New World Datsuns...

I hear ya. I just don't have the patience for body work. I don't enjoy it and I'm not very good at it. I truly believe it's a talent you're born with and I don't have it. That's why I can appreciate the work you're doing.

I do the best if I don't work all day long every day on it, I have done gutter cleaning and roof treatments the last two days and have not done anything to this truck, I have work tomorrow and the next also, but winter is coming and i don't work much at all from November thru February anymore, so I have lots of time to work on it.
I am amazed how good the top of the 520 came out, but I spent a lot of time on that top, I was not happy with the sides of the 520 bed though, I got tired of working on it but needed to paint it before winter, so i settled with alright.

Have not done anything to this the last few days, but these arrived for my 320s.
First some column grommets, top 2 are LHD and the bottom is RHD.


Here are three 320 radio delete plates, the top 2 are 3d printed from my original on the bottom that I sent to him to copy, he gave these to me along with one of the LHD column grommets in the photo above, I expect he will try to sell the radio delete plates to 320 owners.


He seems like a nice guy to deal with, the column grommets are $55.00, I don't know what he is selling the radio delete for, I also sent him my best 521 wiper motor grommet, maybe he will make them also, 3D printing has come a long ways, he is printing flexible rubber parts.

Well I primed the inner fenders.




Then I removed the splash guard/valance, that thing is beat up, I had to remove the bumper brackets to get it off and one bolt in the middle below the hood catch, other wise all I did was take a chisel and lightly hammer the 2 spot welds holding it on and it came right off.
I then knocked off all the bondo I could then used a pry bar with a 90 degree end on it to pound the dented are out far enough to get flat metal pieces on both sides of the metal where it is supposed to be flat and I am in the middle of flattening the metal out, it was bent down on the right front side, I will leave it clamped like it is till tomorrow afternoon, then I will take it apart and see what needs to be done next to straighten it, it had a quarter inch of bondo in it, also where the spot welds released so easily needs to be beefed up or replaced, I hardly tapped that chisel and it came apart from the radiator core support, I will put it back on with nuts and bolts when it is straight, primed and painted.
It is not straight yet, it appears to have some twist now.

Well this valance/splash guard was beat to shit, it was bent down on one side and it didn't want to straighten out, but I kept at it until I got it close, normally there are 3 screws that hold the bottom lip of the valance, I had to add 2 more to get it to look right.


This area was the side that was bent down and twisted, it will need a layer of bondo to be smooth, but I got it really close.


Here it is before putting bondo on it.






I will likely do some bondo tomorrow, it is never going to be perfect, but the bumper will be in front of it so unless something looks bad when the bumper is on it then I will deal with it.

I fitted the splash guard/valance, I used a small bolt on each end as the spot welds that were holding it on were almost nonexistent, it is on there better now that it was before I removed it.




I got it as straight as I could, I made stiffeners for the area that the bolts above went thru for both sides and then I spot welded them in position.





I put it on the truck and put some bondo-hair on the 2 worst spots and it is hardening now.

OK, I have the splash guard/valance mounted again and put more bondo hair on it in one spot, I took a photo of it with 3 black lines on the driver side, the left line is of the first hole I made to mount the splash guard/valance, the 2nd middle black line is where I drilled the lower radiator core support around where it was spot welded on when stock, the 3rd black line is also where it was spot welded when it was stock, when I remove the radiator and engine I will try and remember to drill that one on both sides also, these inner bolts/nuts are kinda hard to get to but it needs to be done so stuff will not rattle, I am going to use big washers on the radiator side as the metal is not that great anymore, I have been trying to straighten all these pieces of metal as I go, this truck has taken a lot of abuse.


You can see thru the air holes where these nuts/bolts are.

I test fit the driver side fender today and everything lines up with the holes, unfortunately all the captured nuts are toast on the fender.




I straightened the left where the radiator core support connects to the inner fender, I likely spent an hour working on that.


Next I cleaned up the front core support, removed all the old paint with a wire wheel I bought recently and then I primed it, before I primed everything.




I then removed the front splash guard, and radiator and fixed the lower radiator core bottoms where it had a spot weld at one time, one of the photos was blurry so I trashed that one.






Here it is with the splash guard installed and 3 bolts on both sides holding it on, it is much stiffer now.




Here is the gap now between the radiator core support and the splash guard.




Here it is all primed, I have quit working on it now, I worked all day off and on.


