'79 620 daily

[Pacific coast Datsun]

Gary the stitcthwork looks great!! It's kool that your doing all phases of the build yourself :cool:

[slow620]

Agreed! It's great to see someone giving everything a go...

 

Nah Gary, I wouldn't be selling if it was my only one. I still have the 76 that's registered & most of the parts put aside to do what I want to it when I can.

 

I'm a Spraypainter (haven't worked in the trade for 10 years) & have experience with most things automotive...I still don't think I would give upholstery a go though... :)

[Gary]

thanks :)

 

nice one, upholstery gets a little addictive i think :( havin cool big comfy furniture about the place would be awesome. im probably just weird heh

 

progress;

spent today getting the steering column and links in the enginebay back in. sorting out column to steering box was interesting until i realised its normal for it to stick up 2 or so mm :huh: sposed to be torqued down.

 

dan rolled round with a nicer diff center than the one ive got too. gunna be heaps better on highways i hope, even better with the L series and 5 speed which im itching to do. need to stay with the J just until its got through RWC, wont be long

[Gary]

progress;

i got into putting the dash back in, which meant many other things had to go in first, so i started with the brake master. was chunky as, rusted up a bit and gunge all up and down it, i wirewheeled most of the crap off the bits, treated it real quick, then painted it black

 

next was remaking the firewall board blanket thing, mine was broken. i spent a lot more time than i probably should have, but its done now so doesnt matter. started by tracing out the board onto some steel and cutting it out, then got on with deadening material. in hindsight, i should have bought some decent deadening carpet from knox and stuck it to the fresh panel, but i didnt. i hit bunnings looking for roofing bitumen. i didnt quite find what i wanted, but figured itd do - it was very light guage aluminium sheet coated in bitumen. given it was cheap, i thought id get away with lots of layers of the stuff to build it up enough to work. so i got it home, cut it into strips, layed it onto my panel, then flipped it and torched the other side until the bitumen stuff melted together nicely, then left it to cool down and harden up

 

stuck good and trimmed ok, its fairly solid (about 10mm thick), after that just needed something soft on top so itd be ok against the firewall, i poked about the house and found some fabric i had from years ago, foam backed velour stuff that did the trick nice. stuck it all together, got it against the firewall, screwed it down tight, we're win. not the way id go in future, was time consuming and i think other quicker options would work better. but for $30 i spose i cant argue

 

tomoz ill sort out the heater core, i need more heater hose i think, the stuff i have is nasty as

[Gary]

progress;

carefully putting it all back so it works like it used to :) got the heater core in, replaced the chunk filled hoses, routed them a little shorter using those bendy hose things (took 4 trips out to get them :()

 

dash is in, loom is in and up nice, heater controls are good and working tooooo. now looks like a thing you might actually be able to drive :D

 

i went for a spin and got some more urethane too, and some black pigment. once my set is done ill get em in so the carpet can go in, so the bench can go in too :D

 

onto door trims and kick panels tomoz i think, might need me some more steel first

[deadmonkey]

I think it is super awesome you are trying to make these. It looks like you have it perfected. I'm sure MANY people on the forums would line up to buy sets from you.

[vegas_datsun]

truck look awsome. nice work you have going on. thought about offering cab mounts for sale?

[Gary]

thanks fellas :) not much longer! we've got a public holiday next tuesday and im hitting the beach with some mates, would have been perfect if the ute was ready but alas, not yet :( its on track to be close to done during summer still so not so bad :D

 

not perfected with the urethane yet :( they work good though. i had a thread up for a couple days and there wasnt interest so i guessed people weren't so keen. i hear you chaps can still order genuine ones? nissan in aus are fair hopeless, i would have got some from them if they knew what a datsun was

 

progress;

spent today messing about with urethane again, and went for a spin and got some more steel for the door trims (accidentally used most of the 2mm sheet i had saved for em :unsure:). so got some of that, traced out from the originals then cut them out, and began trimming them with the same vinyl i used for the bench. ive cut out each side and cut the holes out of them, and cut out foam for each, ready to stick together and trim tomoz. undecided what i'll do for the center bits, pleats dont come out that great with the foam im using so not sure what i'm gunna do. ill find out tomoz i spose :lol:

 

[deadmonkey]

Out of steel!? Those door cards are gonna out last the truck! How are you gonna mount those? Here are the door cards I made... sadly I will have to re-glue them with something stronger, like Gorilla glue because the moisture has let them come loose as they sat in the house.

