MARTS-PL310 61 Datsun Bluebird Sedan

[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird Floorpan - Welding up the pie cuts along the floorpan edges. Making reproduction nutplates. More fit checks.

Getting closer to completion. Some little things.

I used Teks and temp fastened the underside support to conform the floor shape more accurately.

 

And backing up a little bit from the thread post where I fully trimmed the flanges, I needed to first weld up some gaps.

There's seven bends in contour along the fore and aft direction. That results in 14 pie cuts along the edges to be cleaned up and welded. Not so much on the outboard flange against the sill since these will be lap joints against a flat inner sill, but required along the curves of the trans tunnel edges. I'm keeping my options open to butt weld or lap weld against the tunnel.

 

I back up the wide pie cut openings with copper from a split and flattened pipe. The blue line marks the extent that needs to be filled, the remainder I expect will be trimmed away.

 

This one was kinda ugly. I just grind the excess away later.

 

This one was a little easier to fill. I ground the welds and then, after final trimming (described earlier), did yet another mock fit with the floorpan below

 

The fit is looking awesome! Almost pro maybe, but I have nothing from the internet to compare it to.

Then I built some tiny reproductions out of 20 gauge sheet to look exactly the same as the original floating nut plates that get welded to the underfloor and support the inboard bracket of the parking brake. The 5/16 - 24 square nuts are extracted from some much larger purchased repo GM nut plates and inserted into my much smaller Nissan look alike single tab repros.

 

Next post will be cleaning, preparation and epoxy priming the soon to be permanently welded closed cavities on the underside of the floorpan. And then followed by welding on ten or so parts.

 

More posts soon…

Discussion:

 

 

[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird Floorpan - Metal protection,  and welding on a bunch of parts to the floorpan.

 

Some of the stuff I use to clean, condition steel surfaces and paint epoxy primer.

Eight ounce detail spray gun. Perfect to paint a small batch of parts and conserve materials. Very little gets wasted. I've had this one for over 30 years. A couple of freshly sprayed parking brake brackets sit in the background.

 

Parts on the left will be welded onto the underside. The floorpan underside on the right is masked off to maintain bare steel on the exposed areas for later final overall finishing paint. Also in the lower is the seat bracket, which is turned upside down to coat just the lower surface.

 

Unmasked. These are all the areas soon to become hidden yet vulnerable to condensation and rust if left bare.

 

First these inbd-outbd straps go on.

 

Checking for opposite side weld melt through.

 

Grind some of the weld heads smooth and touch up primer for next layer of assembly.

 

Installing the fore and aft front tie straps.

 

I needed to flatten this section a bit with a bunch of clamps before the welds were made.

The rear hat section beam is installed.

 

 

B-pillar body mount bracket welded on.

 

All brackets are installed. Very small fore and aft fuel line clips are also welded on.

 

Top side fit check. On the top side the seat bracket was welded from plug welds underneath and fillet welded at the front and rear edges on top.

 

 

Another fit check view from on top. The large oxidized areas in the rear passenger footwell are where heat was applied to correct some shape defects. This will be cleaned up. 

 

Fit check view underneath and looking forward.

 

Fit check view underneath and looking aft.

You can see it would be difficult to paint after installation in the car. The frames are massive and block access. I'm waiting for outside conditions to warm a bit in order to fully paint the underside and then weld it into the car. I'm debating whether or not to grind the dozens of weld heads down. Probably will do so. In the meantime, I'll be inspecting the right hand side of the car and making future repair plans to continue moving forward.

 

That's all for now.

Discussion:

 

 

[MARTS-PL310]

I'm trying to speed this project up a little bit. It's been over two years now since I began tearing into the Bluebird.

 

The final fit check of the left floor, with it screwed down flush against the tunnel. Various inspections and fit adjustments are completed.

I did some recruitment.

The Apprentice. My son volunteered to help.

Cleaning up my overly thick MIG welds on the tunnel.

Preparing to paint a trim line on the tunnel.

Painted and edge scribed with blue layout fluid.

Tunnel is now ready to trim.

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[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird Floorpan - Tunnel trim completed and floorpan edge conforms nicely!

 

Trimmed and fitted.

Trim was three steps. First a rough cut with an angle grinder cutting disk to within 1/4 inch of the scribe line, then manual cut with tin snips the rest of the way, finishing with hand filing to clean and de-burr the edges.

It's very tempting to just start welding it now.

Just need to paint the underside and weld it in - finally!

 

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[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird Floorpan - Painting the underside and finally welding it into the car.

