Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

I posted in the intro but now that the car is "home" I wanted to start an official "What the hell did I buy?!! Here goes nothing thread!".

Short and sweet.... picked up a '69 2000 via a facebook group unrelated to roadsters via a good "bird dog" by a good friend (who is also a Datsun Z owner). The poor thing was living under a tarp in a trailer park in a sketchy part of Houston and "needed to go today". The guy who had it had good intentions but no budget, time, etc. So he wisely passed it along vs. letting it rot and turn to dust. Super nice guy through the whole thing. He had bought the car 8-10 months prior from a guy who had it sitting in a garage. A little internet sleuthing and I found the gentleman on facebook and sent him a message hoping to get more information on the car. About the only thing he would tell me is he bought it about 15 years prior from a neighbor. The rest of my questions and subsequent messages went unanswered (so far at least). So that's where it sits.......

Will update the "holy crap what did I buy" in the next post...

1969 Datsun 2000 sports
VIN/SERIAL SRL08016

What I got to start with........ once the transport service dropped it off.

Welcome and good luck with the project. Looks relatively solid and complete. Still a big project!

Very cool! The VW pedal covers are funny.

spl310 wrote:Very cool! The VW pedal covers are funny.

They must be on upside-down.

Looks better than what I started with - lots of potential there.

So the "what did I buy!!!??"...............

First.. the car has been sitting for quite a long time... a LONG time. When it showed up I realized it had been stored for some period of time without spark plugs in the cylinders!!!?? So the engine has basically been open to the elements over the years. Needless to say the original U20 is stuck solid. I have tried soaking it for weeks on end with a mixture of kerosene and ATF and slowly trying to budge the motor to turn over. To no avail. It just won't budge. The only good thing is I came across a VERY VERY cool guy in Chicago who sold me a solid running U20 motor from carb/oil pan along with quite a few other extra bits I will put to good use.

The car has been resprayed at some point. Judging by the paint I would have to guess in the late 70's maybe. The original color appears to have been the pewter brown metallic color. No worries at some point the entire car will get a respray.

Sitting for so long also means it was stored sans any hydraulic fluid in anything... no brake fluid, no clutch fluid. (the reservoirs were wrapped in plastic so I wonder if someone has planned a respray and just never got there) So of course if I have to rebuild/replace all the hydraulics I might as well upgrade. I have something cooking that I haven't seen on a roadster yet. So hopefully they work ok. I'll be replacing all the steel lines with fresh SS lines in metric so that all the new bits will be metric. Upgraded master cyl, clutch master, slave, etc. (Anyone ever run a Wilwood clutch master? It's a Girling copy and looks like it would bolt right in.. and I have a spare).

I came out the other day and one of the tires had given up the ghost so I need to dig up a set of cheapie 14's to throw on the factory wheels so I can push it around as needed. I did pick up a set of Work Ewing III wheels that I'll be refinishing and tossing on. I haven't seen a set of these on a Roadster yet either from my various searches and browsing others projects.

That's where it stands... slow/no progress.. Just figuring out details and ordering up parts. I need to send the gas tank out for a boil/clean as well.

Work Ewing III wheels... The centers will end up being a different color and I will polish out the lips. 15x6.5's.

Looks like a fun project. I like the wheel style. Noticed that there appeared to be no fuel filter, usually after the pump as I recall... You'll want one!