Weldments...FINALLY!

Finally procured the services of a local and accessible welder to add additional bars to the doors and to the underdash area. Also, a buddy CNC'd a quick release adapter for the steering wheel...very nice fitment.

With the bars in place, it's now time to Paint.

On a related note, I finally got something I always wanted; an epoxy coated floor. No more stains and messes to clutter things. It took getting a new house and having nothing in it, but I took advnatage of the empty pallet to get 'er done!

Will post car pix after piant!

Fender Flare

After installing the Superlites, I see that I will have to learn how work sheet metal. The back tires are so close to the inside of the fender, that they will rub with any load in the car (or in turns). I first noticed it when moving the car back into the garage. There's a slope to our drive forcing me to really lean into the roll bar to push it back uphill. The tires rubbed off some old glag that was left adhered to the inside of the fender. I just thought it was underbody coating...

Paint Scheme in Yeller

Color has been decided and here's a Photoshopped preview of the goal. Tasty!

Lift Installed

Got the 4-post lift installed this past weekend and finished the hydraulics on Thursday. Bought it on line for $1550 delivered, including jack tray, castors and 3 drip trays. Had it delivered to work, the boys unloaded with a forklift and reloaded into my 16' car trailer. 1600 pounds, and 14'x2'x2'. it was a brute of a package.

Got it home and spent 2 hours maneuvering pieces out one-by-one. When they say you need an overhead crane or a few friends, they were right. But, I did it all myself using engineering prowess with a table jack, dolly, and floor jack. The impact driver made quick work of the countless 24mm bolts holding the parts together. The drive-on platforms were by far the heaviest. But, I did manage it myself and lived to tell about it. Here's some pics of the 3 girls in their 2-car garage. And, I still have the 16x35ft woodworking workshop full of auto parts. Hmmmm...gotta solve that one soon. Bye for now, gott go do more bondo as it is sunny!!!!

Primer / New Race Shoes / Task List

Interior of the car is now primed. I also included the trunk area, engine side of firewall, roll cage, and the inside of the doors/trunk/hood.





I've reassembled the body panels so as to better fair out the pending fillers in the surface dents/holes. I hope to get to that this weekend.


Priming was my first use of a HVLP sprayer and 2-part (3 actually) primer from House of Kolor. It was important to wear a special paint respirator due to the high VOC that makes the epoxy primer work. The respirator has to be replaced after 40 hours of exposure to the atmosphere, so it gets rebagged right after spraying. And never, ever spray in the garage near the furnace/water heater unless you want to experience the highly explosive nature of VOCs. I took advantage of rare early spring sunny days in Oregon to paint outside (in the front yard no less). Fortunately, the breeze gods were with me as my neighbor did not complain of grey specs on his black truck afterward.

Since the car was media blasted a few weeks ago, I had to do a good scrubbing with a box worth of Scotch Brite pads and "wash" every inch, panel by panel with Metal Ready metal prep. Then quickly neutralize with water, and dry it as fast as possible. It's basically Phosphoric acid that reacts with the steel/rust leaving behind a nice Zinc coating that prohibits rust on bare panels. My shoulders are getting a good work-out, which will help during the long races later.

Then, before painting, every spot must we wiped down with a clean rag soaked in special solvent to remove any fingerprint oils (and everything else).

Then comes the mixing of the spendy primer. Its a 4:1:1 system, so I mix 4 parts primer base with 1 part reducer and 1 part catalyst. Then into the sprayer and move quickly to set the gun adjustments to spray well. It's a balance or air-pressure, air volume, paint volume, and paint pattern. Get all this right and it looks fantastic. Get it wrong...well, call Sunkist cause you've got a big orange peel mess.
The new shoes showed up. there has been great debate on the forums about PanaSports vs. Superlights. I now have both, lucky me !!!! Panas have Advan 032 race tires and the Supers have Hankook Ventus race tires. This could be fun later.

Panasports

Superlights fitted in place.

Ah, but first I had to do the typical Datsun hub modification to remove the extra lip left on the hub turning. A tad bit-o-grindage and all is fitting nicely (lug-centric fit). No loss in strength. Nitrile gloves did well in protecting the bearings from swarf. Datsun has a huge front hub diameter.

Drive out the lugs to get access.

Arrows show lip to remove

Lip gone and rims could then be fit.

So, next steps are:

1.Bondo

2. Sand

3. Sand

4. Sand

5. Weld in remaining roll cage bars for door/dash

6. Clean and Prep

7. Primer/Filler coats

8. Sand

9. Clean and Prep

10. Paint- layers 1, 2 , and 3.

11. Wet Sand

12. Clearcoat- layers 1, 2, and 3.

13. Re-assemble panels

14. Wet sand

15. Pollish paint

16. Weld up custom exhaust

17. Rewire electronics

18. Install everything

19. Fit seats

20. Shoot self for not kistening to wife

21. Doesn't matter from here on out....

And I want to race when????

Color Possibility

Thanks to some friendly help from "Shifty" in beautiful Hood River Oregon. (a top, must see small city in the US).

He colorized a 311 Roadster to look just as I imagined. Well done!!!

Stripped!!!

The Roadster has been stripped of her old and patchy 3-color paint. Plastic media was used to remove the paint (sandblast style).

Some residual red areas are left. This is the original primer that has a good stick. No reason to really get all of it off. Will just primer over it.


Here are pics of the body and panels before paint. We actually got a sunny day here in Oregon. On a Saturday no less!!!! And I'm taking advantage of it!!!

Looks kinda small in that big trailer.....Got plenty of head room for the victory parties inside!But, it fits.Here are the panels...YARD SALE ! Doors look like they will need the most body work. Hood isn't too bad. Just need to fill the DATSUN logo holes.

Dang, rust through holes, but not rusty. My guess is this driver's front quarter got hit and somewhat rebuilt. Fuel cell box is the nicest thing on this car now.
Inside now, warm and dry...well, as dry as can be in Oregon.




This is interesting if your monitor is good. In the following shotthere are three types of fillers used. going clockwise from 9 o'clock, there's bondo between the panels. This was from PO. Shiney silver is factory lead fill. Blue is #2 PO bondo work. I think I'll sand it and make a #4 offering.

This tunnel shot makes me think the car has taken a hard hit in its previous life. Hard to tell if it was racing or not. The body and frame numbers don't match.

DISASSEMBLE JOHNNY 5 !!!!

Totally taking the engine apart to both learn it and make sure it is good to go for thrashing about the tracks. Found out that is NOT good to go, so it was very good I went through this exercise.

Although the Aluminum head is in great shape (just needs some passage cleaning), I will take out the valves to make sure the seats are good. I'll check the spring rates at work while they are out.

Unfortunately, 3 very bad things have been discovered in my work.

First, this #$$^!@# crank end bolt will not come off...yet. I broke a socket and a crescent wrench trying. Off to Sears for another 28mm socket. Tomorrow I'll put the torch to it and see if it'll help release. Maybe I won't tell them about hammering on it?!?

Next, I discovered 2 cam lobes pitted. Severely pitted. This, to my unexperienced eye, screams engine death if worked hard in a race. It's gotta come out, but @&$^$^ bolt has to budge first. I'm now ondering wha tthe hell caused such carnage. No bits were found in the draining stage. Perhaps more experienced folks will chime in.

3-Main looks OK from this point.....

And then it appeared....

In 2 places....

So next task is to get out the Crank-end bolt and remove the timing chain/cam.

Some other pics of the process. Clutch/Flywheel

Couldn't tell what these bits are sticking out from the block near the "A". But they helped the oil pan seal leak.
I'm thinking that these will be "before" shots for the pending paint job.