Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

Stripping it Down

With a lift, removing the body is a very straight forward endeavor. Remove the interior, remove the brake lines, body bolts, steering shaft and wiring:





A video: https://flic.kr/p/275JAVG

On to the body cart:



Then it was down to the careful disassembly of the body, cataloging all the parts, and getting the body stripped down to it's bare shell.

We made a few interesting discoveries-- the A-pillar was completely full of dog food from a busy mouse:



Hydraulics are a bit, ahem, dry.



All the way thru, the correct hardware was cataloged, and photographed:



All hardware will be cleaned, and replated in the correct clear zinc, or yellow zinc depending on location:



And once it was all stripped-- off to the body shop it went...

Paint Progress

Once at the paint shop, painter Jayme did not waste any time stripping off what was left of the original paint to see what we were dealing with:





Jayme worked his magic on the quarter panel and got it back into shape:



A small skim coat on a couple low spots was all that was necessary to get the first stage done:



Not everything was perfect though-- at one point the driver's door had been over extended and the door stay had been ripped out-- so that was repaired:



All the PDR work we did earlier paid off, and there is barely any body filler in the entire tub-- it is very, very clean. Once the last of the metal work was completed, the first coat of sealer primer was applied:





I built some door bars, and we put the body on the rotisserie so more detail work could be done:







Sand, prime, sand, prime, sand, sand and sand some more....

I'll update this as more occurs with the body...

Michael

Wow! That car looks amazing. Very straight and original.

What an awesome candidate for a restoration! Though I hate that it is going so fast, it makes my 25 year restoration seem inadequate and pathetic!

Wow, what a great base to start with, and outstanding work going forward. I'd hate to see my cars body stripped! Should be a show stopper when done and a very high quality example.

If that guy paints air cooled 911s then that is a good body shop

James wrote:

If that guy paints air cooled 911s then that is a good body shop

This one was being color sanded back to 3000 grit, I unfortunately don't have a photo of it done, but it was stunning!

Jayme pretty much only does 911s these days-- and there is a LONG waiting list to get in to his shop, and he carefully screens his customers-- thankfully he gets what we do, and makes the time for our projects...

Michael

spriso wrote: Tue Nov 27, 2018 12:00 am
All the way thru, the correct hardware was cataloged, and photographed:



All hardware will be cleaned, and replated in the correct clear zinc, or yellow zinc depending on location:

Where do you have the plating done? Will they do small batches, or maybe include a few parts with another, larger batch?

Pete wrote:

Where do you have the plating done? Will they do small batches, or maybe include a few parts with another, larger batch?

We generally use a place in Portland, but metal finishing places are not difficult to find-- just Google metal finishing and you should be able to find a local supplier. The batch rate is the same if you plate a few parts, or a 5-gallon bucket of nuts and bolts. I like to do as much as possible at a time, though that is a lot of prep work!

Michael

Since the body is off at the paint shop, it was time to get the frame torn down and ready to get restored. We will be going thru the front suspension, replacing all the worn parts, and powder coating all the components.

Ok-- on to the frame:



Frames are always a bit dirty, but this one was an exception-- it was very, very grimy, and I spent a lot of time scraping off the years of "protective grease" to get it as clean as possible before sending it down to the powder coaters (who will sand blast the frame before powder coating):





I have been playing with roadsters a LONG time, but I have never seen a frame this dirty before-- oil mixed with some sort of fine dust made for quite the mess. Weird-- especially for a car with this low of mileage. But where did this oil come from? After staring at the transmission, and looking at where most of the grime was centered, I finally figured it out...



If you look at the body of the transmission, you can see that the back half of the case is dirtier than the front half. After checking that out for a bit, I noticed that the vent tube on the top of the transmission was missing, and had been broken off at some point (probably when a clutch was changed?)



This broken off tube should have a breather like this sticking out of it:

https://www.datsunparts.com/2203

Since that is missing, as the car was going down the road, there could be a fine mist of oil coming out of that tube, coating the frame with sticky gear oil, and slowly building up more and more grime as the car went down the road.

Ok, now that was sorted out, I took apart the entire front suspension (which was also covered in gunk):



When I had the spindles apart, it appears that this may have been driven thru some water at some point (or it could be from years of sitting)-- note the rust on the spindle-- the bearing surfaces are good, so no concerns there, but I have not seen this before:



The rear differential was also caked in grease and dirt-- so dirty in fact, that I will have to send this housing out separately for powder coating, as it needs some serious attention.





So, all that was left after removing all of that was to cut off the exhaust-- no big deal at all. I was not prepared to see that it was full of dog food (and possibly rat poison?)-- man, that mouse sure was busy!



And the ENTIRE length of exhaust was plugged full of dog food-- this view is going up towards the bend in the header!



In all my years playing with Datsuns, I have never seen that before-- (I had a good laugh!)

Then it was time to pull the engine and trans,



I pulled the valve cover so there would be no chance that the ultra-rare "C" rivet cover could be damaged-- a little dirty under the valve cover:



Not too bad under the valve cover, but we will be going thru all of this when we rebuild the engine:



The hole in the rear of the frame was welded up (on both sides):



And when I was all done for the weekend, I had a friend help me load the bare frame into the back of the truck:



So, this week I will be getting all the parts together and ready to go to the powder coaters (still some clean up to do on components) as well as getting some of the other parts that needed to be coated gathered up (might as well get as much done as possible).

More soon,

Michael

Mike: I'm so impressed by how quickly you can do a restoration. The 69 2000 that John Lorio and I purchased in March 2018 is just now with the sandblaster and will move to the body shop in December/January. I thought we were moving along pretty well but you're putting us to shame.

Shannon

Shannon--

It has not been that quick-- I just have not updated this thread in a long time. As always, we have several builds going on at once, so it is a careful shuffling of projects and getting the right parts to the right guys in order so things all progress forward.... (we hope anyway!)

Michael

Michael, all that grease on the frame was there by design. I think they were using the Triumph method of undercoating over time...

The rat food stash is hilarious. So glad you have this car...

Im sure that my car has a similar rust protection haha

Getting a Little Color

A quick update from the paint shop--

The undercoating on this car was in excellent condition, just needed a refresh of color, so that was done on the rotisserie:





The interior and trunk were painted next:





Then the doors, inside of the hood, and trunk lid were jammed with black as well:





More updates soon!

Michael