Popular Post yoeddynz Posted September 18, 2015 Popular Post Share Posted September 18, 2015 Wow- after a bit of digging about through her old photos my mum finally found some of our old 120y wagon from back in the late 70s/early 80s. What I was after was confirmation that the car for sale on the oldschool classifieds area.... http://oldschool.co.nz/2011/forum/index.php?/topic/49659-fs-datsun-120y-wagon-nelson/ Mum phoned me this morning with good news. Yes!!! it is indeed our old car. Damn this is cool news!!! I have spoken to Dave's (avenger tiger) boss and its still up for grabs so I have said I'll take it away Mum and Dad are very excited about the prospect of getting their old car back. Mum has been talking about getting a Morris Minor Traveller like they had before the Datsun but they are too expensive. Getting their Datsun on the road for them would be awesome. Luckily it sounds like I might be able to get the old original engine back as well. Its currently in a Suzuki 4wd but the owner wants something else to power it. So this will be good if I can secure its original heart. Anyway- I'm so excited. I should be in the workshop right now welding my Viva wagon but I couldn't help but start a thread even though I don't yet have the car. I am under no illusions that it will be an easy resto. It will be rusty like Ive not seen before. But I don't mind that. Hopefully if I need any parts there should be enough bits floating about in NZ on the vibrant datsun nz forum. Another choice thing is that because mum has photos of it with the plates visible hopefully I can apply to reuse the old plates when it come to the re-vinning process. So here are some cool photos. All taken in the late 70s or early 80s. This is up the Westbank road when we used to go visit this mad old farmer/recluse fella. He would hang weird things about in trees if I remember correctly and thats what we are looking at. This is me and my brothers and sister in the boot along with Bella the smelly old Lab and Pipi the cat (who lived to be 19 years old!). I'm the little fella sitting on the back seat on the right in the white collared top. Here's the two family wagons. My Dad was very proud of his Mk4 Zodiac wag that he brought over with him from the UK. It was always giving troubles whilst the Datsun just purred through life. Dad never bought another english car again and we ended up with two more Datsuns after the 120Y. Mum and Dad did buy my first Triumph off me when I left for me 10 year OE and they loved that old car. But that's because Triumphs are bloody awesome too. Finally here is a photo of a Family reunion at Woodend. It was my Mums family and this was the mens beauty contest. The little Hillman Superminx wagon next to the 120y was my cousins and that was a cool car too. I think my cousin Helen ended up crashing it Here it sits in its current condition.. Discuss Here 56 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted September 23, 2015 Author Popular Post Share Posted September 23, 2015 I was quite a happy emotional chappy tonight because I got to sit in a little car that I've not been in for over 30 years... I popped open the door and it the 120y actually smelled like I remembered. Maybe its just a standard old Japanese car smell but it immediately brought back memories! Sitting inside it all looked so familiar. I was so happy. We had a good look all over for rust and overall its way less rusty than I was expecting. In fact for a old Datsun of this era its actually really solid! That will be having spent most of its life in good old dry Blenheim/Nelson then. The sills on both side need replacing. One chassis rail is rusty right at the end. The inner wing behind the steering box has a big hole. I'm sure there is more but overall it makes my Viva Rustwagon look.. well decidedly rusty. The floorpan has very loose old underseal coming off easily and whats under it appears good. The bonnet is good too. The badly dented wing is from when it spent two days in a paddock and the cows were rubbing against it. It'll pull out ok and yeah it wont look perfect but I think this car is a long way off from ever looking great.. The tailgate is solid but huge dents that had been poorly filled in at some point. The boot floor is solid which is amazing given the amount of trips this car saw to Rarangi beach and smelly seawater wet Labrador trips back. The headlining is pretty good too. Quite amazed. The grill is intact and front end looks straight. Both bumpers are good too. The boot seems smaller than I remembered. Maybe I may well have grown a little taller since I was ten. I have found a few bits of paper work in the car including a invoice from Murchison motors for collection of stranded car, radiator repair and water pump replacement. I also scored some KFC coupons!!!! Plus two spoons to take with me when I claim my 15 pieces of chicken for $19.95 I have a STA Isis card form filled out with the same details as found on a letter from Dunedin university. Some previous owner was into golf..although not that good at it given the score. Oh and one hacky sack. Sweet. 21 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
