SSSEXXX

For those of you who didn't catch James' body and paint thread on Project Miracle Whip, you really owe it to yourself to see how far he took this project. I reviewed it again tonight and was truly astonished at what he was able to do. I can't speak highly enough about his quality of work, professionalism and unmatched expertise with the Datsun. Some things are truly worth the wait. You can read about that here: http://community.ratsun.net/topic/66790-chris-68-4-door-bluh-bluh-bluh-datsun/ So where is she now and what has happened? James' recommended and linked me up with Todd from Todd's Upholstery in Oregon. A recommendation from James has not disappointed me yet. I am still deciding on interior details, but wanted to get the headliner installed and moving. Todd consulted with me and we elected to go with a black suede headliner, sun visors and rear panel deck. Check it out:

Chris is a member, I just go by a perverted name! I can't thank you enough James!! I promise that she will get the same love and care with only the finest assembly.

Guess who is baaaaaaaaaaaack! What's new with Project Miracle Whip is that she is up north in Oregon, complements of James. Headliner installation before coming back home next weekend. Novermbet 12th is going to be a good day.

New body work update from James. Floors are clean and ready to be blasted.

Rear suspension hardware is en route back home after plating. Weeeeeeeeeee fun!

@bababooey - Thank you sir! @Shagy - Long time. Thanks buddy. @mrbigtanker - No kidding. The right tools can make or literally break your experience. Still waiting on parts to come back for the rear suspension. I suppose I could move on to the front suspension while I wait, but I was hoping to have this serve as my initial test run to make sure I learned how to do things right the first time. If I screw anything up, it would only be on one section at a time. Meanwhile... James has started undoing some of the damage on Project Miracle Whip... Most of the mangled front off.... All of the mangled front off. Yay!!!!!!

Love the build man. I have learned a lot from you and will be, hopefully, doing a lot of the same engine work myself soon too. The work you have done intimidates me though. I'm so technically behind you that taking it all in seems overwhelming. One thing that I can't believe is that no one has found a fuel cell that mounts in the stock location as of yet. Keep the updated coming buddy!!

Small update. Been doing a lot of researching on metal plating and machine shops in my area. Also trying to figure out the right direction to take everything so that there isn't too much unnecessary waiting. So hardware is off to platers and should be back in two to three weeks. The rear crossmember, rear control arms and adjustable rear brackets go off to the machine shop tomorrow. I'm going to plan on having them welded on the FutoFab brackets and open the exhaust hole to accept a 3" tube. Other the that, I may or may not have my rear hubs machined down to accept the Sentra GTR rotors. So with the down time tonight I finally got my 20 ton shop press put together. It trips me out to think I started this project with a tool kit from ikea in a detached garage. Luxuries like a tv, radio, heat, good lightening, proper tools, a proper work bench and lots of space make this so much more enjoyable. I am not totally confident in my abilities, but I know that I am capable of knowing when to go slow, read, stop and find a way to do the right thing. Sometimes it is costly. Sometimes it is lengthy, but it will get done.

