sheepers buys a 4wd Datsun.

[sheepers]

yep, you heard right, i bought a Datsun, well i think its a Datsun, i dunno what year they changed to nissan but this must be in there somewhere.

this was really not planned, its all just sort of happened real quick and im still trying to get it all straight in my head.

anywho ive had my eye on these rigs for quite some time but i never thought id end with one just because i never thought id find one i could afford, that wasn't fucked, was local and was the right price.

 

but i did.

as with everything i ever buy its in a million pieces and has been in a shed for at least 10 years and it was really hard to get any pictures of it becasue its crammed in a corner.

i honestly know very little about these, its IFS and the motor is the stock one buts its got some good bits on it that make it go faster apparently? ive yet to actually see the engine.

everything seems to be there for it, its hard to tell when its just a pile of parts on the floor but it seemed to be mostly there.

itll be a couple of months before i can drag this thing home and ill start getting it back together once i do.

umm? what else? the joker im buying it off reckons they used to race these things in Japan and having seen some of the crazy shit they get up to over there i dont doubt it.

also the one ive just bought has plastic bumpers but the earlier ones had chrome bumpers so if its decided this project doesn't fit here (is my car oldschool?)  ill happily move it.

enough waffle, let the pictures do the talking.

 

 

 

 

 

EDIT: i cant get the pictures to load, ill try again later, ive not got great signal here so its really slow.

[sheepers]

talk about it here,

 

 

[sheepers]

Can finally post some picks.

[sheepers]

R32 GTR. 

A car I've dreamed of owning since I was 15. 

I honestly never thought I would own one of these,  but here we are.  As you can see there is some assembly required (which is the only reason I was able to afford it) but it's all there.  There are some nismo bits in the car.

The engine is fully built with all sorts of HKS bits, it's running twin HKS turbos and makes about 400kw .

 

It'll probably be about 2 months before I can actually drag this thing home. 

I don't know what I'm going to do once I get it home yet. 

Get it running or full resto, dunno.

[sheepers]

Going to pick it up soon.

[sheepers]

It's now in its new home

I'll need to really map out what I'm going to do with it. 

Paint the engine bay is a given.

I think I'll also restore the underside of the car and replace all the bushes, balljoints etc.

[sheepers]

with the shed building getting towards the finished stage i started working on my fancy Datsun.

the first thing i need to do is tidy up the rust under the ABS pump and the master cylinder.

im going to assume that all the R32s rust here, anywho my car wasn't to bad, just surface rust. i did cut the side out of the chassis rail to have a look but it was not as bad as i thought it would be so im pretty happy with that.

i used a little hand held sandblaster to get right into the narrow gap between the firewall and the inner guard and it worked fucking mint.

ill clean up the other side them splash some epoxy primer on everything and weld the chassis back together.

the rest of the engine bay is just sand and prep.

oh, excerpt for the huge hole that's been cut for the intercooler piping, ill make a piece and weld that up. i will need a hole bigger that factory to fit the pipework on my motor but i can at least make it look tidy.

[sheepers]

Something came up the other day while I was yarning to a joker that I thought was common knowledge, but apparently not.

So at the risk of teaching my grandmother how to suck eggs ill clarify something.

This knot wheel and the stripping discs that go on your grinder are your best friends,

 

HOWEVER......

[sheepers]

If you don't use them in conjunction with this thing,  you'll have a really bad time

[sheepers]

That's right kids,  a variable speed grinder is a must when stripping the goo off your automobile.

I run the wire wheel at the number 2 setting which is pretty slow.

It'll dig all the shit out but it doesn't melt it to make a worse mess then when you started and it also doesn't grab the panel edge and bend the fuck out of it.

This is especially useful with underseal.

You've probably had a go at underseal with a wire wheel doing 1500000000000rpm and it's been an absolute cunt.

Try it at 600rpm and see what happens.

Hope this was of some use to someone.

Like I say,  I thought everyone knew this.

[sheepers]

Apparently getting the motor and box into this thing is a right massive pain in the arsehole so I did what any sensible celica owner would do and cut out the radiator support panel.

If it works for a celica then it's more than good enough for my fancy datsun.

The gtr rad support has a bit in it where the sheetmetal necks in by 1 thickness,  fuck knows why but it looked like a good place to cut it so I did.

Folded up some bits that match the bigger profile then a couple of captive nuts and some welding later she's all back together.

Looks factory I reckon.

[sheepers]

So anyway I bought another one.

[sheepers]

If you've ever painted an engine bay you'll know how much work it takes to get to this point.

(Spoiler : it's fucking heaps)

But anywho I got some paint on it today.

I'll give it a quick sand up tomorrow then put a bit of fresh seam sealer in it,  then I'll paint it again, maybe with some colour.

[sheepers]

So after a full day's hand sanding I can tell you that I'm fucking fucked.

And so are my fingers.

But she's ready for some colour tomorrow so that's ace.

In put new seam sealer in where it needed it , all I gotta do is weld in the patch on the frame rail then I can paint it.

That's tomorrow job

[sheepers]

What a fucking cunt.

I came out to the shed this morning to find that the seam sealer had not gone off.

It's still just goo. Fucking cunt.

Brand new tube, not even opened.

So the last 2 hours I've spent washing and digging out this crap so I can use something that will actually work.

Fuck.

[sheepers]

Fuck,  what a day.

Got there in the end though.

Welded the patch back into the chassis then used some actual not shit seam sealer then it was time for paint.

I used my new gun and it's fucking epic,  you should get one it was cheap as.

 

 

[sheepers]

Today we extracted my engine and gearbox out of the other GTR.

Obviously I have never removed the gubbons from a GTR but Dick has many times.

Apparently the  removable radiator support is an absolute game changer.

The whole lot came out really easily.

Anywho, now my engine is sitting on the floor and after some horse trading I now own a full greddy intake piping kit and titanium exhaust system for the exchange of painting the engine bay and doing some repairs to the silver car.

 

[sheepers]

I pulled a pretty big dent out of the outer sill then removed the chassis rail to fix the big dent it has in it.

I was expecting it to be really rusty in the inside what with all the brake fluid and everything but it's actually really good.

The rail behind the one I've removed needs to come out to so I can repair the dent in it as well.

All the surface rust in the left wheel well from the brake fluid is gone as well.

I'll tidy this shit up,  chuck a bunch of epotec inside everything then weld it back together .

[sheepers]

Yep.

Rails all fixed and the dent in the floor is all fixed too.

I've painted everything with a coat of epoxy before I weld it all back together.

It fits fairly well,  it'll need a bit of jacking and pissing about to get it tight as I weld it but that's normal,  and it was pretty bent when I started.

[sheepers]

Next was dealing with the crushed part of the rail where it's been lifted from for the last 35 years.

I cut the bent piece out,  cleaned up inside the rail then made a new bottom.

I welded it in with my new MIG welder.

I have never owned a MIG, I have TIG welded everything I have ever done until today.

Let me tell you,  MIG welding a car back together is thousands of times easier than TIG, it's not even funny.

Anywho,  now I have a MIG

plan for this part of the rail is to make a cap to weld over the top to thicken it up,  it's always going to get jacked from this point so I might a well make it stronger.