Datsun Roadster Forum-311s.org

After a year an a half of patiently waiting its turn, I finally got started on the restoration of my wife’s 1500 project. SPL310-3-000664 is a very well used 1500 that had the wheels driven off it my many years by a lady in Portland, Oregon.

The car lived for a long time in Idaho and is heavily rusted in the quarter and rocker panels. The wheel openings on the quarter panels had been reworked to eliminate rust once before, and at this point, the entire lower half of the quarter panels on both sides will need to be replaced. The rocker panels are toast as well!



The car has not moved under its own power in many years, the wiring harness is toast, and the hydraulics system is long since dead. This poor 1500 was a forgotten dream.

My wife wanted a 3-seat roadster that she could haul the kids around in, and somehow this one followed me home. After restoring several 1600 and 2000 roadsters, this is a welcome change (even with the rust!)

I am amazed how different these early cars are. The wiper system (cable linkage!) is totally different, and I am curious if they work very well. The heater looks similar to the heaters that they used in the 320 pickups. I am still trying to get that out of the car, but the rest of the body tub is stripped and ready for it's new life. The frame has subtle differences (the front of the frame is 2x as wide as later cars)

Yes, this car will be SR powered; the purists will cringe, but instead of rotting with owners with good intentions, this car will be back on the road with a new heart, and a lot of new sheet metal. The front drum brakes, the dinky rear axle, and the 1500 engine and transmission are also on the market for a dedicated 1500 restorer. We want to make sure that the parts go to a good home!

Like the "Bob" project, I will update as I have time. We are actually building 3 SR powered roadsters at once, so I will update the Bob thread with specific build details until we get a complete database for future engine converters.

The 1500 is a 40th birthday present for my wife, she is 37 now, so I have a couple years to get it done, but after seeing all the body work ahead of me, it looks like I am going to need all of it!



Michael Spreadbury
spriso motorsports

Is that driver the original owner of the 1500?

Can't wait to see this swap. Dan G. had one he was looking at swapping in an SR, but other priorities came up.

BTW: Your wife is going to be thrilled that you publicly annouced her age to the Roadster List

Nice job Mike, I am hoping to be done with my wifes 1500 soon as well, I can't wait to see the mods you will make to this baby!!
Gerardo

It takes 3 to make 1

We often say that it takes three roadsters to make one, and in this case, the number was four…

The original car (in the photographs above) was found to be so rotten that you could throw a cat through it in many places. Severe structural rust that was not discovered until the car was totally torn down plagued the entire tub.





Only the fenders, hood, and trunk lid were salvageable. Not all was lost though, the interior components are all in very good condition, as was the trim, glass, chrome, and strangely, the frame was incredibly clean with no heavy corrosion like the rest of the car.



In the following years, two other parts cars followed it home, but both had been ravaged by Northwest weather and became parts donors to the project. Upon teardown of these cars, I discovered why the 1500s seem so prone to rust—there was no paint on the inside of many of the panels. The quarter panels were raw steel, the a-pillars, the same, not even a hint of primer.

I was at a loss on what to do with the project, my wife really wants a 3-seater, but everything that I could find locally was not a practical project. I was even considering converting a 66 to a 1500 clone with the components from the blue car (I saved all the 1500 specific parts!)

Then while we were building James’s SR20DET beast, Eric Straw found the car that would eventually be the new donor. After lots of investigation to find the owner, this car was purchased to become the new 1500.

Finally, we had a solid foundation to build a car from. I have lots of spares to replace the missing or damaged parts that this car had.

So, what do we have under here?

Like, OMG

....BritBrit's car ????

New 1500

It was a cold, snowy January evening when we finally tracked down the car. Amazingly it was a short drive away, in a town just north of us. The owner no longer lived in the country, but a friend was storing it under a tarp and it was slowly becoming one with nature.

A staggering amount of water came off of the car when we peeled back the tarp, I did not have high expectations considering the condition of the other 1500s we had dragged home. This was one of the first discoveries:



With our petrified friend safely disposed of, we poked our fingers and our flashlights into every corner of the car... it looked good, really good. It had not been on the road for many, many years. I really did not care about the wiring, or the disassembled engine, mouse droppings or cat pee-- what we were after was a clean body, and this was the best one we had found by far. Finally this project had promise! I made arrangements, money changed hands, and the car was soon sitting in my shop.

The following weeks were spent cleaning the body so I could figure out what we really had:









Most of the car was very straight, but like anything this old, there were issues. The passenger side quarter panel had accident damage in the wheel house, and the front leading edge of the hood was damaged (like they all are), but overall, this car was going to save me months of work.

What was interesting was while the body was in very good condition, the frame had extensive rust issues. This car had spent most of its life on a farm in the Willamette Valley and the entire underside was caked in mud, and when that was peeled away, the frame showed heavy pitting in many areas.