Prepped and painted the underside of the floorpan with automotive exterior paint finishes (epoxy prime, base coat, clear coat). No fillers, lead or anything else to hide my handcrafting.

Curing in a dry and heated space.
Painting this side now saves me the otherwise awkward situation of trying to protect it once installed above the very wide frame rails.

Painted the tops of the frame rails, and some other adjacent surfaces, with POR15 and rustoleum black.

Meanwhile, the floorpan was prepared for plug welds with lots of holes punched and spaced an inch apart.

I laid down some plastic to keep the frame rails from scraping the underside of the floorpan during positioning.

A series of widely spaced tack welds were made a the butt joint to the tunnel.

Conformed, drilled and readied the A post floor to body mount bracket for weld.

Plug welded! Floor is not coming out now.

Got good melt thru of the weld on the underside of bracket.

Then just kept adding more tacks to the tunnel joint.

Thought it was a good and tight enough joint at this stage to try a TIG weld. It was NOT. Total failure right away (no pics, too embarrassing ) ;  I made more holes than actual weld. More practice required.

Reverted back to MIG weld and eventually fully tacked the joint. Filled the positioning holes later.

Underside - aft.

Underside - forward.

Added the HI-Lo Beam switch bracket.

The last of the welding ops. Here I was trying to weld three sheets of metal together at the base of the B post. It can't be fully accessed from the other side while the body is mounted on the frame. Sill stiffening bracket, inner sill and body mount bracket horizontal flange. Failure. The first weld on the left drilled hole did not even hardly heat up the bracket on the other side. The arc just goes sideways to take the shortest path. Drilled the weld out and made much bigger holes and at least half way into the bracket flange, last in the stack up.

This bigger hole, shown on right, helped. The weld still did not result in visible melt thru on the other side though it did attach to the flange.

I followed up with edge tacks to at least keep it fixed on place until the body and frame can be separated later. You can see the impossibility of getting the torch directly on the face of the flange.

The rest of the welds to the inner sill were no problem. Just some inconsistency, but all other welds showed positive weld through and good attachment. Plug weld spacing of the floor outboard flange was an inch apart, slightly tighter than factory electrode spot weld methods.

Some random underside pics after welding was complete:

 

 

Had to plug weld these blind using an inspection mirror to aim the MIG wire on top of the pinch weld joint. Not easy but very fun to watch the melt thru from below.
 

View is looking forward and up at the side of rear seat floorpan (or step) and lap weld joint.
 

Hit my pic upload limit. To be continued in next post with some other views underneath and closer topside details...

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[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird Floorpan - Painting the underside and finally welding it into the car - Part two and last of the pics.

Continued from previous post in the thread. Underside photos and a few more.

Support bracket flange weld attachments to inner sill.

Floorpan lap weld to prior toe-board patch. The far upper toe-board welds were from a couple of years ago and made a little too cold and random. I run the welder hotter now to get more melt thru and flatter welds. Sometimes though too much as in the extreme right weld melt thru.

 
From previous post, the ideal weld melt thru I try to get. A nice shallow convex button of material.

The outer sill will be welded onto the car next once I get all the hidden inside surfaces of both inner and outer coated with an epoxy prime. Should be a relatively easy task with no crawling back and forth under the car with my 60 plus year body. Too cold today though, freezing temps are prevailing.

More topside pics of the completed work.

Weld heads ground near flush for a clean look topside.

Minutia. The black vinyl shown covering the door cards is not original. Probably from a late 60's redo. The original red and burgandy material remains underneath. The arm rest was salvaged from an ivory white parts car in mid 70's and sprayed black. Bezels for door handle and window cranks also salvaged from same PL311 parts car. Originals, PL310, were about same color as steering wheel, dark brownish gray.

More of same.

Again.

 

Complicated and cramped location to access with welder.

It was a little bit easier to get at this area. The structural welds to the A post body mount bracket will be left as is for best strength. The Hi/Lo headlight foot switch support bracket was salvaged and re-attached, but I had to replace the bottom flange due to rust thin-out.

Yeah, so that's about it for now. Time to take a break, organize small tools and heal up from the under-car torture routine.

 

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[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird - Painting the insides of the inner and outer sill and welding them into the car.

 

Metal cleaned, etched and zinc oxide conditioned.

Epoxy primed inner sill.

Epoxy primed outer sill.

Ready for plug welding.

Doors getting in the way. I'd left them on for keeping a check on fit and gaps.

