A 50 year old Japanesse lady: SRL311 01228

[2mAn]

Congrats!

Great pics, thanks for sharing.
Do keep us updated as you progress, even if you somehow manage to come across a "R3V" for Datsun

Well, I've had a build thread going on at 311s.org since thats the Roadster forum, and there has been some very helpful people there. The radiator and stick shift was donated from a member over there who Will had also helped with their own Roadster, so they wanted to pitch in. I will update both threads appropriately

Oh.., and not to derail this thread, what happened to the C350?

I sold both the E30 and C350 within about 24 hours of each other. I have no intention of being a r3v member whos part of the "No E30 Club" so now that I dont have the Aluminum Monster anymore, I will be looking for a daily that will stay with the daily driver requirements. Im looking for a 4door, manual car and am hoping for it to be fun too. E30 checks those boxes. No more 24v swap though if I do get one.

As far as this car goes, the interior is for the most part, a mess. The carpet appears to be something that was used in a home back in the 70s so its all coming out. In addition to that, its faded and just looks bad so it will come out ASAP. I will most likely replace it with black carpet after any rust is dealt with. I think potentially it should be very limited, at least thats what i looks like from the little that Will removed on the driverside. Some POR 15 should do the job with what Ive seen so far

The door panels will stay however, because even though they arent OEM, I do like the style and feel like they match the exterior paint. The driver seat is pretty much worn down and falling apart, so its coming out. Whats replacing it? Well, Ive had this bucket seat for over 10 years, its changed hands a few times, but I always wanted to throw it into a car. I think I finally found a home for it

bucket1 by 2mAn


bucket2 by 2mAn


I will have to make custom mounts, but I think it will fit well with the door panels.

While all of this is going on, I will also be cleaning up the fuel tank, and also checking all of the spots that will need some lubrication. Gotta keep this old lady oiled up for action

[2mAn]

Last night, I had a little time to rip out some of the carpeting. Out came the pass side floor mat and the two mats that were in the back shelf

Old carpet by 2mAn

I also tore out a bunch of the crap that was under that. I want to get it down to bare metal, clean any possible rust, POR15 all of it, then maybe get new pieces made, or I will just buy a carpet kit. Not totally sure yet at this point.

Heres how much crap came out and got thrown away.

Old carpet by 2mAn

I also went to the bike shop by my house and got some handlebar wrap to try and recover the steering wheel with it. I wanted to get started on it last night, but figured I better do some research before I get started. Not much info out there about what Im trying to do, but I think i need to remove the ruined leather cover, clean up the stuff underneath it then I should have a good surface to wrap. We'll see what happens.

Get a grip by 2mAn

Im listening to any advice you guys have about the stuff Im jumping into right now

[MrBurgundy]

Are you going to end up taking the fuel tank out to clean it?

[2mAn]

Are you going to end up taking the fuel tank out to clean it?

Yes, its been rinsed out already once. I cant pull it out until I have a daily.

For now, its been doing my 10 mile each way to work without issue. Usually taking Sepulveda, but I took 405 home yesterday. Its doing fine, getting a lot of thumbs up too

[rzerob]

What are you going to do when it rains?

[parkerbink]

What are you going to do when it rains?

Drive faster.

[2mAn]

What are you going to do when it rains?

Drive faster.

Basically. I have no intention of driving this car year 'round. I should have my daily purchased in the next week or two. In the mean time, Im bugging the SoCal chitchat, all my car friends and my wife with my neverending "what do you think of this car" car search haha

So today, I figured it was now or never if I wanted to give this handlebar re-wrap attempt. I prepped everything I thought I would need to make sure it would stick on...
Wrap it up by 2mAn

Definitely didnt turn out as good as I hope, but overall it was worth the ~$25 and will work better until I can find a top-notch solution. Stitched didnt seem to want to deal with it, so I will be looking for another option . In the mean time, its less ugly than it was and feels a lot better.