yoeddynz Posted September 23, 2015 Author Share Posted September 23, 2015 Did i mention the comb? No I did not. As you can see in the photo I also scored a lovely comb. I am open to offers if anyone needs a nice comb. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted October 4, 2015 Author Popular Post Share Posted October 4, 2015 Big thanks to Dave for delivering the Datsun out to us on Saturday night. We shuffled it into a good position for the morning sun and this morning Hannah and I gave it a decent wash. I wanted to keep all the moss in place but really it was just so covered it wouldn’t help my case when applying for a new registration/test. So off it was washed. I took some piccys first though.. Then wash time.. After it was washed down I pulled the seats out and removed the old carpet. As to be expected there is some rust holes where water has sat between the sound deadening and the floor. Luckily most of the floor is pretty solid as are the inner sills. So patchwork repairs will take place there. I'm sure once up on the hoist it will gift me more lovely rusty areas to repair but overall I am really pleasantly surprised at how well the thin steel on this car has survived! Engine bay pretty good but for a few little bits.. I pulled some of the filler out from the dents and apart from surface rust it is mainly just dents the filler was covering. Not really deep dents either. Someone has tried to make this car look pretty at some point which bodes well for it having had a proud owner. I wouldn’t be surprised if the dents were put there by my mum or dad when ferrying us kids around. It was quite a little hack for our family. The roof is really straight. Awesome! Plus the gutters, tailgate, doors etc are all solid as. It has the original Datsun screen still place and no signs at all of even bubbling around the seals. Happy about that! Whilst cleaning out the inside I scored some more treats as well as money. The car now owes me only $247.95. It would be less if the 20c coins I found were not the outdated ones. One of them is 1980. Could have been mine. Maybe I dropped it and missed out on my 20c sweet mixture that day. Oh really?.... I also spotted that it has already been fitted with top quality hifi speakers. Bonus.. So that’s it for now. With the carpet out the car is now nice and dry inside plus I know roughly what I have to do. But I need to finish the Viva wagon first before I start any rust repairs on this. So it will be pushed out back and brought inside when the time is right. Between now and then I can do my best to locate an engine or hopefully get the original 1200cc one back. Plus look for a disc brake front end and brake servo to suit. Oh..and some nice period alloys as well. Hopefully some turbos or even slot mags. 21 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted April 22, 2018 Author Popular Post Share Posted April 22, 2018 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 47 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted May 4, 2018 Author Popular Post Share Posted May 4, 2018 Here's another update. Having finished off the drivers side sill I had to fix a few trailers and other jobs that came into our country farmers fixit shop. Then back to this car for a bit. Now onto the passenger side. First off- the inner sill... I really didn't fancy opening up the outer sill until this frilly inner was solid again so I cut out the frilly bit until it was replaced with air. A rotten section of floor turned into air too... Then I made an appropriate sized piece of steel and let it in. The floor bit can wait because I have what I wanted - a solid vertical plane giving back strength.. Now the outer sill. Not as bad as the drivers side I think... - Cue loud game show buzzer sound - Wrong... It all ended up in a not very sill like mess on the floor... Luckily the inner sill was solid except for a few little areas. For example - this one heading inwards into a naughty tricky corner area. Great. Nice. Thanks... This stuff was removed... I tidied up a few other areas, cut out an area carefully designed by Datsun to form a triple skin moisture trap at the base of the A pillar... Painted all the innards with Por15 and went to bed. It looks like this now... I'm really hoping to finish the sill off tomorrow. Then I can finish the floor on the Imp and swap the cars around putting the Datsun on the hoist so I can attack the rotten Chassis rail. Annoyingly we just took in another trailer repair job this morning and I foolishly cut the broken rotten drawbar off before I checked if my local steel store had the correct steel in stock. And they don't. Bugger. So now there's a large hippy caravan trailer thing right in the way, sitting between a Datsun I want to work on and an Imp I want to work on. I shall persevere... lucky Datsuns and Imps are small 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted May 10, 2018 Author Popular Post Share Posted May 10, 2018 Hippy trailer now evicted and time to do some on this before a big dirty Toyota Dyna van turns up with a rotten roof The sills on both sides are all solid again! I was halfway into the passenger side on my last update. So continuing from there.. I had to remake the bottom of the outer A pillar/sill end first. I was going to re-use a tricky step down part within the repair but even after cleaning it up it just didnt appear solid enough among all the new steel. In pictures.. I then folded up some more outer sill panels, using the gauge/template I had made for the other side and started welding them in.. When I got down to the other end I had some issues I needed to tend to. Mainly to see what was going on behind the bottom of the where I had cut the rotten arch away to and also what lay beneath a frilly looking area inside