.
Made dozens of plug welds to attach inner and outer sill together and then went to work on the B pillar base and ends of sill.

It's always a lot of fun to weld stuff shooting the wire feed straight up while laying on your back.

Clamp and weld the aft end.

Clamped it up and welded.

A little rough but eventually cleaned up nice.

Pinned it underneath at the body jack pipe to support bracket with a solid 3/8 inch rod.

Maxed out the MIG power and wire feed and made eight ugly fat tacks then ground smooth.

 

Shaping up with lots of now permanently attached and shiny metal, It has way more corrosion protection on the insides than original. A stark contrast to the right side now.

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Edited February 28, 2020 by MARTS-PL310
delete out of sequence pic

[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird - Removing the rusty right side floorpan and inspection.

 

Finished the left side of car and I'm now just starting the right side.

 

Recording and assessing the before state of the right floorpan and adjoining structure.

That big hole on the middle lower right next to the tunnel is where an aftermarket seat belt was bolted directly to the then thin sheet floor by a previous owner back in the sixties. Sketchy. No secondary doubler plate, exhaust seal or anything. Local floor thickness remaining was nothing. Potential belt tensile restraint strength was zero.

Plan is to salvage and repair the seat support bracket. The bottom flange is rusted out and the rest is not too bad.

 

Measuring up the rotted toeboard before cutting the floorpan out. Plan is to cut the toeboard out later along the tape line.

 

Cut the floorpan out.

Survey of the underfloor brackets. Looking forward.

Looking aft. Frame is not rusted, just dirty.

Front A-post and body mount bracket.
Rotted. It will be replaced.

No. 2 (moving aft) bracket.
It is twisted a bit due to some sort of abuse impact, and salvageable, but will be replaced since I've already made a new one.

Side of body and jack lift point bracket. Rotted out on bottom. It will be replaced.

B-post and body mount bracket. It might be salvageable.

Floorpan, side of rear seat pan.
Rotted. It will be replaced. Already have a new one made. Lower edge of rear seat pan vertical structure will be patch repaired.

 

The remains of the removed right floorpan. Rust attacked it from the top down.

Bottom view of same.
An asphalt base underseal coating was applied against the otherwise bare sheet metal by the Nissan factory.
This coating was relatively effective, it just didn't help the top side much.

The only salvageable parts (so far).

 

And the work continues... Plan is to go around counterclockwise and repair the perimeter structure starting with the toeboard before launching into making a new floorpan. Masking paper on the left side is to keep the cutting and grinding particles off. I'm also going to cover that completely with a protective welding blanket.

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Edited March 14, 2020 by MARTS-PL310
delete duplicate photo

[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird - Replacing the toe board.

Found some scrap metal just large enough, made the toe board and welded it in.

Trimmed and checking for fit. Fought some indecision whether to butt or lap weld. Went with the butt weld for a flush join.

This scrap had been destined to become the left inner sill plate until I realized it did not match the original thickness. Made a thicker sill and threw the thin one into the scrap pile.

Tack welded. Some rust craters above the weld line are filled in. One plug weld connects to the support bracket underneath.

Stitch welded between the tacks and ground flush.

Moving on to the side of trans tunnel next.

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[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird - Replacing the right side of trans tunnel.

So all the Bluebird rust repairs and reconstruction of the peripheral structure surrounding the future right side floor pan are complete.  All new metal where the floor will then make a solid welded connection. I'll make several posts. I'm proceeding around counterclockwise from the previous post about the right side toe board repair.

Posting in sequence then, here is the right hand side of trans tunnel, repair.

The Bluebird trans tunnel as it was in the beginning.

Then cleaned up a bit to expose the extent of damage and perforated areas.

Formed the first patch and matched the original shape.

Cut out the rust.

Tacked in first trans tunnel patch
.
 

Then formed the second.

Cut out more rust.

Tacked in the second patch.

Formed and fit checked the third patch. Scribing some cut lines and making index lines.

Cut out yet more rust.

Tacked in the third patch.

All three patches in.

Lastly, I made a transition fillet piece to connect the toe board to the tunnel.

As formed.

More welds, rough grinding, cleaning and metal etch.
The transition fillet piece gets just a few tacks to hold it temporarily until the floor build gets underway, then I'll remove it and join it to the floor as a little extension.

Moving on, I will post the right hand rear seat pan structure rust removal and related bits next.

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[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird - Replacing the right rear seat pan support structure, step and wheel well  lip.

First, the Bluebird rear seat pan structure as it was.

And from the wheel well perspective.

