yoeddynz

Well this has been stashed away and kept itself quiet a while then eh? however recently things have had a shuffle round here in Datsun land and this little car now has a new owner. Meet Greg. Oldschooler for long time. He is a bit of a Datsun fan and kicks about in a CA18det powered 180b... This is him here.. (not the wombat) A fair while ago I had realised that the restoration of this car was not going to happen in a hurry under my hands and I should really find it a new home. The advert stipulation was that it was to be sympathetically saved and not just split for parts. I had a few people enquire about it but no one actually committed. Then Greg rang. He needed a new project in his life and always liked the shape of this wee car. I was really happy to see it go his way has his ideas for it are pretty much what Id do. Ie; Nice wheels (13".....), lowered and a sweet engine upgrade (13b PP brapper Greg!!! - joke. It has to be an LD28) Greg is gonna take it on as a project to learn some more skills from but to start with I'll sort out some of the more critical nasty bits of corrosion which are a lot easier to deal with having a hoist for starters. Then when he comes up here to pick it up (and deliver my 3rd Imp for me ) we'll do a few welding lessons teach him some hopefully handy skills to help him out the continuation of the repairs. So a couple of months ago (maybe longer..my brain is all muddled up by Imp projects) Hannah and I stripped the Datsun right down to an empty shell. This had to happen so I could get a proper look at the corrosion and not have bits in the way while dealing with it. Typically we found a bit more rot but overall is all pretty easy stuff to deal with. Surprisingly not rot under the windscreen. Very lucky considering the seal leaked and had all the flexibility of a Crunchie bar. I carefully packed it all into our van and we took it down to Gregs on the way to the Oldschool nats. We stayed at my parents on the way through. I just had to get a pic of them holding a wing from a car they bought new but until more recently thought was crushed and not seen in many decades.. Greg now has some stuff to sort through while I start on the shell. Now after having sorted through some other work and dealt with a spot of IMP fettling I started proper on this shell two days ago. First off... those sills. Yuck... I want to get some real strength back in place so then it can be lifted happily on the hoist without fear of crumpling. I started on the drivers side sill. There was a previous repair hiding in here... The rear lower wing that covers the sill looked like this inside.. It looked terrible inside the main sill but luckily once cleaned out the inner is solid. I Painted it in Por15 last night and continued on with the repairs today. The sill tops were really good and the shape was pretty basic too. So many spot weld holes to drill. I must get an air punch/joggler tool! Greg can grind the welds down so saving a heap of my time/money.. The rear arch bit was a slightly awkward shape on the car. Luckily the otherside, although rusty too, has kept its shape enough to copy. Then the outer skin of the lower wing (guard..) which is where I finished off with this evening. In order to stop the thin panel it attaches to above from warping I folded over a tight bend. This will add some stiffness there. The bend faces down so condensation cant collect. Its almost finished enough to start on the other side. I'll be sorting through the repairs so that once Gregs pot of gold runs out he can continue on with less daunting stuff

Now you're just a tractor driver?....

Just remember where you came from young man....

I'll guard it with my life... Might go look at another two shoveits tomorrow.... Maybe. Lots to do on other cars. Must. Not. Get. Carried. Away..

There was a power cut all day today. Bummer. No power tools. (no espresso machine either! back to the plunger) So why not instead give wagon a clean and assess the rust. Which we did. Cleaned up well and looks a lot better.. I'll have to see whats gonna happen as far as the vin process goes. My main mission was to just save the car from being split for parts/crushed (although the front seats are a perfect match in colour for my Viva wagon and they are so damn comfy!!!.....) with the idea that I could fix it up to get it back on the road, having a little fun in the process, then sell make a small amount of coin back for my troubles However if it starts to add up too much in extra costs and hassle I'll move it on to someone else who wants to take it on and keep it. There's enough old cars taking up space and time right now!!! So now its been tucked out the back of the shed so I can crack on with some real work (Ie; Gregs 120y..) . Those front seats will just have to be stored in the front of my Viva for now......

What? In a rusty old Chevette? So long as the belts are in good nick I'll be happy. I think if I was to have a stack that was hard enough that I snapped a belt in good condition I'd be more worried about the shape of my innards!

Its the car that just keeps on giving. Hannah gave it a clean out yesterday. Found $2.10. Then found what was thought to be a large rats nest under the rear seat base. But no... even better. Its our very own miniature Alien!.. I'm all fangs...

I bought a set at trade from Repco for a customers bedford truck. The price exceeded the value of several Chevettes I'll look for some secondhand ones...

Yes yes yes!!!! I always love following your adventures and I look forward to lots of entertaining stories in the months to come. Such lush looking cars too. Just be careful and don't let Keanu drive it...

790mm. Hannah, Kevin and I are learning all sorts of things from my collection of old Chevette literature this smoko break....

Ohhhhh. Do you have any lights and the plastic trim that goes round them? Seatbelts?

I'll measure it up for ya tomorrow..

Cheers for that info Yammies. Makes sense. They were assembled here from kits though right? Like all the other models. Torrie- you obviously have forgotten the wonderful powers of the mighty big block 1256!

