Restoration officially started today. Up until now all we had been doing was generally playing around with Cedric, today we got serious. Most external chrome is removed, as is part of the interior. 

12 cans of degreaser are used to remove 43 years of grease and gunk from the engine bay.

Engine bay and most of the interior gets stripped. Driver's side front guard is removed. The guard has signs of previous accident damage which need attention, and will be easier to fix with the guard removed. Removing the guard gives us a chance to look for rust in the sills. No rust is found. 

19 bolts hold the guard in place, in case you were wondering!

Floppy, the official earlydatsun.com guard cat is caught on the CedriCAM. 

More work done on engine bay. Soleniod on starter breaks while trying to remove battery lead.

Several hours spent trying to remove the passenger side front guard, with no luck. One captive nut inside the guard has rusted and will not move.

No work done on the Cedric. The evening is instead spent fixing an ignition problem on the Fairlady.

Wiring harness is removed, not much else.

The rest of the interior is removed.

The rusted out sections behind the front guards are cut out and replaced.

The decision was made to remove the rear guards after seeing a few nasty surprises that were lurking beneath the front guards. This turned out to be a wise move as there were rust holes in the area where the guards met the body at the top of the guards. A small bump that could be felt in the lead filled area under the rear windscreen on the passenger side turned out to be a huge rust patch. The steel under the lead wiped area had completely coroded away. Once the lead was removed there was a huge hole there. Areas where the front and back guards meet the body have been sandblasted and treated.

Some minor rust holes are fixed on the sills, where the guards attach. 
Also at this time work is started repairing the rust in the front and rear guards. 
The floor is checked and no rust is found at all.

The rust patches are repaired where the rear guards meet the body. 
Small rust holes in the boot lid are also fixed. 
At this stage and interesting observation is made. The relative absence of rust in the car is due to the fact that the cabin floor, the boot floor, all the chassis rails, and the front suspension and crossmember were all galvanised in the factory prior to the rest of the body being attached. Everything from the sills down is galvanised.

The engine bay and engine have been sandblasted back to bare metal. All the suspension and steering components have also been sandblasted. 
The floor is wet after the whole car and workshop area have been hose down to remove all the sand, which was absolutely everywhere.

The bare metal in the engine bay has been primed, as has the engine itself. The front suspension has been primed and painted gloss black.

The floor of the boot is sandblasted and primed. Visable rust areas all turn out to be surface rust only, no rust repairs needed. What was thought to be a rust hole in the spare tyre recess turned out to be a factory installed water drainage vent. 
 

The golf clubs tell the story of recent progress. After several weeks spent on the Cedric without much of a break, we took some time off the project and hit the golf course. 
Back guards are just sitting there to check how they sit after their repairs were done.

The body, doors and bonnet have all been hand sanded in preparation for first stage undercoat and are ready to paint. Except for one small problem, the weather. Temperatures have been high, but the big problem is the humidity, which is at about 60% during the day, and worse at night. No painting will happen until the humidity drops.

Still can't paint due to the high humidity. 
A front guard from the parts car is attached to evaluate whether it is better than the original guard. Neither of them are particularly good. Th original one has poorly repaired accident damage to the lower section and a reasonably large newer dent on the crease near the side strips. The spare guard is straight, but rusty.

Finally the humidity drops enough to get the first stage of undercoat on. The guards are not attached yet as I want to get some primer and rustproofing onto the areas where the guards attach prior to attaching them. 
The test patches on the post in front of the back door give an idea of how much trouble I had getting the spray gun to work properly. The gun was completely stripped and cleaned before it would work properly. 
Had a lot of problems with the space in the workshop. Every car painted here in the past has been small, and I have had no problems. Cedric is huge by comparison. I had troubles getting enough elbow room between the wall and the car to spray properly, and the proximity of the post to the rear door is a nightmare.

The car now has a black guide coat applied the primer and is ready to block sand. 
More work is also done on the front guards.

We have started to block sand the body to look for any dents and imperfections.

Ruth rubs down the doors, whilst I, out of sight, have been working on the guards. Sandblasting has revealed numerous nasty surprises on the front and back guards. The spare driver's side front gurad we had tried in place has been abandoned, and we are working on repairing the original accident damaged one that was on the car when we got it. 

The front and rear guards have been repaired and re-fitted. Fitting them was much more involved than expected, and took a whole day to get the panel gaps perfect. 
Our workshop has only one fluro tube for lighting, which makes it difficult to work at night. All that is about to change. Behind the Cedric you can see some double fluro light clusters leaning against the wall, that are about to be installed.

Let there be light ! 
Our new lighting system is installed and it makes a massive difference to the workshop. There are now eleven fluro tubes in the workshop. 
Work progresses on the Cedric. The accident damage to the front guard is not turning out to my liking and gets re-done.

Entire car is undercoated and a guide coat is applied to look for any imperfections. Ruth makes an appearence in the CedriCam block sanding the roof.

The guide coat showed that my repairs were not as good as I would have liked. This time I made a cardboard template of the profile of the top of the guard and used that as a guide to ensure it was straight.

Another guide coat shows that after seven attempts the front guard is now completely straight. 
Door openings have been undercoated, as have the insides of the doors and the dashboard.

