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nj0z1200ute - 1200 ute USA build


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As requested I am going to start my build thread.   There will be alot of cutting and pasting from the original build thread on 1200.com   I have been building this ute since around June / July 2013.

 

The nickname for the car is "Vanilla Ice"

 

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Rainy day. Time to post my new ute build.

I purchased this ute a few months ago. It was an unfinished project from a panel beater. Unfortunately for him it was time to sell. He might even be a member on here. His name was Bryce.

He put alot of work into this ute. All new panels. Every panel seam sealed. New floor plans. Appears to have all rust spots cut out and repatched. Shaved rear bumperettes. Shaved fuel door. Passenger door lock sealed. Battery compartment relocated under tray with fabricated holder. Reinforced front chasis rails with welded SHS steel sections. Handbrake location moved backward in cabin. Firewall at front wheel arches modded to allow for bigger wheels. Rear wheel arches removed for modification. I think thats all I can remember him telling me he did to it. He was setting it up for a CA turbo race car.

Engine bay painted, Cabin painted, tray painted with tinted liner. 

Here are some pics of it before I touched it.

 

Came with all the dis-assembled parts, no motor, no gearbox. My plans are a L18 motor lightly worked. 5 speed dogleg gearbox. Standard diff. 180B struts with coilover kit.

 
So I'm diving into the unknown. L-series....the dark side.
 
Never built a car ground up before so I'm quite worried about it. Would have been better to strip it down and rebuild. That way I know where everything goes.
 
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So for the past few months I have been buying and collecting my parts for the rebuild and the L series conversion.

So far I have:

Pair of Dellorto DHLA 40's being rebuilt by Sanitora Works
SSS 5 speed dogleg Stanza gearbox
Pair of 180b disc brake front struts
Stanza crossmember
L-series engine heads
Maddat steering box brace
Autotechnica steering wheel and adaptor
Autotechnica Racing Seats


No complete motor as of yet.

I have also been planning to paint the underside of the car shell because it was never coated by the previous owner from what I can tell. Except for the new floor sills which were primed. For this I have bought a U-Pol Raptor Liner kit and am planning to spray the underside with a Schutz gun. I have prepped the underside with a scour pad and wax/grease remover along with Etch Primer. Spent a whole weekend on my back prepping it all and priming. 

The current dillema is how to get enough clearance underneath to paint the whole thing. I have borrowed a rottiserrie from a fellow car enthusiest but without significant modifications to it, there is no way I can get the shell onto it.

I think I may resort to painting the underside of the tray first. Then assembling the rear end. Then locking the rear tyres in place and raising the front end up with an engine hoist to finish the paint job.


Also in addition I have been testing the wire loom for continuity. Also have been restoring some parts with a coat of gloss black epoxy enamel paint including the diff, steering bits, sway bar, radius rods, cowl grilles, rear brake covers, leaf springs, and some other parts.

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Work began on the ute build by taking off the rear end which comprised the rear wheels, diff, leaf springs, shackles, and bolts. The shell did not come with rear brakes, any of the cabling, fuel lines, brake lines, exhaust, driveshaft, gearbox or any of the other items you might usually find underneath a Datsun ute.

With the help of borrowed oversized jack stands, with the help of a friend we were able to lift the ute up to examine the underside and prepare for paint.

Here you can see some modifications made by the original owner. So far I can tell that he planned to locate the battery to the rear and unfortunately for me the gearbox mounts have been removed. You can see that he also sealed some of the seams between the frame and rails with some sort of filler. Can you see any other modifications here?13419_51e7ea891d9ff.jpg13419_51e7ea9237886.jpg13419_51e7ea9ab9767.jpg13419_51e7eaa32b323.jpg13419_51e7eaaa31aae.jpg13419_51e7eab0ddb9c.jpg13419_51e7eac409880.jpg13419_51e7eacbb9ce6.jpg13419_51e7ead937541.jpg13419_51e7eadf8b7a8.jpg13419_51e7eae600280.jpg

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The next part of the build I took out the front suspension and steering components for painting and refurbishment. I don't know if these were the original components but I could definitely tell at least the ball joints and outer tie rods needed replacement. I took out the engine crossmember, lower control arms, radius rods first and used paint stripper on them to try and get to original metal before paint. I used gloss black Killrust brand paint in a tin, sprayed on with air gun at 40psi. Took a few days to get a few coats on the components. I had a terrible time with the ball joints. The ball joints would not separate from the steering knuckles! Also the replacement ones I bought turned out to be the wrong hole spacing.

Also I started to contemplate ways of getting underneath the ute with an air gun to start applying the Upol Raptor Liner. I borrowed a rotisserie from a fellow Datsun owner but never got around to actually using this on the ute because it seemed very difficult to fabricate mounts and get the ute high enough in the air under my carport to spin.
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Are you keeping this one or preparing to sell it over there too?

