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Daily Hillclimb Build (s30)


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Just a tip on your welds. It looks like you might be whipping the puddle (using a back and forth motion). Do small circles, you want to bring the puddle to the edge of each side of the gap you are welding and tie it in to the other side of the gap. This should drastically change the appearance of your beads and give you a stronger weld. Other than that, bad ass project!

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Coming soon, along with hats (and maybe more). We're still trying to decide what sizes to print. Keep an eye on the site for updates, we've got a lot of content in the pipeline right now.

 

It's not a Miata forum, so I was holding off on throwing updates all over the place. The Datsun has been sitting since my last post, and prepping the Miata has been priority #1.

 

Laurie and I hammered it out this weekend, with nothing more than a couple angle grinders and her TIG welder (and welding skills).

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I'm getting my tires, alignment, inspection, sa2010 helmet, and installing the fire extinguisher tomorrow. I might even make time to paint the lol bar. The weather is looking pretty wet for the weekend, and I'm starting to think the Kumho XS tires I ordered aren't going to be the best option. I'll still get up there and have fun, though!

 

All my hammock camping equipment is getting packed tonight so I'll have somewhere dry to sleep during the event, and I'm studying the shit out of previous seasons' race footage and the course maps:

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Okemo is right around the corner (June 6) as well, and I'm not sure I'll have the money to finish the Datsun for it or if I'll have to pull the Miata up there too.

I take that last comment back...keep welding the way you are! Hahaha I probably should have finished reading the thread before putting my 2 cents in.

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You're exactly right, wobbling back-and-forth is easier than round-and-round, and I'm lazy. I hadn't really considered where I want the inner edge of the puddle to be, but that makes a lot of sense. I was just generally trying to keep the center of the puddle reasonably close to the gap ... nothing to precise there. I'm consistently impressed with how strong even my worst welds come out when failure-testing them. I really need to get a bottle for the little Hobart 140, as flux core welds are so inconsistent, and so difficult to get decent penetration.

 

It may also be time to upgrade from the Miller 150's to something that can also do AC, but since I only have 115v in the garage, I'm not even sure it's worth trying to weld aluminum at this point. In my experience, welding alu requires a whole lot of amperage. For what I'm doing, rivets and rivnuts works (for now).

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That's kind of brilliant, I hadn't even considered preheating! I try to keep flammables/combustibles to a minimum in this relatively old garage (originally built in 1930). I'm big on fire extinguishers, but sometimes I'm not home, and it's not really worth building out an automated extinguisher system. I have a gallon of acetone, and that's pretty much it for flammables. An oxy-acetylene tank would be way too dangerous for my tastes in this little shop.

 

Back to those original welds, it turned out that the welder I was using was faulty. Protip: When learning to weld, use DECENT equipment.

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I'm looking at another Miller, I've been really happy with them so far ... but if I find a good deal or really nice packaging on another style, I'd go for that too. Space is a big premium, and just having a single ac/dc TIG machine with a little fast-to-use MIG machine is really key for me. See how small the two Miller machines I have right now are, compared to the Hobart 140, on the right? I'd like to stay in that size range.

 

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Yeah that makes sense. You can get a Thermalarc tig machine bout the size of your Miller. That should be fine for whatever you need. It's not like you're gonna be making high pressure canisters or tanks out of the aluminum haha. And I cannot stress enough...rent your bottles! Unless you don't do much welding, then buy em. But if you're gonna be welding a lot and you are going through bottles, renting is the way to go, you just pay to have em filled instead of buy a whole new bottle

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do you produce this image as a sticker? 

 

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I have a big stack of both styles of the driven-daily logo. I'm going to order some more shortly, and they'll be available as soon as I wrap up the new website (December is the goal). I'm working on getting a few different types of apparel together for the site relauch as well, but we'll see what I can get done on a reasonable budget. Tshirts are pretty certainly going to happen, but I haven't been able to source inexpensive-enough custom hoodies yet.

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I had worked on a few laser-cut prototypes awhile back, but they'd still need some settings refinement. I'll have to sort out what this all costs me, so I can figure out sensible pricing too. I'm pretty booked up for the next week or two, but after that I'll work to get some prices and timeframes available for you fellas.

 

Here's what I currently keep on my keychain.

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T-shirts and stickers will be the best sellers followed by hoodies and hats.

 

Have you considered just hosting your designs to something like redbubble so people can just buy whatever? Not necessarily better than doing it yourself, but it's another option.

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I have a few local suppliers that allow me to have some level of quality control at the same (or less) cost. I'm not interested in just getting cheapo tshirt-shaped-cotton with my logo on them; I want something worth wearing and keeping around. So yes, I've considered it ... but don't necessarily love the idea.

 

The 'big picture' goal is to try to leverage a system like Patreon to get supporters of the video series that I'm currently editing/mastering. Supporters would receive rewards (like tshirts, stickers, etc) for their contributions, and I end up with a much more predictable budget to produce the video series each year. I really don't expect any of this to make money, I just want to tell a compelling story without going broke doing it. If any of it helps pay for the $20k estimate for 2016, that's even better.

