There were a couple of body styles built for the 210. Mine is the earlier style with the round headlights. The later styles started in '80 (I think) and is a little boxier and has square headlights. The 210's were also available in 4 or 5 different body formats including 2 and 4 door sedans, a hatchback (like mine) and a wagon. There were a couple million built - so my question is, where are they now? I don't remember ever seeing them on the road. I hope they haven't all broken down and been sent to the crusher. Parts are fairly scarce on eBay but with a little patience probably almost anything will show up. But I'm not restoring this car anyway so I can live with aftermarket replacements and used "junk".

I haven't had a chance to take pics of my car yet but here are the pics from the ebay auction for my car.

Reference Material: As I find them I'll post reference material on the early 210 such as vintage photos, ads etc.
1979 Datsun 210 "Highest Mileage" Ad - Yellow Hatchback

1979 Datsun 210 "Economy Wagon" - "Wood" Panel Sides

1979 British "Datsun New Sunny" - Orange/Red 4-door Sedan

Another 1979 British "Datsun New Sunny" - Orange/Red 4-door Sedan

1979 British "Datsun New Sunny" - Yellow Wagon

1979 Datsun British Sunny detail page

1979 Canadian 210 Ad - Blue Coupe

1979 Canadian Sunny Ad - Yellow 2-door Sedan

1980 Datsun 210 Postcard

9/21/04 Little fix
I finally replaced the side pop-out window that had the broken hinges. Fairly simple to do now that I have a rivet tool. Hopefully I won't have so much water leaking in when it rains. When I first bought the car the rear floorboards were flooded, probably due to this leaky window letting rain in for who know how long - maybe years.

9/13/04 Weekend maintenance
This weekend I decided to flush my engine coolant. The coolant had a nice rusty brown color to it - obviously a previous owner didn't use antifreeze at some point. But anyway, to flush it I had to drain the coolant, remove the thermostat and disconnect the connection at the back of the block that goes to the heater core. I then ran the water in through that back hole to reverse flush the radiator. It took awhile but the water finally became clear, or at least more clear than it was. I found that the thermostat was actually stuck open, so I replaced that too. (By the way that explains why the car was running so cold on cold days. I hadn't really thought much of it.) When I went to refill the coolant I forgot to drain the block of the water I used to flush it. Not really a big deal, it just means my water:coolant ratio is off somewhat. At some point I'll drain some of the mixture and add enough coolant to get the ratio back up. While I was doing that I also replaced the valve cover gasket. Here's a pic of the valves. I didn't really know what to inspect or look for there so I just put the cover back on and that was it.

Oh yeah, last night I started peeling off the ghetto style tint on the windows. The driver's side is done and half of the rear window. I need some naptha to remove the glue on the hatch because I'm afraid scraping it with the razor will take off the heater stripes - which don't work now anyway but who knows maybe I'll figure that out at some point. So far the cleaned windows look VERY nice. And I can actually see!! I'll post a pic when it's all done. It looks like a different car.

8/30/04 New pic
Once again nothing major is going on. I did buy a few parts for my car though including a replacement interior dome light cover (mine was missing), a new steering column cover (mine was repainted the wrong color), and a new PS quarter window because the hinges on mine are broken. Not sure when I'll get around to installing that. Here's another pic of my car that I took this morning in the parking lot at work. It's much better than the ones above. '79 Datsun 210 Hatchback. Notice the "D" center caps I got recently. They're from a '79 310 and they fit perfectly. Much better than the "Z" caps I had before. Upcoming stuff to do: replace the anti-dieseling valve on the carb to kill the run-on in hot weather, replace the leaky window mentioned above, still need to replace the leaky valve-cover seal, and still need to go through the engine/carb tune-up procedure to optimize the settings. I did get 29mpg last week so it's much improved over the <20mpg I was getting with the old carb setup.

8/16/04 Interior stuff
Not much happening now. I'm driving the car daily now and not having any problems right now. I've installed the radio which sounds like complete junk of course but it's better than nothing. Here's a pic of the install and a few more details. Hehehe... If I have free time someday I'll build a couple of speaker pods so the speakers have firmer mounting surfaces. The frequency response and effective volume increases a LOT when speakers are securely mounted. But that's fairly low on my list of priorities right now.

8/7/04 No problem!
I figured out the electrical problems I was having. I noticed that the fuse blew after going into 4th gear and I remembered from the wiring diagrams that there is a top gear switch in the transmission. Sure enough that switch was also on this circuit. That switch grounds a solenoid that cuts off the vacuum line to the distributor advance (or something like that) so I assume that either the switch or solenoid are faulty. So anyway I just disconnected the electrical connections at the tranny switch and the problem is now gone. Actually I think that solenoid isn't used anymore anyway because all of the vac lines to it are blocked off, so it's not going to change anything to have it disconnected. So for now there aren't any serious problems with the car right now that I know of, so I can actually drive it for awhile!! I guess that's not completely true as I noticed that there's a lot of water on the pass side rear floor board. I think the rear side window seal is bad - the hinges on it are broken so it doesn't close all the way. Not a real big deal but I will be keeping my eyes open for a parts source on the web somewhere. Oh and the radio will go in this week sometime - 3$ head unit and 12$ speakers. hehehe...

8/5/04 Electrical problems...
Well I installed the new carb last weekend but I'm still having problems. The anti-diesel solenoid and auto choke were both not working. I finally traced it back to a blown fuse (duh!), replaced the fuse and it worked fine for awhile, but of course the fuse eventually blew again. So now I've got to trace down this problem. It's a 10amp fuse - I checked the current draw through that fuse yesterday and it's only 1 to 2 amps with the car idling, so something must be happening when the car is driving or moving. I guess it could be a bare wire somewhere that's shorting when the car is in motion - seems to happen when I stop actually. So tonight I'll set the meter up on the dash and drive around to see if I can figure what's making it blow. I've got the wiring diagrams so I should be able to figure something out.

7/30/04 New parts
Just received my new (remanufactured) carburetor which I hope to install this weekend. Doens't look like it'll be too difficult. Need to flush the gas line, replace the fuel filter and do a few more things. Also I've got a brand new radio coming from ebay. Check out this awesome piece of technology. All that for $3! Now I just need some $5 speakers and I'm all set. Well actually that's not true, I've also got a replacement antenna on the way so that should finish off the system. But that can wait till I'm back on the road.

7/22/04 What's going on?
Here's a quick summary of what's going on with my car now. First off I had to replace a couple of tires so I replaced the fronts with slightly smaller ones to fix the rubbing problem. I changed the oil, brake pads, added some coolant and checked other fluid levels, bought a shift knob and a few manuals. So I've been driving for a little while and I've noticed that it runs very rough and idles high. So my coworker helped me track down the vac leak and it turns out the carb has a bad leak - either a crack or bad seal. Also the idle adjust has no effect and the auto-choke is toasted. So I think I'll spend a couple hundred bucks for a fully rebuilt carb and ditch this one. Hopefully that'll solve a lot of my problems. Also I'm getting some chatter in 1st gear but I've learned how to get around that while driving. But who knows I may be in for a new clutch and pressure plate sometime in the future. But I guess these things are expected for an old car - especially when someone like me buys it and doesn't know exactly how it's supposed to drive or sound etc.