So, let me tell you first and foremost that a vibratory tumbler is a clean freak with OCD's best friend. I love this damn thing. It was all about cleaning this weekend. Getting parts ready to be sent out and off to plating, welding, etc. Once out, I'll have time to research bearing installation, put together my new 20-ton press and start researching the front suspension. Most of the front will not be used anyway since I have the Datsport SR20 retrofit kit. So I hope, and hope is the key word, that it will be an easier workload. The rear end has had a brutal learning curve to it. Shall we jump back in to it? First off it was time to lightly wash down the rear crossmember and control arms. These dirty bastards had been leaving trails where ever I left them. If I had to work on them, there was a large debris field of nasty dirt and grime in about a 5 foot radius around my work station. Enough was enough! I just wanted these things clean enough to move around and put in my car to take to the machine shop. I wil have them media blasted at some point and then powdercoated once the weld work has been completed. I need to match these to the Datsport kit finish, so I am going to do mostly note taking tonight. So after a good blue pad scrub with some Simple Green and a light towel dry, this is what I was left with.... Then it was time to address the hardware. This may be a stupid rookie question, but I can totally cadmium or yellow-zinc coat all this right? I want to coat the rear of the stub axels too if that won't mess with the whole tongue and groove thing. Otherwise I'll just give the exterior a thin coat of flat black. Anyone have any input here?? In to the vibratory tumbler it went. After reading the instructions three times, I put my odds of screwing this up at approximately 40%. The best odds I've had so far.... Then it was time to do what all those informercials tell you to do all the time. "Set it and forget it!" So, I flipped the switch and went and marinated some chicken. Those of you experienced car restoration guys may say "why the hell aren't you working on some of the many other parts of the car you will have to restore?" To you I say, I'm a moron, if I add more parts to this picture I'm going to forget where everything goes. There, I said it.... I took a look inside at around the two hour mark. To my surprise, it was actually working. I did spring a leak at one point, but that was quickly fixed with a tighter bolt down. I didn't polish anything. I have another solution for that which goes with the glass media as well as another media type that does the fine work. But, I didn't know if I should bother polishing this all up if I'm going to take it and drop it all off for a nice gold plated look. Again, I ask you all for your experience and opinions here. Help me boys and girls!! I know nothing and research on this had led me to a ton of silly opinions about .0002 nano-micro-meter-degrees and all sorts of other way too technical nonsense. I'm more of a thumbs up or thumbs down kind of guy.... These things came out great. Inspect away..... please note, I intentionally did not show you guys the one I made look horrible in my whole cutting the rear stub axel conundrum. Oops. Anyway, hoping to get this plated too. Thats right, overkill... Thumbs up? Then I snapped an nice artistic shot. Thats right kids, I'm creative like that..... So, if you can't tell already, big dog needs some opinions regarding plating. Fire when ready....

Well kids, Saturday night and I could be out chasing bottle rats and finding myself a nice wife (for the night), but instead I'm in the garage working on a near 50 year-old piece of history. Somehow I feel like this time is more rewarding and tangible. But, I digress... Shall I remind you of the sorry state I last left you in??? Boom.... 8 dremel cutting blades later, I finally have a notable appearance of progress. I just turned on some good music and slowly worked my way through my misery. I did have a problem with the blade jumping around and hitting the wall of the rear axel stub connector walls. More on that later... A closer view because it took me hours to get here.... Ah the joy that this little nub of shredded metal brought to me was monumental. I felt redeemed, slightly, for the massive screw up that put me here... About thirty minutes later this was the glorious end to this small battle. It took 12 dremel blades, vise grips, a hammer, a metal punch, and so damn much time. But, it was time to clean up, test fit and evaluate what needs to be plated and what is trash.... Shortly after my glorious moment I had to face the reality that I may have done some damage. I am pretty sure that this is innocuous and won't make a difference, but I'll let someone with more experience tell me. And, I know it will not be visible at all once connected... Another angle... The worst of the fallout damage... And the completely broken down shot. Yay!!! Now I just need my press to arrive so I can remove the bushings. But, I am going to wait to have the adjustable rear camber bracket welded on before I remove them. What I need to know is what hardware I can get rid of and what needs to be coated and plated. I am assuming that the drum back plate and rubber stop can go. Everything else should stay right?? Do I need the brake line clips if I'm going braided lines??? Then it was time for some motivation. I started test fitting brackets.... Another angle... As sexy as it was, the moment was short lived. I have the same sized rotors for the front and rear. I had the front hubs machined to accept these rotors, but thought the rears would fit without any work. Apparently I was wrong. I may have to have my new rear stub axels machined down a slight bit now too. I'm also glad I picked up the longer ARP studs. That is going to be a nice safety precaution. Can I just lay a thin coat of flat black paint over the stub axels to make them look a little more clean? Overkill, but want them as fresh as possible. Also, need powder coating color options. Was going to go black, but may go a metallic gun metal grey...