So I started by cutting some rusty metal out.

Then I worked this piece to savage the good 3/4 portion with the four beads and replace the rot.

Fitting the old and new together.

 

 

Made some tack welds.

Finished and cleaned up the welds and built the vertical side support.
The little side floor was built a couple of years ago.
Screwed the pieces together.

Checked fit with the car. Fitted good! Welded on later. I moved on to fix the rot on the wheel well lower lip.

A bunch of little rot pieces cut out and repairs can begin to the wheel well just behind the step plate vertical flange.
Mostly self-explanatory. Three more or less flat pieces of rot cut out and new metal welded in. Took some time to do though.
.

 

 

And in the next post: The new inner sill and all six brackets that go with it.

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•  

[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird - Right side inner sill and brackets.

Rusty front section of inner sill before pic. Not worthy of a simple small patch.
Inner body skin above it is also rusted out.
A-post body mount bracket not looking too good either.All get replaced.

Drilled out all the spot welds to the outer sill flanges and cut the gas welds at the posts.
Hacked out the connections to the body jack pipe.The rusty inner sill is now ready to be pulled out.

And it's out! A couple of pics to size it up against the new sill plate I built a couple of years ago.

 

.

And the brackets. four on the inside and two outside.

I flattened the old forward end flange and use it as a template to trim the excess off my new inner sill.

Bent the end to match the old and started welding the two new outer brackets on.

Forming a recess in the A-post body mount bracket. 16g sheet proved quite resistant to 12 ton press.

Eventually the press worked but did not produce a really clean edge, plus I have to fill in the clamping holes.
I decided the B-post bracket will be made in two pieces.

Making the B-post bracket. Sprayed some machinist blue die over my flat pattern copy and cut it out of 16g.

Resulting flat pattern.

Later on I bent up the flanges 90 degrees and then made the inside piece after making a little forming tool. Cut and welded it in.

Made some indents to match the original with this setup.
Angle iron brace and 3/8 inch rod that was  pounded on to form the metal made soft with a gas torch.

My four new brackets for the inboard side of sill.

Position check for welding.

Drilled and coated with some weld thru.

Set up for plug welding. All goes smoothly.

 

First and last fit check of the inner sill assembly.

Exceeded my pic upload limit at this point. I pulled the sill out just to flange the upper edge for a lap fit same as original at and forward of the A-post.
Welded the inner sill in at the front and back ends and then proceeded to cut most of the A-post off for future reproduction/reconstruction. Removed the outer sill as well.

I'll post a set of summary photos of the periphery. Maybe tomorrow. So now the project is up to date with these last three posts and same number of months. The periphery is all welded in, ground, metal cleaned and etched. Working on the right side floor next. Not physically started on that floor as yet. I'm wanting to figure out ways to improve upon the left side floor just a bit.

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[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird - Right side completed periphery structures.

A  flood of pics to display the completed right hand side periphery structures.
This will provide solid support for the future floor build.

And on the work goes until the Bluebird rust be banished.

 

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[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird - RHS floorpan fabrication  started.

Made some more custom corrugated floorpan tin last weekend.

Started fab work on the RHS floorpan. It's a scratch build like everything else, Started with a 26 by 56 inch 20g blank sheet providing excess material all around as with the LHS. Bead rolled it to duplicate the original Datsun Bluebird 310 pattern. Two wide beads in the center underneath the front seat, five beads in the front footwell spaced at an 80mm pitch and four beads in the rear footwell again spaced at 80mm pitch. Eleven beads total. Takes two separate offset beads to combine and make one full bead. Three progressive runs for each formed offset. That's a total of 66 runs through the bead roller machine. Oh, and three people to support and guide the blank, me and two patient family volunteers.

Upper side.

Underside.

I'm trying to improve it over the LHS floorpan build. I used a different set of dies compared to the previously completed LHS pan to more closely match the factory formed fillet radii.
Used these rounded tipping dies in an offset mode instead of joggle dies.

Offset the rounded dies like this just not quite that deep.
Ran the blank through the machine in three progressively deeper steps for each half of an offset or large joggle type bead.

Instead of using these joggle dies (below), as used on the LHS pan.
The joggle dies have too small of edge radii, which tend to leave  knife edge indentations in the metal.

Results were a near perfect match to the original factory formed stiffening beads in shape, depth and locations.
 

What i used to take some of my measurements from after scraping the old underseal off.
Bottom side was used for measuring, using a flexible tailor's tape, since the top side is too heavily cratered.

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[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird - RHS Floorpan fabrication and incremental forward progress.