 

http://community.ratsun.net/topic/7483-dms-76-620-pickup-first-project-attempted/page__view__findpost__p__268605

[Gary]

the plan was to bolt it on :D around the edges theres lots of places for those plastic clips to work, so for the corresponding holes in the door i was going to put little stainless bolts through them, fix them in with a nut so the stick out like studs from the door, fit the door trim over them, then find some fair shallow bullet nuts to go over the top :) i think if i stitched the vinyl around the panel to hold it on, the studs and the door handle should hold the vinyl back good without the need for glue but i dunno, probs see how it goes

 

your door cards look great :D i tried it like that once and i failed miserably :( truck looks nice too! wish we had more of them cruisin about over here

[Gary]

progress;

today got into the door trims more, i went and got some bolts and extra nuts and washers, put them all in the door then traced out their places onto the door panel with a scribe, drilled them out then cleaned it up a little

 

i didnt notice till then that the trim should actually be slightly arced :huh: the bolts will hopefully take care of that without dramas

 

i glued foam to the back of the vinyl, then traced out where i need to make holes so the studs can poke through

 

tomoz ill stitch around the outside to hold it together, depending how it looks i might stitch the center bit as well

[goes2fast]

This looks very heavy, don't they sell aluminum in the land down under?:P

[Gary]

im not so worried about weight with the ute :D they've got a bit of weight for what they are but not so bad

 

progress;

friday got more into trimming the door panels, ended up tying the back of it so the vinyl was tightish. see how it goes i spose

 

the weekend was spent doin other car stuff :( saturday was a cruise, sunday a dyno day (was a datto 1000 there too, made 27hp at the rears! didnt stop it doin helis though :D), monday was to help with an engine conversion but ran into some dramas, get into it more this saturday maybe, tuesday was out and about cos it was a public holiday and finally today got to work more on the ute. i fitted the fresh mounts (still fair hard, but a lot softer than the plastic ones i had in there before), then fitted the seatbelts and carpet, then bolted the bench in nice

 

the bench sits kinda nice, its comfy as too. still not heaps of legroom but im not overly tall so doesnt matter so much. this bench sorta fouls the inertia reels for the seatbelts. ive got it up against it on its second last position setting, didnt think of that. still good though

 

tomoz ill work on either the kick panels (speakers) or maybe suss the doors some more. see how it goes

[Gary]

progress;

well, neither! heh

 

i got the doors on just to see if they still work, they do. need more work though

 

i got into the radiator cos ive decided to try and clear the parts in my tub so i can remove it to work on the diff. the rad is from another car cos my 620 one was busted, and i dont want to go alloy just yet so i had one reco'd. i chopped out some bits to add to the mounting bits on this rad so i could make it suit the holes in the rad support, then cut out a section ill use to attach the thermo to. also cut out the radiator shroud bit so i could have the rad further forward so the thermo doesnt foul the waterpump shaft. i got to welding the extra bits on, tomoz ill probs finish it

[Gary]

progress;

finished the radiator, welded the extra bits to the rad, then drilled the right holes in it, test fitted, then started making the thermo shroud - not much of a shroud really, but the fan will always be on so i spose its slightly better than nothing, its about 1/2-3/4 an inch away from the tubes/fins which isnt ideal but should work alright just the same

 

 

theres about 15mm clearance between thermo and water pump shaft when you cut away the old rad shroud and fit the radiator further forward

[Gary]

progress;

weekend was fun :blink: saturday was working a little on a mates CA conversion for his N13. was cool, went for a quick spin for some food and saw a bit of a cruise with a couple fezzas and a lambo :D noise was gooooooood

 

sunday i got into the doors so i could get the fresh trims on good and proper. found lots more problems than i knew :( not so bad though, ill look to replace them some day so for now im just patching them back together so roadworthy will be happy

 

first thing to fix was the quarter window on the drivers side, the little catch was gone, dan gave me a good replacement with the ute, the only prob was the bottom of the channel was rusted out, so i chopped the good lower section out of my old one and fixed it with the welder

