Too's Datsun 1200 Wagon.

[toocivic]

So here is a story with a bit of a cheeky/poorly timed beginning.
After recently moving to Melbourne I found myself in country Tasmania collecting this 1971 Datsun Sunny/1200 wagon( chassis designation VB110).




After giving the car a once over to be sure the fluids were up I proceeded the next day to drive it to Devonport, and to take it home to Melbourne on the Spirit of Tasmania. It happily made the drive without a hitch, the carb needed some adjustment and or cleaning but at speed/ with the revs up it was a fine drive...

...probably the scariest thing was the totally gone shocks which lead to the car feeling a little wild over long sweepers with some bumps.


We got there in the end, only to have a "classic car moment" while lining up to drive onto the ferry and not being able to start it for about 15 mins...all came good in the end and the Sunny was onboard.

On the journey over I had a good amount of time to think about "what I had just done?!"... I bought a car that I had thought about for some years.
Now that you have a Kyusha era car "what am I going to do with it, what are my goals, when will it stop?"


First thing on the list, which I have begun since getting the car back, is give it a good look over and a good clean... removing some 40 yrs of dust/rust flaking/fluff/wrapper/misc. in the car and taking the rubber floor mats out revealed a lot of standing water/rust was which was scary to say the least. Lost the tow ball and bike rack, cause well you saw them...unflattering to say the least.

Thankfully the rust, which is significant, is in contained to place where either replacement panels can be bought* or is simply flat so sheet metal could be welded in.

I doubt that I will paint/refinish the car as I don't want to sink too much money into the bodywork outside of repairing the rust. I have given some panels a investigatory cut and polish which yielded promising results... that said some places the paint is totally gone. I think an honest approach to the car is probably what is best; yeah its old, its had a life but I will let that show... clean up what can be cleaned up and repair what needs to be so as to halt any rapid deterioration.


Lets be real for a second, what are you going to do though?
Clean the hell out of the car
Degrease and re-grease what needs to be.
Try sort the panel gaps
Replace the whiny as hell gearbox currently in the car with a "recently rebuilt" later gen. box bought off gumtree.
Replace the shocks(This may come with some minor upgrades: disc brake front end.)
Replace the wrecked bushings
Sort the rust in the floor pan.
Sort the seats out, either reupholstered fronts or replaced them with something else.
Get it rego'd


Foolishly I have already begun buying misc. parts to make this car characterful, these include a set of roof racks, a MOMO Indy wheel, a Redline twin weber manifold, and a pair of twin Weber carbs. oops.
These additions will make their way onto the car down the track but in the mean time its a case of keeping an eye out and swooping on a bargain.

Dream world would be:
14" SSR MkII's
Little lower to suit 14" wheel/tire combo
Buck lip
Headers + mild exhaust( twin peashooters)
Twin webers
Fog lights
New carpet

* the true joy of the Datsun 1200 is their sheer popularity, as a motor sports base and as a modified car, with them having a surprisingly large amount of parts still available through third party manufacturers. Pretty much anything forward of the rear seats can be bought new( eg. front guards, bonnets, floor pans, complete rubber kits, the list goes on), and quite cheaply too! A. Big.Plus.

[IbbyDC2R]

Nice to see old school cars here[emoji1533]

[ChargeR]

Great purchase. Don't believe the decades of marketing hype by car manufacturers, car's didn't really get meaningfully better since the early 70s, just more complex.

[toocivic]

Great purchase. Don't believe the decades of marketing hype by car manufacturers, car's didn't really get meaningfully better since the early 70s, just more complex.

I had to get on before they got stupid expensive.
I'm well aware, the car's I'm attracted to keep getting older and older. Already love the Datsun as its so easy to work on.

A montage of not resisting a bargain...Gearbox was a needed, the rest was just because it was cheap.

[mlracing]

Awesome the wagons are so sweet

[toocivic]

Street Smarts.


I'm currently in the process of swapping the gearbox on my Sunny. The original one in the car was very noisy, and as I removed it it became apparent why. The input shaft had about what felt like 5-10mm of play, which I suspect was a result of one of the main bearing being totally gone. I'm currently waiting on a clutch release bearing to arrive before I can put my spare one in as I was sent the wrong one initially...I've got plenty to do so its no biggie.

The new box I have is a 56A box, which is a revised design of the original box with, if I recall correctly, better lubrication and slightly bigger gears( gear width increased). In chalk the box was marked "Irvin", which I assume was the last name of the customer who owned the box prior to the car it belonged to being parted out, along with "ok"... so there is hope for the condition of the box. It feels smooth when turning the input shaft and looks to have some non OEM looking sealant on it so its possible it may have been rebuilt at some stage.

While I'm here...
or at least underneath the car, I am going to try address a couple things.
I have been wire brushing all the seams of the car to dislodge any rust/dirt/grease with the intention seam sealing them to protect against future rust. I have begun 'massaging' some of the overlapping seams in preparation for this, along with some rust converter, which will be followed by some primer and then some spray on/roll on sound deadening.

This is all in an attempt to bring a level of finish to the car that is at least a decade later than it is:seam sealant and underbody sound deadening/rust protection.

Bonus
I've manage to locate a set of disc brake front struts( from a 120Y), as well as a 120Y front sway bar(20mm vs OEM 17mm), but they wont be available till the owner swaps out his over the holiday season*. So thats all the second-hand part sourcing done to modify the suspension and braking on car! The rest in available new, bushing kit, shocks, brake lines, brake master, fluids.





*which is totally fine with me as I've got plenty to do elsewhere on the Sunny( in-between/to escape cleaning tasks I have been slowly been pulling the dash apart to remove the mess of wiring that is the result of the previous owner fitting an aftermarket stereo.