The driver's side rear guard had been repaired at some stage in the past, rather badly. When the undercoat was applied the underlying paint fried up and blistered, so it all had to be removed and started again. The rest of the car is sanded and ready for final stage undercoat.

For weeks now, every time I have a day off it rains. Paint can't be applied if the humidity is too high, and as a result Cedric has sat there for weeks waiting for some fine weather. 
At last the weather gods have smiled down on Cedric, and the final stage undercoat is applied.

Our 1962 Datsun 320 makes an appearence in the workshop for some minor repairs, while in the background Cedric strikes major problems.  
I decide to remove all the masking tape and re-mask the car for the top coat stage. The only problem is that I have left the masking tape on there for too long and it is firmly stuck in place. We decide to leave the old tape in place and worry about cleaning it off after the painting is finished. 
 

Early Tuesday Morning. 
Finally, after so much bad weather that has delayed progress, we awoke to clear skies and low humidity. First up is the base coat to give the metallic top coat added depth. Three coats of Ultramarine Blue are applied to the top section of the car, plus the engine bay, boot and dashboard.

Tuesday Afternoon. 
After fretting for months about having to paint metallic paint for the first time, I finally got up the courage and got it done. As it turned out it was no drama at all. A total of seven coats of Tsunami Blue she is looking pretty good. The dodgy camera on the CedriCam makes it look almost black, but it is a darkish metallic blue.

After three hours of masking up the newly painted blue sections it was finally time for the white sections to be done. It was not without drama though, the white paint I had bought turned out to be exceptionally bad, after only a light first coat the paint was full of runs. Ruth got called away from her dress shopping expitition to go on a mercy dash and get me some more paint. The new paint went on like a dream. Three coats of Winter White have been applied.

We have just spent the whole week polishing, and Cedric is looking awesome. We block sanded the entire car and then set about buffing by hand. After a day of buffing and getting nowhere Ruth went out and bought a big multi-speed rotary polisher, which has bought up an amazing mirror finish. We still have to hand polish the engine bay and door openings. The old masking tape finally came off after much swearing and cursing.

Work is under way polishing chrome and preparing parts for re-assembly. In this photo Sam is working on one of the stainless steel side strips, while Damon is hard at work rebuilding the driver's side headlight assembly. 
Sam has also polished the hubcaps, which are now on the car, and has also done the front bumper. Damon has polished the door handles and other tricky small chrome pieces, and has now stripped and painted the headlight assemblies.

Bumpers are back in place, as are the side strips, mirrors and other chrome bits. Damon has finished restoring the headlights assemblies and is installing them.

Work on the exterior is close to complete. Grille is in place, tail lights have been restored and are in place. All exterior chrome has been polished and is in place. The only thing missing on the outside is the fuel filler door, which I forgot to paint. (idiot!) 
Ruth is polishing the engine bay while out of sight of the CedriCAM I am working on the engine bay components. The 320 ute has become a work bench.

The engine bay reassembly begins. All components have either been polished or painted. 

Our trusty Datsun 320 returns from the upholsterers with our newly recovered seats. They are a darkish blue vinyl on the sides with blue velour inserts and white piping. The seats and the radiator rebuild are the only parts of the rerstoration that have been done by someone other than ourselves. We will be doing all the rest of the upholstery ourselves. 
Wiring and the whole electrical system have all been reinstalled and tested, everything works !

Sam gets his hands dirty working on the brake system rebuild. Sam has cleaned down the brakes and has resprayed the backing plates.

Work Matt, Sam and Damon head off for a break after completing the brake rebuild. Damon has had the power tools out and has stripped back the brake drums and resprayed them.

New timber backing panels are made for the upholstery in the boot and the interior. The boot is now completed, the floor and side walls are all carpeted. After looking in the back of a Rolls Royce and seeing what they do, I decide to copy. (Can't have some overpriced English taxi with features better than Cedric ;-) I have made a series of timber runners for the floor of the boot out of Tasmanian Oak and have stained and varnished them in a Jarrah stain.

Carpets have been cut to size, and the original bituminous sheeting has been glued back in place. A layer of underfelt has been applied to the floor. The timber dashboard panels have been sanded back and revarnished.

More engine bay work is completed. The fuel filler flap that I forgot to paint is now done and ready to install. A full face white wall tyre is installed to see what it looks like, we are a bit undecided at this stage.

Engine bay is now complete and the engine has been started. She spluttered to life and blew about 1/2 a kilogram of rust flakes out of the exhaust. Engine is tuned and she purrs like a kitten.

An exciting day !
As you may have noticed Cedric is now facing in the other direction, that is because she went for her first run last night. It was about midnight and I took her for a drive around the block, then another, and then another. She drove like a dream. I then figured that it was really late at night, so I would drive her down to the petrol station and refuel her. She wasn't registered at this stage, but I nervously took her for an illegal drive. My quick 2 minute drive lasted 1/2 an hour because at the petrol station two different groups of people came up and started asking questions about the car. Meanwhile 2 police cars had cruised past slowly looking at Cedric. I quickly got her back home.

A final systems check, and a re-torque of all the bolts, nuts and screws to make sure everything is OK. She drove to the Department of Transport office and is now officially street legal. Trouble on the way home though. I shard of metal had gotten into the fuel system and pierced a hole through the diaphragm of the fuel pump.