Greengo - 1972 Datsun 510 4dr

[Hix1985]

What type of cutter is this?  like the size of the cut wheels.

[carterb]

It's just what's left of a standard 3" (?) wheel.  They get smaller as you go and I like to get every last spark out of my tools.  : )

Edited October 11, 2018 by carterb

[hobospyder]

if you need more i may or may not have a whole bunch sitting in my shop that i could pass off to hippie or icehouse at some point to pass on to you. no pictures or any details because umm.... i never saw the packaging but only issue i can see happening is center hole being too small

[edekalil]

Little by little it will all come together, looking good. And a good thing to have a young fella to help you. 

[carterb]

Sorry guys.

Corey has been busy with soccer and homework so I got distracted by another green  510 project...

 

 

 

TBC...

[carterb]

Time flies but we have begun again...

 

 

We had to stop using the air tools because I'm still getting allot of water out of hose, which gets sprayed on the freshly sanded metal - not a good combo.  I now have the parts to fix this once and for all.

 

Oh, and I installed a door into the paint booth from the workshop so we don't have to walk all around the house anymore!

 

 

 

 

[carterb]

Just a quick update to let you know how the world's slowest 510 restoration is coming along.

 

Corey and I have been busy boys - but not with Greengo...

 

I was able to get to a couple more body panels though.

 

Trunk lid complete and ready for primer

 

 

Same for the cowl

 

 

 

 

 

I've been frustrated with the amount of water flowing out the end of my air tools when working on his car.  Sanding to bare metal only to have it sprayed with condensation from the air line is not fun.  I bought some new and additional filtration from one of our pneumatics suppliers at work and ran an indoor airline from the compressor to the shop (it used to have to run outside) and had high hopes but am still getting water.  : (

 

 

I'm hoping that as the weather warms up, the smaller delta T between the air in and outside the line will help but I'm not holding my breath.  I'm also not willing to pay $2K for an air dryer. 

 

I'm a little frustrated here...

 

--carter

[Crashtd420]

You may have done this but I didn't see it mentioned.....

How often do you drain the compressor?

[hobospyder]

Saw a thing on instagram where a dude took a bunch of his piping and ran it up and down his wall 3 or 4 times each with drains at the bottom creating a gravity filter sort of thing

[datzenmike]

I've seen self emptying filters. They have a clear plastic bowl and hiss gently letting air seep out at the bottom. Water droplets are spit out as they collect. 

[carterb]

6 hours ago, Crashtd420 said:

You may have done this but I didn't see it mentioned.....

How often do you drain the compressor?

 

9 out of 10 times before or after use.

[carterb]

6 hours ago, hobospyder said:

Saw a thing on instagram where a dude took a bunch of his piping and ran it up and down his wall 3 or 4 times each with drains at the bottom creating a gravity filter sort of thing

 

Essentially what a membrane drier does, just on a larger sale.  provides lots of surface area for condensate to collect on.  Trouble is, when using a tool like an air sander, there is so much continuous flow that the air just moves this condensate along and keeps it in the air stream.  We need to get it ALL out of there, or prevent it from forming to begin with.  

[carterb]

4 hours ago, datzenmike said:

I've seen self emptying filters. They have a clear plastic bowl and hiss gently letting air seep out at the bottom. Water droplets are spit out as they collect. 

 

I have a leak in one of my connections at a manifold block.  It does this function quite nicely.  Big puddle of water on the shelf under the manifold after the first time I ran this set up.  If you knew me and heard all of my other stories - you'd know me and water, well, we have some history.  : )

 

Basically, at my house (and cars) it just never seems to want to stay on the right side of the pipe. 

[Crashtd420]

5 hours ago, carterb said:

 

9 out of 10 times before or after use.

I figured as much but you never know.... 

 

My friend bought a real nice compressor for dirt cheap.. it was returned because it wouldn't hold air and they hadn't bothered to look and see what's wrong....

Long story short he closed the drain vavle and had an expensive compressor for $25....

[slowerthantime]

I built a copper manifold with drain valves at the bottom of each run to get the water out of the line. Then added a run of that cheap plastic airline all the way around the shop with a vertical drop to a connector and drain half way. That worked really well until it got warm outside. Then I added a desiccant dryer that I got on sale, followed by the filters I had from my old compressor. Its simple, works like a charm and 10% of the cost of an air dryer.

 

 

 

 

You can get inexpensive automatic tank drains. Set them up to go off at set intervals....mine scares the shit out of me every time it goes off.

 

I also saw a guy who plumbed in a metal transmission cooler between the pump and the tank.

 

[DanielC]

A water trap or filter only works on liquid water.  Water vapor will pass right through a water trap.

When air is compressed, it gets hot.  As long as the air is hot, the water vapor will not condense out of the air.  When the air cools, then the water vapor changes to liquid water.

 

When air expands, it cools.  When hot pressurized air with water vapor in it goes through an air tool, or even out the air cap on a paint spray gun, it expands, and cools, and water vapor can condense right at the air tool, or even right after leaving the air cap on a spray gun.

 

This is the air compressor I used for many years, 3 HP, single stage, 20 gallon tank.

 

I also used this second air tank from an old air compressor.  On this tank, the red hose is air in to the tank, and the blue hose is air out to air tools or a spray gun.   By using some hose between the tank and compressor, the air has a chance of cooling, and the water trap catches water.  Air in the tank can also cool more.  Water tends to condense inside the tank, and stays in the bottom of the tank.  The  air coming out the blue hose is fairly dry.  Running air tools, I pressurized this tank to compressor outlet pressure, about 120 PSI.

