Delving into a variety of systems designed in the 1960’s gives you an appreciation for the elegance of engineering and its restorability. Where on modern cars components are designed to essentially be replaced as a unit, almost everything I’ve come across on the Datsun is rebuildable and you get the feeling that it’ll last another 50 years thereafter. This spring I continued underneath the car with the half shafts and prop shaft. Simple elegant engineering built to last. I can’t stress how satisfying it is to take something full of decades-old grease and rust, clean it, strip it, and rebuild …
Half Shafts and Prop Shaft
I disassembled the half shafts in April so of course when I went to assemble them six months later I made a couple of mistakes. I’m finding myself in this situation quite a bit and it’s unavoidable; it’s just the way I work. I’ve got components in pieces from 4 years ago! The mistakes are usually silly little ones and exarcebarted by a gung-ho attitude and a reluctance to check the manual; but mostly it’s rushing to complete jobs when the finish line is so close. I keep relearning the lesson of patience and double checking everything. It will sink …
Fuel Tank Dents
I had booked in some painting time for this past Saturday and nothing was going to stop me, not even the rain that started early Saturday morning and continued for the better part of my scheduled 5 hours. My poor wife must have thought I finally cracked it with all my pacing up and down the stairs, inside and outside the house, checking weather apps, and commenting on drizzle vs rain all while contemplating throwing plastic drop sheets over the clothes line so that I can paint under cover. Oh the hillarity of it all. I can picture pockets of …