I carefully rebuilt mine after cutting large amounts of rust out of it. Its actually a "U" shaped bit, spot welded onto the flat radiator support panel. You could cut the whole thing out and just weld in an appropriately-sized bit of square tube. It may be a bit heavier than original, but should work wuite OK.

The only tricky bit is that there are nuts welded into it from underneath for mounting the radius rod bracket to. I just welded nuts in the correct spot and all seems good.

I'll try to get some measurements in the next day or so. Actually, come to think of it, I may have all the measurements in a Nissan Factory service manual - will check tonight.

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1970 ex Group A Rally P510
1971 P510
1972 180B SSS
1965 SP310 Fairlady
1966 SP311 Fairlady

Nice one Dave!

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1928 Model A CC Pickup

Didn't get a chance to measure anything tonight, will try to tomorrow. Did find the factory measurements though. I reckon if you use these, plus take diagonals from the firewall to one of these points to make sure it hasn't all shifted sideways (ie chassis rails aren't "square" anymore) you should get it close enough.

The smashed-up rail should be eaasy enough - either use a bit of appropriately sized RHS or get some sheetmetal bent up to the correct profile. Bit of fiddling, weld in captive nuts for radius rod brackets, and you're done.

You can see in the pic below that the rails come "kinked" from the factory and could look as though they are bent even when they are straight.

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1970 ex Group A Rally P510
1971 P510
1972 180B SSS
1965 SP310 Fairlady
1966 SP311 Fairlady

Dave you are a legend, thanks heaps for that!

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Back in dat... DATSUN

Engine is out and can be cranked by hand, plenty of compression, feels real nice.

There's also no noise that would indicate the crank hitting the sump. I talked to the original owner, apparently he had to bash the sump in like that for engineering as it would have sat too low so looks like the engine is A-OK.

Its also still under warranty by a couple of months - have the paperwork from when it was purchased new in March last year for $2700 so its nice and fresh its only done 10,500km

The front end looks ok too, at least from my measurements. Strut to strut matches the FSM to under a cm and centreline diagonals to strut towers are also within a cm of each other. The measurements between the rails are also very close to the manual.

All good things but I'm gonna get a pro out to check it next week and go from there.

I ripped back the vinyl to see how bad the roof is. The top is pretty average but the vinyl still had a good contact around the edges. Here's some pics.





The two big bands of rust on either side are where the seams ran. In those areas the rust has eaten all the way through.... What do people reckon, time for a new roof or just cut out the bad bits and weld in new metal?

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Back in dat... DATSUN

re skin the roof if you cut out those strips and weld new bits in it'l buckle and you'l end up bogging the whole roof chasing the buckle also a cm or 10mm is a bit out of wack normally tolerance is 3mm but its not much at all

Finally got round to taking a few measurements, but couldn't find the camera to get pics .

I'll include a few old pics to illustrate.

Chassis rail diagonals - by using my highly accurate trammel ( a few bits of welding rod ), my engine bay / chassis rails measure 1079mm between the points in my pics, and 1076m for the other diagonal. Measurements were done between the reference points shown in the red circles in the below pics, basically the only obvious bits that I could get an accurate measurement from. Don't know if 3mm was an acceptable variation from the factory, or due to my car having had a very light touch on the front lefthand corner at some point in its life.

Box section dimensions are shown in the beautiful MSPaint diagram

And the pic with dimension shows the distance of the mounting holes from the centreline. I forgot to put in how far back the holes are, the 4 larger holes are set back 30mm from the front of the box section, the 2 smaller ones are 38mm back. The other 2 holes are just that, holes, with no nut welded inside. The larger dimesion (580mm) is the distance in between the two chassis rails.

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1970 ex Group A Rally P510
1971 P510
1972 180B SSS
1965 SP310 Fairlady
1966 SP311 Fairlady

This is the new reinforcing piece with the captive nuts that i made and welded inside the new box section that I made up to replace the rusted one on my car. the factory just has a few bits of pressed-up angle iron welded inside, one on each side, but I made mine from a bit of cut up RHS and thought i may as well make it bigger / stronger while I was at it.

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1970 ex Group A Rally P510
1971 P510
1972 180B SSS
1965 SP310 Fairlady
1966 SP311 Fairlady

Awesome, I got a guy comin this week with a trammel to measure it up properly, I figure its worth finding out from a pro and now, thanks to Dave, I should have no probs fabricating up a new tie rail if I can't find a donor.

Again thanks Dave, the info you've provided is fantastic.

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Back in dat... DATSUN

No worries - happy to help out.

If you need anything else, just yell. Mine is still a bare shell on the rotisserie so its easy to measure up.

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1970 ex Group A Rally P510
1971 P510
1972 180B SSS
1965 SP310 Fairlady
1966 SP311 Fairlady

im so scared of whats under my vinyl roof, is this more then likely to be under most of them everyone seemed pretty casual about it.

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Its not that i have no money, i just have a huge investment in my datsuns!

Only way to find out is to peel it off mate. Maybe make sure you have a donor roof lined up before you do it.

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1928 Model A CC Pickup

My brother's 180B had fairly bad rust in the roof gutters when we took the vinyl roof off. Ended up getting a good roof from the wreckers, cutting the rusted one off and welding the "good" one back on.

That was in the mid-80's and was a Canberra car most of its life. I'd hate to think what most would be like another 20-odd years down the track

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1970 ex Group A Rally P510
1971 P510
1972 180B SSS
1965 SP310 Fairlady
1966 SP311 Fairlady

jackjack, my viny roof had pretty much completely delaminated on top, the seams were the only thing holding it on. There were big holes in the middle of it and bits of vinyl just flapped in the breeze when I saw the previous owner driving round town, so maybe yours wont be quite as bad as this.

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Back in dat... DATSUN

So professional review gave great news really, the top diagonals are fine and underneath the impact only damaged the chassis rails from the bend in this pic forward.



Behind that the engine x-mem is fine and the trans tunnel is also fine.

I'm still in 2 minds with what to do however. To repair it would need donor or new tie rail, new front d/side guard, front beaver(???), bumper, d/side castor rod mount and g/box x/member. Also the rust in the roof would ideally need to be fixed.

TBH it looks like it will require more effort than I'm prepared to put in as I've got the 120Y to daily while I build up the 200BSSS and the Mrs is reluctant to have yet another car in the yard

Hopefully by the end if the weekend I'll have made a decision,

If I decide to sell the shell it will be minus diff, fuel system (pumps, surge tank etc, cables for battery relocation to boot) and a few other bits, and if that fails to sell then I'll part it out but its still a big IF.

I'd really like to get this girl goin again.

The smash repair dude (Graeme) reckoned it would be an easy enough fix if you had the bits, so yeah I'll keep y'all posted.

A massive thanks to all who've helped out!!!

Also big props to Graeme from Civic smash Repairs who is a great bloke and also drives a 1200 ute, he showed me how he was doing everything and talked me through the repairs required, that and he came over after business hours to look it over. Mad Carnt, I recommend him to everyone!!!

Cheers, Jon

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Back in dat... DATSUN