I've always kind of wanted a datsun roadster. Now, I've found one in town
that the owner might be persuaded to sell.
It's a 64 1500. What should I look for when considering this car? It has
the correct engine in it (when I first saw it I asked myself "what is
a japaneese car doing with a pushrod motor?). It has most of the chrome
though not much is actually on the car. It has 84k on the odometer. The
owner says that he has one, maybe two sets of carbs an and an extra
intake and extra head.
It seems to run okay though the brakes seem to have something wrong
with them because the pedal goes almost to the floor before the brakes start
to engage. The windscreen has many bad cracks in it and the hard top is
in rough shape. He says that he has a frame for the soft top but no
fabric on it. The hard top has no rear window and is held on with rope
at the moment. The paint is in bad shape, but there is not much rust.
It has drum brakes all around and I'm 100% sure that it is an spl310.
A couple of questions:
I know this car is rare -- is it worth bothering with, or is it just
going to be a pita finding parts? Would I be better off buying and
spending money on a nice running / looking 1600 instead? I'm not
looking for an investment but wouldn't mind selling the car for what
I pay for it sometime later.
Is this motor reliable? I'm not looking for something that will run
forever but I wouldn't mind if it ran for a good long time. I"ve not
seen any comments on this motor at all anywhere, except the obvious
"they didn't make many of them" "most 1500s have 1600 motors in them"
and so on.
How hard is it to put 3pt seatbelts into a roadster? Should I get
a rollbar installed? While I don't expect one of these things to be
safe, I'd really rather not die if I don't have to.
Should I worry about the transmission? It clearly has no syncros
for first, which I guess is by design, but it also seems noisy; are
the 1500 transmissions reliable or easy to fix if they aren't? Also,
at 84k, does this car have the original clutch? Should I worry about
the clutch(given that I've read that you need to pull the motor to
change it)?
Where can I get one of those covers for the interrior? I'm not sure
I'm going to bother with fixing the softtop, given that it rans 3 times
a year wher I live, but I also don't want people using my car as a
trash can.
Can I convert this car to negative ground?
I've convinced myself to buy a roadster. Should I get this one
or wait for a more normal one?
thanks in advance,
chris
|