inline6

Another metal replacement project tackled yesterday - replacing the metal that had been cut for speakers by a previous owner. This is the luggage riser area: Though pictured is a die grinder with a cutting wheel attachment, most of the cutting was done with a 4.5 inch DeWalt hand grinder with a cutting wheel. That cuts way faster... I picked up that knowledge from watching various Youtube channels. It seems to be the way to go, but it can be harder to control the cuts for sure. For more precision, I switch to the die grinder when needed. Pretty much have been using the die grinder and cut off wheels for decades! But, I am not sure about the extent of harm to the lungs from using these cut off wheels (they slowly turn to dust as you use them). Definitely eliminate the possibility - wear a particle mask! Leaning in through the door and twisting to do all the work related (cutting, filing, fitting and tack welding), made my lower back sore, so I am giving that a rest from continuing with the remaining work on these for a bit. I have started on the dash. I pulled the Vintage Dashes reproduction out of the box and mounted it on the cleaned metal frame. I power washed the frame, dried it, and then touched up areas that were spray painted black from the factory, such as the areas that can be seen when looking at the defrost vents. As body work starts to come to an end, I will have to organize the work to be done elsewhere. There are many different aspects of work to schedule and do, so some dedicated time spent on planning (writing out) seems very prudent at this point. Suspension, transmission, differential, the rest of the engine build, interior, electrical... lots of things to consider.

Is your car silver too? What brand of paint did you use? Glasurit (what I have used for undercoats) doesn't seem to have a paint mix code for 1971 Datsun silver.

It is really past time for an update... 35 pics of body work follow - a lot of work to resize and upload and format ?. As always, clicking on the images gives you a large version. Passenger side door (upside down - front door gap to fender is the vertical gap) - cleaned of primer, and touch up weld to fill gap (center pic): Fiberglass headlamp housings had not been primed yet - they were just sanded down. You can see the original primers that were used, first red, then dark grey. Following shows after guide coat and sanding of the two coats of high build primer. I broke through in lots of places. The panels were not nearly as straight as they needed to be. I switched to a higher quality, fine body filler for the areas that needed it, like the passenger door: Again, and I can't stress enough, if you want to spend less time and less aggravation on body work, spread your filler across large expanses of the panel (even the whole panel) instead of a little bit here and a little bit there like I always think I can get away with. Left rear quarter panel, one of the straightest panels on the car, needed some filler in places at this "late" stage of the game. Imperfections of literally a thousandth of an inch can be seen when looking at a glossy panel. Using proper sanding technique is also very important to achieving a panel without waves. 3+ more coats of high build primer applied over the weekend. Places that I knew were not 100% right got an extra 1-2 coats, for a max of 5 in certain areas. I am hopeful that guide coat and sanding process will get me where I need to be, but I suspect that the car will still require another round of primer and sanding after this one is worked down. Body lines are kept really sharp at this point in the game. They can be softened and made consistent later. The body line above the rear fender appears to be a bit light to me, indicating the area is a touch low. We'll see how things take shape (or don't) as the next round of guide coat and sanding progresses in this area. Damaged rear edge of rear quarter panel looks much better now: Door gaps (to fender, to quarter, to rocker, etc.) and alignments of all panels have to be done before you get to this high build primer stage. You can't be yanking and tweaking metal now. I am letting the primer dry for a week so shrinkage can occur. I may leave it for two weeks, and then do the guide coat and sanding process. Plenty of other work that can be done in the meantime.

I'm all DIY, so, definitely not a pro. By a "nice base sealer", I wonder if he is just saying that he wants to apply a sealer over everything including the seam sealer. That would be my guess. My plan is to continue doing the body work for the next month or so... and then let it sit for another month: 1) because it will take a while for me to get it as good as I want it, and 2) to give the filler and undercoats time to dry and settle. At that point, I will hand it over to a pro to finish however they see fit to. It will be damn close to being ready to spray.

After the two coats of high build primer, this is how things look. The camera doesn't like focusing on this light color - ugh.? I will need some more light filler in some spots (will it ever end?!). Will likely do that and some more high build filler in strategic spots, such as: where the body line meets the front fender arch contour... and along the fender arch on the driver side, as examples.

All my stuff is solvent based. For sealants, I've not had good luck reproducing factory in the past. They don't smooth out enough unless I go over them with some lacquer thinner within a few minutes of applying. I will look to 3M products and see what is currently available. Also, unless I spray primer over it, I think I run the chance of the base coat not looking the same wherever it is covering seam sealer. The concern is areas like inside the rain gutters, the quarter panel to rocker cover seams, and the quarter panel to tail light panel seams. I'm going to put a really small amount in these places just to fill the gaps, then cover with the primer/sealer. I am not worried about the seams inside on the floor, or underneath on the floor.

