Our neighborhood Cars and Coffee: "Hot Rod Hill"

Once in a while, I like to invite the car geeks in my neighborhood over to the garage for a mini Cars and Coffee gathering. There are many car enthusiasts in the neighborhood, so I've nicknamed the area "Hot Rod Hill".

I've said many times, to my kids, my friends, my family... One of the many reasons I love cars is because they can bring people together. I've met some amazing friends through connections that started with cars, and I hope to continue to broaden my friendship through building cars, racing cars, enjoying cars, and talking about cars.  You just never know who you'll meet.

On this articular day, we had a great chance meeting between two of my neighbors. One is a heart surgeon, and the other is a friend of mine that he had operated on 22 years ago!  They hadn't seen each other since then, but recognized each other while standing in my garage having a car chat! Bruce told me something like: "He saved my life, and I still have the scar to prove it". Small world!

Here's a short video showing the turnout, followed by more pics below!

Lots of fun cars came out, from the newest hardware represented by a Corvette C8 Z06 anda Datsun Z car (the first of both I'd seen), to old favorites like an original 1967 GT350 and its spiritual cousin: a 1968 Cougar Trans Am racer. We also had a rare Lexus IS300 Sportcross stop in as a passerby and a local Mini-Moke piloted by the neighbor kids looking for their lost dog. The perfect Ferrari Dino was a huge hit, as were the Porsche RSR and Shelby 427 Cobra replicas. My little 1971 Datsun 510 got lots of love from the crowd, proving that you don't have to spend the most money to get the proper attention from true car geeks. Porsche , McLaren, Aston Martin, and Fisker were all represented, as well as Audi with bad-ass black-on-black RS6 Avant for the true hot-rodder who wants to take the long winding road to go get groceries. Let's not forget that gorgeous Olds 442 convertible that could fit an entire basketball team inside it. The low-mile BMW Z8 sitting next to the Porsche GT3RS is a 1-2 punch that any car aficionado might be envious of (including me!).

Stunning cars, every one, but more importantly they all came attached o some truly unique humans. A great gathering that I hope we will repeat soon.

Datsun 510 Interior Restoration update

Here are a few updates on sources of parts and progress on my "as stock as possible" Datsun 510 interior restoration:

Dash pad: Rob Fuller at Z Car Garage introduced me to Ivan at Vintage Dashes and I got a beautifully remanufactured dash pad for $450.

Tachometer: From a car forum discussion, I found a very nice stock tachometer that takes the spot that was taken by the blank cover with three warnings lights. The tachometer was a factory option and it incorporates those same three lights around the perimeter of the tach. When running a very old engine, it's good to know where you are in the rev range! 

Steering wheel: I bought a good vintage wheel from Troy Ermish Racing and kept my old center horn pad because it was in great shape. The old steering wheel plastic was disintegrating in my hands.

Carpet Kit: I sourced this kit from Newark Auto, and I checked the fit and it's great!  I needed to finish re-painting the floor pan before I install the carpet.  The carpet comes with a small slit for the seat belt anchor. Nice touch!

Seats: Armand's upholstery in Walnut Creek has agreed to recover and rebuild my seats back to stock vinyl loveliness.

Interior door handles: I found a forum member on the "510Realm" website that had a couple newly manufactured handles. The community of Datsun owners sticks together and is very helpful!

New Door panels interior: I had to order 4 of them, but just needed the driver side, so I'll be selling the other three that I got from Futofab.

After floor paint, I will also finalize the dash reconstruction now that I have the tach and dash pad. I just want to find a radio cover or a stock "AM" radio (I took out the 80s stereo).

Wheels: I took the stock wheels down to bare metal and repainted them in the battleship gray the cars came with stock. I'll be using the "moon" caps and skinny white walls. At some point I might see the wheels getting powder coated, but that's not going to happen yet.

I am trying to save the stock door sill runner. I'm heating and pounding out some of the dents. We shall see.

From the Z Car Depot, I found the proper oval rubber shift boot so I could finalize the center cut in the carpet. I did not re-install the non-stock center console and I'll be sticking with the old school: stick shift and rubber boot surrounded by carpet! From a helpful member on the 510Realm forums, I got the proper advice on installation of the rubber boot in the center tunnel plus the proper integration with the carpet. I also bought a new driver-door rubber trim piece. You can now see the new dash pad installed and the dash all back together! Just missing. a radio.

I went to the local fabric store and found a perfect-match supple vinyl to recover the rear deck shelf, as I won't have speaker holes nor a third brake light back there. Gorilla Glue spray adhesive worked wonders in installation of the new vinyl. The original was tacked on my tiny staples with 2MM "legs", something that would be hard to replicate (I could not find a staple gun that would utilize sales that small).

From the Z car Depot again (thanks to them!), I got little items like retainer clips for the window crank handle and a new rubber trim for the driver's door. The old one was crusty and over-sprayed.  The new one was a tad bit of work, but fit perfectly and once installed with the little clips under the door and some adhesive, I feel water-proof again!

From the Z car Depot again (thanks to them!), I kept my eye on EBay for an OEM mirror. I had called many potential sellers but everyone told me they are rare to find and expensive when you do. People online were telling me that I should expect to pay $150 even without glass in one. But patience paid off, as EBAY eventually turned up a nice OEM side mirror for about $50. It made a big difference in the look of the car, getting it back to OEM look, especially now that I had the stock wheels painted and covered in the original style "moon" center caps, along with turning the whitewall tires whitewall-out.

But now it seemed to me that the white pinstripe was a bit too busy for the stock look. I wanted to retain the stripe that paid honor to it's original purchase look (reminder that the original owner explained that Sunnyvale Datsun painted stripes on their cars once received from the factory, that was their signature look in 1970-71), but I thought maybe the black-only would look simpler. So I tested the pinstripe to see if it would easily remove and not create any paint-color issues. Well, it came right off, leaving no marks and letting the painted black stripe stand on its own.

I'm feeling pretty good about the progress. Right now I just need to wait for the upholstery shop to take in the seats next month and I need to install the new 3-point retractable seatbelts and a radio or radio cover. Then it's on to suspension!