Another wagon

Had to do it... bought the 1978 Datsun 810 wagon with only 60k on it. I had to!

Car arrives tomorrow. Can't wait to have a poop brown wagon with wood grain!

Love that old j-tin.

I do love wagons

Saw this one on Craigslist on Sept 25, have to go look at it. LOVE the wood paneling on it. What better way to have a wagon from Japan... make it look American.

Who knows, may add it to my collection. After all it only has 60,000 miles on it.

Long time between posts....

But bought another 67 Crown wagon from Indiana. Been in storage since the mid 80's and in better shape than mine so looks like Old Blue will be the donor car to make the new Minty one nice.









Few dings on the back but less rust than mine that was outside for the last 30 years. This has been in storage for many years so I'll see just how good it is when it arrives in the beginning of March.

Interior work

After a few month hiatus, I decided to get some work done on removing parts from the sedan and also getting more taken out of the wagon. Spent time cleaning up the floor to see what was lurking under the carpet and sound deadener.








Seats came out of both cars as well as lots of trim from the sedan parts car for a guy in Thailand wanting to buy lots of trim parts.









Sedan parts car has an amazingly clean and rust free interior, everything came out easy and some pieces are so nice I can reuse them without having them redone.








Found some rust holes on the front passenger side of the wagon, but that was the ONLY place it rusted through. The sedan donor cars has excellent floors so that will be used to section out a piece and weld it in the wagon.

The rest of the wagon floor is solid with just very light surface rust.

The Tailgate opens!

After 8 hours, yes HOURS of drilling, soaking, prying and gutting the tailgate, I pried it open. Worked good once I over came the rust resistance.








Couldn't get to the tailgate from inside very well due to the metal panel that was screwed on below the edge of the tailgate, had to bend it over to get inside.








Had to disassemble the widow regulator (with power motor) to drop the window into the tailgate to get the glass out of the way. That took 3 hours.








Stripped the inside of all the parts, came apart very nicely thank goodness. And no broken parts either. Still have to see if the motor works for the power window.








Lights came out, all the trim came off and can be straightened nicely and polished back to its original beauty.

I got new (used) tail lights from Moon of Japan!







Parts that I took out, all documented so I can box them up and save them for the final assembly

The cost of obscurity

So I wanted to have the rear bumper redone on the wagon. Mine shot, beaten, rusted, bent and will never come back to life. (See the previous posts) Through my friend in Japan, he got in contact with Moon Eyes http://www.mooneyes.co.jp/crown-classics/ to hunt down one for me.

Looked ok...





...except for the rust in the corners, on both ends and a few dents.

But then again, these are almost non-existent in the world so to find one, any one, was good.














And so I bought it. For 70,000 YEN. Yes, that roughly translates to the yearly income of several small villages in Africa put together. In U.S. dollars that is $700.00.

Ouch.

I wanted a car no one else has so parts are going to be obscure. But that is part of the fun. I know the parts are out there... Can't wait to find more parts!

Progress being made

I have remiss in getting pictures up and working on the car as well.

Got the front end bits of and to the chromer. Everything is coming apart with little hassle.







Tail lights are going to be a bit harder to come by. I did find some nice used lenses on Yahoo Japan and they were only $40! Now I am trying to find the trim and the housings as well.








Found this great NOS piece from Japan, complete with gasket, trim and backing plate. This was $30!









Great to find these are still around sitting is box in someones warehouse or garage, just waiting to be found.









Removed the fenders and doors. Some rust along the top of the fender liners but most of the bolts came out without a hitch.









Looks good except for all the rust. Seats come out next and then the rusty dash. I'll used the dash and all the workings from the 67 Sedan parts car as these are rusted beyond saving.








Small pile pine needles and a nice rats nest came out of both side of the fenders when I pulled the fender and the liner.
Luckily the piles didn't rust out the front fenders, the bottom two bolts on both sides came out super easy.With this much rust on the car it is odd that the bolts come out so nicely.