Took some vacation time off in July and travelled through the North Cascades and scablands of Washington state in a rented RV.

Alta Lake state park.

Sun Lakes Dry Falls state park.

Back at it now on the Datsun Bluebird RHS floorpan.
Made the the "3D" shapes that define the platform for the B-post body mount and the front footwell to front seat platform transition.
Cut and welded flat the corrugation ends to match factory original.

Started with laying out the cutout for the B-post body mount transition area on the underside.

Drilled holes on the corners of the layout and inserted a pneumatic body saw.

All cut out. Then cleaned it up a bit with various files.

Flattened the adjacent corrugations to factory config and cut the transition step.

Bent the floorpan to create the transition step down to the rear footwell.

Trimmed the excess material and tack welded top edge of rearmost transition.

Made a couple of 1/4 conical shapes, formed and trimmed to fit.

Tack welded them in.

Then made a rectangle piece and tacked it in.

Overview of that completed "3D" mini-project.

Then, moving forward, did a layout to start the front footwell to front seat platform transition between the side of seat and inner sill.
On a right hand steer car this is where the hand brake lever would be. Underside shown.

Cut out the metal and massaged the corrugations.

Then bent the pan to match factory shape to lower front footwell dropdown.
Trimmed and tack welded the top of the slight sloped section.

Tacked in a triangle piece.

Marked out the cut lines to relieve the remainder of the soon to be flattened corrugations.

Corrugation ends formed, flattened and relief cuts tack welded.
Upper surface shown.
Plan is to TIG weld between all the many MIG tacks, thus I've strived to keep panel gaps to a minimum. 
Since I'm less than a beginner at TIG, I'm sure it will be a challenge for me. A bunch of my practice sessions have shown that fact.
Anyway, I think it will fun to learn TIG, eventually, I just hope I don't vaporize too much metal along the way.

Thanks for reading. More progress to be made in a few weeks hopefully.

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[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird - RHS floorpan fabrication completion.

More progress on the Bluebird RHS floorpan. I've done a lot of work.

Started by fully welding up the tacked up butt weld joints shown previously. Used mostly MIG process (tack, tack, tack and grind excess).

Then used a large piece of cardboard to rough out the edge trim contour. Got it relatively close and then rolled a large washer with a marker on the ID to get the contour line against the tunnel.

 

Final trimmed shape of the cardboard.

Set the it on the pan and trimmed it.

Left a uniform amount of excess to transition with a fillet against the tunnel. 

Blended the edge end of corrugations flat by making a couple cuts on each, pounding flat and welding.
Then made a 90 degree flange to mate with the inner sill plate.
The beat and rolled the tunnel edge into a fillet with hammer and dolly.
Then did a somewhat successful first rough trial fit.
Looks ok from a distance but up close it needs more finesse.

 

Formed some stiffening bumps, same as factory floor, with homemade tools of plywood (male/female blocks), chuck of plastic pipe, deep socket and a big hammer. The forming process pulled in some adjacent metal on the ramps which were easily panel beaten back to shape.

Cleaned up the hat section underside support that was salvaged and temporarily attached it.
First with some Clecos, then later on used Teks.
Wrong application for regular low tension Clecos due to the undulating contour and minor mismatch.
Pounded in some depressions for the two body mount bolt locations.
Also attached the stub at the extreme forward end to mate with the toe board.

Running out of the allotted pic upload limit. More soon with repairs to the salvaged seat support bracket and other parts/stuff.

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[MARTS-PL310]

(continued from previous post today)
Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird - RHS floorpan fabrication  completed.

Started work on this rusty old RHS seat support bracket.

Salvage it with repair?
Replace it?
Make a new one?

Chose to cut the rusty half off and salvage it.

Made a sketch and got to work on the base using 2 mil thick steel. Easy to weld with a TIG compared to the thin stuff at least!

The rest follows naturally and was a fun mini project.

Tacked the new base half on with a MIG, filled in with small pieces on the ends and then TIG welded it the rest of the way.

After trim of excess and smoothing the edges a bit.

I had an existing hole on the top salvaged half rail that was not original and plugged it.

Turned out ok with some of the weld in the fillet left unground.

The seat bracket In its future location.
The Clecos in the background btw were just an experiment and I used Teks instead for temp assembly as noted in prior post.

I'll make third post tonight and wrap it up.

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[MARTS-PL310]

(continued from previous post today)
Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird - RHS floorpan fabrication  completed.

