Project Unicorn, the resurrection of 1967.5 Datsun 2000 SRL-00342

[Alvin]

Sweet Fancy Moses that's pretty

[garth]

Beautiful car, full of promise and a guaranteed show winner!

And you keep raising the bar Michael !

[RCMike]

Gorgeous!!!

[nismou20]

That’s a fat looking Cam for oem. Beautiful!

[spriso]

Chassis Rebuild Contines

With the body back from paint, I needed to continue the rebuild of the chassis so when the engine and transmission return, it is all ready go go. The original chassis had a "protective layer" of grease that was probably the stickiest and hardest to remove from any roadster I have rebuilt over the last 25 years.



As we know, there is a beautiful aluminum housing under all that grime, and I got to work with my recipe of cleaners, stainless brushes and the pressure washer, and after about 4 hours(!), finally had all traces of the "protectant" removed!



Now the rear end housing could be fully disassembled, and powder coated and then reassembled.



The rear springs were rebuilt by David Neal, and also detailed and repainted before reassembly:



All chassis hardware has been replated or replaced with new for a fresh OEM look:



And finally, everything put back into the car with new brakes using all new Nissan components:



A set of JT"s Bilstein shocks have been utilized for this car, but have been painted black to make them disappear to keep more of an OEM look:



And installed in the chassis:



Up front, the OEM calipers have been rebuilt with new lines and caliper halves-- still need to get the dust caps installed properly:



With the chassis mostly complete, I can now concentrate on the body while we wait for the power train...

Michael

[spriso]

Bolting on the Bling

Chassis work is not that exciting, but getting to bolt on things like lights and other goodies is much more rewarding to the eye...







Ross' team at Sports Imports did an awesome job getting the stainless trim polished and straightened-- the door trim will go back on after I get some replacement door striker pins:





And things are slowly coming together in the engine compartment too:

[greydog]

That's so pretty Michael. It'll be better than new when it's all together.
Dan

[notoptoy]

Much, much better than new - really gorgeous work.

[Alvin]

What a treat to watch this come together!

[spriso]

A Special Visitor



Last weekend, Tony, the original owner of Project Unicorn, came for a visit to see his old car with the current owner Ken. This was the first time that either of them had seen the restoration work in person, and it was great to sit down with Tony to find out about how he came about the car.

Tony was a previous Datsun roadster owner, having owned a 1965 1500 roadster, and then trading it in on the vastly improved 1966 Datsun 1600 roadster. One day, in mid 1967, the local Datsun dealer, Hannum Datsun in Eugene called him and told him that he needed to come down to check out the roadster that they were getting delivered that day-- he actually saw it being unloaded from the truck.

Hannum had not ordered the car, it had just showed up with their allotment, and they did not even have pricing for it, so there was some confusion on what they should actually sell it for. The princely sum of $2950 was finally settled on, and Tony was an owner.

Tony quickly replaced the stock steel wheel with the magnesium 8-spoke wheels "...expensive-- $100 each..." Tony autocrossed the car with the Emerald Empire Sports Car Club, and he always knew it was a special car.

Tony confirmed that the car did come from the factory with the Solex carbs, aluminum oil pan, and "B" cam-- none of those were added. The header which was on the car was added later after three of the original U20 manifolds failed. Tony also confirmed that the car never came with the headrests either.

Tony had all kinds of other stories that I will be capturing on a video interview, hopefully before he returns to Hawaii in September.

Before Tony and Ken left, they were admiring my 66 parked on the grass, and I asked Tony when was the last time he had actually driven a roadster-- 1981. So I threw him the keys and told him he was obviously past due, and he and I took it for a spin-- it may have been nearly 40 years since he had driven a roadster, but at 79 years old, Tony had no problem finding the SR20DE's rev limiter a few times-- all the time grinning ear to ear...



And that is why we do this...

Michael

[RCMike]

So cool....

[JT68]

Gorgeous...PLEASE let me send you a car LOL....

[S Allen]

Beautiful car-well done as is your standard. Cool the original owner got to see his old ride. The new owner will be more than pleased to get the finished project.

Steve

[spl310]

Great story!

[2mAn]

Fantastic, I wonder how many were delivered with the Solex kit from the factory? I’m guessing this still had the 135bhp vin plate even though it was delivered with the 150bhp setup