I've generally had issues with base coat not appearing consistent if the coat it covers is not uniform. So, yes, a sealer coat to provide the consistent foundation. Primers used so far have been: Epoxy: 801-703 High build: 285-50

I've been sanding and sanding, trying to get the body prepped for high build primer coats (ended up doing two plus a third on certain areas). It will be interesting to see how much more filler is required. I'm telling you, getting the filler laid on over big areas is the trick! Very little of this crap touch up with body filler is necessary if you do that. A few videos for you: One coat of Glasurit epoxy primer (basically), and body filler on top: A second coat of Glasurit epoxy primer: Lightly sanded, and some fine body filler applied in a few areas. It is now ready for high build primer coats:

Patcon is right. I am using a sillicone remover, not a silicone based product. And actually, it is silicone and wax remover, not tar.

Epoxy primer applied. ? Has to be above 60 degrees for it to dry, so I'm using a kerosene heater to elevate the temperature in the garage.

I got the body filler work to a point on the car where another coat of epoxy primer was warranted. I'm still not 100% on how it should be done, but I like putting down a coat on bare metal, then doing body filler, then another coat to seal everything. The plan is to shoot high build primer next, and then to block sand to perfection. We'll see how that goes. ? A lot of time was spent getting the panels "close" with filler. More than I hoped. You can spray silicone and tar remover on and let is sit while you look down the sides of the panel to see where you are with progress. Then wipe off and let stand a few minutes to dry before priming. A really important learning using body filler is to apply it to very large areas at a time. You don't want to apply thin amounts just in the low spots and then sand that down... Inevitably, when you do that, you will end up with more wavy-ness that you hoped for. Lows and highs of only maybe 5 thousands of an inch can be seen in a finished panel. So, instead, apply skim coats to the full panel (unless it is perfect, which can be checked via the silicone and tar remover method above). You'll save a bunch of time and get a better results by doing this. Another option, which I have not used yet, is to apply spray on polyester filler. That looks like a pretty awesome way to go, and I may try that next time around. How things look just before applying 801-703 Glasurit epoxy primer (which was also used on the bare metal): Left rear quarter panel was crazy straight. There is some filler in the area between the door and wheel well opening that has already been covered over with some epoxy primer though.

Very nice! I need my lines done also. Is what's shown in you pictures lines for more than one car? I need to look back through your build thread to find what you did for prep on those. Any tips to pass along before I ship all the lines out?

Looking at these pics - I have been doing body filler on my 240z for many weekends now, and it's amazing how this car is getting bondo in mostly the same places. I mean, my car is nearly skim coated over all panels now, but areas that take more are similar to yours - below belt line on fenders, slightly above belt line on doors and below belt line extensively, touch up areas on quarter panels, only below the parking lamps on the left and right valances, etc. This car you are restoring is getting a fair amount of metal work. Lots of hours go into that stuff. Must be costing A LOT!

Nothing like spending another 12 hours this weekend out in the garage, mostly doing body work. The outer replacement panel came out super nice, in my opinion. Extra effort (and time) making the old and new panels line up perfectly so neither is higher or lower along the edge to be welded really helps make the finished area after grinding look much nicer, and take less filler. Also, on the driver side I made the cut to the old panel just below the little radius curve and sharp bend that make up the lower body line. Making the cut here and welding here is better because the bend gives this area of the panel some strength as opposed to where I cut it on the passenger side. There I cut about and inch or so below that bend, and when I was welding the old panel back, this flat area wanted to shrink and pull inwards. I had to keep tapping it from the inside to push it back out as I tack welded. Welded and ground, door gap altered... around dog leg curve on quarter panel to match door edge radius Distortion was minimal with this, my second try, and weld seams are hard to see after finishing with 80 grit on a DA sander: All that work to save a couple of factory spot welds! Middle pic - where new piece rosette welds (4 of them) to rocker, and last pic showing finish along radius. Final door gap will be corrected with very small amounts of filler and primer. Getting close to spraying epoxy primer over all the exterior, but it is supposed to rain here all week!

The hose clamp diameter is 1/2" inch. Take a look at that last pic before you look through what you've got - these clamps are a bit different design than most on the car. The wire part circles around the plate the screw threads through. I chose Paltech because Ztherapy wouldn't rebuild my specific carbs - they only do exchange. I felt mine were in near excellent condition, so I didn't want to swap them for some that may not be as nice. Lots of stuff can be bad that one doesn't think about. For example, I have seen some with broken locator tangs on the carb casting. Without those, the float assemblies can rotate off of vertical. And I have seen stripped air cleaner mounting threads which were welded and repaired, etc. Copy that on going through them for checking settings. I'll be sure to do that. I am shooting for completion of the car by the end of July. I'm nearly sure that is optimistic, but hopefully can at least make ZCON2020 a month or so later. Let me know on the hose clamp.

