Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

For as long as I can remember my dad has talked about his 1600 and 2000 roadsters... He had them when he was in his early 20's and loved those cars. Even today, if you mention the topic of "cars" he will bring up his roadsters.

I have always had an eye open, maybe one day I'd cross paths with a roadster that was the right price and right time... Well a couple years ago I crossed paths with a car that was the right price, but the timing wasn't right... Fortunately that car waited for me and I drove it home. Granted it had rust, it had a crappy interior and it had some other issues, but overall the important stuff was all solid.

I put a battery in it, fired it up and drove it out of a field. Once back at the shop I had a few days of discovery with the car and found most of its weaknesses. Now I have started working on the worst corner, passenger front, this corner has the most issues because of an accident at some point in its history, of course, liberal amounts of bondo were used in its repair, but minimal attention to the surfaces underneath were given so it cracked the paint and rusted out the outside wall of the passenger footwell. I am nearly done replacing this metal and ready to move onto the rocker panel.

You can see rust issues in both quarters and interesting repair work there as well. New quarters are coming from alfaparts.com and I have been teaching myself how to shape metal with hammer and dolly in order to make more parts and pieces to fix this car.

This isn't my first rodeo, I've built race cars in the past, a 1970 vw bug to race the baja 1000, a Mitsubishi evo to race pikes peak and a BMW 318ti to race rallyx. This car is teaching me a lot and I'm looking forward to getting to drive it more.

Welcome! That car is lucky to have found you. We look forward to watching your build/restoration! Let us know where you're located and if you like we can introduce you to some local owners. This is a great bunch of people here who welcome new members to the family, always ready to help.

Gregs672000 wrote:Welcome! That car is lucky to have found you. We look forward to watching your build/restoration! Let us know where you're located and if you like we can introduce you to some local owners. This is a great bunch of people here who welcome new members to the family, always ready to help.

Thanks Greg! I'm in Colorado and I have been fortunate to find a few great parts cars so far, but Most of them have similar issues. So I'm collecting parts that are too good a deal to pass up.

I'm fighting with myself on the depths of this restoration. This passenger footwell is a good example. It would be a whole extra can of worms to replace the entire panel so I replaced only the rusty parts

Welcome and looking forward to following your build. You have done some amazing work already.

Very nice metal work. Glad to see you arent just filling it with cardboard and gorilla hair!
Pounding out an extra pair of rocker end caps may just pay for your material costs.

pebbles wrote:Very nice metal work. Glad to see you arent just filling it with cardboard and gorilla hair!
Pounding out an extra pair of rocker end caps may just pay for your material costs.

One of the previous owners filled the rockers with spray foam, so I had a little adventure getting all of that out of the car. I'm thinking about buying an English wheel soon to try that out

An English wheel, wow, either you have mad skills, or are very adventurous - go for it!!

notoptoy wrote:An English wheel, wow, either you have mad skills, or are very adventurous - go for it!!

I have never used one, actually I never used the mallet and sandbag technique either before I started working on the rocker. I like using these projects to teach me new skills!

Project Binky has some similar fab work. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHvBHW ... U5tIiEZHBg

Welcome PBJ. Great site for great help and knowledge. Keep us posted!!!

Welcome! You look like you are a talented metal worker. How do you form the tighter rounded pieces? Do you make wood forms and shape the metal around that or just with the mallet and sandbag, or something else?

ed B wrote:Welcome! You look like you are a talented metal worker. How do you form the tighter rounded pieces? Do you make wood forms and shape the metal around that or just with the mallet and sandbag, or something else?

Thanks Ed,
I am really just learning. I watched some videos that provided tips and basically just started hammering away with a mallet and sandbag. First I made a template of the perimeter and traced it and just hammered inside the lines, once I got enough depth I used the vice dolly to smooth out the hammer marks. I kept going back and forth until I got to this point. It has a long way to go, but I can see the possibilities now. Eastwood had an inexpensive mallet and sandbag kit so I thought I'd give it a try

PBJ wrote:

ed B wrote:Welcome! You look like you are a talented metal worker. How do you form the tighter rounded pieces? Do you make wood forms and shape the metal around that or just with the mallet and sandbag, or something else?

Thanks Ed,
I am really just learning. I watched some videos that provided tips and basically just started hammering away with a mallet and sandbag. First I made a template of the perimeter and traced it and just hammered inside the lines, once I got enough depth I used the vice dolly to smooth out the hammer marks. I kept going back and forth until I got to this point. It has a long way to go, but I can see the possibilities now. Eastwood had an inexpensive mallet and sandbag kit so I thought I'd give it a try

Thanks for the info! I may pick up a kit that you noted above. I have some areas that need to be repaired/replaced and I'd like to try and learn to do it myself. What thickness metal are you using?

I am using 18g for the structural stuff, I think the car is actually 20g though but I had 18g already so that's what I'm using!

Look at a nice vice dolly too, this is what I have now

Wow, very nice,thanks!