i have been slowly stripping down my 510 to have it blasted and keep finding rust. the floor is perfect but it has rust in the following.

sills - both need completely replacing plus some extra fab on the drivers side front
rear quarters - both need replacing
rear arches are suspect - needs work
drivers side strut tower rusty near battery box/ brake line junction - needs patching
rear window/boot passenger side needs small patch.
rusty cowl drain inside car and in engine bay - not sure how to fix this one? other than cut it out and put it back! it not alot of rust but hard to get to.

most rust patches other than the sills are no larger than a 50c piece but theres alot of little stuff. im concerned once i spend $1000 on blasting it will only reveal more
rust and ill end up scrappin it.

should i quit now or is this pretty std for your average 45 year old datsun?

For my mind you have to consider how much the car is worth to you and weigh that up against your total estimated cost of the entire build.

If you can do a lot of your own body repairs, and have the time to spare to do it, then you could most likely deal with one that is pretty rooted because the biggest expense is almost always fixing the body with old cars that were made in large numbers.

When we got our current one assessed and got figures thrown back at us on the wrong side of $20K to get it professionally fixed we decided that was too much and went on the hunt to find one that was in much better condition. As much as I love the little 510's, spending over $20K just to get a body done on a Datsun 510 for me is a massive expense unless interior, drivetrain etc... are in extremely good condition and ours wasn't.

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Current Garage:

1971 Datsun 1600
2019 Mazda 6 Touring Wagon
2009 Holden SV6 Sedan

i may have swayed from the project a little as well as i have been offered a camaro unfinished project. its been blasted and ready for bodywork its complete minus motor and i can get it for the equivilant cost of blasting the datsun buying the rust replacement panels and having them welded in.

All depends on the type of car you want. When you start on proper rust repairs it gets expensive. Datsun > Camaro I might be a little biased though

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1600 Build: http://ozdat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=22694

don't get me wrong I like datos too. I bought this one because it was cheap. ive had them before, there fun to drive easy to work on but im feeling that I may have bit of more than I can chew this time round. ive fix a few cars over the years and this is by far the most rusty one ive ever tackled. its strange because it doesn't look as rusty as it actually is it just keeps appearing.

I took to the sills with the snips tonight and opened them up a little. very rusty where the bottom of the front guard meets the sill and not just towards the bottom of the sill but also up towards where the door bolts on!

im giving the Camaro a miss as it is the ugly 73 model anyway. if was to go down that road I would prefer a Pontiac.

after looking at it again tonight I have decided to keep chipping away at it until theres nothing left and then decide what I will do with it. the only way im going to be able to save it is do the work myself.

ive also decided that its not worth sand blasting at this stage and that I will just unpick the sills and see if I can fix the cowl area as these are the two worse areas. the only reason im going to persevere is because the rest of the car is pretty good and they are definitely getting harder to find good ones.

after sleeping on it decided to part the car out and it is now in for sale section.

Probably a wiser idea I'd say.

I'm planning on doing one of those TAFE courses in a few years so I can do future body repairs myself as I've got no doubt the one we're building now will rust out over time.

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Current Garage:

1971 Datsun 1600
2019 Mazda 6 Touring Wagon
2009 Holden SV6 Sedan

ive just done a tafe welding course and have been fixing cars for years but i guess i just didnt have the motovation for this one.

Rust is always worse than it looks.

How much is too much? It depends what car you are restoring, for my example i am restoring 1979 Cedric and there is practically none left here. No way to get any body panels if you dont get lucky. Welders wet dream, too bad im not one. lol