So this arrived this evening.... It was looking sad and needing to be rescued. No one had offered to take it on with the intention to save it. I just couldn't see this get crushed or split down for bits. I had to save it. I couldn't afford monies but have some time so I'm swapping it for some future welding work. I like the colour (its Monaco Green since you asked...) Not too different to the HB wagon... The fella I bought my Viva wagon off a few years back heard about this car from me and is quite keen on doing it up for his son. But now I , well actually Hannah too as shes partial to a Chevette or two, have become quite excited about seeing it back onto the road ourselves. We couldn't resist. Just look at it. Its fantastic! That colour with that stripe and the added layer of patina. So this is the basic plan... Weld up the few patches of rot. Maybe pop out the worst dents. See if the engine is OK. I have no idea on its condition at all but it does turn over. Fit some better tyres. Put it through a re-vin. Drive it a while and collect some terrible music to play on the original Sanyo tape deck. Take photos of it next to the Viva and become 'that local bloke who has two shitty old Vauxhall wagons' It'll be the 6th Chevette we have owned and the first Chevanne (wagon..) I now have far too many old cars kicking about to work on. 'Is now Gregs' Datsun 120Y is now first in line (I promise Greg..) then the Imp(s x3) and the Viva re-power of course. This Chevanne will just have to sneak in for little bits here and there. So many other local cars lined up on our white board for work too so I see a lot of car shuffling coming up. But for the carpets the interior is in great nick. Dash top superb. Great colour. Headlining is great. Useful sized boot area... There is a small issue of no keys though. We had to use the trolley jack to shift it into its current park. The structure is solid as. Arches are really good. Roof just surface rust. Dents are the main issue. Two rust holes on the floor and the usual Chevette rot under the battery. Windscreen seal melted by the sun. Interestingly (well to me...) its badged as a Chevanne. This is a wagon as far as I'm concerned with the Chevannes having paneled out rear side windows but nup... here in NZ they were all badged and sold as Chevannes. Also interesting... the attached rego plates come up as a 1974 VIva wagon. Hmmmmm? Oh well. It'll all be new plates soon with a new lease on life. Not planning on keeping it much beyond having some fun. Just doing my bit in a noble sort of way to rescue a fine and pretty rare classic car.

I think there's a chain in there somewhere...a driveshaft that runs back from the clutch through to the box behind.

Ha- I discovered this too when I went to pick up some por15 from my local. They have now been selling this stuff called 'miracle paint' which is basically the exact same stuff as Por15.. http://www.hirschauto.com/Miracle-Paint-Rust-Killer/products/3/ Hey are those seats from a Honda prelude? I used some like them in my first Chevette way way back in 1994. Nice and comfy.

Funny you should post that up Joe...I was just reading about it this morning. What a little weapon.. http://www.imps4ever.info/specials/v8/feck.html

nice...but 3 cylinders too little...

Not really a fan of V8 engines... certainly not after having heard the flat six Really keen on keeping the layout rear engined so long as the weight stays around the same.

I liked it twice! What does loop charged mean?

As much as I love the sound of a nice V6... I really fancy that baby Porsche flat 6 sound in an Imp I still have several V6 engines kicking about too.. but for future project ideas/paper weights. You have certainly got me curious though.... I wonder if people have used such engines to repower little cars. I think most decent outboards command big money dont they?

Weeeeeeeee... I like all these suggestions. I'll be opening up the old transaxle and swapping the bellhousing over to the new box so whilst there it would be rude not to check out if the diff flips over etc. Otherwise I do have an idea. The flat six actually has a few options, idler gears, sprockets, cogs and toothy things hanging out the back that I can muck about with.

So as some of you might have noticed in another thread I started over in the dark side of the bike section..I have been having sweet dreams about a future Imp project involving a Honda Goldwing Flat six... For that flat six growl ! Create a Imp 911. Hillman 911? Anyway.. I have spent a fair proportion of good sleeping time recently laying awake going through ideas on how and looking through drawings on a workshop manual I downloaded. It had it all worked out this morning. Worked out how to deal with the oil pump drive, create a Flywheel hub, deal with the alternator and water pump issues etc etc. It was looking good. But then a fella goes by the name of Darkspeed on Retrorides, who's been into Imps for a fair while and had once investigated the same engine, quipped in... "I think they might be counterclockers" Yes. Dammit. He is correct. After all those late night/ early morning ponderings I failed to spot which side of the belts the cam belt tensioners were on... So yeah. Back to the drawing board. Which could mean using the stock transmission and cobble together a neat little diff. The output is offset though. But diff could be offset a little and then extend one axle drive outwards, supported to suit. So long as the uni/Cv joints are in line with the stock position it'll be fine. A sequential shift. Hmmm. Plus some later Goldwings have a electric reverse (how much it can deal with I dont know though) Anyway.. this idea is ways off so back to welding. Oh and also...look who came through and stayed the night on their Tour of love to Nats down south. Fun times were had that night! Very chilled. They all took a quite shine to the alluring beauty of an Imp... Hopefully I will see more Imps turn up on Oldschool in the future

You mean aware? Yeah I've seen a few pics of people doing as such and I'll definitely do the same.. It seems worth it for the sake of a few squirts of welding eh

Cheers man. I enjoy doing updates as it seems to act as a way of keeping me motivated