Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

Didn’t get a ton done on the car this weekend.

Sorted out the messed up seat rail studs. Not a good final solution but I think it’s a good temporary one… The studs have a dimple in the top that acts as a good center mark for drilling. I didn’t do a great job of getting the holes centered but turns out slightly off center makes for a good fit with the bolt head so it doesn’t move around…
Finally rolled the car out onto the driveway to pressure wash the engine bay, it was pretty gross from the oil leaking out of the engine… Much better! Found some different colors though, adds to my thinking that this car has been pieced together. Lots of gunk around the steering box and arms, probably gonna need to redo that whole system, I blew some things off that could have been rubber boots or grease gunk, I need to investigate that more…

I think I’m ready to install the engine into the car, just need engine mounts… Which means I have to wait for Dean to get through what I’m sure is a huge backlog haha

Pretty sure I did the stud to bolt replacement myself... 37 years ago, still fine!

You need to check the bolt heads and make sure they don’t interfere with the sliders. It seems like I had to grind mine down a little when I did it, but that was a long time ago and my memory is none too good

Gregs672000 wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2023 9:30 pm Pretty sure I did the stud to bolt replacement myself... 37 years ago, still fine!

Ha! Makes me more confident it’ll last!

theunz wrote: Sun Dec 03, 2023 9:41 pm You need to check the bolt heads and make sure they don’t interfere with the sliders. It seems like I had to grind mine down a little when I did it, but that was a long time ago and my memory is none too good

They clear, but there was some grease left on top of them so it’s close. If I had to replace the top ones as well then they may not have cleared.

Got the car up on jackstands today and pulled the front calipers off. Both were gripping the rotors pretty hard, actually had to pry one off the rotors…

Rebuilt the passenger side caliper, cylinder walls aren’t great, these will be replaced with the Spriso big brake kit PO purchased, I need to figure out which size he purchased though! Haven’t pulled the part numbers yet. Rebuild process was super easy! I’ve never rebuilt calipers before, I assume these are easier than most…

DS caliper is the bad one, will dig into that tomorrow and see what it looks like…

Only got one picture, and only got that because I didn’t have a mirror handy haha! 3/4” bolt heads holding the caliper on. (Or 19mm I guess?)

Rebuilt the driver side front caliper tonight. It’s not great, I suspect it needs to be sleeved if used long term. Pretty crusty, the outer boot doesn’t seem to have done a great job of keeping moisture out on the one side. The other side was more crusty on the inside.
I apparently forgot to get an after pic of that one, it cleaned up like the one below…
Worked on the drums next, passenger side looks good, I got it adjusted and then noticed something missing in the back! I’ve got no rear shocks!
Driver side drum looks good too except that the adjuster is bound up in the fully retracted position, and the head is stripped. That’ll be fun to sort.
Doing all this work is accomplishing what it needs to, helping me get familiar with this car and figure out the issues I need work as I do the real restoration. As I work on things more I’m getting to the point where I think I’ll only end up driving this a few times before jumping in to the deep end…

Finally back at it for a few days! Went out of town for a week, came back with Covid I think? In the mean time my box of goodies showed up from Black Friday! Did I get a picture? Nope!

I bled in the brakes as best I could by myself, my vacuum bleeder doesn’t work very well with the bb style bleed fittings on the front disks haha. I ended up using a quick clamp turned around for extension to work the brake pedal, worked out okay. Firewall has a lot of flex! Definitely reinforcing that later as part of the restoration.

System was mostly empty, but this is what came out
I think I’ll be replacing the lines as part of the resto as well. Bleh

Pulled the clutch slave cylinder, have it soaking overnight then I’ll clean it up and put in the rebuild kit parts I have.
I got the wheels back on and the car back down on the dolly’s, figured out the nice lug nuts I bought don’t fit in the wheels I have. Well, they fit, the socket doesn’t though. The wheels won’t be sticking around…

Dave Premo and other vendors (?) have a master brake reinforcement part designed to take out all the flex...

Starting to pick things back up after the holidays, I think I'm pretty close to putting the engine/transmission back in the car. Have been tracking down the nuts and bolts to get everything installed... I need to track down the hardware to install the transmission support bracket, not sure if I have it or if I'm gonna have to purchase it.

I got the dash loosely installed. I think I'm going to skip installing the center console and stuff this round. I don't think any of it is necessary for the car to run. I did discover that the ignition switch I have doesn't seem to have connections that match the wiring harness. The switch has blade terminals, most of the wiring has blades with a hole in them like they want to be screwed on, will post pics tonight...

Now that the dash is in and most of the wiring is connected again I need to investigate the burned out wire I found in the harness. I'm pretty sure it's brake light related so will have to do some hunting for shorts or other fun things.

Gregs672000 wrote: Thu Dec 21, 2023 12:56 pm Dave Premo and other vendors (?) have a master brake reinforcement part designed to take out all the flex...

Yep, depending on the direction my resto-mod build goes I'll either buy one or find another way to reinforce everything... Future me problems haha

The engine is in! It was a tight fit with the exhaust manifold on, didn’t help that the engine hoist I have wasn’t long enough to reach all the way so we had to just push the engine back as we went.
I figured out the ignition wiring and feel silly now. A couple of the wires just had the screw/blade adapters in them still