Wrap it up by 2mAn

I will live with it for now

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Hit up josh battles on facebook he is on the r3v facebook page too he re does steering wheels and does good work. He might be willing to take it on.

[2mAn]

Hit up josh battles on facebook he is on the r3v facebook page too he re does steering wheels and does good work. He might be willing to take it on.

Does he have an email? Im not on FB

[ThatOneEuroE30]

Does he have an email? Im not on FB

Most likely. I will get it from him and forward it to you.

[Sh3rpak!ng]

That doesn't look terrible.

Sent from my SM-G920T using Tapatalk

[2mAn]

That doesn't look terrible.

Thanks, its an improvement from what it was before and it feels good. Im sure there will be another phase of this steering wheel evolution...

Figured its about time I get under this car and see whats it all look like. Grabbed the PB Blaster and the jack and got to work...

Once under the car, I located the seat mounting studs and nuts (though a few nuts were missing). Sprayed them liberally with the PB Blaster, as well as some other pieces that I will probably be tugging on soon. While the penetrating fluid was penetrating I figured I would look at the exhaust and see what that looked like. Noticed one spot that mounts to the frame had a stud going through, but again, not nut to tighten it down. Played with that until I found something that would work and tightened it down. After that I was curious to see what the leak looked like... bad, though Im sure it was worse and Will probably did some of this to try and tighten it up until I properly can get it fixed. At least I know that the flexjoint will be after the collector, afterall.

Cleaning by 2mAn

Now that this part was over, I figured I should try removing the pass seat, especially since it only had two nuts holding the seat down. They came off quite easily and I pulled the seat out and got all of the carpet out which came it out along with the seat... ugh gross stuff down there. This was the leftover mess. Kept the carpeting, but the rest went into the trash. The PO from the 70s was a smoker too and the car had a bunch of butts under the seat. Shocked that it wasnt all burnt up.

Cleaning by 2mAn

Noticed that she has a new battle scar, Im pretty sure this happened on the maiden voyage home from Northern California
Cleaning by 2mAn

[M-technik-3]

Clean looking, about hour and half from me via back roads if someone needs it looked at.

[2mAn]

Been a little too long for an update, but getting my daily driver to be a solid reliable car halted the progress, but only temporarily. Ive been collecting my change and am close to buying some Bilsteins for the car. You might have already seen the other thread about the upcoming front end refresh. Plan is to install the suspension and see what can be taken care of at that time, and to plan for the future. But today I actually got my hands a little dirty on the Roadster and did a small mod that I wanted to do since I first bought the car: remove the rear overriders. The fronts were already gone, and Ive never really been a fan, so it was time. I also had been reading up on the coke trick on the chrome. Mine was pretty well pitted, but I figured it wont look any worse. Went and bought a coke and got ready to go.

Heres what I started with.

Shine bright by 2mAn

Shine bright by 2mAn

Shine bright by 2mAn

Lets get those overriders off and clean up the dirt...

Shine bright by 2mAn

and heres the "chemicals" & tools of destruction
Shine bright by 2mAn

and lets go!


Overall, not much of an improvement, but Im glad I got it done. The exhaust tip actually cleaned up the best but I couldnt get a good pic, not that it matters. If you look really closely, it got rid of some of it... and some chrome too haha

Shine bright by 2mAn

I also met up with Linda last weekend to get this much needed flexpipe from her that she wasnt using anymore. Hope to address this soon, but Im worried there wont be much solid metal to weld to. We'll see what the exhaust shop says when I get around to it.

Shine bright by 2mAn

PS The overriders are for sale because I have zero intentions of putting them back on

[varg]

We didn't know what the shift knob was and this bottom side is more proof. Maybe now I can finally drill that cue ball and make it a shift knob too?...

From this and an earlier picture, it appears to be a ceramic femoral head from a sample hip replacement implant.

Very cool shift knob, keep it!