1969 Datsun 1600 Roadster 2,000 dollar car challenge

Hey! I am with the Boy Scout troop 251 and we are doing the $2000 car challenge! We are currently working on a 1969 Datsun 1600 Roadster with a 240sx KA24DE engine and trans and we have been working on it for a couple weeks and we are making good progress.The pictures posted are the ones before we started and I will be keeping y'all posted on our progress! Thanks! -Jensen Gordon and Troop 251

Hello Jensen! For some reason the pictures didn't go through. Would love to see what you're planning to bring to the challenge and hear what still needs to be addressed!

Jensen, It looks like the photos need to be hosted on another website. I created a photobucket account and uploaded a few before photos of this diamond in the rough. I'll give you the account details next time you guys come to work on the car.

Something doesn't seem to be working right with these photos. Lets try posting the url directly. Datsun pics

Sweet car

very cool. datsun roadster is on my short list.

also, where are you guys located? my boy scout troop never did anything like this. I'd love to see some other scouts at the challenge.

I like the engine cooling mods.

The intake mod is better. . .some sort of u shaped downdraft manifold tig welded to the original side draft manifolds. But don't worry the mod was fixed by removing the engine

Okay. I'm resurrecting this build thread. I know it may have looked like the project died on the vine, but I can tell you it isn't shriveled yet. It is sitting in my garage. The boy scouts hit it hard for a while, but then all the other activities and things teenage boys are involved in made scheduling difficult. I managed to get them together a few more times after the initial push, but it's been about two years now since any of them put a wrench to it. Most of the original scouts involved with the project have graduated, but there are still a few left who are interested in getting going again, and my son is now in scouts. So, we'll make this happen.

I'll repost some of the original photos and bring you all up to speed on where the project is today. For the most part I've excercised self control and not worked on it much without the scouts. (Just a bit of welding and figuring out a disk brake conversion for the rear end.)

Stay tuned...

Here are a few more pics of the starting point.

and the rusty floorboards. . .

Step one: Sell parts and recoup cost.  Purchase price of car was $300.  I pulled the engine and tranny, freed up the stuck piston rings and then sold them for $250.

Step two: Get the body out of the way so we can work on the chassis.  This is where having a dozen scouts working on the project is really useful.

Step three: Clean the frame

Awesome!!!!!

Looking forward to seeing this moving again, keep the pictures coming! This is a great project for a scout troop, we never did projects like this, great to see the interest!

This is awesome. 

I tried to do this with my scout troop- it fizzled out. 

Glad you are able to have a second chance at this!

In reply to SVreX :

We'll, it isn't totally revived yet, but I am hopeful. If I can't get the scouts rev'd back up it will become a father and son project.

Right now I'm just catching up the GRM community on what's already been done.

More cleaning the frame and removing rust from the body. . .

For a lot of these boys this was their first time using power tools.  They really got excited when the sparks started to fly.  Even though the floorboards were horribly rusted most of the bolts on the chassis came right out without any problem.  That is except for one of the leaf spring hanger bolts.  One of the boys gave it all he had with an 18" breaker bar and the bolt finally snapped off.  This was odd because the rest of the hanger bolts came out easily, until I asked which direction he was turning the bolt.   So we had a good lesson on what happens when you turn a bolt the wrong direction.

Opel GT? Pics?

In reply to JAGwinn :

There will be another thread for that, but here's a teaser from a dozen years ago or so back when it's DNA was 99% pure Opel.

Before test fitting the engine and tranny to the chassis the boys installed a "White Bunny" clutch setup on the KA including a chromolly flywheel.  I'll have to check my notes, but I think the whole flywheel and clutch set us back around $150.

Then we had to find the proper location for the engine so that we could mock up the motor mounts.

The original engine brackets were removed from the frame and then swapped left to right, moved back and down a little.  The front crossmember also needed a little "adjusting" to clear the oil pan and crank pulley, and the frame rail had to be notched for the alternator and oil filter.

For motor mounts we are using my go to for 4cyl engines, early 80's S10 mounts.  They run about $7 ea at Autozone. The engine brackets also had to be shortened and narrowed.

One of the goals of the project is 4 wheel disk brakes.  The original Datsun front rotors are quite large, but they are not vented and the calipers look complex and probably cost a small fortune to replace.  I searched the Datsun forums and vendors for brake ideas but didn't like what I found.  Most of the brake upgrades are in my view overly complicated and expensive.  So I set out to develop a simple cost effective upgrade.  After benchmarking other solutions and studying rotor dimensions for many hours I developed a few different solutions that are budget friendly and simple to implement.  The one we will most likely be going with uses Mini Cooper front rotors with RX7 4-piston calipers and a small adapter bracket.  The ID of the Mini rotors needs to be opened up to match the pilot diameter on the back of the hub.  Then the old rotor is used as a template to mark the bolt holes in the new rotor.  Drill the 4 mounting holes and attach the Mini rotor to the Datsun hub, install the caliper with the adapter bracket and you're done. 

In order to add rear disk brakes we were going to convert to a S10 Blazer disk brake rear axle with Camaro Torsen LSD, but the custom driveshaft that will be required will eat up a significant chunk of the budget, so we are going to attempt to use the original open rear axle and convert it to disks.  I already have another game plan ready for the rear brake conversion, and this time we will actually be using parts made by the same manufacturer as the car.

While searching for our KA24de swapped Roadster thread I came across this one. Any idea what happened with this build?