Since this car is going to be a hybrid, the mechanical parts were sold off to other 1500 owners, and the body was put onto a body cart so we could start the paint and body work process. The frame from the original blue car (which is in very good condition, and has paperwork!) will be the foundation for this project...

Quarter Panel Fun

The passenger side quarter panel was dented from the stainless body trim down. Upon further inspection, I could see that it had once been replaced from the body seam down at some time in it's life.



This shot shows the factory orange primer on the inside of the quarter panel. 1500s have a diamond tuck style interior panel that is glued to the inner quarter panel over a thick asphalt based sound deadener. It was missing on this side of the car so I decided to poke around a little more and see what I could discover.



The leading edge of the quarter panel was not attached on the underside where it would normally be welded to the rocker panel... it was just kind of laying there. Hmmmm. Not good. I got out my heat gun and started scraping (note the open seam above!)

Up where the quarter panel overlaps the rocker panel was just covered in crumbling body filler:



The B pillar was also showing previous damage:



Down the body seam things started getting alarming. The quarter panel was brazed in just a few places (not spot welded at the seam like the factory would have done!):



Where the quarter panel met the tail light panel was even worse (check out the holes-- wow!):



That was that-- the quarter panel was coming off, at least the section that had been replaced sometime in the cars life-- a good cut off wheel and 5-minutes later:





Now the search for a quarter panel is on!

Ain't cars fun!

Michael

Where the Rust Hides

Other than the quarter panel, things were looking good. Overall, the floors were in good shape, with just a few pin holes that started to show up after the asphalt sound deadener was removed. If you have not had the pleasure of peeling up the 1500 sound deadener, you are in for a real treat. It is probably 3-times as thick as the stuff they used in later cars, and it is still soft and gooey, not hard and brittle like the later stuff they used. The dry ice with a hammer trick won't work on this stuff. You have to knuckle down, hit it with a heat gun and a scraper, and have fun...

Really, things were looking good:



The floor stamping on a 1500 is totally different than the later cars, and they use different reinforcements. After I got all the sound deadener off, I could still see signs of rust coming out of the reinforcements. Since this car was going to be acid dipped, I wanted to get all this stuff out of there so the acid could do it's job.

This reinforcement bar separates where the seats are and the front foot well. Looks ok, other than the rust flakes that would come out when we moved the car around:



Upon cutting it open, it was apparent that was a good idea to pull these before dipping:



Same thing for the floor reinforcement strips below the seats (just like what you see on later roadsters):





As I mentioned earlier, this car had spent most of it's life on a farm and had seen lots of miles on dirt roads. The rocker panels were very thin when we tapped on them-- we knew that these would also need to be replaced when the car was acid dipped. Sure enough, they were full of dirt:





We also removed the factory lead work on the quarter panels and tail light panel before sending out to be dipped as the acid won't touch the lead, and this is a typical spot where you see roadsters bodywork crack (at the corner of the trunk):





More fun!

Michael

Body Before and After Acid Dipping

Front:





Rear:





Driver' Side (I let the kids have at it with their finger paint!):





Passenger Side:





Dash and Floors (note the weird access panel that a PO cut into the transmission tunnel!):





Rear Interior:





Trunk:





Engine Compartment:





Cowl Area:





Kudos to John and his crew at Metalworks in Eugene Oregon (http://www.metaldipping.com), they did a great job on getting this car stripped back to the original steel, now I can tackle the metal work so we can get it to paint and body.

Now the fun can begin!

Michael

The Acid Dipping Process

Metalworks has added photographs of our 1500 project going into the sauce here:

http://www.metaldipping.com/project-sub.php?id=28



Michael

Man......you have me worried. I need to dosome more tear down and inspecting but the corrosion I've found so far is surface and minor.
Still stripping the interior. We are gonna do a frame off.
Will update 'The Brown One' soon.
Great info. We will be following your thread. Thanks.
Jay

Cool stuff, Michael. BTW, I discovered, unfortunately after the motor went in, that the 1500 trans tunnel is smaller than the later cars, pass side, about 10:00 position looking from the front, U20/5 speed bell housing hits the body, about 1 inch more clearance is needed. I didn't see it as the motor went in. Have to get the trans mount in place to be sure, but probably time for the kinetic clearance maker and the leverage multiplier. (BFH and 6 foot bar). I may just cut out a small pocket and reweld, but we'll see. Have to learn how to use the shiny new wire feed welder

Very cool. Is acid dipping preferable to blasting w/ walnut shells, etc? Cheaper/more expensive?

dbrick wrote: Have to learn how to use the shiny new wire feed welder

Pics or it don't exist.

ppeters914 wrote:

dbrick wrote: Have to learn how to use the shiny new wire feed welder

Pics or it don't exist.

$99.00 on clearance at Pep boys
I'm trying it out tonight

those boys better be hella Peppy at that price