What Happened to Victor's Roadster

[spl310]

Where does the first branch of the fuel line go? The one that looks like it goes under the carbs. Is that fuel T an Australian thing?

[rp975]

Thanks for your kind words Dave, Barry and SPL310.

SPL310, I found the idea for the 3rd brake light from searching google images and found this solution on an MGB.

The fuel splitter is probably a 1970 fitment, I bought it from Lou M. I have seen it on 3 friends 1970 roadsters here so far and also some pictures of Japanese roadsters.

The first branch of the fuel line does go under the front of the carbs, it is for cooling of the carbs, it runs fuel down to a chamber at the bottom of the carb then a small rubber connection to the next carb then more hose up to the return fuel line that goes back to the tank.
The first branch is a smaller diameter and so is the fuel line that connects underneath, so in effect the top fuel supply gets better fuel supply because of their larger diameter.
It is good that Victor installed late model Solex's as they are the ones with the fuel chambers underneath, it would be interesting to know how this came about as his car had SU's originally. I wonder if he bought them new as an option or from another car.

The return line was there and the chambers on the carbs so all it needed to complete was the fuel splitter.

Rob

[eastmedia]

Simply amazing. It was one year ago that car was in Solvang. What an amazing Journey.
I will be sharing that picture with Victor.
BTW, he is doing well and improving.

[Alvin]

Rob, good to see you enjoying the ride. sweet wheels

[notoptoy]

Ron:
Thanks for the update, glad to hear that Victor is improving!

Rob:
You've really done that car justice!
It seems to have landed in the right hands.
Victor should be very happy.

[RCMike]

I love that the car is still wearing its California plate around Australia..

[rp975]

Ron,
I am glad you like what I have done with the car, thank you for leaving the Solvang 2012 plate from last year in with the car, that in itself is a very rare item to have in Australia.

Thank you also for including my winning blue token from the raffle, I have kept it hidden under some felt in the ashtray.It is part of its history now.

I am glad that Victor is improving as well, you know I have been thinking lately what a great friend you must be to Victor, that you took on quite a job in taking Victors roadster and putting so much work into getting it ready for the raffle and doing the miles to get the car shown so that Victor could get a real benefit.I guess not many people would know the amount of work you have done.

Alvin, I am glad you like the wheels.

Notoptoy and RCMike,

I have tried to a certain degree to keep the origin and heritage of the car intact, I chose wheels of the same brand as the ones that Victor had,(SSR) it took a long time to come up with them from japan,I have kept the sticker "Cone Killer" on the front fenders and the sticker on the windscreen, although I might need to replace the windscreen as it has a lot of pits. Even when we chose the rear springs we considered the history of the car and compromised with its ride height.
And lastly to the plates I have mounted my plates over the old plates leaving the work "California" showing.And when I removed the door mirror I covered the holes with a "California" sticker.

Today I started to chase rattles, I pulled the passengers door apart an repaired a broken rear window track, installed new bailey channel, rust proofed inside and put in some Dynamat, I also adjusted the striker plate and resembled, some rattles are gone and I also put some sound deadener under the hood, or as we say here the bonnet.

[Alvin]

ps Rob…I never understood how oil accumulated in those valleys between the runners on the intake manifold…now i know!
thanks!

[rp975]

A funny thing happened the other day, I was sitting at some traffic lights when a large old American pickup pulled up beside me, we exchanged looks and the guy says "did John Cain bring that in?" and I said yes, he said "I packed it into the container in California!" I said Wow, the lights changed and we drove off but what a coincidence.

This car has lots of stories.



Here is my car the night before its first run in Australia.

I set off at 5.30am to drive the other side of Sydney to meet up with some guys from the NSW club.



We met up at 9-9.30am and headed off to the Motorlife Museum near Wollongong.



I got home at 6pm and had probably done 8hrs of driving, 446miles and used 55.7 litres of fuel.

The diff is very noisy and will have to come out next week, I hope to get a loan of one and have it in and the front suspension sorted before the Nationals in June.

I am learning about what to wear on cold mornings in a roadster.

Rob

[Gregs672000]

LOVE that night pic! Congrats on your first run, glad to see she is fitting right in. Well done...

[mraitch]

that is an awesome pic - hopefully it will make the 2014 roadster calendar - you are clearly taking care of a piece of Datsun/Socal history - thank you

[BarryC]

I agree and also said to Rob when I viewed the night picture that he should submit it for next years calendar. It's an awesome photo of a great car with a wonderful backstory and history.

I was fortunate enough to be the organiser of the run in which it made it's Australian debut and am very honoured to be so and can tell you all after seeing it completed up close that Rob has truly done some fine work. I'm sure Victor will be very pleased.

[dbrick]

Simply amazing. It was one year ago that car was in Solvang. What an amazing Journey.
I will be sharing that picture with Victor.
BTW, he is doing well and improving.

Very good to hear Victor's improving.

Rob, car looks great, fine work.

[rp975]

Thanks Guys for your comments.

I have been working on repairing the soft top frame that had two broken bars, I bought some steel brackets from the hardware that had the same thickness as the original bars, then I drilled and cut out the shape leaving extra material on the outsides of the center pivot so the hopefully it will be strong enough.

I also bought some 12mm dia stainless steel rod from ebay and machined 6 new rivets to replace the originals.








I was able to rig up a system to be able to rivet these by myself.









In this pic you can see the three stainless rivets running diagonally down the photo.





I have also swapped the diff with a standard one, 3.7 to 1 compared with the 4.3 to 1 that was in there, and it was an lsd. This will be quieter and nicer to ride in on the 13hr drive to the nationals.

While I had it out Lou said I should check that the tailshaft was phased properly, he said that the late model tailshafts on the 5 speed models were balanced from the factory and that each component was stamped with an "O" that should line-up.

This is the one on the gearbox end.



Front of tailshaft.



Back of tailshaft.



Back flange of uni.





In this photo you can see that I have cleaned the tailshaft and painted each side of each "O" with white paint to make it easy to see, you can also see that the rear flange dosen't have its "O" lined up, it is 180 deg out so when we put the diff back in we will make sure that it is all in alignment.
I also greased the spline before re-assembling.

And just for fun, here is a pic of Ruby going for her first ride in the roadster.






Only a few weeks left before we are off to the Nationals, I still have the put the spacers and Konis in the front end and get a wheel alignment, and quite a few little jobs to do.

Cheers Rob

[notoptoy]

GREAT tip on the "O's", I have not seen that tip before.