would like to know more about soda blasting, a friend had his 240z bead blasted, and found his panels had warped

just read the whole thread, and realised thats the second time you've been unlucky towing that ute, keep the rubber on the ground

looking good with getting work done, unfortunately i guess at this stage you find lots of bad things and dont get to see a lot of positive progress

the foil/chicken wire patching holes had me remebering my brothers escort which we discovered the rear half had been pop-riveted to the front half across the roof, and bogged over.

im getting inspired to restore a 1200 more and more

The warping of panels is one of the reasons we chose sodablasting, it doesn't produce heat. Go to Sodablast for all the info you need.

The ute looks real good in bare metal, but as you said, it's amazing what you find under the paint. There was alot of deep seated rust in the engine bay that will need more work.

All in all it was a good job, and my brother got us some Morpheus for a trial paint of some old panels. I'll have a crack at it over the coming weeks and post up the results.

i WAS going to keep the colour a secret butLuke thought otherwise.

i was thinking after talking to my mechanic that it would be easier finding decent rims in 5 stud then in 4 stud....wat diff's can i shorten or wateva to use in the ute in stead of a shortened R31 diff??

you can just use an r31 diff with commodore or falcon 28 spline axles

then just redrill the r31 brakes and still use them

My wife should have asked about the front struts. I've seen EF Falcon 5 stud fronts, but have no idea how it's done. Do you know Pigdog?

if you told me to ask about them Luke i would have.

dont think later falcons are any good, EA onwards, as they have different wheel bearings and a really short stub axle, so cant be used with datsun stuff....unless they decided to change back

i think XF stuff can be used and thats a 287x24mm vented invegrated hub disc
there was someone on this site that had these as ive seen the picture in the photo album a few times

one day i'll get myself some datsun 5 stud hubs and see if i can get something to work, whitesedan im looking at you

this is a really good thread, its gettin me more and more keen to keep on keepin on with my ute. ive never heard of soda blasting until today tho. hmm intresting.

Sodablasting is great, but make sure you don't touch the metal with your bare hands.

Our cat had obviously walked along the rear quarters, 'coz there were paw sized patches of surface rust along them. We spent yesterday wire wheeling it all off. Primer will be applied this week, so should no longer be a problem.