the well. I called in my new toy/tool. A teeny tiny holesaw for removing spot welded panels. Cheap on Aliexpress.. I went deeper.. ..and deeper. How many layers?.... Not surprised there was rot lurking. So many moisture traps. So I started fixing it all up.. I could now finish the last section of sill.. Then the final bit- the lower guard. On both sides of the car these had rotted away from crap getting through a gap at the front where they overlay the sill. I painted the back with zinc and welded the front edge on both sides. Its not like original but going by the amount of dirt and water traps Ive found original wasn't best. Just cheap. This along with a future flooding of wax penetrant inside the once the car is all painted and it should last much better Its all done. Yay. Now I have to replace a section of floor where it meets the inner sill- rot had been cut away. Then I think while the car is on the table I'll tend to a horrible mess under the dash that was once a heater plenum area. Then it can go up on the hoist to fix a rotten chassis rail. Greg will be taking it on from not long after that, budget soon to be met. But first I must finish some bits on the Imp project so I can remove that from the hoist. 19 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post yoeddynz Posted June 11, 2018 Author Popular Post Share Posted June 11, 2018 Well the weekend just gone saw the end of my part in this Datsun restoration. It has now been passed over to its new owner Greg. More of that soon. First though, let me show you some photos of my final bit of work before the budget pulled its purse strings. I filled in a section of floor alongside the inner sill so making the area strong again. I left the inner edge unwelded because Greg will bechopping out the section of rotten floor that meets it later on and adding more steel. In order to make the chassis rail decent enough to lift the car without a jack going through the floor I had to sort out this mess... Interesting note.. the rails are different shapes side to side. The passenger side rail has more of a taper. Not that it really matters that much but I tried to copy the original shape as close as I could make out from what was left. Luckily the passenger rail was solid as so it just received a vaccuum out. Greg can fill it with penetrating wax once he's finished the car. Repairs in pictures.. Por 15'd the inside of the rail before continuing. Bought some thicker steel sheet from engineering company in town. Done. Greg can continue on with the floor repairs around it. My final task was to finish off the end of the sill near the a pillar. But once I started welding stuff in there it didnt seem rigt. I ended up chopping out a whole load more up the pillar back to decent steel. Again- in pictures... And that was that. I left the suspension off for Greg to fit so he would have decent chance to scrape underseal off around the chassis when he arrived. The next day a group of Oldschoolers turned up, Greg with a very fine wee car in tow. A rusty Imp swap for a not so rusty Datto? Yeah OK.. We unloaded the Imp, got the fire going in the shed, cranked the music up and drank beer. Greg scrapped underseal off the Datsun and then later on he got some slightly drunken welding advice from me, photo taken by Nick J who sat and watched laughing.... Fun was had. Sharns were thrown about in numerous amounts by Bart and Will, the BBQ was wheeled in and much meat was cooked, Sam drew some dick pics on my white board, Kevin the cat got lots of cuddles and the fire did roar. The following morning people woke hazily and started to move. Greg moved in the direction of his new toy, it still not having any suspension, steering or wheels. In a blur of groggy movement the wee Datto got its legs back and was loaded on Gregs trailer... Final photo before it left for its new home in Christchurch (the Datsun capital of NZ)... Greg sent me a photo later that evening after a long drive home.. So I now hereby hand the mighty Datsun 120Y resto over to Greg..... 28 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Popular Post datto_610 Posted July 15, 2018 Popular Post Share Posted July 15, 2018 Not much has been done to this wee beasty, it being winter and all but I have managed to get a couple small things done. First off when we fitted the front subframe at Alex's we couldn't locate the bolts that secure the front crossmember to the body.. Alex did mention.. "they might be in Christchurch at your place when we dropped all the other bits and pieces off" So I got ready to rummage through some boxes and luckily the first box I opened had the bag labeled with the crossmember bolts. With the help of my flat mate George we got it all bolted up easy as!. Fast forward to yesterday. The sun was out and I made use of the warm winter weather to lay some primer on the 180, anyway while that was basking in the sun I had some room in the shed so scraped off more underseal pretty much all gone just need to jack it up to get in the trans tunnel and when the struts are out get all the bits that I can't get to. The passengers side strut tower was also covered in some kind of muck so gave that a clean down too. Still not sure what to attack first on this but for now I'm going to focus on the 180 as I'd like to keep that on the road. Don't worry though I'll still have time for the wagon! 20 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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