After 15 years, finally starting a restoration!

[Datsun.David]

I tried the rebuild kits locally several years ago... It was impossible to find them and I drove and looked at several wrong options.

You know Ross or other vendor will have the right ones. Ross was over at my place a couple of days ago. Good to finally meet him in person after 10 years + on the phone... I was hoping to ride with him to visit Arnold's Roadster Emporium in Medicine Hat, but I got jammed up with work...

[JMartin]

3 steps forward, 2 steps back! Damn, I just don't know if I can get it done in the next 2 weeks before the All Datsun Show in Kelowna BC.

Ever have one of those days when you have to do 4 other things before you finally get to the one you started with?
1. Decide to put in the drivers seat
2. notice that I didn't put in the seam sealer around the new floor pan I had welded it. Then notice that the sound deadener is REALLY well stuck down to the floor...screw it, leave the seam sealer on the shelf.
3. Find the carpet and try to snap them in...WTF, I ground off the male ends for the snaps when I removed the rusty floor pans. Look for an hour for a bunch of male snaps, YUP, found them...NOPE can't find small enough sheet metal screws (decided not to use the 1" long screws. I'm sure I'd be the one to crawl under the car and cut my head open from the long screws)
4. OK, seam sealer-no, carpet kit-no, what next..ahh, the roll bar can go in. That went well until I messed up the threads on the last bolt. OF COURSE.
5. Look around and see that I didn't put in the steering shaft. Note to self "put in steering shaft BEFORE you install carbs." There was no way I wanted to remove those carbs, so I thought maybe I could remove the grill and slide it up. NOPE.
6. Remove the steering wheel and collapsable shaft from the inside of the car, slide the shaft into the steering box from the inside through the fire wall, into the engine compartment. Got that one OK, but then spent the last 1.5 hours trying to put the collapsable shaft and steering wheel/ignition assembly back in myself.
7. Curse and swear and go get a beer!

Here's hoping Errol (aka Frisky) will stop by on his way back from Vancouver next Friday. I'm going to put him to work! There are no Roadster owners on this site within 5 hours of me, I am running out of time and patience!

[pebbles]

yep, I too have spent the last few days sifting through boxes and boxes,,,,and more boxes, drawers and jars for stuff.
Ive read somewhere that they are never done!
As you are driving one, all the heartaches seem to vanish from memory!!

You can do it Jim.

[Frisky311]

Jim,
I will be coming through on Thursday now. And if you need to you me to work for a bit I'd be more than happy to help out. I think we all know the frustration of trying to tie up loos ends and not really getting anything accomplished. And in my experience it's usually the loose ends that end up costing the most. Lol.

[JMartin]

Let me know what time you will be coming by on Thursday. Where did you find the motor (Not sure what type that motor is)
Jim

[Frisky311]

Hey Jim.
I'll be leaving van hopefully be 10 at the latest, so I'll be getting up to your neck of the woods by the time schools out. It is a bit outta the way but it'd be nice to see another roadster so I think I'm gonna take a small side trip. The engine is a ka24de from a Nissan 240. I posted a want add on bc240.com and someone came through. He said he just wanted it out of his parents garage so if I came and got it, it wqs mine. Free engine means more money for go fast parts. Hehehe.
See ya thurs. lookin forward to meeting you in person.

~Errol.

[dbrick]

Jim, to save time, I just go outside, do Step #7 and go back in. Much less aggravating, less bleeding, but the car doesn't get done. A second set of hands and eyes can get a tremendous amount of work done in a short time.
What about pop rivets for the carpet snaps?

[JMartin]

I took dbrick's advice...after I sobered up I pleaded with my 15 year old some to give me a hand tonight. I reminded him that he will be driving in a year, and if he wants to restore the 2nd roadster, we have to get mine up and running first (I haven't got the heart to tell him its going to take more than a year to get his put together!)

