Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

I figured it would be good to put all of this in one thread for anyone who is interested to follow along and for me to stay organized.

The car I am starting with followed me around and popped up only at inconvenient times until a few months ago when it showed up again and I decided to buy it. It was parked in a field this time and had been there for about a year and a half.
A friend and I put a battery in the car and even in the cold weather it started up fairly easily. But that isn't to say it's a perfect car. It definitely has some issues. I towed the car to my shop and went into "discovery" phase... It takes a bit of time to wrap your head around these projects so I started pulling it apart.
I have a shared shop space with some friends and the key to a space like this is making everything mobile, this way you can work on your project, but you can also put it away so others can work on theirs. So the first order of business was to make the car mobile. So I made a small cart with some nice heavy duty casters so the car wheels freely.
Once done it was time to see what I was really dealing with. I was ready for rust, I just didn't know how much and how bad. I pulled the interior out and found only one very small rust issue in the floor of the passenger footwell, otherwise the car is solid. (Sorry, I don't have a photo of the floor stripped of the sound deadening material)
Next I tackled the dash, I know the dash sucks on this car, but when I took it out I really got a better idea of how bad it was going to be to restore... One of the cars previous owners was not a craftsman... That person tried to fix the dash with bondo, and what appears to be rubber undercoat...when I pulled the dash I started to understand how bad it was.
I will be using this car to teach myself as many skills as I can. Most of my projects are designed around trying to learn how to do whatever is needed to make a part vs buy a part. I'm guessing some new tools, tons of time on the internet researching as well as a pile of YouTube videos are in my future.

Next step in my process was to really find out how much work had been put under this sheen of krylon... So I dug in and found plenty of bondo. The big problem spots I knew about but the amount of bondo on this whole car is actually staggering...
I kept finding more and more, even in areas without and damage under the bondo. It is as though someone just wanted a bigger car, so they bonded the car to the next size up.
I found most of the bad stuff and started working on the front passenger corner. This is the one place the car has had an impact in the past. The fender is a little crinkly under the bondo layer I pulled the fender off and started working it with a hammer and dolly, but I have since pushed that project back a little.

Under the fender is where the main problems are in this car, the passenger side has rust issues, this is why the passenger floor board has that small rust hole, a small impact in the past cracked paint or made a gap letting water have its way.
At first I thought I could get away with rust fix until I saw the depth of the problem and realized how isolated it was!

I started working on the structural post the door hangs from. I made a paper template to begin. Once done I transferred the shape onto steel sheet metal and cut it out.
At the time my only bending tools included a hammer, some clamps and a piece of plywood that I routered different radiuses on so I could form angles that matched some of the slight radiuses on these stamped bends.
I started pulling apart the passenger footwell to see how bad the rust really was.
It was pretty thorough and I burnt out my spot weld bit... So in a moment of impatience I drilled out the rest of my spot welds to get this panel off the car
Once the panel was off it really got a lot easier to see the best ways to fix it. I considered replacing the entire panel but the top part under the dash gets a bit complex and was perfectly solid, so I decided to replace the metal that was bad, even if it isn't perfectly 100% factory style.

My girlfriend came down and made a paper template then cut out some sheet metal to fit. Then we put a couple bends in the sheet metal and ran it through the bead roller to put a factory style flange on the bottom. I also put a flange on the interior pieces to accommodate the sheet metal I didn't cut out of the car, this should give you a better idea of what I'm talking about With the sheet metal all fitted I hit it all with a weldable primer Next up I need to make the small triangular piece for the front then weld it all in place

More to come!

The rocker caps on this car are also shot on the bottom half and I intend to splice in a patch to fix these holes. I am doing my best to keep the budget under control on this restoration so I figured I'd invest in tools rather than parts. I bought a sandbag and mallet from Eastwood. I also bought a vice dolly.
I have never formed metal like this before so I figured I should just try it out. I started making a patch for the rocker and the shape started coming out very nice. However my metal got too short pretty quick, so I'll need to start over soon.

Now that is love dedication and skill!

Outstanding work! Outstanding girlfriend -to jump in and help, that's a dream!!

Thanks guy!

I have been communicating with a few people to try to find some sheet metal to repair the rear quarters of this car and, well, what I have found is either the sheet metal is very expensive, the owner of the sheet metal is flaky or the sheet metal is in worse shape than what I already have. I found a couple different sites that sell handmade panels and I called a few up. In the end I ordered a set of quarters from alfaparts. Robin is the owner and he was very friendly and accommodating. He shipped out both panels for a very reasonable price and even more reasonable shipping. They arrived today and look pretty good. I think any panel like this will take a little fitting and tweaking and these will be no different but man, they will save me a ton of time! I can't wait to start in on this part of the project!

Got a link to the Alfa parts place that has Datsun sheetmetal?

PBJ, do you have the little clamps that old two pieces in position and the correct distance apart for butt welding?

spl310 wrote:Got a link to the Alfa parts place that has Datsun sheetmetal?

Here you go. Robin is a nice guy, he was patient with my questions and even took the time to verify the flare width with me.

http://alfaparts.net/dat1500.html

C.Costine wrote:PBJ, do you have the little clamps that old two pieces in position and the correct distance apart for butt welding?

I don't actually. I typically get everything in place and pop a few spot welds to hold everything in proper alignment then go back and weld little bits at a time so I don't get too much heat in the material.

My understanding is the 1500 panels are not a correct fit for a '68, the flairs for one are too small. I believe there are some other differences, but that is the first that comes to mind.

notoptoy wrote:My understanding is the 1500 panels are not a correct fit for a '68, the flairs for one are too small. I believe there are some other differences, but that is the first that comes to mind.

That is correct! However Robin copied a later model car. When I contacted him I sent him a template of the flare width on my car and he cut it out and verified that his matched. I will take these by the shop later to check them against the car. Worst case I just need to cheat them out a little

Excellent, glad you went in fully aware and it's great that you found a completely new resource!

In the photo, they do appear to be late flares based on the width of the flares and the mounting flange.