1962 Datsun U320

[jtinluvr]

Watch out, those rabbit holes can be deeeeeep!

[wayno]

I worked all day so did not have time for this.

What do you guys think, should the wheel side of the inner fenders be body color or a dark color?
It appears they were a dark gray/blue color, I cannot see any white and there is undercoating on the metal.


I always thought they should be body color, but this truck appears to have been an off white on the inside and outside, even the engine compartment at one time was white but someone primed most the engine compartment, I have to remove the engine to fix the rear and front seals, so I will be painting it body color also.

[DRIVEN]

I would suspect that it was all body color and the primer happened during a previous repair.

[wayno]

Well that inner fender on the wheel side was stripped at some point then as I have not been able to find any white at all when I scrape the under coating/dirt off.
I am starting to wonder how much it would cost to have someone sand blast the whole truck.

I would suspect that it was all body color and the primer happened during a previous repair.

Has anyone ever used a roto stripper?

[wayno]

I did some more fabricating today, I made a driver side(RHD) rocker cover, it was not because of rust it was because of the past accident it was in, first I drilled holes in the rocker bottom and used a punch to lever this piece out as I could not get to it any other way, I got it basically level except it is lumpy now, I will likely smooth it out with a thin layer of bondo, or maybe I will make a cover for it.


Next I did the rocker cover, I tried everything to try and push/pull the center out, it was pushed in more than half an inch, I punched two holes in the back of the rocker and I could not even pound it out so I drilled 2 holes in the front face and made a slide hammer, the slide hammer almost pulled thru and I had not made any progress, so I decided to make a cover, after I tacked it on across the top I realized I goofed and should have drilled holes all the way around like spot welding it but it was too late, so I tacked it all the way around to hold it in position.






It looks aright, better than before, but I have a lot of work to make it look stock and not have the tack welds show, but at least it will not be a half inch of bondo.
The POR15 got here early, so either tonight or tomorrow I will blow the interior out and then put the POR15 on all the places I sand blasted, over 90 percent is under the back seat cushion or behind the back cushion where the jack, crank, tools, ect. are, almost all the rust(surface rust)was hidden.


It took all day to do what I did above, I think I will focus on rust inhibitor tomorrow, I need to figure out a way to get it into that channel below the windshield where the wiper pivots come out of also, I have small aquarium hose/tubing, I could suck it up like a straw into the hose, then connect the hose to my air compressor trigger slide it into the channel and then pull the trigger, as the hose tries to exit the channel hopefully it will coat the sides of the channel, or maybe I could make a container that is built like a gas tank with two small fittings which one goes all the way to the bottom of the container, when I pull the trigger it will start to empty the container as I pull the hose out of the channel, I will think about it tonight.

[wayno]

I just finished doing this.


I have always had an issue with getting the POR15 can lid off once I used the can and got any POR15 in the lid groove, I heard about this from someone, I drilled a small hole in the side of the can, then I put a small rubber washer on the screw and put it in the hole once I got what I needed out of the can, to get it to come out I just press on the side of the can like one did to the bottom of old oil cans.


I just store the can upside down on the shelf.


The small oil cans I mentioned where one presses on the bottom center of the oil can to get it to come out faster.

[wayno]

I bought this today, from left to right, 6 cans of Datsun color Ivory White, it's a stock 67 color that best matched my glove box door, 5 bondo spreaders, long and strong bondo hair in the back, glazing putty in front of it, 10 cheapo paint brushes for putting on the POR15, green tube of body/seam sealer, and 4 cans of high build primer.


I cleaned up the driver side rocker sill today, I stripped most the paint off of it, you can see that the sill and rocker are not one piece anymore, when it was wrecked in the past they must have replaced the rocker but not the sill.




This is the first coat of long and strong applied, I will sand it tomorrow.


The reason I went with the special rattle can paint from them is because I used it on my Mini when I put the rocker covers on it, that stuff went on way better than my Binks paint gun ever put paint on and it went everywhere, that is likely because I don't know how to set up and use the Binks gun, plus I have to mix the paint and clean everything after using it, so I don't have to mix or clean anything and it goes on perfect, it just takes 3 coats.

Originally I thought that the wiper shafts/pivots went thru a channel all the way across the front under the windshield, I was wrong, it turned out the channel was very short on both sides and I used Rustoleum rattle can rust inhibitor paint in them channels, I covered the insides, I will likely fill that one hole with seam sealer as it is right there at the end of the gutter rail, I may change my mind when it is time to do it, I might be able to use JB Weld or something like it, I could even use expanding foam, then drill down into the foam a half inch and fill that with body/seam sealer, I have not decided for sure yet as I am working on the sill/rocker right now.

[wayno]

OK, on 9/18/20 I took this photo.