Oh, I forgot that the bottom piece on the valance is not installed right now, it was covered with POR 15 that I will likely not completely sand off, it was super rusty so I decided it needed something, I will prime it tomorrow more than likely and decide if I will paint it as one piece or separate.

I did this today between jobs.

LS swap?

LS I expect means lazy sucker swap as i removed nothing that I didn't have to, I tried taking it out with the transmission connected but there was no way that was going to happen so I had to remove the starter and transmission from the engine, I removed the exhaust connection, the fuel line, the wires including the spark plug wire going to the coil, and the throttle cable, that is it, I didn't even remove the air filter.
It was kinda a bitch to get that transmission off the engine, it didn't want to come loose, I used 2 giant screw drivers and a hammer to get it apart.
Them lift hooks are not the greatest, I thought they were long bolts going into the head but they sort of bent the valve cover a little, if I want to used them again I will need to make something that pulls straight up from the lift hooks, I can likely make something, this is the first E block I have ever pulled in my life.
Believe it or not I actually have a J15 engine/4spd(floor shift) that will fit right in this truck and I have the tunnel cover for the floor shift, but this engine matches the VIN tag number, so I will just fix the front and rear seals, I will likely convert the front seal to a real seal instead of putting a new rope ring or whatever you call that front seal in the front cover, I will need to put another rope seal in the rear which will require removing that rear crank main cap, not looking forward to that.

I'd definitely keep it stock. Carry on.

Keep in mind it is not stock now(drop arms/disc brakes), but I have done nothing to it that is not reversible as I have all the stock parts for it, I even did a dual master conversion but I didn't change the firewall, but I guess the brake lines are not reversible.

this is what I did today after working a half day, I took photos of the wiring and then I almost removed it, I need to either mark the ignition switch wires or just work around it in the engine compartment.












You can see I saved the little inner fender mud flap tangs sticking out of the inner fender, I saved all the original washers also.
I will need to remove the steering column and shift lever assembly so I can paint it and install the firewall grommet when I put it back in, but I am going to remove it mostly so I can clean, prime, and paint the engine compartment, I also removed all the brake lines and masters.

I cleaned this also.

I removed the steering column this evening, sometimes I think they could have done/designed a lot of stuff better, but this was when they were just starting to import Datsuns to the USA.

So this afternoon/evening I removed the plastic push thru things that hold the inner firewall stuff on the firewall.








Then I took a lot of photos of everything so I would have a reference in case I forgot something, then I made a media catch bucket setup and then sand blasted the engine compartment, now I only went after the rusty spots hard, the rest I just roughed it up and blew the dirt off to ready it for primer, I am using high build primer but it doesn't seem like it is high build.

Well I didn't say anything because I was not sure, but I separated the cab and the chassis today after priming the engine compartment, I was unhappy with chassis stuff in the way while priming, I also noticed the cab was on the chassis crooked, like the wreck it had been in in the past had pushed it over an inch as the shock upper studs were not even side to side, you can see that in this first photo.
I primed the engine compartment, it needs more sanding.








Then I separated the cab and chassis, I believe I can almost roll the chassis out from under the cab now.






I had to cut one body mount bolt to get the cab off the chassis.




Everything is going to be much easier to get to with the cab off the chassis in the engine compartment.

I rolled the frame/chassis out of the garage today and pressure washed it, a lot of Australia came out of it.


I then got under the truck and looked around, I found something I did not like, I consider this a design flaw.




So I got out a paint scraper and my air gun and proceeded in removing likely 10 to 20 pounds of Australia from the truck saddle bags under the truck, this is what it is supposed to look like.










Here some of it is in a bucket.


I was thinking about covering the holes but it will not be so easy on the gas tank side as the fill tube is in the way.




That is where I am at now, I was going to scrape all the crap off the bottom of the truck but after getting under it I am not so sure that is a good idea and it will likely take over a week to do, it is covered with shit that likely will not let much water get thru but it likely will hold water also, not sure what to do right now.

Is there an easy way to get that undercoating and all the other crap off the bottom of the truck?

I bought this today and started scraping away at the bottom of the cab, it is much easier removing that undercoating with it, but I seem to be wearing the scrapper out fast, I have had to sharpen it up several times over the 2 or 3 hours I used it, but I bought another scraper as I didn't realize it came with one.






It is not coming out as bare metal, not sure what I am going to do when I get the whole thing done, probably just put a layer of undercoating on it as to paint it I would likely have to sand blast all of it/the whole bottom side, it doesn't look like it was ever painted.