I got the carburetors, manifold etc. back from Paltech. Sent these away about a month ago, along with some extra parts to get plated. They look really awesome. I am very excited to see they came out this nice. I am hoping that the quality of the machine work to put in new bushings and shafts, plates, etc. is very high quality. Everything feels really tight and looks great. The domes are more polished than they should be for original appearance, but I didn't specify not to polish them, nor am I trying to build a top tier show car. So, can't fault him for making them "too nice". Soooooooo, here are the pics! In the last pic above, I have a question. I only have three of the four original style hose clamps for the fuel supply hoses (from fuel rail to each carb) and those are pictured. However, I think the original color of these shouldn't be gold "cad". Is the original color on these supposed to be silver? It's my screw up if so, but I may need to get them re-plated. Also, I need to track down a fourth!

Thanks for the compliments! Challenging to keep raising the bar on the quality of work, and fun when the outcome meets or exceeds my expectations. Makes it more tolerable to put in all of the hours.

I made some good progress yesterday. As always, clicking on the image will give you a larger picture. Rosette welds on inner panel and finish grinding on wheel house repair area, marking out where to cut on the rocker curved surface: Trimming replacement rocker piece to fit (no overlapping joints): Fit is decent. After removal of the area being replaced, I took some pics showing the inside of the rocker: Inside the rocker looks very good. Starting to tack the new panel in: Several angles: Continuing to weld all the way around: Just a small spot that needed to be closed: Grind down welds - finish work: More rosette welds where needed. Additionally, I used a small amount of fiberglass body filler in a few strategic areas. Fiberglass body filler is 100% waterproof. And I learned recently that it is a good idea to use it on certain weld seams like these to fill tiny holes that are present after welding and grinding down. Additionally, I wanted to fill the pitting and couple of holes in the rocker panel in the area that I did not replace. Finish repair of inner panels in red oxide primer. Final fitting of outer replacement panel. Taking time here to get the fit dead on is really important. The finished result after grinding down the welds will come out much better if old to new panel alignment is 100% level and weld gaps are present but don't exceed 1 mm. New to old panel fit is good. The gap got wider than optimum in a couple of areas (middle photo): Front edge fit. Door gap in corner corrected for better gap consistency: There isn't much more welding and finish grinding to do here to complete this part of the project. Body work elsewhere on the panels is probably about 75% at a guess. I am going to be spraying the whole thing and all loose panels in epoxy primer one more time, then the high build primer, and started guide coat sanding.

Ok, onward with the work at hand - reconstruction in progress: Fit turned out really nice with this custom piece: Some more that had to be cut out because it was just too damaged: It is actually pretty incredible how far rust goes when it takes hold. Eventually the removal of cancer came to an end and reconstruction started to take hold: Some red oxide primer was used in hidden areas and welding of replacements finally began: Though never seen by anyone, grinding down welds couldn't be helped: Zooming in on some of the welds to the thinest original metal: I will soon be able to finish the work in this area. Drilled through in preparation for rosette welds...

I believe there were many different distributors and internal components (springs, weights, etc.). There is the so called "Euro" distributor also. Perhaps the 5 BTDC actually worked well with the US spec distributor for that car. Or, perhaps running more was better for performance. I believe the Euro spec distributor was paired with a 17 BTDC spec.

You get two sheets in the box with an order quantity of 1 of part number G5930-89904. Each is about 3 feet square I think. One box is not enough to do the full car, and maybe not even both floors in front and under the seats. And again, it doesn't look to be the right thickness.

G5930-89902 is discontinued. And though I was able to buy G5930-89904, it appears to be about .060" in thickness, and what I took out of my 1971 from the tunnel (floor "mat" was already gone) is about .090". Package shelf appears to be about .090" as well. It would be nice to confirm original thickness of the pieces for the floor and the tunnel, as well as the rear deck, for US cars that had them. For the record, I measure my 6/1971 tunnel pieces at about .090". I will measure the package shelf piece and edit this post to include that information. Edit - 5/9/2020: The original package shelf sound deadening material is also about .090" (Same as tunnel). I bought a pack of the Wurth sound deadening mat and unfortunately they have improved the product. It now has cloth on the upper surface which is white/silver to my eye. It no longer looks black like the original Datsun stuff.

Actually, I believe G5930-89902 is discontinued. And though I was able to buy G5930-89904, it appears to be about .060" in thickness, and what I took out of my 1971 from the tunnel (floor "mat" was already gone) is about .090". Package shelf appears to be about .090" as well. It would be nice to confirm original thickness of the pieces for the floor and the tunnel, as well as the rear deck, for US cars that had all three. Going to put this in another thread.

I guess the "About Me" on your profile isn't about you! ? Must be a forum software glitch?

While not suspension, I have these reference pics of the manual transmission cross member mount. Can't imagine that the paint used for this would be different than the suspension, but I do not know for sure. Maybe useful to someone here (click for bigger image):