Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

That’s a good point Gregg. I remember the pointer being pretty close when I rebuilt the engine about 5 years ago. Hoping that it doesn’t get worse.

Oakley Inc. Sunday Steel Car Show
I took my car to a show this morning at Oakley HQ in Lake Forest. There was a show nearby in Laguna Hills but it was shut down due to the idiots showing off how much noise their cars make. Anyways it was moved to Oakley HQ's about 15-20 minutes away.
I got there pretty early, probably 75 cars already there. I parked close to the exit as I could make an easy escape when I wanted to leave.
. .
There were lots of exotic super cars there. We're kinda spoiled here and see those exotics all the time so they don't tickle my fancy like they used to.

Other of my favorite Old School cars there shown below.

Jealous of all the great cars on the west coast, but I still say that I am partial to the Roadster

Lovely pics of loved cars!

At 10 years old (1961) I was saving to by a Corvette but never did. First car bought was '68 1600 and drove it 5 years and sold it and bought '72 240Z. Z was too jazz-Z for me and kept it only two years. Started looking for another roadster in about '85 and found my current one in '95, another '68 1600. Lost the Corvette desire before I bought my first roadster.

Seat Foam arrived for my 1967. Went with Standard Mustang 1964-1966 for the seat back. The first two photos show the seat back foam and the seat cover overlay. It looks real close and duplicates that outer edge raised contour. As Curtis mentioned on his Interior redo thread the bun foam is a bridge to far as seen in the second set of photos. I couldn't find a seller that sells just the seat back foam, so I'm going to try and turn the bun foam on eBay or the Mustang community. The bun seat foam to pick up is from the mid 60's MGB. PBNW or Moss, both sell the bottom and seat back separately which is nice since covid hit the prices have gone up considerably on the MBG foam and just two seat bottoms will be close to $200 shipped. Curtis found the MGB foam and posted photos in his thread, they are real close to the early Roadsters bun cushion foam.

Curtis's thread with photos. viewtopic.php?t=32639&start=120

I bought these from topflightautomotive.com. They have about three different lines of the 1964-1966 "Standard" foam. I just went with the budget line $51 per set and they have a promo code for free shipping over $100 so $102 + tax is pretty good IMO. What I bought may well be 2nds from the higher priced lines as there are some small voids / holes in the foam which should only be cosmetic. Hopefully I can claw back $30-40 by selling the seat bottoms.
Bottom (no go)

While underneath installing my seats in red 67.5 I looked at the grease-encrusted frame and transmission mount and put on the rubber gloves, degreaser spray and a pallet knife and cleaned the caked-on stuff from the frame sides and transmission mount... which I discovered is actually blue under all the layers of grease!

Been driving the Cahhh since 1995 and not until the past two or three weeks the carpet bunches up behind my clutch foot. Inspection indicated no forward floor snaps in either driver or passenger carpet. Supposing whoever had the 68 replaced carpets and carpet provider didn't go to the 6 snap per piece trouble as the original receiver bases were in the floor, just no button side in the carpet. $10 (about $1 in 1968 dollars) for a snap kit with installing tool and and about an hour of my labor and voila! The job was a snap.

The little things really make a difference in satisfaction with a job well done!

I didn't do this for my Datsun TODAY, but since I enjoy looking at Datsun project pics from others, I thought I'd share a pic of a project I finally completed last summer, for my '67 Stroker / 5-Speed. This is JT's repro chromed '67.5 5-speed shift trim plate, painted over with Dupli-Color Cast Iron Gray. The cover was bought and painted in 2013. Last summer's project was a custom touch, by adding Dean's repro 5-speed shift emblem for the '68 -'70 shifter covers. As you might guess from that,...I like shiny things...a lot
Dean's gear shift boot was purchased in 1998 (for $8.00). When the dirt and grime was wiped off prior to completing this project, it was still fully intact, with no splits, tears, or other signs of wear or degradation. Truly remarkable ! ... I'll post the installed pic soon....
Mike

Today I decided to swap out my front brake pads with the thought that they might improve braking, given that the pads in there are "older technology" and many many years old (Toyota 4runner front calipers on Maxima vented discs). Since I was in there I decided it was also a good time to lube the front for the season (my single most hated task on the Roadster) and swap in the Swepco trans oil I got her for Christmas.

As usual, car stuff doesn't always go as planned... the new pads I got were correct but we're chamfered so much on each edge such that only 2/3 as much pad had contact with the disc vs the old pad. That doesn't sound like better brakes to me. The old pads were still over 50%, so they went back in. Lubing the suspension is a greasy mess, and I'm always amazed at how much gunk builds up... and gets all over the place. Then as I attempted to pump in the new trans oil I discovered my transfer hand pump was no longer working... sigh... off the the parts store to buy a new pump. That ultimately went well and I'm excited to see if it helps with a scratchy 2nd gear sycro. One thing I did note is that my two front tires are nearing the tred bars, and I'm gonna bet my Nitto Neogens have gone up by 10-35% in the past few days... wish I had noticed earlier. My wheels are very difficult to balance and it took a very experienced older tech who knew all the tricks to get them right, so I'm hoping he's still around!

But well, the car is lubed, the oil is in, brakes are brakes... ready to go! Just need the weather...

This weekend, I took a necessary step prior to pulling the body off of the frame (door braces). Some minor sins to remedy and a few additional chassis upgrades are on the horizon. Paint and body isn't far behind.
Also, added a stable mate for my wife. It's a very sharp driver. She deserves it! (Anyone put AC in one of these before??)

Pickup looks awesome!

The weather cooperated today so I got to do some EFI tuning, and that also allowed me to see how the new longer velocity stacks work and if the Swepco gear oil helped my trans, specifically regarding a scratchy 2nd gear synchro.

I'm happy to say I can tell the stacks help everywhere. The engine feels like it has more torque and they have not hurt top end at all... maybe even helped. The induction sound is a little deeper and throaty... I like it and had not considered this aspect of the change. And my 3rd to 2nd gear downshift scratch is gone... gone. Swepco ain't cheap, but I'm once again convinced it's worth it. Off the shelf Valvoline, Lucas and Royal Purple all failed.

With the longer stacks I'm confident it would show more torque on a dyno, and if I have time this spring after finalizing my timing map runs I'll do a comparison power run vs the shorties and we'll see if I'm experiencing a placebo effect... but I'm pretty sure I'm not. If they demonstrably help, others may want to consider what stack lengths they want to try. Torque is good.

Big weekend over here! Interior and engine bay sprayed Fri, exterior Sat, and nice weather Sun to see how she looks Took me an entire dedicated week over winter break to get to bare metal... been working nonstop since mid March to get her across the (paint) finish line Still some work to do to get texture out of the clear so don't look too close yet. I gave myself four layers of clear to play with since this is my first paint job, I think it will come out just fine. Front of the car looks great, I felt a little cramped in my booth doing all the exterior facing panels (doors on sawhorses) at once. I saw a green roadster listing on bat that I liked and wanted something that was black in the shadows and this color has so much depth from light to dark. Plastic sheeting can be risky--clinging dust then blowing it everywhere but I had good results. I tested various setups in the primer stages before cleaning the shop (again???) and then swapped new plastic walls for the base and clear session. I think you need to hit your flash times and have decent airflow with clean overspray filters. I hate that I know the spot of every little imperfection and can't wait to scratch the doors when I put them on. I'm really looking forward to doing something other than sanding though (like maybe school, whoops), after the more sanding it needs... I've been sanding for all my free time the past three weeks I think this nice weather might be telling me to just stare at her in the sun for this week...