 

I also used this setup when spraying with a HVLP spray gun.  Normally, the compressor is way too small to supply air to a HVLP gun.  But when painting, I used the regulator on the small air compressor to only pressurize this tank to about 40 PSI.  When 125 PSI air from the air compressor goes through the regulator and the pressure drops to 40 PSI, it expands, and cools.  Water vapor in the air also condenses in the cooler air, and gets trapped.  

 

The second tank allowed me to get away with using a too small compressor for many years.

Edited March 10, 2020 by DanielC

[datzenmike]

You can also add the equivalent of an inter cooler. Maybe a car air conditioner condenser? I should imagine that using the compressor continuously would not give the air inside enough time to cool and condense. Some compressors have a cooling system though not much.

[carterb]

All great thoughts guys, thanks.

I'll post any changes I make in this thread.

--carter

[4perrev]

It all looks great.  Second the comment above about father and son project!!  Keep up the good work!

[carterb]

Time to play a little catch up, first with the thread, then with the car!

 

I got Corey out to do a little more paint removal...

 

 

 

Tedious work but he stuck with it!

 

 

All the big panels are now stripped and ready for epoxy primer.  Maybe we can start bodywork some day?

[carterb]

I finally put on my big boy pants and started welding!

 

I figured the spare tire well would be a good place to start, since all my mistakes would be hidden later on.  : )

 

I stripped the rest of the paint and then set it in place.

 

 

I assumed I'd be able to lay a continuous fillet weld around the perimeter after tacking it in place.

 

Didn't exactly work out that way...  The flange was not a tight enough fit and everywhere there was a little gap between the flange and the material below, it would melt away the flange and deposit weld on the lower material instead of combining the two into one.  So I resorted to more of an on/off/on/off technique which worked out really well

 

 

Except for where the flanges just didn't match well, then it took a couple passes to build up material to bridge the gap.

 

In the end though, I was all in there - just took a bit more grinding than I anticipated.  Beginner welder penalty I'm sure.

 

 

Next step is to sink in a battery box.  I found this abandoned i/o box in the dumpster which I thought would do the trick nicely, and save me some fab work at the same time.

 

First I needed to remove the hinge and mounting flanges.

 

 

I was surprised to see some rust in the interface.  As far as I know, it's never been outside.  Is there nothing that rust and moth can't touch?

 

 

Next step was to sand blast it but the machine was down, so I might just grind off the mounting surfaces and epoxy over the powdercoat after welding.

 

 

 

[carterb]

Corey and I were talking wheels and tires.  I showed him photos of all the different wheels I have available to him and he chose my 14" Longchamps.

 

 

It may sound like we are a little ahead of ourselves here but that isn't the case.  The tires are 12 years old and need to be replaced so in the meantime, I got them dismounted (Thanks LCM Garage!) so Corey will have a project - refurbishing the wheels.  I told him to find a youtube video or two to find a method he likes and then I'll help him out with the tools, compounds, paint, etc. 

 

Then we can get 'em shined up nice like this!

 

 

 

Hopefully something he can really take some pride in.

[carterb]

Overdue for a little update here.  I was able to expend a little more effort on Corey's car at the end of summer.

 

First thing I did was something I should have done from the beginning - remove the headliner.  I thought I was saving us a step but after watching a couple "how to" painting videos, I was reminded of how much washing/rinsing is involved in the process and I knew I'd be battling the water hidden in all the tape keeping the headliner safe.  Plus allot of that tape was covering the window flanges and I was worried I might be covering up something that needs to be fixed/replaced.  Lastly, I'm sure I need to do a little welding on the roof - around the rear window frame and didn't want to risk setting the headliner on fire with a spark.  So that's it then, It's coming down!

 

 

I'm leaving the bows in the old headliner for now to give me the best chance at putting them back in the right order

 

 

 

 

I tried to take a pic of the end of each one as I went just in case

 

 

 

4

 

Also, to remember which of the three holes the bows go in.

 

 

So what is that?  Front to rear Red - Silver - Green - Silver - Blue?

 

 

This process uncovered another handful of sand that was hiding in the folds.

 

 

I'm definitely NOT sorry I did this...

 

Next step was to fix all the nuts with bolts broken off in them.

 

First I cut the bolt off flush and drilled a pilot hole as close to center as possible.

 

 

Then full size followed by a tap.

 

 

Ready for fenders then?

 

And as a bonus, Tony (LCM Garage) dismounted my tires for me.

 

Wheels are ready for Corey to sand and polish.

 

 

 

 

 

[carterb]

Next step was looking at fitment of the aftermarket fenders and the NOS front apron.

 

Fenders first.  I covered this completely and step by step in my Slowpoke build thread so I won't re-type everything here but basically, the aftermarket fenders are a different shape than the stock fenders and require some fettling in order to fit the car and give hope of a decent panel gap between the fender and door.

 

First, a stock door/fender/rocker fitment for example.

 

 

Aftermarket out of the box

 

 

 

Up top

 

 

Left side (this one needs to push back rearward quite a bit!)

 

 

Bottom (same problem as right side)

 

 

 

stock right side fitment

 

 

 

Pushing in to line up the mounting hole would correct the gap you see

 

 

left side has similar gap to the aftermarket fender up top.  Likely need to adjust my core support.

 

 

Lower looks great!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[carterb]

Here is a fender to fender comparison.  You can see how much different they are at the bottom.

 

 

 

 

This one shows the real problem

 

 

 

 

 

There is a significant problem with the folding process on the bottom of the fender by the rocker.

 

 

So I have some work ahead...