Now that I have my replacement parts in my hands, it was time to tackle the control arm that I could not remove the stub axel from. I had already damaged one stub axel and knew that this one was not going to come off. So, with the confidence of having these bad boys in, I went back at what has been my most frustrating and epic fail to date. But, lets just call it a learning "experience..." So, after setting up my most leveraged position using my trusty breaker bar, a chain, and a vise I had zero luck. I had already used a dremel and removed the entire upper rim of the nut holding the stub axel on. Yet, this thing showed absolutely no sign of moving. I think whoever may have put it on last may have damaged the threading because it seemed seized. Accepting my fortune for what it was, I knew this would be a long stressful and aggravating exercise. But, since I consider this my first epic fail in the mechanic world, I turned on some good music and went to town on the thing with my dremel... Sparks were flying and it wasn't the romance kind. My back was hurting and I was already starting to get pretty irritated. So, I did myself a favor and set a two hour time limit on my work. If I could get the thing off in two hours, great! If I couldn't, I would try again the next evening. I suppose it is a good thing I had stocked up on cutting bits for my dremel because I did not have any luck. I removed a hefty chunk of the stub axel and the peened nut, but still have a lot to go. Valuable lesson here to be learned kids. Take your time and read. If something seems unusually difficult, read some more. I made the mistake of not stopping and reading when I should have and am now a bit embarrassed by my own stupidity. This is where I left off. This one is going to take a while.... At the end of the day, I will use this stub axel to practice removing the wheel studs from when my aforementioned 20-ton shop press arrives. At least I cant learn and avoiding doing any more damage to my replacement stub axels. I'm still learning....

@DISLEXICDIME - Hey buddy! Been a long time. I'm not opposed to the idea of a cordless impact wrench, but I just thought that at some point I would buy a media blasting cabinet too and clean my own parts before sending them to powder coat or replating. So using an air compressor just seemed to make sense. I'm a firm believer, especially after what happened with that body shop, that no one takes care of your things better than you would.

@Trophy24 - Thank you for the insight. I may very well have to do that too. I never, ever want to have to do this again. Talk about a nightmare.... I spent the evening last night researching and reading about the proper way to remove the rear wheel bearings and trying to figure out how to best tackle it. I read about using a puller that I would have to rent and then came accross a few DIYers who had posted a few alternatives. Then I wandered off to reading about wheel stud replacement and a few different related topics regarding disassembly and reassembly of the rear suspension. It was when I got to the an article related to bushings that I realized that almost all of these articles spoke about "if you don't have a press, you can do it this way..." So naturally, I thought, well if I am rebuilding a car from the ground up and I have more than a few things I will be doing, I might as well consider buying one. I don't like Harbor Freight that much, but they had a great coupon on a 20-ton press that is their newest and more improved model. For about $150 + shipping, I hope that my project will be a little less stressful. I figure I can use it on wheel bearings on all four corners, removing bushings on my own, and replacing all the wheel studs with my longer ARP ones. That has to be worth it alone right? Also, I am now looking at air compressors and using a 1/2" air impact wrench when applicable. All this by hand nonsense has been a waste. By now, I think it is fair enough to say that I have evolved my skills beyond using my socket wrenches and a breaker bar. LOL, I still remember how mechanically inclined I felt when i learned about breaker bars. Looking back on it, I had absolutely no business jumping in to this project. Thank God I have always been a safety first kind of guy. Boots, gloves, safe clothing, glasses, masks at all times. Once I get the rest of the rear end all broken down, I will take the rear cross member and control arms to the machine shop to have the adjustable brackets welded on. Then I will send the whole thing off to powder coat. At the same time, I will finally get to use my vibratory tumbler on the small pieces before I send them off for plating. Anyone have any tips and suggestions?

@Noahf - I appreciate the very colorful and warm interpretaion on my saga. This has definitely not been an easy journey and there have been a vast ocean of emotional ups and downs. I have to constantly remind myself that mistakes are okay and that I started this to learn and not because I wanted to save money. I have been tempted at times to head in different directions. Pay someone to put the engine together. Have James send my car to a local bodyshop to get the body done sooner. But, at the end of the day, like you alluded to, this is a saga and one that needs to be defeated. The cost does not weigh on me anywhere as heavily as the unresolved conflict of finishing a goal I know is achievable. There were so many separate pieces of the puzzle that I had to source, study, and complete. It was nice to have a dairy here of sorts to share with people like yourself. I hope it is beneficial. Ironically, I walk around meets all the time and people have no clue who I am. So very few of you have met me and I have no friends in the car / tuner world. I am on an island of sorts, so I sincerely do appreciate the feedback here and comments like these. Thank you!