 

second was to clean the door up, which was a mistake. i used a wirewheel on an anglegrinder to remove that silicon stuff that holds what used to be the plastic sheeting down. ended out getting small chunks of the silicon crap evveerrryywheerree. all up my arm, face, clothes, grinder, door, windows, roof, table etc. given silicon is practically immune to solvents, all i could do was use degreaser and rags to try shift it :\ i got most of it, but yeah dont do what johnny dont does

during cleaning, found fair rusted sections at the bottom of the door and in a few little places. as mentioned ill probably just patch them till replacing the door, i also found one of the doors was near scrapped in a stack, 30 odd drill holes and crease marks, and a chunk of wood :D and lots of filler

 

also had holes in the top of the door, not sure what for, maybe it had truck mirrors at one point. welded them up nice, im sticking with the normal door mirrors i think, until fender mirrors start looking good :huh:

 

i treated some of the rusted bits too, and gave it a quick prime before filling which ill do soon

[Gary]

today was more of the same, just more cleaning rather than much else

 

i pulled apart the other door for some cleaning and to suss out the quarter windows, and remove the old window felts and just see how it was. more rust so i cleaned that out and treated and primed it quick

 

welded up the holes in the other door, and cut it back some more and primed

 

the windows needed attention, one of the quarters had a little tint on it, the big window had paint on it from the respray, and chunk all over it from my silicon shenanigans. they ended up all smeary after trying to clean it off with degreaser :( i took to them with a razorblade to get most of the old grime off, degreased (which only really shifted the chunk), got some (well, lots of) windex on it which had them looking alright, but still a bit greasy. in the end just used water and a microfibre cloth and they came up normal. LOTS cleaner, lookin sweet now

 

the channel for the other quarter window was a bit rusty too so i treated and painted that too

 

i got some fresh rad hoses in too, just need to machine a little adaptor for it to suit the new radiator and it'll be good. might do that tomoz but see how it goes. will work on the doors more, i got some flat white paint to help it along a bit, just as a temp fix for now

[Gary]

progress;

worked some more on the doors, cut them back a little more then used body filler here and there, sanded that back then rattle canned them with some flat white i picked up yesterday. looks alright, pretty rough but will do for now

 

did similar to the front quarters, but filled in the badge holes first. also sanded back the original acrylic to see how it looks. not so bad :D

 

also treated and filled the sills, ill work on them more and get them painted soon

[Pacific coast Datsun]

Looking good !

[datrod]

Wow I think I just found me a new hero. Fantastic work there mate. :cool:

[Gary]

thanks :blush: heh

 

i spent all day doing paperwork for various stuff and finding and paying bills, and fixing my other car a bit :( ordered some door seals though, hopefully they fit good but i spose we'll see

 

sussed out what to do for the door handles, i like the idea that hacked 620 (death machine one) had for his, just a strip of leather basically so im gunna do similar

[Gary]

progress;

today got stuck with fixing another car, but in the meantime managed to pull the tub

 

tomoz ill finish fixing the other car, then maybe sort out utes diff. i think ive decided that to save time ill swap in the new center and worry about disc rear later. need this thing moving already

 

if i can get it regod without the tub, should take a sizeable chunk off ETA :D

[Gary]

progress;

got into the diff over the weekend;

 

my cat has decided he likes the ute :D

 

removed the old alloy center

 

got the nicer one out, cleaned the flange a little, then got it in

 

while i was there thought it would be a good time to do handbrake cables, which was fiddly but managed it. the old ones werent that bad, just one of them was seized

 

cable tie spring compressors :D

 

done, just needs oil. was waiting till the RTV was set before id fill it and finish it off

 

next i think ill get some steel to make the guards and taillight and fuel filler mounts

[Gary]

progress;

was looking about the other day for a random air orbital sander to cut back some bodywork to find they werent overly cheap, so i rummaged about the shed and found a detail sander id bought ages ago for something else. had fun with that cutting back half of the bonnet and the bog id put on the front quarters :D comes up kinda nice, lots cleaner than before :lol:

 

ordered some steel and picked it up yesterday before work, today started making the wheel guards. i used my vice and some spare 60mm steampipe i had lying about to get a nice arc for the edges, then cut slots to the center so i could bend it around the wheel. just need to weld the rest of the slots up properly and then need to mount them

 

also made a start on the taillight mount while i was there

 

will get workin more tomoz

[Pacific coast Datsun]

I like the metal work on the wheel covers. So the truck has to pass an inspection once its road ready ?