60Patrol

It's looking great, Robert. Congratulations!

Loved the color as well, and overall work. Great pictures.

Looking awesome Rob. Is the gray a custom mix color or off the shelf? It does look like a near perfect match.

Very nice work Rob, your pristine rust free body panels remind me to NEVER buy another vehicle without looking at it first. 2016 was spent rebuilding the mechanical and 2017 will dedicated to rebuilding the body for CCV4 but I guess these builds are the very definition of "a labor of love.
Well done,
L60Boerne

pdub wrote:Looking awesome Rob. Is the gray a custom mix color or off the shelf? It does look like a near perfect match.

Well, It started out as an off the shelf formulation for Nissan 503 gray (from the 71 parts book)... But the formulation they had for this code was WAY too light (it was almost the same shade as the epoxy primer when it dried) .... So I took it back and had them mix more toners into it, until it was a better match to the original gray.

I know, I know... I haven't been around much, lately.... I've been stripping and sanding this body tub with every extra waking hour I've had.

I've also been dealing with boat issues, which has cut into my Patrol restoration time quite a bit.

I finally have MOST of the 9 layers of old paint and body filler off of the tub - and glad to say, the metal beneath it is in good shape- it's not quite as great as the front fenders were, but all the "normal" rust areas on the tub are still solid enough to be sealed back up without any major metal work...

But this whole experience with taking the 65's body down myself using the old-school methods has taught me that when I do the 62's body, I'm going to go the PDub route, and just pay the sand blasters however much they ask....

I'll post some pics a little later.

Some tub pics....

This was after the 2nd application of aircraft stripper... This red paint was stubborn, to say the least.
after the 3rd application of paint stripper, I went to work in all the crevices with the wire brush, sander, and the sand blaster
What was most important to me was to get both of those thick layers of red, and that layer of brown oil based primer off of everything - oil based paints are the one thing that epoxy primer doesn't adhere to very well.

below the brown, there was nothing left but the factory white, and the factory gray below that, and a few small low spots that still had some filler in them, so I just ran over the whole thing for several hours with my DA sander and a 60 grit pad, just to give it some tooth for the primer to grab onto. When it was as clean and smooth as I was going to get it, I sprayed the bottom with the rubberized stuff (and forgot to snap a picture ) and then sealed the whole thing up with epoxy:
My nephew is supposed to come over for a few hours tomorrow, and we will flip it back over, and I should get the bottom of the tub sprayed with its final gray topcoat this weekend

YAY - Two more surfaces, wearing their final coats.

The underside of the hood, and the bottom of the tub, are wearing their final gray paint:

The topside of the hood, and the outside of the rear fenders, will get their final body work and white paint, after the body is all re-assembled on the truck...

this project really ground to a halt this winter. It seemed that every time I had time to work on it, the weather was uncooperative, and every time I had nice weather, I was too busy with work or competing priorities... Or, I was simply too lazy, and totally uninterested in sanding, stripping, and all that other nasty stuff...

You are really doing it right. Well done!

Yay!

moore_rb wrote:I have had the unfortunate pleasure of rebuilding Toyota Birfield joints as well...

The Patrol knuckles only look similar from the outside. The upper and lower kingpin bearings are sealed with a rubber o-ring, and there is a large wiper seal that rides on the rear ball (part 40579-44002) and can be removed, refurbished, and re-used if it isn't all dried out and cracked, and if you remove and handle them carefully - an overnight soak in wintergreen oil (aka- drag racing traction compound) will soften the rubber back up.

Now, if your large seals and kingpin bearings are so bad that they need a complete replacement (like mine), there is an overhaul kit that covers both sides:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nissan-Patrol-G ... 99&vxp=mtr

and, in comparison to birfields, the Nissan tracta-joint is a much stronger (and much simpler ) design

Love this place! Looked up trakta joint a while back and was directed to this build. Then today scrolled through looking for the knuckle seal and found this post. Ended up getting the kit with the wheel bearings
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Swivel-Hub-King ... 3ababe2512