[toocivic]

Revealing the road ahead

Today was spent doing a couple of little things. One, which I had been putting off for one reason or another, was getting some dry ice to remove the sound deadening in the front foot wells and over the transmission tunnel so as to see the extent of the rust. Once I chipped the bulk of the deadening off I gave the area a wipe down with wax and grease remover which breaks down the residue...


...I still need to give the larger bits a scrape up with a blade or wire brush and another hit with the wax and grease remover but it was a pretty hot day and I decided to call it done for now. I will have to remove it all in preparation for paint post rust repair but for now I'm glad to see the extent of the work ahead. A point of relief was discovering that no rust existed in areas around that chassis rails, so it is just straight sheet-metal that needs to be replaced( I will just buy a pair of front foot wells and cut the bits I need from them rather than swapping the whole floor pan. You can see that I have used some rust converter on the rear foot wells which had only mild surface rust present, thankfully.

(keys for scale)

Cooked in the sun

The other task being as I needed to replace the front seats with something a little less ruined I went to a local pick-a-part wrecker to suss some possibilities. Armed with a width measurement of the stock Sunny rails(400mm) I began searching.

In the end after pining over some merlot coloured lounge chairs from a 90's Cressida I came to my senses and decided on a pair of good condition seats out of a U2 Pintara. I did however swap both rails/stays over from a N13 Pulsar to get the width spot on. I could have used seats from an N13 as they are exactly the same as the Pintara, its just the ones in the U2 were in better shape. I'll post some pics of these once I've given them a bit of a clean up. I'm trying to keep things in the Nissan family, as well as from, if I can, popular models of say the 80's so there isn't too much of a styling jump.

I also grabbed a couple of miscellaneous bit and pieces for the Datsun, the most exciting being a sheepskin rear seat cover, also from a U2 Pintara...I is a little big but that just means I have adequate material to adjust the fitment to suit..."wool covers all round!"... I never thought I'd be excited about such a thing.

[toocivic]

Sometimes you doing the bare minimum sometimes isn't that minimal...

Here you can see the seam sealer I've applied( somewhat haphazardly in areas) in preparation for some underbody stone protection/rust proofing. The seams/ overlaps prior to their sealing were treated with rust converter and wire-brushed before being given a ruff up in the immediate surrounding areas with Scotch-Brite and sprayed with primer.

[mlracing]

Woah did this have drums all round?

[toocivic]

Woah did this have drums all round?

Its still in fact drums all round



Poor man's pleasures

Some more semi-foolishness on my behalf... It seems to be happening all too easily...


I say poor mans pleasure as these wheels are not the much coveted SSR MK1.
They are the much more budget Cheviot Armorlite, these Australian made wheels are a single piece Centreline style wheel, and by extension I guess the SSR MK1. They are a 14x7+15ish with a 185 "stretched" over them, which will do me and the little Datsun* just fine. These wheels will go on the rear of the car as they have the nickname brake cookers so putting them on the rear is probably best.


Another somewhat impulse purchase (as mentioned in a previous post) was the splashing of a twenty dollar note which resulted in this Datsun B210, aka Datsun 120y, front sway bar which is a direct bolt in for the front. hopefully this will yield some good results... its pretty easy to install so I'll likely wait till I've got the new shocks and what-not in so I can "feel" the difference


*the wheels were purchased as a means to sort some roadworthy tires which was a concern as the original 12" tires are cracked and pretty bald, these worked out to be cheaper than buying new tires... the bonus is that they set me up with a more common ( READ:cheaper!) size for the future: the humble 14" tire.

[ChargeR]

That rust is not too bad at all for a car of this vintage. Good luck with the repairs. The Cheviots should look pretty cool, reminds me I should get around to fitting my MK1s on the EF.

[mlracing]

Wow never heard of those Chevoit wheels.. also never knew those had drums all around haha! Should be not too difficult to upgrade to a disc at the front at least ?

[toocivic]

Wow never heard of those Chevoit wheels.. also never knew those had drums all around haha! Should be not too difficult to upgrade to a disc at the front at least ?

They're a pretty silly wheels for sure. I'm looking forward to seeing them on the car... a great big silver circle.

Yeah its a pretty common thing to do(the coupe of the same gen. came with disc front end), and they share a lot of stuff with the 120y which offers the most bolt in approach. You can put most any RWD Nissan front strut setup in it seems with the right mix and match of part. I'm just keeping it simple and just going a 120y front strut setup.

edit:

[toocivic]

While the paint drys.

So with the hot weather I've manage to do a little bit of the painting inside the car, I have managed to tackle the rear half of the floor pan, which as see in a previous post only had some surface rust. I wanted to give that as much time to dry as possible, and also I didnt really want to be in the car since its so bloody hot, so I have been giving the engine bay a little attention. Each day after the sun has mellowed I've been unbolting/unscrewing/unclipping minor components and moving them aside... and slowly switching between degreaser and orange power the bay has slowly begun to show some promise.

I have been applying a liberal spray of fish oil to all the seams. I cant help but think I'll try route some of the wiring/hoses in a tasteful way to keep as clean a look as possible about the bay.

...and while I was at it I figured I'd give the cam cover a painting. I have some wrinkle finish paint kicking around so that will suit the engine well. While I'm in this zone I might give a few minor components(eg. Alternator bracket, wiper motor, misc. little brackets) a bit of a scrub up and paint.

I was told the engine had been reconditioned at some point and having the cover off seemed to be a good indication of that, or at least the head had been as it looks pretty clean under there, a large plus!

[toocivic]

Safari vibes on the rise



No Marchal SEV lights I'm afraid. They have a bit of a cool tax, also these Hella lights will do the job all the same for far less...I'm yet to mount them properly but they will likely be in the position they are as the front end looks pretty balanced like this.