Leaderboard

Heyo! Who ordered deez spaghetts? All of the dash components are wired up except for reinstalling the old rheostat (more on that later). After I do that, the next step is to put the dash into the car and terminate the wires you see hanging out on the ends. Those go to the fuse box, AC, multi switches, relays, and other harnesses. I decided to pull the home-made PWM setup I had and reinstall the OEM rheostat, because I found a nice little PWM unit meant for a Porsche 928 called an AILD-1 that’s controlled by an old-school rheostat instead of using a pot installed directly on the circuit board. I haven’t figured out where it’s going to mount yet, so I’ll make a harness that inserts the AILD-1 between the rheostat and the dash harness but keeps the original terminals. That way if for some reason I decide to go back to incandescent bulbs I can just pull the PWM and connect everything as stock.

Welcome to the group

I pulled my carbs & intake and wanted to use a local mechanic to break loose the studs on my exhaust downpipe and my manifold. I don't have access to a heat torch. He did a great job. He welded a bolt on a broken manifold stud and was able to reverse a broken stud out. I even bought helicoils for him to use which he didn't need. I was pretty happy with his work. But, when the wrecker picked up the car from the mechanic, it was windy. He took it down a back country road (including a dirt road...). A tree branch fell on the car. At first, he thought he blew a tire. It damaged my front bumper, the hood, the headlight scoops and the roof. All of which are repairable. The car is a 60,000 mile '71. It was painted in about 2000 with a cheap single stage paint job. I didn't think the single stage paint would match. Both headlight scoops and the hood would need repainted but both fenders were fine. It would have looked stupid and the insurance company wasn't too helpful. I decided to go ahead and get the entire car repainted. Now I am tearing the car down, removing everything but the interior and the engine bay wire harness. I wasn't really in the mood to do that. I bought a low vin '70 a few years ago. That car has been a long process but I am ready to reassemble the '70 now so tearing down the '71 was not in my plans. The good news if there is any is that I found a body shop that specializes in restoring classic cars. I heard about them from another local Datsun guy that was very happy with the work they did for him. The body shop does great work and they are very accommodating (they did my '70). Finding a good body shop seems to be the most difficult task. Then you don't know if you made the right decision until after the project is completed. If anyone needs a great body shop, let me know. They are located in northwest Ohio. Such as it is. 😞