Did not really do anything

Took some pictures of the engine in the car, i'm putting the fenders on in these next couple images

Put the fender flares on, i need to repair the driver side fender still, atleast all the body panels line up.

Attached my BRE spoiler

I'm gonna need spacers and lowering springs...

Frame rail and floor replacement part 3 + engine

Duplicolor rubberized coating is shit, do not buy.













However, rubberized liquid roofing tar fixed it.

I left part of it unpainted because it needs a patch welded there (near headlight bucket)

New frame rails are in, the angel iron piece is for strength, the floors needed it badly because i don't have form fitting replacements with the proper strength bends in them.


You probably cant tell, but before i started to apply the tar, i went around every seam with Permatex RTV adhesive sealant

Other side with fiberglass infused roofing tar applied, this stuff comes out of the can like cake frosting, it was actually kind of fun to put on, but you get VERY DIRTY


This stuff will dry rock hard.

Front driver side

Cant really tell here, but i painted the inner frame rails with more tar.

More tar on the inside













This entire process took about 3.5 hours, i was going slow and taking my time.

Put the wheels on it

Love at first sight












I did almost all of this part by myself, since nobody was home.

By odd chance my dad stopped by with one of his old vet friends from the american legion, they needed tent poles.

They helped me maneuver it in place long enough for me to get the bolts in and left.

The hardest part was putting the transmission cross member in, it took me literally 2 hours to get it to line up right, it has rubber bushings with a metal sleeve inside.

The bar is an extremely tight fit inside the trans tunnel so that did not help AT ALL

After many arguments with the jack, and alot of coercing with a hammer i got it in place and bolted together.

Funny part of the day,

Even though the engine has been in my dads garage for a month now, And even after he helped me place the engine on the mounts. For some reason never took a look at the valve cover. "Why the hell are you putting a nissan engine in a datsun"

I nearly died, i had to explain to him that back then nissan didnt want a japanese sounding name for the american public so they chose "datsun" until sales picked up.

It looks like its sitting pretty high up, but the fenders have been cut for fender flares.

Frame rail and floor replacement part 2

Took the wirebrush and made this all shiny and new looking, sprayed it with POR 15, and then Tar'd the shit out of it.

Before pic

Wire Brushed the fuck out of the inner fenders, trying to halt the rust before it gets worse.











Used Duplicolor Rubberized undercoating on them, this shit runs out so fast,  used 1 can per fender with a relatively light coat.

It Covers very well though..









My dad finished up the passenger side welds today, The underside frame rail has not been welded to the floor yet, that should be done tomorrow.









Driver side is about 80% done, still need to finish up under the seat & wire brush the surface rust.










Sorry for the blurry dark picture, a few more rounds of wire brushing + finish welds on the passenger side and we're done

More boring shit

The bolts broke in my headlight buckets, for whatever reason datsun decided to make some kind of a rivet-bolt for the buckets.

Total pain in the ass, i took the buckets to a bench grinder and got the bolts flat with the bucket

Took about 6 different sized drill bits to get the right hole size.

I ordered new bolts from http://www.mmsacc-stainless.com/ The website is hard to navigate, but they have everything you need.

Call up and ask for nancy, they will separate the "bolt kits" into pieces and sell them to you. In my case, instead of paying 115$ for the entire front end kit, and another 60 or so for the engine, I made a list of everything i needed, about 150 bolts in total for my entire front end. Grand total was 35$ shipped.

More drilling, the worst part  is my drill bit was magnetic for some fucking reason, the burrs kept getting stuck to it.

This is the part where i got pissed and skipped about 4 drill bits of progress, right to the finish shot

Got the buckets back together, replaced my headlight rins while i was at it, bolted them all together.

shit done today: Ran the entire engine harness and checked for any missing pieces, unfortunately i am missing 1 sub harness for the BCDD / fuel saver bullshit on the throttle body.

