time to drive WOW!
Lastly the column cover, now I am sure there are a million ways to do this and am looking forward to what people come up with but I didn’t want to cut up the stock plastic and I had a 2” angle dash panel I made to put my gauges in to use for my ignition switch. So what I did was to make a template with another piece of gasket paper and wrapped it around a piece of 3” ABS plumbing pipe and cut it out then used a 80 grit flapper but in my battery drill to finish shape it , once it fit good I painted it with black interior paint the last thing I did was to wrap my turn signal assembly with some doublstick tape but left the backing on one side this provided just enough sponginess to hold it on firmly but that’s just what I did
This might look kind of hard but I could have done it in a long weekend if I had a block of time but I spent about 3 weekends doing it but gave me aliitle time to think it out , good luck and have fun!