My family had many Datsuns while I was growing up. I learned to drive on an orange 510 wagon, and at one point my Dad was keeping 6 Datsun of various models running at one time. But I only knew of one Roadster back then...it belonged to a family friend and Air Force Colonel, and I thought it was the coolest car around.
I starting looking for a project car earlier this year, and quickly decided it should be a Roadster. First one I looked at was literally a basket case, and the second one was pretty pricey and not much of a project.
I bought the 3rd one I ran across from a guy south of town...a '66 1600. The car wasn't running (I got the standard spiel "It was running when I parked it 3 years ago...or was it 5?"), there was some rust in the rocker panels and floors, and the interior was pretty rough. This seemed about the right size project for me.
Here are some pics from the day I picked it up 8/8/11
In the upper right you can see the car's former home...had it's own little tent. Next door was a Nash, and I guess the Z wasn't house broken.
Checking for stow-aways before we put it on the trailer.
Loaded up and ready to go.
New home...had to take one more pic before I turned out the lights.
The car was like a magnet that first afternoon...every guy on the block stopped by trying to figure out what I had. As I stood in the street doing my best to answer questions, my wife kept peeking out the door with a funny look on her face. Later she said "I don't get it...why were they all here?" She's been very understanding of my project, but I still don't know how to explain it to her.
The was in August, and the next couple of months didn't quite go as planned. Car was in need of WAY more TLC than I originally thought, and for a while it looked like I had purchased my very first...well...parts car.
The first thing I discovered on Day 2: a thousand cats have peed in my garage!?!?...oh wait...that's the car I just bought! I had PLANNED to tackle the unknown engine condition first, but that interior HAD TO GO
.Over the next month with every piece I photographed, removed, and bagged, I got more concerned about the amount of rust. Removing the stinky interior soon turned into removing EVERYTHING to get a better idea of the body and frame condition. And every night I swept up a little more of my car off the garage floor
.At this point in my project I kept telling myself that it was time well spent...that either way I went (frame-off or parts-car) I would eventually have to take it all apart, and that I was learning every inch of my car.
At this point in my introduction, are you chuckling at how naive I was(am)?
Once I got eveything else off the body, I pulled the engine/tranny and set it aside. After eveything I've read on the forum, I figure if the rust is fixable and the engine shot, I've got several different options to replace the drivetrain.
Clearly the rust repair was beyond anything I could do, so I photographed everything and started looking for help. I found a guy with loads of sheet metal and fabrication experience, and we worked out a deal.
At this point the project is back to being a re-build! I'll probably starting looking at the engine next, while the rust is being repaired.
If anyone is interested, I will start a thread in the Member Rides section to document my progress.
I'm interested in meeting up with any Roadster owners in metro Atlanta, or even in the Southeast. I hope I can get to the level of actually contributing here at some point...this site has an AMAZING amount of information...kudos to everyone involved.
