Thehieb's 1958 project

[Thehieb]

Here is my 1958 L210. I got it today and so begins my project. It has been parked for over 10 years, squirrels have chewed up the wiring in the engine bay, the seats are shot, and someone backed into the front of the car twice. Other than that its a sweet little Datsun. Now to figure out where to begin. eek :0 More to come later.

 

Brad

 

[nismo dr]

you might be the best noob ever, intro thread/project thread, oictures

 

:P subscribed

[skunk]

Nice man, that car is sweet.

[wayno]

Nice find, looking forward to watching this resto. Where can I get one of those hood ornaments, might help me drive straiter down the road. wayno

[Bob3]

.

 

NICE ! ! !

 

 

 

Now get that Raiders sticker off of there! ;)

[Bob3]

you might be the best noob ever, intro thread/project thread, oictures

 

:P subscribed

 

 

X2

[Thehieb]

.

 

NICE ! ! !

 

 

 

Now get that Raiders sticker off of there! ;)

 

My first action this morning was taking off the Raiders sticker as well as the three batman bumper stickers on the bumper. Then I vacuumed the trunk and went through the pockets on the doors. I found part of a registration card from 88 that shows the first year sold was 1960 and it is actually a 59, or at least like Fisch's its the 58 model sold as a 59. I checked the plate in the engine bay and it looks like someone tried to fudge the 59 into a 58.

[dennis]

this is very cool!!!

[fisch]

Sweet dude! Found your thread! I will be psyched to follow! Just remember the positive ground thing, and with the slew of british car parts this thing was copied from, you should be groovy!

 

Funny so few of these survived with a non cracked windshield! I think one form a Suzuki Swift/ Geo metro (89-94) could be cut down, but have yet to test it.

 

Man you make me want to go work on mine!

 

Welcome!

 

Dig the antenna mounting location. Different than mine for sure (mine is on fender). Take a shot of the radio when you get a chance, if it is still there.

 

I think Purple use to own a black one like this years ago, wonder if could be the same?

[Thehieb]

I had a friend come over last night to check out my car and he seems to think we can get the motor running with a battery and a new distributer cap. I did some looking around online at caps and figured out the cap might be fine I just need to get some suppression wires. Depending on my funds I might have to wait till next month to get all that stuff. In the meantime I'm thinking about taking off the breaks and seeing what that will take to become operational.

 

I think my biggest hurdle might be the front body parts that are all mashed up and maybe finding some of the chrome pieces I'm missing like the stripe that goes across the passenger side. Does anyone know of a place that might make these parts? Also Fisch I would like to know what your going to do about replacing all the rubber on your car?

 

As far as the radio goes it didn't come with one. The antenna wire went down under the front seat and was probably connected to an after market radio.

[jeffball610]

The first thing to do with any car that has been parked is strip out the interior and wash the whole car. You never know what has gotten in there and left something behind. Rat droppings and dead things not only smell, but can cause disease. Ever heard of the plague? Also, dust, pollen etc. can do other nasty things to you. The wash will also help you identify areas that may need attention and show you what you've got under that nice patina. Wash the underside as well.

Pull the motor and address any structural issues under the hood and sort the wiring. Try and get that thing in the air to look at suspension, brakes and moving parts to see what needs to be replaced now and what might cause an issue later. Grease everything!

I wouldn't worry about the body at all until it's mobile.

[jeffball610]

The first thing to do with any car that has been parked is strip out the interior and wash the whole car. You never know what has gotten in there and left something behind. Rat droppings and dead things not only smell, but can cause disease. Ever heard of the plague? Also, dust, pollen etc. can do other nasty things to you. The wash will also help you identify areas that may need attention and show you what you've got under that nice patina. Wash the underside as well.

Pull the motor and address any structural issues under the hood and sort the wiring. Try and get that thing in the air to look at suspension, brakes and moving parts to see what needs to be replaced now and what might cause an issue later. Grease everything!

I wouldn't worry about the body at all until it's mobile.

[Thehieb]

Thanks Jeff I just pulled out the back seat and took the shop-vac to the car. I have cleaned up a whole lot of rat/squirrel poop already. Im going to see if I cant pull out the front seats now (the garage is starting to get a little cramped, good thing we are having a garage sale this weekend. Agreed about not worrying about the body till it's running I just wanted to throw that out there now and start the search so I might have some options when the time comes. If I pull out that front seat I'll take some pics of the inside.

