Rustbucket

Sure, traction might not be awesome with an RB, lots of camber, and a 205/50 on a 15x10 - but it sure looks good. :)

Edit

Thanks, brother! Got a pair of them for a steal, so I could hardly say no.

Got hardware for my sway bar, and my rear control arm mounts this afternoon. Got the nuts welded inside my rail for the sway bar, and made up a new top section to finish the front clip. Couldn't be happier to have my front end mostly sound once again. Welding shit up. Finished rail after a brief encounter with a flap disc. It'll all be smoothed out and cheesed to perfection when it comes time to prep the bay for paint. Suspension re-assembly by the end of this week. Fingers crossed.

I've been half lazy, and had to fix some stupid things on my truck. But, I swear I've been pouring the cocks to the Datsun when I feel the motivation coming on. A few weeks ago I drove to Colorado with my father and sister, all 1600 miles or so. There's lot of this in the midwest... The rear floors are all done, sealed, and POR15'd. Which means that all this is nearly ready to go back on with all their fancy poly bushings pressed in. Tacked the rear quarters back together with the inner fender for the flares. Patched up some shitty on the front rail. Rear strut mounts ready for mating. Bay just needs some more metal love, and then I'll Slap-a-tha-Bondouche. And, I had to do something fun obviously. So, I bought myself a pair of Takata 4-points to make me happy. Buying nuts and bolts on Monday to weld in a couple spots so that I can re-assemble and have a rolling chassis again! :)

This car is the shit. You get a real big load of kudos.

Bought a new toy to help the Datsun along on my own accord. Can't wait to get back from the States and unleash hell on the thing. It's wild to think that my car is nearly a rolling chassis again.

Got my fuel tank back from it's caustic bath and coating this afternoon. I seriously couldn't be happier with how it turned out. Thing's clean enough to eat off now, and it was absolutely disgusting when I had it dropped off. And, the inside... Excited to put together a fuel system now.

No build thread on the shop as it's been there long before our time. It used to be an old welding shop, but after they left a friend who lived close happened to find the place up for lease and figured it would make an awesome shop. With the addition of a lift it was pretty much took shape. It's heated for the winter, and it's cover over our heads so we can't really ask for much more. You can comfortable work and do complete builds on about 6 or 7 cars at a time, so it's a pretty large space.

Thanks, brother. Finally caved and put an order in for my own welding suite. Up until now I've been having a friend do any of the work that I didn't feel comfortable doing, but it's gotten to the point that I just want to be able to haul ass at my own pace and get shit done. It should be here next week, and then progress should be bountiful.

Decided to do hood pins and delete that gross hood latch, and hood release off the fire wall. Pretty wild how empty the bay is going to be.

Finally got all the metal sleeves off from where the bushings used to sit on the rear control arms. Also got the front control arm bushings torched out, and pressed out the metal sleeves with ease after getting the thing glowing hot. And, the second... This was the finished product with the new poly bushings. I have no doubts that all this work getting bushings out and in will be worth it once the car's on the road and not shaking like a bag of bones from rotten bushings and joints. Progress was cut short there on the Datsun as I helped a friend put some RUCA's in his Silvia and pump the fenders a little. It's almost depressing working on cars that clean. Makes me wish the Datsun was taken a little better care of by the previous owners.

Thanks! I had all the perches for the struts, the camber plates, and the rear top plates machined by a fellow over on the HybridZ forums. They're all machined from steel, however I'm not sure what grade. It took a lot of heat to maintain penetration welding those lower perches, though, which is always a good sign. Essentially you're removing the old strut, leaving about a 1 1/4'' stub to slide the new perch over, and weld it in. The other end of that perch is threaded to accept Megan coilovers for an S13. The top plates were made accordingly and simply needed to be cut and fit in to place. It means I only have camber adjustment in the front, which is rather unfortunate, but I'll have to live with that. I'm not sure I could handle more than one Datsun in my life at this juncture, hah!