This might be a dumb question, but I have the nuts for the replacement rear stub / hub axels and they don't exactly spin on to the threads very easily. There feels like a slight amount of resistence. I don't want to force them on, but when I actually bolt them down I don't want to have an issue. Are they supposed to be unusually tight?? Also I want to clean them up. I know that powdercoating is to thick of a coating to work, but is plating an option? If not, I will just spray paint the parts a matte black. Anyone have any good recomendations on tutorials for getting the old studs out and getting my new, longer ARP studs in?

@DottiBlue - James said he is shooting for December. He warned me early on that I had to be patient with his schedule and he did me a favor by taking this project on. But, I hope it have the entire suspension ready to bolt in by then. Have the engine back together and then finish the transmission rebuild. Then I can use whatever time will be left to work my magic on interior pieces before it is time to put her back together. I just can't wait to get out of the dirty, rusty phase. I am nervous putting things back together. I am always learning. For example, it is hard for me to know what pieces I need and what I don't for my disk brake conversion. Obviously the drums are out, but the backing plates? OEM brakes line clips?

Admittedly, I have wandered off the proverbial Datsun path and have not been doing what I need to do. We all have lives and sometimes we need to walk away from our hobbies, recharge, and get back to them. I went to Eagle Rock this weekend to link up with James about the timeline of my project. In trolling around and looking at some of the Dattos, I remembered how much effort and time I had already invested in my own project. I immediately came home, pulled out the rear subframe and decided it was time I finally got those rear stub axels out. When I last left off, the "peened" nut on one of the two sides apeared to have been damaged and was locked around the threaded spine. So, assuming I would be rusty, I went to work on the side that did not appear to have a problem... I started by grinding off the two flat portions of the nut. You have to be careful not to damage the thread. I know that my other side is already damaged, so I looked at this as a good exercise in practice, but fully anticipated having to buy another one or possibly two of these... I used a dremel and went super SLOW.... By the way, does anyone else feel like a dentist when the use a dremel??? Then I used a breaker bar, a socket wrench and some good old fashion muscle to unscrew the nut. It went surprisingly easy, but shocker I damaged the threaded spine.... A look down at the conquered control arm..... And finally, the removed rear stub / hub axels. Will have to buy two more of these bad boys since they are both now damaged. Can't play around with a piece that isn't perfect and put down a lot of horsepower.... So, what did we learn kids? You don't need a press to do this, but your life would be a whole hell of a lot easier with one. You will need a bearing puller if you do not want to damage anything. I have heard of people using a pipe and a hammer, but experience has taught me that hammers almost always cause more damage than they are worth. Finally, I learned that the rear stub / hub axels are not cheap and will cost me about $100 a side. It felt good to get back in to the swing of things though and I have committed to at least working one night a week or more, every week. Which means everyone will be getting updates again. I did try and attempt the other side, but that was an epic fail. I am going to have to cut the whole nut off or something. Talk about a nightmare......

@Wesglock - Coming soon!!! Been so busy lately, but I am back at it. @Acheron - Welcome to Ratsun Matt! There is so much to learn and see here. I appreciate you reading through this thread, it has literally been years in the making at this point. It is funny to think where my mechanical skills started and where they are today. Read, research and learn as much as possible before making decisions and even then, sometimes you will make a wrong one. The best laid plans of mice and men. I have begun to recover from the damage of the bodyshop I was at, but a $10k hit is hard to take all on its own. Combine that with not having my car for so long and the year that I wasted in the process and it can be discouraging. It is no secret that the body of Project Miracle whip is with James "the510keeper." He told me that I will have to be patient and wait some time, but trust is priceless and I trust him to do a great job. Good thing I don't have a wife, I would have probably had my ass handed to me by now for chasing the seemingly impossible. Taking the car apart was such an massively educational experience, but when you get down to it, these cars are so simple. Good luck and make sure to ask any questions you have along the way. PS - I will have new updates coming soon.

Got it! Thanks!