No man, this one is going to be my personal car over in the states. I had 10 days to prepare it for the container. Managed to get most of it together. Unfortunately though it was too much of a risk to go L series so for now it's got an A14 (DatsAndy) and my 5 speed gearbox that I pulled out of the orange ute. I have a set of Dellorto's that I plan to use eventually as well unless I find something else over in the states.
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Here are some photos of some restoration I did on the leaf springs. The springs were reset by a suspension shop but I don't know by how much. I bought them from Sanitora Works. They certainly give the rear end a lowered look. I used a wire wheel on a drill to clean the springs. Washed with wax/grease remover and sprayed 5 coats of gloss black Killrust on them. Hopefully the paint lasts a long time.

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Next was to wire wheel and prep the diff for painting. It was already once painted black. This was done before I realized that paint stripper does a much quicker job than the wire wheel. If I had to do this again I would first paint strip then wire wheel rather than attacking the whole thing with the wire wheel first. 

If anyone can help identify this diff, that would be great. I noticed that the flange is different than the diff flange on my orange ute which is circular. This one is rectangular with rounded corners. Also found out later in the build that the matching tailshaft is about 1 inch too long for the 5 speed 60a gearbox. I have a feeling that the diff and tailshaft came from a sedan or coupe?

 

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Looking good mate going to be tidy when you have finished. have you considered using POR15 on any of your suspension parts etc? Ive just used it in the tray of my ute with stone guard over the top, came up a treat. The only downside being you have to use there tie coat over the POR15 for best adhesion.

 

I think they even make a hard nose product which is meant to be harder than the POR16 again, and it has a brilliant finish with a brush!

Yea i would love to have used the POR product on my parts im sure it would last 2x as long as the killrust. Maybe next time
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So the product is a tray liner but I decided to use it for an underbody coating on the entire underside of the ute including the front chasis rails. It's pretty expensive stuff. I bought a 4 litre kit, plus hardener, plus a can of etch primer for around $325. My initial plans, as shown in this photo was to paint on the Raptor liner with a brush and roller. Whilst the instructions say it can be brushed on and rolled I found it to be complete horsepoop. It was extremely difficult to paint on and the finish was terrible. I wasted a 1 litre bottle to this method and decided to investigate how to spray the stuff on.
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So the next dilemma was how to get access to underneath the ute to spray it on. Yes, getting under the tray was easy enough because itself is already partly raised off the ground, but the problem was when you got to the underside of the cabin and the front end. I needed a way to get more room and have the ute raised. Much thinking and debating happened and it was a family friend that considered slinging the ute shell from the wood purlins of the roof of the carport.
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The sling was made using a 35mm SHS bar and 2 heavy duty ratchet straps for the rear and another ratchet strap for the front. I glued on some rubber circles on the bar where it contacted the frame rail on the ute shell. Then I bought 3 lengths of high tensile lifting chain and d-shackles for the lifting points. Slowly, alternating between the three lift points I raised the ute up.

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Some pictures of the painting in process. The Raptor liner has to be sprayed with a special air gun called a Schutz gun or also known as a Body Deadener Gun. Do yourself a favor and DO NOT buy one off of eBay. My eBay gun for $19.95 lasted about 30 min. before it pooped itself. Then I was off in a panic to Autobarn to buy one for $50 which came in a 3 piece kit which worked very well. Another tip is to not set your air pressure too high. If the air pressure is too high it eats through the bottle of paint really quickly and you don't get as good of coverage.

The engine hoist was there to support the rear of the ute as I removed the sling straps.

 

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Also make sure that you mask up the sides of shell with newspaper and masking tape because the gun shoots the paint in a very wide spray and tends to get everywhere. Unfortunately the gun sprayed a few dots of the Raptor liner on my engine and some of the items I previously painted so I had to redo a few of them. Such things happen when you are in a rush.
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The finished product! The paint comes in two versions - Black and tintable. Here I used the tintable version to get a vanilla color that matches the engine bay/cabin/tray. The paint takes a few days to fully harden but they say it is very tough and protect well. I hope they are right. Don't forget that in the States we have this stuff called Snow and when it gets on the roads they use SALT to melt it and that SALT likes to eat old cars made of metal. As we all know Datsuns are prone to rust.

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Looks good. Get little rubber grommets to plug all holes under the car. Maybe a wash diwn fairly regularly in winter too to get rid of salt

 

 

White will also show any fluid leaks or rust oxidization. Better than black.

 
Yea true. Why do they have so many holes in the frame rails and the tray and so forth? Is it for drainage?
 
 

 

 
 
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