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This halloween, mountains were moved. My friend Ray came over to help thrash, and I made sure the garage was clean and prepped to start work ahead of time. We wheeled the Datsun into the garage, and as soon as it was up on stands, started tearing it down. 

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We got as far as the front subframe and engine, but had to stop due to a lack of engine hoist. The hatch, doors, seats, dash, fenders, exhaust and hood all came off with relative ease, and a fair amount of useless weight fell out eventually too. This was the result of the third cleaning pass:

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Toward the end of the night, I discovered some repair work on the rear-passenger corner, and started looking around for irregularities. The sheet metal is buckling slightly just behind the door, and now is definitely the time to make sure the car is square (before the roll cage).

 

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I started laying out measurement baselines so I can compare the two sides to the OEM drawings, but haven't finished yet (hopefully tomorrow?)

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The rust I uncovered is soaking in phosphoric acid, which is my personal favorite rust converter (converts to iron phosphate, which is really easy to remove). There are a few panels that I think I'm going to have to remove altogether and replace, specifically on the floors and rockers.

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Finally, I managed a little bit of laser-cut testing on some of the spare leather I have around. I need to refine the settings a little since it's burning a little too hot/wide, but what do you guys think? Worth $10 or so, to make them worth making a run (the design takes awhile to engrave, and I use the same 9oz leather I use for holsters)?

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This halloween, mountains were moved. My friend Ray came over to help thrash, and I made sure the garage was clean and prepped to start work ahead of time. We wheeled the Datsun into the garage, and as soon as it was up on stands, started tearing it down.

22626745726_d894b0a7f2_c.jpg

 

We got as far as the front subframe and engine, but had to stop due to a lack of engine hoist. The hatch, doors, seats, dash, fenders, exhaust and hood all came off with relative ease, and a fair amount of useless weight fell out eventually too. This was the result of the third cleaning pass:

22464828590_8b4489825b_c.jpg

 

Toward the end of the night, I discovered some repair work on the rear-passenger corner, and started looking around for irregularities. The sheet metal is buckling slightly just behind the door, and now is definitely the time to make sure the car is square (before the roll cage).

 

22666376981_ee53f7310f_c.jpg

 

I started laying out measurement baselines so I can compare the two sides to the OEM drawings, but haven't finished yet (hopefully tomorrow?)

22656812635_df329e4de6_c.jpg

 

The rust I uncovered is soaking in phosphoric acid, which is my personal favorite rust converter (converts to iron phosphate, which is really easy to remove). There are a few panels that I think I'm going to have to remove altogether and replace, specifically on the floors and rockers.

22030106034_453a1e85f8_c.jpg

 

Finally, I managed a little bit of laser-cut testing on some of the spare leather I have around. I need to refine the settings a little since it's burning a little too hot/wide, but what do you guys think? Worth $10 or so, to make them worth making a run (the design takes awhile to engrave, and I use the same 9oz leather I use for holsters)?

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Keep it up man! Love seeing people tear down these cars, it's inspiring!!

 

I'd pay $10 for one of those fobs if it was in like a cherry brown boot leather, like a redwing boot color hahaha. I love the look of distressed leather

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Keep it up man! Love seeing people tear down these cars, it's inspiring!!

 

I'd pay $10 for one of those fobs if it was in like a cherry brown boot leather, like a redwing boot color hahaha. I love the look of distressed leather

 

Thanks! This isn't even distressed, it's just from cattle that lived typical lives. This is unconditioned and un-dyed, totally natural other than the laser cutting. They come out to around 1/4" thickness or so, and I've had mine for around two years of hard use with nothing more than a little oil added when I first made it. With a grommet and some trim work to make it pretty, I'd even be willing to pay for one.

 

I'm going to try to get this torn down enough to be able to get the bare chassis out for the roll cage next weekend, but that's going to be a bit of a trick. It's going to take a lot of work to get to that point, and the stars will have to align to borrow a trailer. Hopefully my measurements come out to being 'close enough' and I don't have to do too much straightening. If I can get away with not fabricating a jig, I certainly will.

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I didn't have much time today, but removed a little bit of badly rotted material. I haven't ordered any replacement panels yet, and I'm not ENTIRELY certain that I will. When adding a cage, the 'structural' components of an OEM chassis begin to look less and less critical. I could spend that weight better elsewhere.

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One of my favorite things about the s30 is the ww2-plane-looking dimple-die'd inner rockers, and I was pretty pleased to see how solid this one was the whole way through.

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The previous owner was apparently proud of his floor pan repairs ... I just ... I can't even. Did he even TRY?

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No matter how many times this happens, it always scares the bejeezus out of me. This is why I only use the little 4.5" discs, anything bigger gets properly scary when it binds up a little.

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I like being at the point where at the end of the day, I can measure success in the weight of removed crap that never needs to go back on the car. Rotted metal, seam sealer, and lots of accumulated dirt/road-grime gone forever. I sweep religiously every evening for several reasons:

  • I know how much I've 'accomplished'.
  • If I find pieces that should still be on the car, I can identify what area they came off of.
  • I get to start the next day with a clean shop.
  • The next day, whatever I sweep up is what I 'accomplished' that day, not over the course of the past week.
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