A to Z

Yeah, all good points. Yesterday I dug it out and cleaned it up with steel wool, brake cleaner a rag and an old toothrush. It has the hinged front door where you can close it for winter to divert air to the bottom port tied to the exhaust manifold, or to summer for straight through air. Someone in the cars past, took it off and drilled a bunch of 3/8 holes in the bottom of it to let more air in. At any rate, after cleaning it up and using some turtle wax swirl remover, I polished it and buffed it out, and even with a few character scratches on it, that patina makes it look nice, and after the turtle wax it is shiny orange. When I first took it off, I noticed inside it was velocity stacks. Heck I could run it without an air filter in there and be fine.

Kit has arrived.

Final one for the day...."I'ms tired" .

Ignore the overspray on the old A/C radiator. It is soon for the dumpster.

July 2. I got the rest of the engine compartment painted today. When you are sanding around pieces, it takes a lot of time and effort. Then you take rope and pull them back from the area to paint. When dry, then you can clean up the stuff, release the rope and bolt it back down. At any rate, here are some pic of the engine compartment in fresh Datsun 904 Kilimanjaro White.. I got the engine painted and the engine bay painted....not too bad for having the car 11 days huh?

I am using the factory exhaust manifold. It is a 3 into 2 setup. The exhaust bolts up to it as 2 pipes for about 1-2 foot, then collects into one. I'm going to paint it flat black with the high heat paint. I looked into headers but they said "for manual transmission only", so I decided I would keep the cool factory setup.

ready to do the other side then bring the firewall together and then the radiator surround.

here it is in color with clear coats:

After several days of work, I managed to get the passenger side engine compartment wall finished and painted. I used automotive paint in aerosol cans mixed in the factory 904 Datsun "Kilimanjaro white". Yep. Expensive, but I wanted the engine compartment car color as that's the way they came from the factory. At the battery box area, some scarring bled through the color. That is the All Metal I used. I was using 60 grit paper to form it. When it dries it is as hard as concrete, hence using 60 grit to form it. Tough work! At any rate, to hide the little bit of filler scars that are showing and make it look good, I will mask off a section under the battery and down a bit and spray on some bed liner. It would be cool if I can paint over the bedliner...if not, I can still make it look good. A Lot of work fixing this side......MANY years of being subjected to a leaky battery apparently. The other side is leaky brake master cylinder....:( Oh well, forward momentum continues. Here are some pics. First is in sealing primer, the rest in factory white with clear coats over it.

yeah no kidding!

scrub, scrub,scrub.......polish......wire wheel bit in drill...back and worth......whew!

Thanks. I was thinking about using a different air cleaner setup, but I can just as easily keep the stocker. it's really in good shape. They are kind of hard to take off, not much room.

I had other things to do today besides another 4-5 hours of Z car restoration, but I wanted to make some progress, and I REALLY wanted to get the block painting over and done with. I succeeded, I got out to the garage by midnight. I painted the passenger side at 1:30-1:45 a.m. took a shower and decided to check in here before hitting the rack. Here are some pics:

I got the rust off. Once I paint it with the converter, it will "de-activate" the rust and convert it to Phosphate. I removed the rust, leaving the good metal still there, albeit a bit thinner than before. I have 4-5 small areas where the rust went all teh way through that I am patching, a tad bit of "all metal" filler to hide the scars, the pock marks where the rust almost went through, and it is good to go. The replacement battery tray I got is a stainless steel copy of the original from the Z depot. Instead of welding it in, I will bolt it in with stainless hardware.

An up close look of the work needing to be done. I will cut out the holes and weld in new metal, the pock marked stuff survived the stab test with the screwdriver, so i will treat the rust with the conversion paint and keep on truckin'.

battery box pic. yuck. 49 years of neglect. other side under the brake master cylinder is bad too