1964 Nissan Patrol soft top restoration

[RMP&O]

I am still preparing all the sand blasted parts for paint. It is taking way more work then I thought it would but I am going pretty far with things. Like the axle tubes all cleaned out of old grease/oil. Wire brushing (on the 4" grinder) everything, detailing any areas the sand blaster missed. Cleaned up all the suspension parts like the shackle plates and spring plates. Fixing the random odds and ends on any parts needing it before paint. It is just a lot of stuff to do. We are talking about doing another load of paint on Thursday though, axle & some suspension stuff so I can get to rebuilding the axles soon.

Cheers

 

[cruiseroutfit]

Ya it got washed, not sure what with, something similar to acetone I think. Can ask the dude tomorrow. The sealer is also something from Dupont, perhaps in the Imron line, could ask that too. We had a little bit of "shadowing" as the painter calls it but I touched all that up today. I also made sure the black goes way back into the hollow areas. The Imron is actually Satin Black not low or semi gloss. I think it is perfect, not to glossy and not to flat but just right. Everything else on the truck that is black is getting the same paint.

I basically sanded the whole frame after blasting and before paint. I started with 80g and worked my way up to 180g. This was mostly to blend areas where work had been done with areas it had not been done. As well as to clean it up and remove any funk I had got on it during resurrection.

Cheers

Please do ask, this is exactly the outcome I would like out of my FJ45 resto project. I'm normally a big fan of epoxy-coat or powdercoat on a 'regular' build but for a resto I think the sprayed paint is more true and yours is a perfect example of what I want it to look like.

 

[Co-opski]

This is a work of art.

 

[RMP&O]

We got back some of the items that were sent out for plating. I think they turned out awesome! many things look brand new and they are nearly 50yr old parts!

Please keep in mind a lot of these items are to be painted just like stock. However, a lot of these items are wear point parts and as such we didn't want the paint to wear off leaving bare metal. So under the paint will be the zinc coating which should stop any corrosion when paint wears or chips. Some of the pictures are without a flash so the parts don't appear "washed out".

Cheers

 

[RMP&O]

Picture spam time!! :ylsmoke:

trans, fuel tank & oil pan skid plates have been restored and are ready for paint.

A nice set of stock bumperettes straightened up, restored and ready for paint.

Axle housings after paint & the knuckle balls. Very happy with the knuckle balls.

A bunch of parts painted and ready to go...

I had this sucker turned down years ago so it is like new now. E-brake drum in case you didn't know.

pretty

So we got back the trans, t-case, bell housing PTO winch and PTO box from the rebuild shop. The trans & t-case looks a bit scabby right now after only being hot tanked. I am going to clean them up still before paint or before posting pictures of them! The PTO stuff is alloy casing/box so it looks nice after a bath in the tank. It is all new stuff now, bearings, seals and much more.

new brass bushings were turned up for the winch and for the bell housing

Cheers!

 

[RMP&O]

The rear axle brake backing plates were pretty trashed. The front generally have more oil & grease on them and they don't get so bad. We removed a good lower backing plate from a front axle and welded it on the rear axle backing plates. They came out nice!

 

[2025 deleted member]

Looks like your taking your time and doing a good job. Look forward to more pictures.

 

[Lecoq]

Amazing work. I'm really looking forward to seeing this come together. I can only imagine the amount of time and money spent on this project.

 

[RMP&O]

This week has been working on more prep of black parts, prep for paint that is. We have all the brass/steel bushings found in the pedal/clutch/throttle linkages pulled and organized. Having new ones turned up by a machinist, there is close to a dozen bushings. Also been tearing down the two front axles and cleaning up the parts. Last Tuesday I got the engine to the machine shop for rebuild.

Today we set up the ring & pinions and then I can finally rebuild the axles completely!

Cheers

 

[RMP&O]

We got the diff's all set up today, new bearing, seals, ect. It took some work but they came out good.

Cheers

 

[RMP&O]

So I had some stuff cadmium plated along with the zinc load of parts. However, I held off on posting pictures because it came back not as expected. A friend had told me the yellow coating you see often on stuff is cadmium, so that is what I ordered up. Unknown to me it is zinc with yellow chromate added to it. The cadmium also has the yellow chromate added to it but the finish is darker or more gold in color. The color also varies a bit between items, my thoughts on this are it is due to how dirty an item was before coating and or the type of metal it is. The cadmium is supposed to be at least 2x a superior coating to the zinc in terms of corrosion. So anyways, we needed to make some decisions about the parts. Since most of this stuff gets painted we are going to leave most of it alone. But a few key items are going back to get the zinc with yellow chromate. Main reason being is we are after a certain color and finish on these items.

Now that decisions have been made....here are pictures of the cadmium coated parts.

soft top pins for body, some misc hardware and a fuel filler neck.

early door latch mechanisms before...

and after, I think they came out beautiful.

these are part of the mounts for the dual horns. Items like this replated will give a real nice overall look.

these are turn signal and tail light backing plates.

Here you can see the dip sticks didn't turn out as planned...the yellow handle one is OEM from the late 70's.

these were the items we were considering to send back for replating. Not all of this is being sent back, just some of it.

So I had never had anything plated before. I would say now I know at least a little something about it!

Cheers

 

[RMP&O]

So our order of chromed parts showed up today. Here are pictures...

In the first few pictures for comparison is old vs new.

The back of the mirror head gets painted black.

Cheers

 

[RMP&O]

Still waiting on hardware to rebuild the axles. :roll:

But I am slowly making progress on stuff anyways.

Tons of little parts all sand blasted and ready for black paint.

Bell housing before sand blasting

and after...

Rear brake adjusters, Few of the pistons were seized but no more!

Selected the axle shafts I want to use and then spent a lot of time polishing them up.

Getting ready to tear down the steering box.

Cheers

 

[mortonm]

great job on this, I am amazed how all these parts that are 20 years older than I am looking brand new with a little TLC

excited to see the finished project, great job

 

[RMP&O]

great job on this, I am amazed how all these parts that are 20 years older than I am looking brand new with a little TLC

excited to see the finished project, great job

Thanks man! And I hear ya, these parts are all 10+yrs older than me! A lot of things are not new, like axle shafts. Thing is they can't be had "new" so got to make the best with what we got. I am putting lot's of love into all the parts, new and used.

Here are pictures of the steering box tear down...

Brass bushings were a major pita to remove but I got it done, having these two made. Tried the press, tried beating them out, tried a number of methods....

and after several hours of fighting it, this is the tool that made it happen.

Cheers