The good news is all it really does is stop fuel from being wasted on deceleration, which in turn means EXHAUST FLAME WHILE SHIFTING

Next part was the clutch master cylinder, why datsun designed it like this is beyond me, HUGE pain in the ass.

Where the pedal attaches to the master cylinder, there is a small bolt and pin. It is nearly impossible to get at because of the design, you have hardly any room to maneuver the bolt & pin into place. The process of putting the pin in took me 20 minutes.

Put the charcoal canister in, put the squirts in, ran the hoses, put the washer bottle &  motor back together, ran the wires for those.

Put replacement fusible links in, i purchased a maxi fuse block to use instead of the links, but i am not going to put it in until i know the car is running well.

Put the grill back on, fenders, lights, hood hinges, and radiator it looks like a car again

Brakes

Took my rear brakes apart today, i was all excited to replace my wheel cylinders, lines, springs, shoes EVERYTHING. But no, rock auto sent me the wrong wheel cylinders.  Anyway here are some pictures

It looked like the previous owner had done the brakes up, they were seized on both sides either form sitting or mechanical failure.

I'm replacing everything because i don't want to die by intersection in the near future.

This was actually really easy to take apart, after looking at the FSM and Haynes manual, the previous owner put the wrong brake springs in.

Check out that rounded off brake line, it sat in penetrating oil for 2 days, was heated up and still would not budge. I removed the entire thing and said "fuck it" i might aswell get new brake lines while im here.

This was another little surprise too, the bleeder nipple was sheered right off (i didnt do this)

good thing i plan on replacing the cylinders in their entirety because if i saw this after everything was put back together i'd lose it.

Aluminum drums Yo' With cooling fins

This one is the better of the too, still dirty with rust particles from the drum. I wet sanded the surface rust off.

Much better


















Took a wire brush to the wheel cylinder mounting point, and all of the shoe contact points. no sense in putting new grease ontop of old shitty corroded grease & rust.

I forgot to take a picture, but i did apply new grease on top of these to keep them from surface rusting

Put the drum back on to protect it from the elements till' my new wheel cylinders come in, i also sealed the previous owners poor weld job with bondo to keep moisture out.

Didn't sand it yet, so it looks like shit right now

Started messing with the engine wiring, this is the hardest part because neither the FSM, Haynes, or wiring diagram give a good clear image as to how this is put back together

The wire at the top coming from the condenser grounds in 1 manual, and loops back to itself in another.






Edit: Brakes are all done now, new cylinders & brake lines came in. I just need to bleed them now.

Frame rail and floor replacement Part 1

Cut out the old frame rails, notice how one of them is substantially shorter, it literally rusted away.

I had to shovel the piles of rust that fell out of this thing

Put the car up on its side with the engine hoist, made getting under it MUCH easier.


Pile o' rust, this is the passenger side only

Took a picture of the passenger side rail getting alligned, the driver side was done, the rust wasn't as bad on that side we cut around the sheet metal.

Passenger side was a different story, it had some fucked up replacement rail job done, so i said fuck it and cut the entire rail and floor out in one piece.







Here is a poor picture, but you get the idea.

The inner and outer metal under the fire wall into the engine bay was rusted right through, worst part is this is where the new frame rails were to be mounted.

Luckily the rust stopped about a 1/2 inch before the frame rails ended, i was able to cut out the old shit and have my dad put new ones in.

Starting to make the patches

Almost done, everything was spot welded down, the metal is so god damn thin that the welding rod is burning right through even on the lowest setting.

For the most part, it was able to be patched, i will be going over this with a wire brush and some hard core epoxy caulk to seal it.

Inside the engine bay was just as bad, here's my dad welding the patch panels here as well.

Almost done











Back to the frame rails,

We put them in and tacked them, the floors aren't that sturdy so we got some angle iron and welded it to the frame, which will be welded to the floor strengthening everything.

More pics











Up front we belt the angle iron up against the chassis and the frame rail, this is about 90% done, it'll be bent flush with the car later (i forgot to take a picture of that)

Called it a day because it was getting a late, welding should be finished tomorrow.