Spent some time at the shop over the past couple days! Decided to polish out the aluminum diff cover, but I've still got to hit it with some clear coat. Looks pretty cool against the rusty diff. Got both the camber plates welded in completely. Then got 'em both smoothed out and ready for me to Slap-a-tha-Bondouche when I finishing shaving the engine bay. They're also back-welded for maximum not breakingness. Finally bought a real motor stand to get my piece off the floor. Promptly fucked the spindle pin puller by having the reducer on the wrong end and giving 'er hell. Really bummed about that. Torched out the bushings in the mustache bar, and pressed in the new poly bushings and sleeves. Same went for the rear control arms. The metal sleeves were a total cunt to get off, but a friend of mine suggested getting them red hot and quenching them really quickly and it broke the bond and they slid right off super easy. So, that was a bonus. That's where I left off this evening, but I plan on hauling ass on it some more in the next couple days. I've got to order another spindle-pin puller, and then I'll be able to finish ripping my rear suspension apart and have it all painted and reassembled with all new poly bushings.

Haha, cheers!

It's been a second since I've posted an update, but progress has been really steady this past week. I don't have pictures of everything, but I'll put forth what ever I've got. Had a friend of a friend TIG up my diff for smokey burnouts. Cut and fit my strut tops... Then tacked them in front and back. They're completely welded now, but I didn't have a camera when I was at the shop last. Cut out a bunch of my front passenger rail, and welded in new nuts for the sway bar. All painted inside and closed up... Everything is dropped out of the rear of the car, and it all got cleaned up and hit with a fresh coat of POR 15. I've got to get bottles for my torch and then I'll get the spindle pin out and finish welding the rear perches and replace all the factory bushings with poly ones. More pictures and progress on Sunday, hopefully!

I've been slacking on keeping updates, but have been enjoying the summer to the fullest. Worked slowed on the Datsun briefly, but it's going to be in full swing with in the month as I've just begun a new job which allows me access to just about any tool or piece of machinery I could ever want in a shop, and plenty more money than before. That being said, I have banged out a few little things in the past month, only real photo I have to show is one of my finished front suspension. This set-up will me to lay frame on 15's before I run out of thread. Pretty nuts... The engine bay only needs a couple more holes welded and shaved, camber plates, and a few nuts welded in to the rails and she'll be good to go for some paint. So, expect to see that sometime soon hopefully! I'll leave you with a photo of my daily, and my friends street-oriented S13.

Thanks! I took off the undercoating in the fender wells where I could, but that stuff makes a real mess with a wire wheel. I stabbed the shit out of it with a screwdriver to make sure it was solid before I took to coating the bits that weren't raw. I am doing the same thing to my interior once I've got it all patched back together, right down to the metal and starting from scratch.

Went back up this evening to bang out a little more work, and test fit some shit. First up was the shifter - sold to me with a promise that it works with an RB20 trans. Obviously it didn't fit as the stryker arm bottomed out in the gear box because it's made to fit an SR tranny. Should be simple enough to CNC a piece of aluminum to bridge the gap and stop it from bottoming out. Also got a boost controller from a friend for free. Thing only operates on 10 pounds and up, so I might as well safely enjoy a few extra horses. Had a good bit of rotten metal around my dead pedal, so I drilled out the spot welds and started cleaning up that whole side of flooring, even though it'll get cut up for the new rails underneath. Here's a bit of patchwork from the other night. I find all of this a little monotonous, and I'll be super relieved to be able to paint it all and put the interior back in. Left 'er sittin' like this for the night, but I'll have at it again tomorrow.

Got a couple things done over the passed few weeks, but had some issues with the local law enforcement concerning my daily. So, once that was all over with I got a little bit of work done on the Datsun this weekend. I cut the front fenders and rear quarters out and fit my fender flares for good. Also got a good chunk of my drivers side floor patched up real proper, so overall it was a pretty productive couple days. Here's a couple photos not Datsun related, but of our daily pigs since we had 'em all out today. Neil's 350hp 1.8T... Drew's Holset-powered E30 sedan. The turbo's good for a gajillion hp, but the bottom end's only good 'til about 600... And, lastly my daily shit bucket of a Chevy... I promise to have some real progress on the Datsun very shortly, just have to slug through the monotonous shit work.

That's very good to know, thank-you! I only did the rockers because I've got skirts to go on anyways, as far as everything else goes it'll be entirely covered once the car is actually back together.

I can't get over how tiny that SR looks in there. Awesome build, bud!

Not a huge update, but I got a package in the mail this afternoon and turned out that my swaybars had finally arrived. These in conjunction with the S13 coils, and poly bushings should make for one stiff little car. Also seriously considering doing a fuel cell in the hatch for the sake of cleanliness and ditching the forty year old gas tank. Suggestions on going that route, anyone?

Edit

Shelter is shelter, brother!