[Thehieb]

Right after the seats came out

 

After the wash

 

Seats

[1200guy]

To check the back breaks you will need a puller for your drum. Fisch got a great old puller on e-bay i think

I bought a harbor freight 12 ton gear puller, and made some mod parts to work as a drum puller.Welcome to 1000 world

[DimePiece]

those floorboards look better than my 69 510's!

[fisch]

Nice! 1200 guy is right, those rear drums on my car were a total pain!!!! Get a puller capable of spanning the 6-lug pattern, a BFH, at least two map gass torches (OXY is better but I did not have it.) Once heated I melted beeswax on the spindle (ol skool trick). Try not to break them as they are unique to this car as far as I can tell.

 

I still don't know what I will do for rubber. Prolly go with some JC whitney generic stuff. Scott's rubber in Australia has some old Datsun rubber, but not a direct match.

 

Anything body-wise will be hard to replace, but the internals, engine, electric, etc should be easy with british stuff. Except the damn wiper motor, which seems unique. But rigging a different wiper motor shouldn't be too hard. (If you even need one.)

[fisch]

Might be the picture, but your air filter looks different than the one in my 59. Is it an oil bath filter? That is what is should be I believe.

[Thehieb]

Yea the filter is oil based, it's a vw part as well as my carb. There is a lot of after market stuff on this car. I'm pretty sure there is a electronic fuel pump mounted to the left of the id plate. I might be taking a break on the car since yesterday I went to the DMV to transfer the title and found out the guy I bought it from isn't the registered owner. Hopefully this will be fixed by next week. Fingers crossed.

[Thehieb]

Its been ups and downs with this car the past 2 weeks. I acquired a 5 drawer tool box full of tools but its all out of order so it takes forever to find what I need. I'm slowly reorganizing it. I found some bad rust damage but lucky for me it is under the back seat so it isn't a big deal. Along with my tool box I got a hydraulic jack and some jack stands but the jack has a leak and wont work. I was finally able to borrow a jack last night and got the car up on the stands. I took off the ridiculously large tires and am itching to start working on the car. I pulled the starter and was going to hook up some jumper cables to see if it is working but alas I couldn't find my cables. I took some shots of the starter and by the end of the week if all goes well I should be able to see if it starts. Oh yea I got a mishmash of spark plug wires and figured out the proper set up from those great pictures of that show car in Ficsh's thread.

 

Toolbox YAY

Back Seat Rust

Starter

Teeth

Under the Car

[fisch]

Glad you figured out the spark order! I went out yesterday to write it down for you and got caught up working on the car and forgot to write you back.

 

I don't see many rot holes under that seat, so hopefully it is surface. I'd hit it with a wire brush and then put on some Por 15 or Master Series Silver to preserve it.

 

The starter looks pretty good. it is easy to take apart the Bendix if you need to. If you have been through my thread, I am sure you will figure out how to do it.

 

Man other that the front end, this looks like a really straight car. :)

[Thehieb]

Fisch its good to hear your working on yours I have been itching for an update to your thread. Speaking of your thread I just re-read the part about the new vs old spark plug wires and sounds like my wires aren't going to work so I will have to find some other ones to do the job.

 

As far as the rust goes you can't see it from that picture but I was cleaning the rust flakes off and busted right through the metal, I stopped after that.

 

To anyone else out there that might know, is the front end on the 320's the same as this car. I was looking at one for sale on CL and it looks very similar (windshield,fenders,front piece that holds the grill), if this is the case it would be a much easier fix for me and my front end body damage.

[67 411]

hey i love your car man please take alot of pics.

[Thehieb]

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[Thehieb]

Today I had some free time so I decided to really work on getting the grill and headlights off. There were 2 screws holding me back but they were no match for me.

 

I noticed some more mangled metal under the car. Fisch when you get a chance could you take pictures of these on your car so I at least know what it should look like. It looks like there is a bolt sticking out of the left one

 

left

 

right

 

Then later on in the day my father in law came over with some working jumper cables and this is what happened when we connected them to the starter

(video)

 

Before we put the starter back on I got this pic of the gear.

 

Once the starter was on there was only one thing to do...

(video)

 

:w00t: