Thanks, all my brake parts needed is ordered which include, fittings, nuts, braided lines etc. Also got the steel pipes for brakes, fuel lines and clutch, the majority of stuff will be imported from the US and UK as it is very difficult to source these sort of parts from South Africa. A few other bits and pieces is also on their way over the water as I will be changing the AN10 fittings on the fuel cell to AN6 items. I've also been busy with designing the bracket on the steering wheel for the switches.

Hopefully I can finish with all the metal pipes this coming weekend and install the motor and gearbox permanently.

Put my name on the list for a 1200 and SSS.

Hehe, I won't say it is a beast, as it is standing in the shed currently, it is a hunk of formed metal, costing me time and money, but damn, I'm going to enjoy it.

Lol D

Thanks, it is coming along nicely now, ordered all the small hard line brake parts yesterday, if the yanks is fast, maybe i'll have it in the next two weeks, waiting on prices for the soft lines. Also picked up a new slave cylinder for the gearbox and two service kits for the VW Rabbit III GTI rear calipers and all the brake (hard lines) and fuel lines (8mm feed and 6mm return).

The snake in question is a Cape Cobra. A rather beutifull animal when really pissed off. We grew up with this sort of animals around us, but for some odd reason I never became friends with them.

From Wiki: "The Cape Cobra or yellow cobra (Naja nivea) is a moderately sized, highly venomous cobra inhabiting a wide variety of biomes across Southern Africa. The Cape Cobra is also known as the "geelslang" (yellow snake) and "bruinkapel" (brown cobra). Afrikaans speaking South Africans refer to the Cape Cobra as "koperkapel", mainly because of a rich yellow color variation.
The Cape cobra's venom is made up of postsynaptic neurotoxins and might also contain cardiotoxins,[5] that affect the respiratory system, nervous system, and heart."

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22 October 2011 – Assembly






















Since the spraying on the car is done, except the front fenders which needs to be fitted and cut, I started with assembly, what a great feeling to put the parts back in place, some of which was in storage for more than a year and six months. All the parts that I have been sourcing can finally go to its designated location, this must be the best feeling of any huge project car.






The first areas I concentrated on was the front and rear suspension, once this is in place and done, moving the car around to assemble the rest will just be easier. I started with the front suspension as 98% of the parts are 100% done, not like the rear upper control arms that still need a few small changes, everything went back to its place without a huge struggle on the front portion, but a few delays on the rear hubs wasted far too much time, the only reason I could think this would've happened was the fact that there is a few ford parts and as we all know the only method of assembling or dissembling a ford is to use the biggest hammer to your disposal, since this is no ford a hammer was out of the question. During the day we struggled with a unwelcome guest, luckily his visit was short lived and we could continue.




















During the last 2-3 weeks I received my newest batch of lazer cutting back and could take the sump and battery box for welding, I'm very happy about the outcome. Just by making these parts thru the week, I probably saved a weekend in the process which is a huge benefit to me.








On my last visit to the car, work started on Friday evening, first on the list was getting the sump on the motor, a few tweaks and changes here and there and everything slipped in place. The original oil pickup was warmed and bent to pick up the oil lower in the new sump and a brace was added to strengthen it. The next morning I started with the upper oil pan, after applying some Lock Tight gasket sealer, it was bolted in place and soon after the sump, while I was busy with the motor, work continued fitting the engine mounts, power steering pump, VVL solenoids, distributor, flywheel and clutch assembly.






























The rest of the day and night was used to bend the mock up brake lines, this is quite a time consuming job to figure out what is available, what can be imported and how the final layout should look like, a specially with a car which lines will be on the inside. Before I could do the front left brake line, I had to mount the radiator expansion tank, while i was busy drilling holes, I moved onto the fuel side of things in the boot as everything will be located there, only hard lines to the front and short flexible lines to the fuel rail and back. I decided a while ago to keep my low pressure parts on the one side and the high pressure on the other side. Between 12 and 1 the morning I started mocking around with the fuel filler, luckily for me this revealed a few challenges and will be placed at the back of the queue for now.




















On Sunday morning I continued with the brake and fuel lines. Later on the motor went in to find a temporary solution on the intake side of things, my end goal will be to run the engine with a set of 60mm throttles, but that will be a venture for next year, for now I will cut and weld the original intake to get the car going. Later the day my father arrived and we work out the layout for the main battery leads, then also shuffled a few items in the engine bay as the right hand side was getting to cluttered.

As dit ek was, sou ek nie veel verder gesoek het as die 21R boks, hulle gebruik daai bokse op AC Cobra reps agter V8's. My pa het so 400k kilos gedoen met een in 'n werks bakkie, niks gebreek nie, ratte was later so gesluit, dat hy begin sing het, en die ding het vrag gedra.

Ford parte behoort nie naby 'n DATSUN nie, wel naby geen ander ding behalwe n ford en as jy kan, verander in elkgeval alle ford parte na iets anders wat nie van n ford afkom nie.

Quote:

The ride height won't be to insane, as it will be a road legal car and towed via a A Frame to events for the time being, we are currently working on 100mm from the ground to the cross member. The biggest reason for the cut out was the diff mounting points and to get the LCA horizontal with the ground.

Thanks,

The easiest for the rear would be to install a complete E30 subframe, the same as we have done to my brothers 1200.

First would be to test the front suspension, but it is quite easy to do yourself. I'll share my cad drawings, but making it for someone else at this point of the game is not on the table, to much man hours required.

17 September 2011 - Spray Painting II

Having just returned from a 4 day road trip thru the Klein Karoo, I was looking forward to a complete weeks work on Datto, this time was set aside to get the car sprayed in its BRE colour scheme.

Monday:

Arriving home Monday morning, I wasted no time in getting the front suspension back together after the mountings was sprayed on the previous visit, this would enable us to move the car around much easier. Actual work started on getting the car ready for colour, a few spots had to be sanded and primed. First was getting the spots ready, then the sanding started again, the whole car had to be flatted again, this included the dreaded engine bay. Afterwards the door and window openings was masked up and we moved the car outside, there we covered the suspension parts with cling wrap and newspapers before the fixed spots was primed. A few hours later we sanded the primed areas and masked the rest of the car for the white to be sprayed. The rest of the day was used to get the doors, bonnet, boot lid and front apron all ready for colour the next day. I took the time to cover the window frames with cling wrap as this was the last things I wanted to wet sand.

Tuesday:












Up nice and early to get everything in place for the first coat of Nissan Formula White to be sprayed, this kept us busy for more than half the day, the rest of the day was used to spray the doors. Once this was done I really wanted to see how the Nissan Marine Blue will look once sprayed and seeing that we still had a hour or two in hand, i started moving the bonnet, boot lid, front apron and a few other small parts outside. Once the first coat of blue was sprayed, I was convinced I selected the correct blue for the car.

Wednesday:

The whole day was used to flat mask lines, mask up the rest of the white and get the lines for the blue correct, this took me more or less the whole day and was busy till quite late with the doors.

Thursday:
















Finally the day arrived which I was waiting for so long, covering the car in blue paint. Seeing that we do not have a spray booth and all the fancy equipment like professionals, the weather looked good with no wind, we started with the engine bay and the rest of the car, then applied the first coat to the top of the boot lid and bonnet, everything went fine, just finished the second coat on the car, and all of a sudden the wind pick up and covered the car with dust, we continued spraying the engine to eliminate a lot of time consuming sanding, that was the end of it, we decided to stop, let it dry and wet sand it the next day. My father, being on a roll, decided that we can spray in the doorway of the shed, a hour or two after we had the doors hanging 2 at a time, extractor fan rigged and ready to finish them. once all the doors was done, we quickly wet sanded the boot lid, let it dry, warm up and covered it in another 3 coats. Being very disappointed seeing that we would have to redo the car, but seeing the finish result on the bottled, we knew it would be worth it.

Friday:
















Started work at 6am the morning, 2deg Celsius outside. While wet sanding the car in this cold, resulted in fingers acting from pain. At about 10am we were done with sanding and started getting everything ready for spraying. As my father started applying the first coat we knew the sanding was well worth it, the end result was better than we hoped for. I started to remove all the newspaper from the car to see the end result, but my father quickly stopped me just before I wanted to remove the papers from the door and window openings, as we still had to spray the area behind the grill Matt Black, this area was flatted and we had a little time left and decided to spray all the parts which needed to be Matt Black.

Saturday:
























First order of business was to spray the front Matt Black, as I was like a child with new toys to get rid of all the newspaper, to get a better picture my father fitted a front fender, I'm very satisfied with the end results considering the conditions, some of the panels have the occasional particle of dust and a few miggies sampled the paint and is now a part of it, at least I have a few momentums. The rest of the day was used to spray the rest of the parts Black, White and Silver. Later the evening I masked the underside of the car again to give the bottom a final coat of grey paint to cover all the over spray etc., before we settled for a few cold ones.

Sunday:










Spend the better part of 4hours crawling and rolling around under the car with a grey paint brush. Just before 12am I was finished and started assembling the first parts, decided on the rear shock mounts and supports as it would be the easiest and required no other small work before it could be fitted. I must say, this must have been the best feeling since I started with the project, all the hard work, countless hours of work, frustration etc etc, all melted away with each bolt being fastened.