Heya all,

“I want to slowly ‘enhance’ a Datsun 1200 Ute at the same time as driving it daily for a work car” ..that’s what I told the missus...to get her blessing to buy one.

I bought the ute back in late May with the idea of driving it daily and tinkering here and there as I went. So I picked out a newly registered ute bought it sight unseen on good faith from the seller.. (stupid I know…but it had a new safety cert and I wanted a project). It wasn’t too bad when I picked it up, so I drove it 1 hr to my in-laws place. Come around the last corner and the battery slipped out of the cradle and into the alternator, battery acid everywhere…smoke, the whole works. I had to then trailer the car home instead of driving it (5hrs).

When I got home, I found the spark was weak and the carby was shot and 1 cylinder was down in comp. So in with a new Weber 32/36 and electronic Distributor. The day I got it running with the new bits, I noticed the blow by was excessive (never had it running long enough previous) and decided to do an engine rebuild then and there. That’s where I am upto now, not driven my daily work car more than 3-4 hrs since May…the missus is not happy.

Looks to have been in a crash at one stage as well…seems to be a few ripples in the engine bay.

So should have looked at it properly, was hoping that there are some decent people still around. My mistake!

Any who, does anyone know this ute?

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I like the paint job, very nice.

It looks like the one from the gold coast that the guy used to promote his waterless car wash business, it had a green trailer that matched, before someone pulled out in front of it and smashed it up. but maybe different?

It did come from Brissy, so it could be the one mate, Thanks for the info Turboute :)

I stripped it down and found the broken rings on the low comp cylinder :(

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These are some pics of the ute that was a "business ute" for a waterless carwash on the Goldie. The images come from the photo section of this forum. Your ute looks mighty similar...

Oh wow. That's the one Benny. Thanks for that guys. That stearing wheel was in the box of 'goodies' that came with it, as well as the tow bar.

I think it has had at least 1 owner in between me and the lad with the business. Oh well, hope to give it a bit of a clean up and have some fun with it

Yeah it looks nice mate.
Keep at it and once you have it on the road put up some more photos.
Love dato utes!

Here is a link for more detail of it,if it is.

http://www.turbophile.com/feature_cars/chris-datsun-1200-ute.html

Haha, awesome. Thanks for the Turboute

The inside still looks very good, centre console isn't so good, but the rest looks ok. The speakers need renewing.. oh .. and had to buy a new Gear knob, the skull knob just isn't me.

I thought I would put up some of the goodies I have purchased for this rebuild. I want to try the build myself, so any tips are appreciated.

I got in contact with Ernie (bige - A.T.E Race Engines) for some parts and engine internals, along with the specs for what I wanted. 1 week later I had all the bits back from him (thanks mate…super quick, super helpful).

So I ended up with an Ernie built head, H89, ported, CC matched chambers, new studs, double valve springs, my inlet manifold tidied and pinned to head and a new set of Hurricane 4-1 extractors pinned as well.

All the internals as well with the goal of 10.5:1 CR. Pistons 1mm oversize (77mm bores). New timing tentioner and sprockets (with dowel kit for improved cam dial in) A new cam and reground lifters…that’s about it hey Ernie?

So now the block is in getting bored and tidied up ready for my tinkering.

Here are some fuzzy pics of some of the goodies…

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