New World Datsuns...

Nope. The neighbor thought he had a key and we went through his key bucket -- no luck. Windows were secured and I didn't think it was necessary to breech the door.
They'll be back in town today but I'm stuck in California for work until Friday night. No biggie, plenty of time to get it finished.

I had to go out of town for a few days but I'm back now and spent a little time on it yesterday and today. Takes forever for product to dry because it's only 50* inside the shop.


This shows the main reason I had to do the blackout treatment to the hood and fender tops. Previous owner just smeared some Bondo over a couple dents. Initially I just sanded the spots semi-flat and covered them up. It'll be better now but not perfect. Next owner can either live with it or prep and paint the whole car.



Everything is in primer now. I'll wet sand tomorrow and re-prime.

I wet sanded, primed, and wet sanded again with 320. Sprayed the valance and it came out okay. Then I sprayed the sound deadening patches on the bottom side of the hood. Previously the center one was black but the outer 3 were body color. Figured I'd just make them all the same.



Once the bottom of the hood was dry I flipped it and painted it as well as the top of the fenders satin black. It was glossier than I expected and looked like shit.
It showed a lot of imperfections plus it tiger striped pretty bad. So I ran back to the store for some flat black And tried again. Still glossier than I expected but I'll just live with it. Maybe after it cures overnight it'll mellow out.



The upside of the day was that my dad bought me a proper gas cap. No more ugly parts store Stant.

Been fighting a cold for the last couple days and having a really hard time wanting to do anything. Peeled myself off the couch and went over this morning to slap it together. I'd almost forgotten to replace my hood release cable but luckily remembered right before screwing the grille in. I wasn't able to find a LHD assembly so I had to buy a RHD and swap the cable, which apparently isn't available separately.
I decided to leave my little lip spoiler off for now.



I drove it around the 3-4 mile loop again and it ran fine but idles a bit choppy sometimes. I'm thinking the really old gas isn't helping so I'll get some fresh stuff in there soon.
By this point in the day I was running out of steam and decided to play with a red grease pen to see what redlines would look like.



I'm getting kind of burned out on this thing so it may get sidelined for a few weeks. I really need to get an Idaho title coming for it too. There's just a couple minor things under the hood to wrap up. Then it's time to spiff up the interior a bit.

I was wondering why the tops of the fenders were a different color, but that looks really clean with the hood on. Great work!

Thanks. Believe me when I say that I would have much preffered the previous owner hadn't maliciously smeared Bondo on the hood and fender tops. A PDR guy likely could have made any dents disappear. It is what it is at this point. The next owner will probably be calling me an idiot too and change 90% of the car anyway.

Subtle details make a big difference. Looks good

I did that to my car. Definitely is a good look on the wagons to go with the cargo window seal.

Agreed. Wagons with body colored window frames look strange to me.

Made a trip to the DMV on Wednesday to get the VIN inspected, tranfer the title, and get Idaho plates. I've driven it a little and so far, so good. It's back living in my garage now and out of my dad's shop. I still need to get back over there and tidy up a bit. Actually, I need to start packing.

Did a 60 mile loop today because my belly needed tacos.







Ran like a champ, everything still works. It's still as twitchy, rough, and full of rattles as it always was. My carpet kit should be here soon so then I can finish the interior and get it listed. It'll look great in someone else's garage.

Got restless and did a 30 mile "essentials" run. This thing is really fun to drive. It's just been sitting in my garage for a month now and lit right up after about a revolution and a half. Seems to be really happy cruising at 70, which is 15 over the posted limit on the route I took. I kept having to reel it in if I quit watching the speedo for too long. When I go home I found most of my carpet kit was delivered. Haven't laid it out yet. Maybe Friday.

The other half of my carpet kit finally showed up. I drove it over to my dad's shop yesterday with the intention of spending all day working on interior and carpet. First thing I did was run to the hardware store for some fasteners, cleaning supplies, and acetone.
Kicked off my day by swapping out the mirrors. I know they were new but I didn't like them. Passenger side wouldn't adjust in far enough and the quality wasn't great. I ended up buying another set that cost 3x as much but are much, much nicer. I know the pics don't really show it but they are a huge improvement.


A previous craftsman decided it would look great to paint all the sill plates black so that they'd look extra shitty as the paint wore off and got scratched.


I used the acetone and cleaned them the best I could but there was some paint in crevices that just wasn't coming off. I took my collection of various aluminum paint cans and made some test shots on the back side of one until I found a good match for sheen.


I certainly would have preferred to leave them raw but they just looked horrible so I didn't have much choice. The other thing I did was try to use acetone to get some of the same horrible black paint off the hearer box. It's ready for some finish sanding and flat black paint.

While that was drying I wiped down the cargo area and laid all the carpet pieces flat. Then cleaned the inner liftgate panel and side panels up. The speakers are just in cut out MDF type stuff and will be going away. I installed the liftgate panel with some of the new hardware.


At that point I remembered a couple little details under the hood I wanted to address. This is where my momentum stopped. Fucking mice! I saw 2 of them pop out and back into the inner fenders. So I set 2 traps under the hood and one on the passenger floorboard and got a ride home to set traps in my empty shop that I haven't even moved in to. Fuck!
When I checked the car this morning I had one missing cheese and a mouse in another.


Re-baited and set them and left it for another night. We'll see how they look in the morning and do a little minor cleanup. Luckily, it doesn't appear that they'd found a way inside the car and I didn't see any damage under the hood anywhere.

You need an electric rat trap. It fries those little shits wonderfully.

I need to keep traps in the shop and install some flashing. The mud sill has pulled away from the concrete almost all the way around.


You can see daylight at the base of the walls. Once it's sealed there I'm hoping I'm good. I've got at least 3 Red Tail hawks picking them out of the field and at least 2 cats wandering around. A couple owls too.

Car has been mouse free for a couple weeks now so I cleaned everything up under the hood. It really wasn't bad, luckily. I pulled my aluminum intake elbow and shaved a useless tab off that would have been used in the Cobalt that I pulled it from. Then I gave it a Scotchbrite finish to better match some of the other items under the hood.

Then I pulled the front seats and peeled the old sheepskins off. Just like I remember them.




Dumbass previous owner decided to drill holes in the floor to mount some ill fitting (Cavalier?) seats before I owned it. Even managed to miss the mark and drill a second set on the driver's side. Rather than weld the holes, I elected to just glue some patches down. They'll be waterproof and never rust so good enough for me right now. Next owner is free to do it differently if they so choose.



I'll leave it to dry for a day or two then start on carpet.

I just couldn't seem to muster up the motivation to work on this thing. Got over to my dad's shop about 1pm today and finally got the carpet installed.


Since I'm a baller I ordered the optional cargo carpet and monogrammed floor mat set.







The interior is pretty much done now. I'm going to look for some seat covers for the front.





So now it's time for an informal poll. Which do you guys think looks better. With or without caps?





I've hung them on there a couple times but have never snapped them all the way on because I know it's going to ruin the wheel paint.