Today I took this photo.


I think if you look hard enough you can see the second photo the outer rocker is straighter.

So anyway I have it to the bondohair/"long and strong" body filler stage, it now needs glazing putty or maybe regular bondo first and then the glazing putty, I spent hours just getting this to where it is today.

[wayno]

By the way I found these coins in the truck the other day.

[wayno]

I did some scraping/sanding last night on the driver side inner fender.


Then I took off the passenger fender, it was held on the same way as the driver side, with small pointed/self tapping lag bolts, only the top bolts captured nut was good and it spun in the hole anyway, so I did the same thing to this side, I welded in 5 flare nuts(nut with a washer built in) into the holes.






Next I scraped the rounded rear inner fender on that side also, I just use a chisel to scrape the undercoating and dirt off, I will scrape everything in them sections eventually so I can coat it with POR15 and then primer, and then body color paint, I might be able to skip the primer.




I am kinda wore out right now, maybe I need to eat more than one banana in the morning.

Oh yea, I removed the passenger door last night also, one bolt was already broke, I didn't break any of the ones I removed, I will need to fix that, maybe after dinner.

[DRIVEN]

Geez, Wayno. Save something for the long, dark winter.

[wayno]

There is a lot of truck there needing work, I originally thought it was a fairly straight truck with a few issues, I must have been delusional.

I originally was going to treat the rusty areas and straighten the pillar and maybe sell it, but that is a pipe dream for me, if I see something that needs attention I fix it, there is a lot that needs fixed.

I expect before I am done I will have pulled the body off the frame.

[wayno]

I finished scraping most the dirt/undercoating off both front outside inner fenders, not sure how well POR15 will stick to what is there, I expect I will have to use a wire wheel or sand blast everything to get all of the foreign substances off to do it right, sand blasting is messy.




#With most the crap off I expect it would sand blast pretty fast, but I would rather it be outside but then I lose my medium also, inside the cab it was easy to save most of it as it was in a enclosed area, I will have to make adjustments to get it outside.

I thought about making a rotisserie for the cab of this truck using two of the air lifts I have, but I can scrape laying on my back also, or maybe I will get so burnt out I will leave the underside alone.

[wayno]

Well I sand blasted the inner fenders and then put POR15 on them, I didn't sand blast it down to bare metal but I did do most of it a little, mainly I got everywhere my wire brush could not get to and anywhere where I could see undercoating.




With POR15 on them now.











I will just let that area be for now and move on to another area, at some point I am going to have to remove the engine/transmission to do the engine bay, that is when I will get the paint out.

[DRIVEN]

Looks great.

[wayno]

I just did some reading about POR15 and I might just sand most of it off, it appears to not be that good for auto applications, it's very hard and cracks when flexed like what happens to auto bodies, I learn more about stuff after I use it.
I will need to rough it up anyway to get primer to stick to it, I have some flap discs coming that will be used on it before real primer, I really have not had a lot of issues with the 521 kingcab box cracking the paint though, I will read some more about it.

[HRH]

Wow! I'm impressed wayno! Wish I had half your body skills! That thing is looking better by leaps and bounds!

[wayno]

I am not sure what skills you are talking about, I am not really good at body work but I can tack weld in pieces.
I tried to make a new rocker assembly but could not get 20 gauge to bend properly after the second bend, but I was able to make the lower outside rocker piece, 4 more bends and I could have made the outside rocker but it was not to be, I could not find a large enough metal brake at anywhere near a reasonable price so I made what I could with 2 pieces of angle iron, a vice, and a bunch of "C" clamps.
I just got thru wire wheeling 50 percent of the POR15 off, it has been roughed up or is gone, what is left is so thin that it will not really crack and cause the primer above it to crack also which would cause the paint to crack, but I will prime a section and let it dry to see what happens, if I have no issues I will prime everything I put POR15 on.
I am thinking get the cab straight as possible a section at a time and then prime it and as soon as the whole body is done then I will paint it, then I will do all the other parts like the hood, doors, fenders, tailgate separately, it will be a long time before I get to them.

[HRH]

Let's just say you're better at that than I am.

[wayno]

If I was more patient I would likely do a better job, but after putting bondo on a spot and sanding it off and having to do it all over again several times I just get tired of doing it and settle for alright, I cannot seem to make a flat spot, it is always wavy no matter how long of a sanding board i use, I used a 3 foot long board on the 520 bed sides and it was still wavy like I had just skipped a rock on a smooth pond, that is why it got painted white.
The top of this U320 is just about perfect, so I will not need to do much there, but the rest of it has been thru what appears to be used as a work truck with all the dents and dings a work truck gets, I am asking myself if I should remove all the bondo on the drivers side behind the door all the way to the taillight, even the taillight mount area is damaged.