I need someone who knows Datsuns. Particularly the 510. I want to have some experienced wordk done. Been looking for Mario's information and haven't had any success. Can someone please shoot me a PM with his information? Chris

This will mount in to the stock fuel location? Capacity? More pictures?

Detailed shot of the back of the OEM drum brakes with a sprinkle of rust... Rusty, rusty, rusty... I'll be so damn happy when I am out of the nasty 50 year grime phase of this build. Argh... This little piece was at the top of the drum. Unless someone convinces me to keep it or even understand what the hell it is for, it is going in the trash and I will keep the extra space in my memory banks... I can't tell you how much of a colossal pain in the ass this was to get out. I only had one 14mm allen wrench and a damn socket wouldn't fit. I didn't want to wait to do it and there was no place to get the tool I needed. So i used a cobmination of a breaker bar, vice grips and my 14mm allen to get this off. I'm 6'5" and my back was hating me afterward too. I almost wanted to do a bolt by bolt breakdown of photos... This bad boy is going to go in the trash tonight most likely. Can't see a point in selling them or saving them. I'll keep the hardward and clean it up for the CV axel conversion though... Then it was the two bolts holding the rear control arms to the rear cross member and the rear control arms were free at last. Well, except for the e-brake cables that I hadn't completely detatched. But, that was as simple as a clip being popped off. Do people restore these or just buy a bag of new ones from somewhere? Now this little bastard and I had a bit of a fight and I lost. When I stopped to re-examine my life and figure out whey I was so weak that I couldn't get the damn nut off I remembered that I needed new ones because these would not be salvageable. The light bulb went off and I took an extra look to notice that this lip was pressed down on to the spline of the bolt. So, I am not weak, just mentally challenged. I tried prying it open with a screwdrive. That was an epic fail and now I need a new screwdriver. So, I figured it was too late to dremel and cut this sucker off, so I'll do that tonight. Weeeeee fun... Off with her head!!! Then it was on to Round Duece. I knew it would go by much faster this time... This bad boy was out and broken down in no time. I wrapped here somewhere around 1am. Had to be up for my AM starved cardio at 5am...

Ladies and genlemen, boys and girls, allow me to reintroduce myself. Hi!! My name is Chris and despite popular belief, I actually do more than just collect really cool parts. Rarely, ever so rarely, I actually work on the car myself. So, in the spirit of getting dirty as all hell it was time to break down Project Miracle Whip's rear subframe. Obviously if you have been following the thread, you know I like to do a ton of research before I get to work. I also like to make sure that I have most of the parts on hand. We all know starting and stopping a mini-project like this sucks. But, more importantly I have found that as time goes by I forget more and more about the details that I wanted to remember. So, let's take a look at where we are starting from.... Here she is in all of her stock glory. Untouched and abused for nearly 50 years. It almost pains me to get the garage dirty after our most recent journey, but considering I have already added some "character" to the epoxy I was over it and quickly got back in to the groove... Lighting was bad from this angle, but you still get the booty shot... Most of these parts are being replace with new goodies like Wilwood two pot rear disk brakes, Techno Toy Tuning rear coilovers, R200 differential and so on. So, this was more of a simple breakdown and assesment of what parts need to have some love and clean up. Left control arm... Right contorl arm... Time to stop being paparazzi and starte doing. So, figured I would start easy and get that mustache bar off... Still need to get an R200 mustache bar. That has been aggravating.... Drum brakes don't exactly make me think of performance. These are rusted and I am glad I wont have to wast any time trying to make them look pretty... This is where all the "easy" work stopped and I headed over to those damn U-Joints...

Negative, but maybe I can shed some light after I work on her a bit. Will let you know.

So, my Wolf Creek Racing CV axel kit and R200 stub axes came in and everything looks great. One of the most well packaged kits I have ever received. And, they even gave me some amazing instructions with pictures that were extremely detailed. Great stuff!! I wouldn't hesitate to purchase from them again. All I need now are my rear cross member poly urethane bushings and an R200 mustache bar. Been crazy swamped with work, the gym, and trying to sleep 4 hours a night. I know I am laggin on the breakdown of the rear subframe. Promise I'll start soon.