taking it back from the rust monster....

[lagomorph]

The mazda hit it's limits today, but the datsun is at home. The truck came with a class 3 hitch, brake control, and 7 way plug, and I used every bit of the 115 hp to get it done.
Still have lots to do before I can get back to work on it, have half my shop bay to clean out still. Hopefully after valentines day...

[lagomorph]

Well, the Datsun and the toolbox are at home. I have a huge pile of stuff on top of the car to sell, but I hope to get started on Datsun stuff soon. We're also looking to 'upgrade' by moving, and end up with a detached shop all our own to work out of. We'll see, we're in the very preliminary stages of research.

I will probably start hitting ebay pretty hard next week and get a bunch of stuff listed there, since $>0$, and space to work >0space to work.

[lagomorph]

Not much luck selling things yet. To top it off, we're planning on selling the current house and moving. I'm going to have to put the car into storage until I can get a house, and then save up money to build a workshop. Storage will be about 45 mins - 1 hour away, so I can't work there.
I'm probably a year or two from affording to build my own place. If we find a house with a two car garage, I can move the Datsun there until I can get a shop space built.
Otherwise, I'm probably not going to be doing many updates for quite a while. Maybe I should give up this dream.....

[Gregs672000]

NO NO NO NO, do not give up on the dream! Sometime life throws up some major obstacles to our goals, but NOBODY KNOWS what the future holds, or when everything will align. It can get extremely frustrating when shit happens that is out of our control, but the only thing you CAN control is how you respond to it. Keep the dream, look for opportunities to move the car forward in ways that don't require you to be as hands on doing fabrication (like collecting needed parts, learning about things you don't already know, finding things that need repair or restoration but that can be done in a spare room, wiring, polishing, planning, staying in contact with other Roadster owners who can help, etc).

One thing that a WRITTEN "master plan" that encompasses the entire restoration process can do for you is to help you move a project forward in ways you might otherwise miss. It widens your view. Maybe now will be the time where you restore or collect some of the needed smaller parts so that, when the car is ready for them, all you will have to do is pull them out of storage and install them on the car. I know people who have rebuilt their engines in a spare bedroom (or the kitchen... Probably no wife or roommates though!) for a car that was 2 states away.

I've learned more about life and solving problems from restoring or working on (what were for me) major car projects than I got from all my graduate education in Psychology. Cars can teach flexibility and adaptation to challenges. Sometimes ya gotta flex and adjust to make it up the mountain... Based on the work I've seen you do, I know you know what I'm talking about!

You have done great work so far. Don't let a setback stop your roll! Every day is a new day!

[lagomorph]

thanks for the pep talk, Greg.
It is difficult to keep all my stuff in several locations, that is for sure. I am feeling the pressure of having the car and not being able to make any progress, and also the reality of potentially not having a shop for the next 1 or 2 years makes it tougher. Feels so far out of reach to have my own space to create, and finish projects. We'll see what the house search yields once we get our house sold. Everyone says it will be better on the other side, but the reality is housing prices are making it tough to even get a fixer house within our budget. Then add a year for house projects, and another year or two to build a shop. Ugh.

[Gregs672000]

Are you connected at all with the local group, DROPS? The more doors you knock on the more chance someone will answer. You are quite the fabricator and clearly a hard worker. Perhaps something will align with another local owner that will meet both your needs... I don't know, but like I said, being a Roadster owner is like being part of a (good) family, and you never know how your situation may help solve someone else's dilemma and your own. Seven degrees of separation: if you know 7 people you can pretty much touch nearly every person on the planet. But it doesn't happen without asking, right? .
Good luck, let the local group know what you're looking for and we will keep our eyes and ears open. Ya never know what someone might be able to offer a good Roadster family member... Shop space? Storage? Parts? A house for sale?

[lagomorph]

Great idea. I never ask for help. I always assume the burden of solving problems

[Gregs672000]

Contact Ted Heaton, he is the Godfather of DROPS and a super nice guy...

[lagomorph]

I'll be loading up the roadster, my tools, and all my parts to head to storage next week. Can't find anything that I can put a car in reasonably, so this is the only option unless I want to scrap the project altogether. Free storage for however long I need it, but it's 1.5 hrs away. So, until I can get my own garage, which looks like the possibilities of that are slim with the housing prices in King County, this is the end of the datsun project. I'll be in a studio apartment from april 15 until we find a house, which hopefully won't be the brutal fight to the death the real estate market seems to be right now.

[lagomorph]

got one part in today...the guy I got the body from was looking for a hardtop, and I needed a softtop. He had a great spare frame, and a hardtop was a better option for him in Montana. So we made a trade, and I got a decent frame in need of a little welding. All the pivots were loose enough to move after a touch of grease.


lose a little bit of ability to stack stuff on the car, but the softtop will fit my needs much better once the car is actually roadworthy.

[Gregs672000]

See? Step by step! Bit by bit!

[lagomorph]

Well, the move to storage went without any issues. Towed two cars almost two hours away on two separate days without any major drama. Nice to have the cars back together, but I can't work on them being so far away.
House goes on the market in 3 weeks, lots to do between now and then. At that point, we start looking for a new place, hopefully with a shop or potential for one.

[greydog]

Glad to hear you decided to hang on to the cars and that the move went well. Too bad they're so far off but it sounds like your hands will be full anyway so may not actually cost that much shop time.
New shop? Heck, with your skills, just get a detached two car garage, stretch it out the back another garage length and, at the same time, raise the back section 10' and you'll have all the room you need (ok, maybe not but still, more than most of us).

[Gregs672000]

Yep, we're still pullin for ya!

[lagomorph]

Well, April was a complete nuthouse.
We spent most of the waking hours of the month prepping our house for sale, and it sold for over asking in 4 days. As much awesome as that is, we'll be on the painful side of the transaction once we close and start looking for another home. We will find a house, but it's not going to be soon. Spread a bunch of mint in and around the cars in storage last time I was out there. Not much else to report. Gotta sell the Datsun seats to raise funds for the new skins for the Miata ones. I'll get to that sometime this summer.