So I've been able to get blueridgespeed over to my house to help get me started with my welder and he walked me though the metal patching and repair work. I have to say that I wouldn't have a clue as to what to do if he had not come over and gotten me going and for that I am thankful. By the way, HAPPY THANKSGIVING everyone!
I started cleaning my L16:
And Z_rac3r hooked up this Weber carb for the low low.
We cut out some bad metal:
... and then repaired it. This was my first metal repair. (not to toot my own horn or anything but. .) I think i did pretty well for my first time and thankfully my little flux core welder did fine.
Last edited by djfootball on 13 Feb 2013 05:07, edited 4 times in total.
djfootball wrote:Sooo.. I got the brake lines out in one piece and managed to not bend them up too much. My plan was to get them out and re-bend and add new fittings to the new lines but i think these will still be fine to re-use.
Time to clean out my bay. We realized that the previous owner had coated the bay with some type of textured truck bed lining. It's pretty much plastic coating and it's super duper hard to remove. I've decided to do the work and melt the plastic with mapp gas and scraping it with a paint scraper. This allowed to me to hit it with the brush with out it gumming up too bad. Here's a before, after and after after sequence.
Before:
After:
After after:
I gotta do the entire engine bay like this along with the wheel wells. I plan on por15-ing the wheel wells and epoxy primer-ing the engine bay along with a top coat. The wheel wells will remain the black por15 color and i'm still trying to decided what color the bay will be.
I sanded down my steering wheel and I want to epoxy coat the wood on it.
DOES ANYONE have the center cap for this steering wheel? I even like to see a photo of the complete steering wheel if anyone has a photo of it handy. I believe it's a 240z steering wheel????
DJ, I dont think you're going to need that JC Whitney hub/adapter kit. If the 240z wheel (yes it's a z wheel - prob 72 or later, as the earliest ones had depressions where that one has the square cutouts in the spokes) - anyway, if it doesn't fit, let's take a look at it. There's a good chance we can make it work.
If if "almost fits" but won't press on and off easily, that probably means it will fit! (The hub of the wheel, with the female portion, is aluminum, so carefully cleaning off any burrs on the face of the splines may be all that's necessary - use a TINY, MICROSCPIC file)
If it's NOT EVEN CLOSE, it's probably just the case that I am wrong about the 510's and Z's interchanging.
If it's not even close, but you still want to run that wheel, then you'll need a hub from a 510 wheel to fit your steering shaft... then adapt THAT hub to your Z wheel. I'm afraid the link you have is to adapt a 240z steering shaft to a grant wheel, which is a different bolt pattern than Momo and Sparco, and Nardi, IIRC
That wheel will fit a 510 as-is. The only problem will be the turn signal cancelers, they are 90° out of phase for a 510. This means the signals will cancel early, won't cancel at all, or will be hard to engage, depending on steering angle at the time of turn signalling. You can make an adapter place to swap the pins, or you can pull the pins entirely and manually cancel signals, or you can leave it as is.
There are various horn buttons for that wheel. Search "datsun steering wheel" on eBay. You'll also need the horn bit in addition to the button, and you'll need to match the horn bit to the button. Some buttons (really, they're big round pads) just press on, some press-and-twist via tabs. Those sets have to match. If you have the (or an) original wheel for the 510, you may be able to scrounge parts.
You can see my resto of a Z wheel in my build thread.
Because when you spend a silly amount of money on a silly, trivial thing that will help you not one jot, you are demonstrating that you have a soul and a heart and that you are the sort of person who has no time for Which? magazine. – Jeremy Clarkson
FWIW, Datsun only seemed to use two spline patterns for the steering wheel from the late '60s through the '80s. BITD when 720s were in the junkyards, you could find a nice factory three-spoke MOMO copy that would bolt right on.
Because when you spend a silly amount of money on a silly, trivial thing that will help you not one jot, you are demonstrating that you have a soul and a heart and that you are the sort of person who has no time for Which? magazine. – Jeremy Clarkson
Having stripped a few engine bays with minimal tools, I can fully understand what it has taken you to clean this up to this point - great job!. Careful planning at this point as to what will go back in and where it will be place will make all the difference in the finished product.
Now is a great time to start closing off holes you will not need. Keep the progress pics coming.
Byron
Love people and use things,
because the opposite never works.
Byron, thanks for the kind words. I'm stoked that there's someone other than me that's doing things the hard way. I REALLY gotta get myself a compressor. There will be a little more patching due to battery acid and that brings up a good point. Battery tray. I'm pretty confident that I can build a stand in the bay for it but I was wondering if anyone out there has done anything different. I wouldn't mind putting it in the rear but I figured that was a sedan thing. Let me know if I'm wrong.
DOES ANYONE have the center cap for this steering wheel? I even like to see a photo of the complete steering wheel if anyone has a photo of it handy. I believe it's a 240z steering wheel???? 
