DannyO

I guess I don't quite know where to put this post so it's going here. I've been working on this 411 for a while now but rust seems like it will prevent me from actually finishing this project. There's simply so much metal missing. I don't think I have the ability to fix this car properly and I'm scared I would ruin whatever is left of this thing if I tried. A full restoration seems unrealistic with the state it's in and I don't know if I have the engineering or welding experience to just start cutting away. For the right person or shop, I think this car might be an opportunity to take a 411 and heavily modify it without the guilt of irreparably changing a classic car. Or maybe I'm being delusional and it's only good for scrap. I guess I'm asking for advice. What would you do now? Is it sacrilege for me to grab an angle grinder and just start ripping this car down to whatever's left? Any knowledge and past experience you could share is appreciated. The motor is about to go onto a test stand so I should know if it runs in the next couple weeks. If it does, I'm not sure what that means for the project. With that being said, what is a running J13 worth? I couldn't find much of anything on the classifieds. The rest of this thread will be rust pictures so you can get an idea of what I'm looking at.

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So its been 4 years. Guess that means it's time for an update. I'm taking some time off from college to work on the project this fall. Welcome to the thread revival. Cleaning and painting have consumed my last few weekends and I'm finally getting to put some parts back in. Cam went in and the end play checks out. Sorry for the toes. I just plastigauged all my new main bearings and everything looks good so far. The real fun starts when throw A13 pistons in and see what happens. From the research I did, they have almost identical dimensions. If anyone knows better and I'm about to blow up my motor, please yell at me. More pictures coming soon.

Hey Derek, You're in luck! My J13 is getting a full rebuild right now and I have parts strewn all across the garage. If anyone else reads this and needs other engine bits measured, I'm more than happy to break out the calipers again. I may have gone a bit overkill but I hope this helps! Best of luck.

Welcome to the club! I'm glad another one is getting driven.

Update 5 (2/17/16): Engine and Transmission Back again for a fairly major update. We recently received an engine stand from Amazon and with the holiday weekend we were able to get time to remove the engine and transmission. Enjoy the few pictures I have. The engine stand is slightly too large for such a small engine but with a little twisting we were able to make it work. Flywheel, Clutch, Starter Motor. Fenders came off last week but I deemed to minor to document. Doors also came off. Started on cleaning out the engine bay. I am hoping to get the suspension out the car entirely and make it a shell by the time summer starts kicking off. I would just like to thank all the people on the forums that have been posting. I have no doubt that your advice will come in handy and it is greatly appreciated. Thanks for stopping by.

Update 4 (1/19/16): Fluids and Such It has been over a month since the last update due in part to school and my neglect to grab a camera before we started work. My friend has been helping me with the project for the past few weeks. We both don't know as much as we should but we are eager to learn. Hopefully as I start up second semester classwork will start to slow down a bit and we can get more done on the car. Since update 3 we have... Taken off the exhaust from the manifold back. Found that this was what the exhaust was being held together by. (Ignore piece of floor on the right). I also have a feeling that this bracket was supposed to be holding up the exhaust. Unfortunately, the exhaust was holding the bracket up. Removed both the front and rear bumper. And checked out my spark plugs. Over last weekend we were able to... Drain oil. Drain hydraulic clutch fluid. Drain transmission fluid. Remove the headlights. And find this quarter minted in 1967 in the seat. May just be pure coincidence but it is a nice memento. I am hoping to continue working on this project and taking pictures as I go. I have been further experimenting in video updates but I have not found a way I would like to edit the videos into manageable sections. Thanks for stopping by.

Update 3 (12/5/15): More Random Things Have not posted in a while just from not having the time. Finally caught a break in school work so I decided to throw this post together. Removed the grill to get to the radiator easier. Going to have to clean those up and re-chrome some parts. From the amount of rusted out chrome we were thinking of just repainting the chrome parts a dark metallic silver. Still undecided but if we can grab clean bumpers in good condition we won't repaint. Radiator pulled. Rocker arm cover off. Rear seat springs in good condition. As well as the front. Not a whole lot of progress as of yet. We did manage to get the locking lugnuts off using a Gator Grips Self Adjusting 1/2" King Socket on a rattle gun. Pulling the engine should come some time over the later half of winter break (after Christmas). Till then I will be experimenting more with video updates and what type of format I want to approach that with. Thanks for stopping by.

Semi-Update: Did not manage to get the time to pull the engine. Got the car up on jack stands and took off 3 wheels. One has locking lug nuts that we cannot manage to get off. Any advice would be appreciated. We looked in to something like this http://goo.gl/nEf6Cz if anyone has experience with something of this sort I was wondering how well they work.

Semi-Update: Going to pull the engine on Saturday so y'all can expect that post later that day. Might try to record a video documenting the process however I still need to figure out how I will do that.

Thanks for the advice. Should come in handy later on.

Update 2 (11/18/15): Minor Problems I have already gone over some of the problems with this car however before we start repairs I would like to mention a list of non-critical issues that we will be addressing in the future. Seat upholstery. Door Frames. Broken plexiglass rear driver-side window. Overall floor pan rust. Other fun stuff I did not get pictures of: There is other bubbling in the paint where surface rust is showing up. Rust in the engine bay. Rust in the trunk Rear driver side door will not close. Drivers window gets stuck in the up position. Trunk latch not installed. Broken rear left brake light cover. Leaking valve stem on rear drivers-side wheel. Missing brake master cylinder. (We have two that we found in the car however they are completely rusted over beyond return.) Missing bolts to hold the radiator in. (There is currently 1 bolt doing the job of 4.) Found 2 drums and 8 pads are sitting in the trunk. One of the pads is rusted down into two separate pieces held together by the rubber. I am aware that some of these are important to getting this car on the road again. However, they are not essential to the engine being up and running again which takes priority. Work on these items will most likely be delayed until the engine and transmission is at least out of the car. We will fix the rust whenever my friends are free to angle grind for an entire day and we can drive over to Pullman and pick up my uncles TIG welder. Thanks for stopping by.

Seeing that my family's 2002 Honda Odyssey is still in pristine condition, taking good care of cars runs in my blood. With something as special as this little Datsun I am going to give it my all to keep this car looking nice. The car does need quite a lot of parts so expect to see a new thread over there sometime soon. Thanks for the advice.

Thanks for the info. We were thinking about doing a disk brake conversion but before we start modifying we are going to return the car back to stock and then go from there.

Picked the car up in North Everett so not quite as far north as Sedro Woolley.