1977 datsun 180b estate - In with the DET

[damien4884]

Nov 6, 2012 19:43:58 GMT tonybmw said:

Great job on that rear quarter window rot

why thank you, i've put a shrinker stretcher on my letter to santa now so might even get better repairs coming through after christmas (hopefully won't be doing this car by then though!!!). I've tried the hammer technique and it comes out alright if i have the time, i get quite limited time on it with the little uns and the mrs getting in the way, so should speed things up a bit.

Nov 9, 2012 17:41:05 GMT retrolegends said:

Glad to see you have made some progress, any thoughts on a final colour?

Erm, bright yellow, currently thinking gloss but maybe satin or matt, i'll decide when I buy it ;D

[retrolegends]

Nov 9, 2012 17:41:05 GMT retrolegends said:

Glad to see you have made some progress, any thoughts on a final colour?

Erm, bright yellow, currently thinking gloss but maybe satin or matt, i'll decide when I buy it ;D

Winging it eh? Like your style! ;D

[remmoc]

My dad had a saloon one of these in blue , DYA 845T I think , fantastic looking car which unfortunately dissolved before our eyes , it seemed to be water soluble .
Top work for saving what is now a rare car.

[damien4884]

So i finished off the sill repairs (pictures to follow)

Then felt quite cold so decided to lock myself away in the garage with a door and a heater.

Some of the grot




There is a similar rusty patch at other end of door skin but the rest of the frame looks good. I've got a local fabricators doing some L shapes to repair the skins (i could fold this up myself if i could find something long enough to bend it over) so my main focus is on the frame repairs until next week when they get round to doing them.

I started off by grinding through outer edge of door along where the skin will be replaced so i could cut out the frame and leave skin behind to work to.



Bit of cardboard to get the bends in the right place



Transferred to steel, you'll notice the semi circle is missing as first one i tried to do it but i just couldn't make it work right so i've left it out and plan to fit a rubber buffer to make the interior light switch work.



Then i clamped it to the table with a bit of 3mm flat along the outermost edge and tapped the inner line down with a smoothed off chisel, to make the recess, offered it back up, few tweaks and tacked it in place. Then cut out the curved edge (as seen in photo above) and made a bit to go in there and welded it all up, nearly ready for outer skin!

[grifterkid]

Brilliant work...!!! Keep it up sir...

[damien4884]

Time for an update, got some paint going on now. I'm getting pretty bored of doing work on it leaving it for 3 weeks whilst I earn next lot of cash to do more on it and coming back to rust coming through the primer




Bit cramped though, but moving forward


Just doing a couple of quick coats for now, then i can do all over it once its all together and i've got somewhere dry to do it.

[freddies]

Is that out the gun sort of finish? if so what paint are you using? 2pack?

Really like this project, have a soft spot for any old datsun and its nice to see one being done properly.

[damien4884]

Jan 5, 2013 22:11:10 GMT freddies said:

Is that out the gun sort of finish? if so what paint are you using? 2pack?

Really like this project, have a soft spot for any old datsun and its nice to see one being done properly.

Thats straight out of the gun, with a bit more practice its got better, been quite a while since i've sprayed anything. I'm using rustoleum thinned with cellulose thinners so it goes off quicker, mainly because its what i had to hand. I wouldn't use 2 pack anywhere but in a booth TBH. the door thats hidden away at back goes straight into the utility room and the smell goes into the house so i have to do it when the mrs is out as it is.

Hopefully it will all be worth it when done

[damien4884]

Well its been a while!

So lets get up to speed on the happenings as it should be moving along a fair bit over the next couple of weeks.

I've bought a ca18det package to go in

I also bought a pair of s12 front struts and am in the process of making them fit.

More bodywork to do!

Pictures to go with the progress soon!

[damien4884]

I had a delivery today!!!



Already had the struts apart ready for the sleeves to slide on, got on with it and before I knew what happened



Which doesn't look that low until you look back at this:

[Deleted]

spot on!

[retroturbo]

Great to see this back. My favourite build thread and I'm not even a big Datsun fan!

[damien4884]

Had a play about with this the other day, i'm planning on dropping a CA18DET into it at some point so once i've got it here i'll be making up the mounts, so might as well sort out the engine bay whilst its empty. Having tried removing the ziebart stuff before its a good idea to do a bit then come back to it as its a pretty boring job so did a bit of prep and stonechip



This will be left for a couple of weeks now whilst i sort out the s12 and welcome another child into the world

[projectquartz]

What a fantastic thread, great welding skills! Congratulations when the baby arrives:-)

Charlie.

[retrolegends]

And are you going to RR13?

[damien4884]

It was supposed to be going last year but turned into a lot of work to do it right as it deserves, hopefully will be there this year though

[stealthstylz]

Looks great this.

[xbo11ox]

great work CONTINUOUSLY being done in this thread. More power to you!

[damien4884]

So I had a bit of a road trip in the voyager last weekend and managed to fill it up with engines and gearboxes. I still had another gearbox and a few boxes of bits to fit in after this lot



One of them is destined for the wagon and the other is not mine but will be being fitted into a saloon version of the wagon.

So out with the old



And trial fit the new



All fell into place nicely. So next job is make 2 lots of brackets to fit an alloy s13 rad in the front for the wagon and mates saloon, try and work out how to hide and intercooler and get the pipe work through past the rad. This should be fun:





Then pull the engine back out and go fit it in the saloon, then rebuild the other one to go into the wagon at a later date.

[DWDarkWheels]

I've just been through the whole thread. Nice origami skills