Finishing up the story today by adding the two lateral straps underfloor and two longitudinal stiffeners in the front section.

Tuned up the loose inboard edges a bit where the corrugations will continue over the trans tunnel.

Cut up bits and welded in. Small but rather time consuming to fiddle with making fit and weld.

Tacks and more tacks. Repeat six places.

Then add all the underside straps, do another fit check in the car and take lots of pics.

It's all fitting up quite well now. Very pleased with it.
Permanent weld assembly of the floor parts and floor to car are to take place quite a bit later after scratch fabricating the outer sill, A-post, repair B-post, Dogleg and anything else needed to do a fit check with doors mounted. Oh and the door hinges need rebuilding.

On the table slated for work next. These are the three segments destined to be the outer sill (old A-post in background). They have been sitting half complete for about two years now. Time to get er done!

 

Discussion:

https://oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/60267-marts-pl310-61-datsun-bluebird-sedan/

Build:
https://oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/60264-marts-pl310-61-datsun-bluebird-sedan/

[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird - RHS Outer Sill Mock Up.

Just finished the forming of the three outer sill segments and loosly fit checked them today. Still much more work to do. Weld them together, trim the flanges, add the bits inside for support of the side of body jack structure, add some joggles to the flanges and many other mods to make it one assembly same as original.

Some pics follow.

The aft sill segment fits nice and snug against the rotted dogleg stub. I did get a little too sharp of a bend radius at the ends because I unevenly tightened the budget metal folder. Still learning. I can fix it with some more beating with a steel rod on the inside.

My crude metal concave curve forming apparatus, round one.It was a bit unstable until I added some more lumber down at the base. Other regular bends made with a small 18 inch folder. Lots of gentle panel beating and straightening using pipes, boards, angle iron, etc was required to get the final profile to match original. 

Profile card in foreground below pic of the in-work sill build.

Can't buy these parts, have to make em and that sure takes a lot of time!

Discussion:

https://oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/60267-marts-pl310-61-datsun-bluebird-sedan/

 

Build:
https://oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/60264-marts-pl310-61-datsun-bluebird-sedan/

[MARTS-PL310]

Building the 1961 Datsun 310 Bluebird - RHS Outer Sill Weld Together and Details.

Time for an update reporting progress on the RHS build. Outer sill segments are welded together, including most details; end stub, end stub cap and inward joggle at B-post base. Lower A-post below the belt line and down to the sill (about 2 feet w/hinge mount points) is fabricated, tack welded together and temporarily fitted (mock up installed with Teks). The Inner body skin behind the A-post is repaired with another patch. The RHS front door hinges are rebuilt. Both RHS doors were dragged out of the backyard shed, temporarily installed and checked for fitment with the other repairs and all is well. The lower half B-post repairs are underway and nearly complete.

 

Posting the outer sill progress/pics. Other stuff noted above to follow later.

The three RHS outer sill segments welded together. Fully welded on both sides since outer is to be sanded flush.

Trimmed and fit checked. Kept the weld heat under control by alternating tacks between the different joints and sides and it all came out exceptionally straight. It could have easily warped and created a nightmare. I don't recommend this approach but with a cheap 18 inch metal folder it was the only way to make it. Looks good enough now to proceed with the forward end stub.

Next, making the RHS outer sill forward end stub. What follows is the detail required to allow the sill to have clearance with and tuck under the inner front fender support structure. I had no reliable original stub to copy from and just made my best guess to reverse engineer this new stub from the mutilated mess of the original as shown in the pics below. I got lucky and it does test fit snugly with the inner fender structure with just a millimeter or two of clearance.

Then, after dressing the stub welds, I made a forward end cap to fit it based on best guesstimate.

Stuck it together using a resistance spot welder from Harbor Freight. First time use where I may have been holding the dwell a bit too long. It's permanently stuck on at any rate.

In preparing for future repairs and fitment work on the B-post, I made a cutout about mid-length down the outer sill to fit the base, same as on the original. Then filled it in with a custom small inward joggle piece that, though small, took several hours to build. Tacked it in and left it that way for now until the B-post is complete and fit is assured.

Made several other minor joggles along the pinch weld flanges to accommodate overlap of bracket flanges and such. Not worthy of pics.

That's it for this post on the RHS outer sill.

As mentioned in the beginning of the post, hopefully more to follow soon.

Discussion:

https://oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/60267-marts-pl310-61-datsun-bluebird-sedan/

Build:
https://oldschool.co.nz/index.php?/topic/60264-marts-pl310-61-datsun-bluebird-sedan/