Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

I've always been fascinated with what people do for a living... "piano repair technician". That's a new One! But I get it: My dad had a baby grand for almost my entire life (56 years) and only had to give it up when his fingers no longer complied this his brain's requests, and it didn't make sense to move it to Hawaii. Many memories of all the tunes he would play...

I just received my Piano Technicians Guild 25 year membership pin in the mail last week... if you look up in the pics you can see the action for a 1918 Bell upright piano getting restored as I work on the roadster. I find piano and roadster restoration are similar... you're undoing decades of 'repairs' in order to get it back to some semblance of when it left the factory. You also need to have good supplier contacts who know the parts and manufacturer quirks.

Pjackb wrote: Sat Apr 11, 2020 2:08 am What paint did you use on the center console?
I’m restoring 2 of them a the moment and getting ready for paint

Nothing fancy, just a flat silver I saw at Canadian Tire that looked similar to the 67.5 interior trim paint... about a 90% colour match... I'll see if I still have the can in the garage

small fixit yesterday...

The previous owner removed the washer system and bondo'd over the holes... as I haven't got this car inspected for registration yet, i know it will need a functioning windshield washer system. Ross sent me a set of nozzles and had a washer tank and pump out of a 510 which will work with the roadster wiring. Got everything tested and installed.

Redrilled, installed nozzles and new tubing:



Found a spot for the 510 tank that's out of the way of the hood and easy to access:





now, I know it's not the correct Kangaroo bag system, however, my longterm plan is an SR20 swap into this car and this will just be needed for road inspection... although given my procrastination, it could be a 1600 for quite some time yet.

Well, with the dash out, it was time to do something with the HVAC/Radio console:



Previous owner had crammed a modern (in 1990 or so) stereo and had cut and folded back the metal brackets around the radio to wedge it in there:(
Plus the choke cable was a different style, and the cigarette lighter was a Pep-Boys discount special:



So, after removing the console, pulling the aftermarket deck and flattening the folded metal edges as best I could, I tried an experiment with refinishing the black cover piece... all our powdercoaters are shut down right now, but I did find a can of this:



After a couple of false starts experimenting with successive coats and not really happy with the results, I found the stuff doesn't wrinkle up consistently unless you heat it:



I found the best way to apply it is to suspend the part, heat it with a heat gun to warm and then lay down a complete coat of wrinkle paint, and follow up with lo heat to cure it... pic of the dash and glovebox door in process:



You can get a fairly fine pebbly wrinkle coat keeping the heat on and curing as you go.

Also the opportunity to install my converted Aurora stock radio. Got an idea for the discarded cigarette lighter:



Stereo now has a USB cable to plug in a flash drive... perfect place to mount it:





And I had an old extra choke knob, with a little fabbing and some JB weld, fashioned a plug cover for the USB port:



And printed up the appropriate decal for it:



Powered it up:



Console is done, Now I can start refitting gauges into the dash:

Looks great. Nice job.

S

Really nice work, well done!

Got the gauges installed in the dash... VHT wrinkle paint was inconsistent on the larger dash over the smaller console... can't see it in the pic but the wrinkle effect was inconsistent and the finish is a bit uneven, you can notice colour difference between the speedo and the clock and the pebble effect was pretty coarse over on the far left side.

However, much better than how I got it and until I can get it powdercoated, it will have to do:



Previous owner cut a hole for the ignition... i cleaned it up and remounted it there, looks OK. Got a replacement clock from Ross, original was cracked... note the time

Ready now to do up the wiring, going to do the ground wire addition to all the gauges as well:

Will be quite special when its all done, love the cigarette lighter -> USB conversion, especially the cover. Nicely done

After a bit of a break, I've rolled (former red bumper) roadster out for some more attention. With the dash and console out, time to address the heater core

Checked the core with a water pressure test, no leaks, so time to tidy it up:







that's better:



Ordered all new rubber bits from Ross @ Sports Imports as this is what was left:



and got a full new firewall grommet kit to install in the pretty much empty holes:

Now to the dash harness and assorted electrical... (Curtis diagram hanging from the shelving next to toolchests)



Decent OEM 67.5 dash harness from Ross... looks like quite the snarl but I tucked in the wiring before dash install:



Found a couple of old crap speakers someone installed above the rear wheel well... pulled them out



Had a spare set of Alpine 2 ways on the shelf, adapted them to the speaker grilles



and installed:

Now to pull everything together, all parts test fitted but not fastened:



pulled everything and marked the hole locations for the dash surround.





Pretapped the holes as directed in Dean's instructions with a 10/24 tap. Car was originally Sora Blue... will think about this when it comes time to repaint:



Opened up the holes in the surround with a hot soldering iron and drilled them a bit larger for fitment... I won't lie, it was a challenge lining up the screws through the surround so they would start and not cross-thread:





Fitment around the trim ring is decent but a little uneven, next time I'll enlarge the holes a bit more for better fine adjustment.

As it stand now:

Looks like none of your pictures posted.

notoptoy wrote: Tue Feb 02, 2021 3:30 pm Looks like none of your pictures posted.

testing




hmm...I can see the pictures when copy/pasting externally.

Looking again, looks like even the old pictures disappeared.