Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

Decided I would start one of these to document my journey with my Datsun.

I got my first Roadster back in July 2014, but that Roadster took an unexpected turn for the worst and caught fire just after 10 days of owning it (pictures below). Shortly after the tragedy, I was back in the market for another Roadster which I got a few months later in September.

I bought her from a guy in Portland, Oregon that had bought the car from the original owner. He had the car for about 4 months, but decided he wanted to put more time into his other many projects he had in his garage. So I happily took it off his hands.

She's a beautiful 1970 Roadster 1600 . The interior is in fantastic condition with hardly a sign of wear and tear. The exterior could use a little work on the paint, but rust is at a very minimal. At first I was really turned off by the exterior but it has really grown on me, and I'm starting to embrace the "patina" look. I'm not much of a mechanic but the engine seems to run strong. It could use a a little tune up this summer.

Anyways enough blabbering.... here are some pics below.

My first beauty....

In midst of waiting for the fire tuck, i was able to snap this pic.



My current silver bullet.

Nice new ride. Sorry to hear about the first one but it looks like you found a keeper. Same thing happened to my brother and his 68 stroker. He was so bummed out he ended up buying a BMW Z3. A roadster but not as much character as a Datsun. Enjoy the ride.

Steve

The pictures of the burning roadster should make all of you go out and buy a fire extinguisher for your car(s). Did you ever source out the reason for the burn up?

Ross
sports imports

Ross,

My brother had a fire extinguisher but it was not enough to save his car. Pretty sure his fire was carb and fuel related. Burned the front half to a crisp. Fire department even had a hard time putting it out with their hose.

Steve

I'm not sure if a fire extinguisher would have helped in my case either. Within seconds, before even getting out of the car, my hood was melting and bubbling up. I couldn't have opened the hood with my hands in time. You can bet a fire extinguisher was my very first purchase with the new roadster though...


We still aren't sure what caused it. To me it sounded fuel related, I heard a huge flame sound, as if someone started a gas grill. Some say it looked like the battery started the fire.

Here is my brother's roadster turning into a toaster.

Steve

And with all the conversations about having a fire extinguisher handy - that's a sorry sight to see.

My 69 2000 caught fire. Fuel from the carbs, then the fuel line melted through. I was lucky to be driving by a house with a hose right there in the front yard. They thought it was a real sight watching me commandeer their hose to put my poor car fire out.

Ugh watching your roadster on fire is just heartbreaking.

One of the first thing I noticed on the roadster we bought was the carb overflow tubing pointed at the heaters. Used some rubber hose to get the ends away from anything hot.

A few weeks ago I removed the carburetors to figure out where my exhaust leak was coming from. Sure enough I found a good sized hole in the header manifold.


So I took it to a friend and he welded it up for me. It's not the prettiest, but it will get me back on the road sooner.

During the removal of the carburetors I noticed some of the hoses should really be replaced. So I ordered a new heater hose; the long one that goes through the firewall, and I got a new collector gasket for the header.

So in next coming weeks I hope to get everything back together and get it back up and running! Now I just need to know how to put everything back together, as this the first time I've ever worked on a carbureted car.

This is heartbreaking. I couldn't imagine how I'd feel if this happened to mine after all the time I put in getting it back on the road.

What's typically the cause? Carb overflow tube terminating on the exhaust manifold? Seems kind of silly to me.

In my brothers case he had the carb over flows directed away from the exhaust. Kind of a no brainer. When his caught fire it was burning so hot so fast he could not get the hood open to fight the fire. It had to have been a fuel fire to burn that hot. There is nothing else under the hood that could burn that hot. Pretty sure he had an electric fuel pump which may have kept feeding the fire. I have a shut off on mine but that does not mean in the heat of the moment I would remember to shut it off. Some folks put a switch in that kills the electric fuel pump in the event of an accident like a roll over. He is still bummed out about it and wishes he had kept it. Sure it got crushed as I kept looking for it at the local salvage companies. Never came up with anything.

Steve

Interesting timing, I watched those fire video. The next day I started the 1600 for the first time in two weeks. Luckily the the hood was open. As it was idling, I looked in and saw gas leaking from one end of the fuel line that crosses between the carbs. Those video images jumped into my mind as I quickly shut it off. Pretty easy to see how that would not have ended well if the engine was hot and I had been out driving or if the hood had been closed.

The slots on the spiral type hose clamp were distorted and could not be tightened. I put all new lines and fuel injection types clamps on everything.

Well I did it.... I got it back up and running! For my first time working with carburetors, I think it went pretty smoothly.

While I had everything removed, I replaced a few old hoses, insulator blocks and gaskets.



The idle seems pretty high and after using the uni-syn balancing tool it looks like the carbs are a little unbalanced. So that will be my next project... figure out how to balance these dang things.