Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

I found body filler in the battery area and a patched hole on the inner fender. When I ground the filler out there were sheet metal patches pop riveted and covered with the filler. I have cleaned it down to bare metal and will cut out the degraded section and weld in new metal. My question is, there are four divots on the ledge piece that you can see in the pictures. Do these serve any purpose? I'd like to not try to reproduce these divots if they are not necessary. They are not present on the driver's side, so I am not sure why they are there. Thanks for any advice.

Steve

Do they have anything to do with the right hand drive, version of the car?

I believe those were to accommodate two plastic circular protrusions on the bottom of the factory battery trays to stop them from sliding when in place. Datsun probably made more than one style/size of tray at various times throughout the production run.

Thanks. That makes sense. I will not be using the factory style battery, so I will leave them out and work something different.

I repaired it. I still have some finish work to do, but it is good and solid now.

Here is how I did mine. I think there was a lot more damage done to mine. I used a much smaller footprint battery but still has plenty of cranking power. I think it looks petty good.

Nice Mike. Your work looks very nice for sure! I see that you also had to replace a section of the inner fender. I still had a lot of good metal. I still need to replace a section of the under-side, but right now the rotisserie is in the way. Once I finish the other side's floor & rocker and then the trunk, I will move the body to a cart and take care of the underside of that rail.

Yeah Steve, there was too much corrosion from battery acid and rust, so I decided to try out my spot weld cutter and cut that whole rail out. Then got some sheet metal and took it to a friend that had a brake and bent it into a box and left a lip to weld. Everything was treated with rust preventer and weld through primer.