Am I in over my head? '70 2 door from scratch

[ostaylor]

The day has finally come - picked it up and dropped it with my painter. He figures ~6 weeks. Now that it is on his property, he will be pretty motivated to get it done and out the door. He's got the lizard skin and any parts that he needs for modifications (cut rear side marker lights, etc.).

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Can't wait to start seeing some progress.

[RONSLYCHUK]

Congrats! Can’t wait to see some paint on it.

[MikeY]

I assume you don't need measurements for placement of the rear side markers. I have a 69 in my shop currently.

[ostaylor]

I assume you don't need measurements for placement of the rear side markers. I have a 69 in my shop currently.

I do need those Mike! That would be very helpful - thanks for offering. If it also has the rear D A T S U N emblem above the license plate could you measure the placement of that as well? I assume halfway between the license plate indent and the trunk lid edge, but it would be better if I get it right.

[MikeY]

I will make you templates of both.

[ostaylor]

I have a list of things I want to get done while my car is away for painting... First up was to repair and restore my front turn signal lights. I had two sets of bases and only one good set of lenses. Interestingly, of the two sets of bases, one had more or less shot / unrepairable wiring and the other had decent wiring but the bases were badly rusted. I frequently dive into things and forget the before and after pictures... so you are only getting to see the after.

See the last picture for the driver's side lens that is damaged. I know that these smaller lenses for the 1969 & 70 510s are getting pretty hard to find but if anyone has one, please let me know.

Also, you may notice two different LED bulb styles... the clear ones are red and the yellow LEDs are amber. I went with the Amber ones.

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[Stu]

You’ll have to post a picture of how the amber LEDs look with the amber lenses. Sometimes a colored LED or bulb behind the colored lens doesn’t get the correct color of the lens. Nice job on the rebuild and those gaskets look pretty nice.

[ostaylor]

You’ll have to post a picture of how the amber LEDs look with the amber lenses. Sometimes a colored LED or bulb behind the colored lens doesn’t get the correct color of the lens. Nice job on the rebuild and those gaskets look pretty nice.

Here you go... a bit hard to tell in the picture, but I am pretty happy with how the amber light looks under the amber lens.

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[Nerius]

See the last picture for the driver's side lens that is damaged. I know that these smaller lenses for the 1969 & 70 510s are getting pretty hard to find but if anyone has one, please let me know.

Check with https://offdamrkt.com, he reproduces them.

[ostaylor]

Check with https://offdamrkt.com, he reproduces them.

Thanks - I was aware of him from Instagram but hadn't thought to check with him. I have sourced a different solution though, so all good!

[Nerius]

Nice, if you have a different source, I'm interested as well

[ostaylor]

More than a month since my last update... not because nothing has been happening, but, you know - life...

A not so quick synopsis...

Painter has been great. He's fussier than I am, which says a lot and is great but could be expensive... Trying to remind him I'm aiming for 80-90% not 99%. He's done a lot of very high end cars and garage queens. Mine will be driven - not beat on and to be honest, I'll probably avoid rain unless it is a road trip. But I won't have mirrors under it at cars and coffee. Anyway, he was very fussed about the body lines and ensuring they were accurate to the original. I might have prompted this with an exchange of texts from a well known (here) 510 master who is also quite particular and thankfully has opinions (you know who you are)
Here's a few pictures of progress on the lines - hard to really see, but I'm impressed...
This one was soon after he got the car...

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This was when he was close to done on the lines...

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He was worried about the hood cowl which I had not noticed was pretty wavy and in need of likely several hours of fixing. Thankfully, I was able to source another one and it is much better. Picture of the old one... and again, hard to see how bad it was but glad I found another one.

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My rear panel is a new panel and did not have holes for the DATSUN emblem, so he has prepared it for that. It also (thankfully) did not have license plate light holes as I am going with the 69 style bumper light.

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I feel very lucky that after posting about my 69 front turn signal restoration, I was offered some 69 euro style casings / bulb holders and one perfect lens. I found another lens on eBay and voila - dual bulb, 69 sized, euro style front turn signals. I feel very lucky to have sourced so many cool bits for this build.

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Realizing that wet and colder weather is on our doorstep, I have been thinking for some time about the need to reduce from my current 5 projects / non-daily drivers. I really need garage space through the winter for this build and even with one under cover in the driveway, I can't really work on this with a car above it. I plan to have it on the 2 post lift for most of the assembly. So... Bring a Trailer to the rescue. First one on the block was my 1964 Studebaker Commander Special - I have restored this to pretty much how it looked the day it rolled off the (Ontario) factory floor. It had a great story, was a lot of fun to build and now off to a keen new owner in Washington State. Not counting my hours, I lost a lot of money on that car. Who counts their hours?

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Next up... while I loved my 1972 2.3L LZ build, I ultimately only want one 510 and my current build is exactly what I think I want and will be different than the '72. Despite it not hitting BaT reserve, the high bidder wanted the car and paid my reserve. He's a Datsun 510 guy, lives in Vancouver and will track and drive the car regularly. I'm really happy with that outcome and now have lots of garage space for this build (or I will when he comes and gets the 72). Here it sits, waiting for pickup - with the odometer sitting at 00510.4 - coincidence!!

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Finally, I went by my painter today to part with some cash and see how it's going. First coat of Lizard Skin sound proofing is down and looks great. It is his first time working with it and sees the benefit but also says it is slowing him down as the cure time means he has to go work on other things. He's committed to the process and thinks it will work really well - just not great for keeping things moving.

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Might be my biggest update yet - I know I stretched the picture limit to 10 and didn't even know there was one before tonight.

I won't bore everyone with the details but during this time I have also been redoing the brakes on my Tiger and helping my son (he's not so sure it is helpful...) completely re-wire it. That is a bigger adventure than we were expecting, even with a Rebel Wiring harness as the starting point. Did I mention I work more than fulltime to pay for all this?

[Nerius]

This is looking great!

[ostaylor]

Making good progress on the painting... He expects to have the painting complete in the next week!

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[RONSLYCHUK]

Owen, your car looks great with the paint on it. Looks like you found a good painter.