Tonight I went and bought some round headed Number 6 sheet metal screws, so hopefully I can put the snaps down Tuesday night. My son helped me put the rest of the steering column back together, and we painted the grill and mesh plate behind it. (Heck, I had it off anyways, and it needed a touch up)

Can't wait to meet you Thursday Errol, sounds like a great price on the 240 motor, great score!

[JMartin]

Holy Crap, no wonder its taken 15 years (ok at least 16 now!) to get to this point. After I found out that the master cylinder seals were a little too weak to give me a good pedal (just felt too wierd..not like there was air in the line, just not enough resistance), I went online and looked for a master cylinder rebuild kit. I had to take my chev truck to the Kelowna BC Mothers Day meet and met a ton of great roadster owners, and took a lot of ribbing for not having the car done. I finally got the master cylinder rebuild kit in June/July and let it sit for months. Over Christmas I went out and found that the kit didn't fit, and started another thread on this forum to find out I didn't have the correct master cylinder at all. Thanks to Pebbles who had a spare one on his shelf, I went out tonight and put in the master and started to bleed the brakes. Don't know how, but somehow one of the front bleeder screws was missing the 3/16" check valve, so I guess tomorrow I go and find a pair of them at the local parts store. I'm getting closer!

After this, put some ATF fluid in the carb pots, and cut off an old screwdriver and place it into the slot below the distributor, hook it up to a drill and build up some oil pressure, and then give it a turn of the key. Thanks to this site for some great advice on exhaust systems, I hope to have the exhaust built by mid Feb.

Curious on the exhaust: Anyone running two of the cherry bombs to cut down the noise? One under the drivers seat (likely 2" or 1 7/8" to fit the squished area in the X member) and another 2" further down line? Anyone have the actual muffler numbers they used for their exhaust updates

[JMartin]

wow, another 2 months and I finally got to the roadster today. I spent the day with my son putting in the seats, but took them both out becuase they wouldn't slide back and forth. I found that the metal tab that sits into the grooves had somehow gotten below the grooves, and therefore wouldn't lock into the slots. We fixed the issue, and put some rubber spacers from the old shock bolts under each seat bolt to possibly give them a little clearance on the carpet to not stop the sliders. It sort of worked, but I'm almost 6 feet tall, so I need the seat all the way back....I don't sit in the passenger seat anyways!

I installed the sun visors (after a little buffing of the metal brackets) and changed the plugs, rotor, and points. I left the condensor, but I should change it too. I couldn't find a new rotor cap at the local parts store, but mine appeared to be in very good shape.

I drained the oil, but the WIX filter I was sold didn't seem tall enough as compared to the FRAM filter, so back to the auto parts store I go in the morning...
getting closer!

[mraitch]

did you install the brake master firewall brace??

[JMartin]

Peter;

Actually no, I didn't. The previous owner had already welded in a reinforced pocket in that area, so I just left it.

One bad thing about taking so long to do this project is that when I drained the oil last night, I mentioned to my son that "geez, that oil looks clean" I looked at the receipts I had this morning and realized that I purchaed oil and a new filter last May. I guess I already changed it then. Still not running yet!

[Linda]

Jim
If you put speed bleeders in the front brakes then you have to remove the little ball bearing. Maybe that's why it was missing.
Speed bleeders are so much easier.
Linda

[JMartin]

Linda. No I don't think they were speed bleeders (although I'm not familiar with them). Only 1 side was missing the check ball and it was leaking badly

[JMartin]

It's Alive:

I spent the day working on the car, and got it running. I had issues with getting fuel, and it turns out I must have had some of the liner material that I poured into the tank pluggin the outlet hole. I thought maybe the fuel pump diaghram, but I took off the pump and it was good. Got the fuel issue resolved and didn't realize I had the throttle cable too tight on the SU's so it wanted to rev way too high.

I didn't get a chance to set the valves (I think it says to do it warm), but I did change all the rubber fuel lines tonight.
I have a video of it, but I can't seem to find the right extention to load it on here. I tried MOV, and several others, but it wouldn't let me attach them. What file extention have you all tried (instead of linking it to youtube or something)